Skills Update D

Who knew that this time of year would be so dang busy for me!  We went to the State Volleyball Tournament this weekend to allow our girls to watch and hopefully become inspired for next year.  It worked for some but others seems more worried about homework they received due to missing two days of school.  Last week I started exploring mail merging.  I was so excited when I saw the labels portion because we are in the process of sending out our invitations so I thought, "What a better way to get used to this than do something productive at the same time!?"  I spent a while figuring out what labels I had and how to set them up but it finally worked.  We should be sending invitations out this week!!!!  YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Skills Update C

Man, oh, man!  It has been the craziest two weeks I've had in a long time!!!!  Unfortunately, due to the end of volleyball, beginning of basketball, end of the quarter, Parent/Teacher Conferences, and my bridal shower, my work for my class had taken a back seat.  I paid for that today!  I spent FIVE HOURS in the school today planning for next week and working on some projects.  I decided on Friday to change my goal for skill c.  I decided that I was going to create a Prezi for class so I could check it out and understand how to use it for my final project.  I'm excited to learn all the bells and whistles of Prezi!  I realized, after I made my Literary Device Prezi's, that you could add screens IN screens!!!  This program is so neat!  I'm hoping to incorporate it into a quarter book project that I give every quarter.  I'm really excited about this program and all the neat things I could do with it for my final project!

Skills Update B Cont...

Oh my goodness.  What another busy week!  I graded 82 leadership compare and contrast essays and it took FOREVER!  I had them turn it into me via My Big Campus and I downloaded them all to my computer to grade them and make comments using the comments and track changes on Word.  I like that I don't have to carry papers around but I don't like that I have to download them all to my computer and grade them and then upload them to My Big Campus to give them the results.  I feel as though this is more time consuming than marking up papers.  On a positive note though, I feel so much more comfortable with the applications in Word and I feel as though I have mastered it.  One more goal accomplished!

Skills Update B

Well, tomorrow my students have an essay due.  I'm having them turn it in to My Big Campus.  I'm nervous because this is the first time I'm going to grade solely on the computer.  I hope it turns out alright!  I started messing around with Word to find out if I knew what I was doing.  After about 30 minutes, I think I finally understand how to make comments.  My goal is to figure out how to track changes correctly.  With 85 essays, I'm assuming I'll figure it out sooner or later!  I'm going to be a pro at this before it's all over!!!

Skills A Update Cont..

How cannoli!  I have been so busy with school and volleyball that today is the first day I have gotten to continue working on making a table in Word.  Of course, I had to do it the difficult way and draw it myself.  It took FOREVER to get the table exactly how I wanted it!  I created a template for my students to use when doing their vocabulary grids.  Students are responsible for doing a vocabulary grid for every word we come across in a unit.  I created this template as an accommodation for students that may need it.  I will post it on My Big Campus and have print outs of it in my desk and students will be able to use them when needed.  I created one for my English 10 and one for my English 9.  I chose to do both of them so I could have more practice on using the table setting.  English 9 seemed to go a lot smoother but I think it's because I started to learn from my mistakes with the English 10 table.  I honestly do feel more comfortable with this program already!  My plan is to start using tables for my grading rubrics so that students and parents will be able to see each aspect of grading more clearly.

First Post!

I have begun to explore Word and I plan on creating Vocabulary Grids for my students using the table settings.  I am so excited and I hope this works!!!