'Tis the season!

Another year is coming to an end and it seems that each year goes faster.  After break, we have just a few days until first semester exams.  Then time really begins to fly! 

When I look back over the past year, I have a lot to be thankful for.  I have my family and my health and a job.  That's more than a lot of people have this holiday season.  When I find myself complaining about something, I always pause and think and usually I can think of someone that is less fortunate.  So this holiday season, I hope that the Globaloria community has a safe, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Tangential Learning Video

My students seemed to enjoy the video on Tangential Learning by Daniel Floyd.  One of my students had already figured this out.  Check out his blog post.

Friday--at last!

This has been one of the longest four day weeks in history!  Monday was an IS day and students were not present and Parent-teacher conference was from 4-6 p.m.  Yesterday we took students to the Business Ethics competition at the University of Charleston.  It was nice to see so many teams there.  Unfortunately, our team didn't make it to the final round.  We had the opportunity to sit in on a session on accountants and found out that the demand for accountants is expected to grow 22% through 2018.

Almost the end of the first 6 wks.

It is difficult to believe that it is almost the end of the first six weeks already!  I have been so busy that it is just starting to sink in.  Where has the time gone?

As usual, I am behind with my blog posts again.  I just need a few more hours in the day.  I'll try to do better!

Honoring 9/11

It hardly seems possible that it has been ten years since the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.  It was impressive to see the patriotism displayed at the many memorial services.  The flags flying in the the sky and the memorial in New York is proof that the United States is still a great nation!

Up and running

It has been a busy 2 weeks but I think we are finally up and running.  At first there were 3 users that could not get their wiki pages created.  After a little trial and error, that problem was worked out.  Everybody was able to get their blog created although some did not post their first blog entry. 

The long weekend is greatly appreciated!  I need extra time to get things done!

A blogging we will go . . .

The students created their blogs today and I believe that everyone was successful.  Now they need to copy their blog address into their information so they can click on it from their page.  Once we get that done, we can create the blogroll.

Welcome!

The time has come for you to join the Globaloria Community!  You are about to embark on a new type of class.  I hope that you enjoy this year and learn a lot of new skills along the way. 
I look forward to working with you and maybe even have some winners in the game competitions this year.

Here we go again . . .

Well the summer is officially at an end and school starts tomorrow for me.  The first few days are always the worst.  This will make the second time in the last few years that they have renumbered our rooms.  Just when I get the number memorized, they change it!  Oh well, I'm sure that there is a perfectly good reason why they did it--we just don't know what it is.

Down to the wire

I have tile on my floor--it is even waxed!  I am just waiting now for the heating/air conditioning people to finish duct work in my ceiling.  Then I have to put my room back together and set back up all of my computers.  Why can't the beginning of a new school year be less stressful!

I am looking forward to our training next week!

Time is speeding up!

This summer has gone by so quickly!  Monday is August 1 and we begin school on the 17th.  There have been a lot of changes this year--retirements, building updates and new requirements.  My room still does not have the tile on the floor.  That will probably get done sometime this coming week.  Then comes putting everything back where it belongs and getting ready to "hit the ground running".

I have enjoyed my time off and it makes me a little grumpy when everyone starts saying, "You'll be starting school soon!"  Hopefully we will get a lot of time to get our rooms ready.  After I get adjusted to the fact I have to go back, my frame of mind gets better. 

Buttons and labels

I did not make the buttons session on the 13th.  So I watched the recording today.  It was a good refresher.  There are some really simple errors that can be made that will make the whole process not work.  It was a very useful session.  I saved my file on the projects page.

Hopes for the new year

I look forward to starting a new year and learning more about game design.  One hope that I have for this year is to have some serious contenders for the games competitions.  For myself, I would like to ontinue increasing my knowledge of actionscript programming. 

Miracle on the Hudson

On June 10 we had a unique opportunity in Braxton County.  The plane that landed in the Hudson River was scheduled to be transported through West Virginia by way of I-79 to a museum in North Carolina.  I saw the story on the morning news, so I knew what was going on.  It was the last day of school, so our principal encouraged the students to go out to the side of the building facing the interstate and watch the procession go by. 

It was quite a sight to see the huge plane go by on the road.  The students waved and the truck driver tweeted back a thank you to one of our students.  I managed to get a picture.  To find out more about the original story, visit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28678669/ns/us_news-life/t/ny-jet-crash-called-miracle-hudson/

Just a few days left

Well another year is almost to an end.  Looking back over the year, there are things that I would have done differently.  Now that I have actually been through a full year, I have a better idea of what I need to do.

I will be glad to have some time off.  I look forward to the training in July and August.  Before I end this year, though, I have to move my entire room so they can tear up the carpeting and replace it with floor tile.  You sure can accumulate a lot of things over the years.

Presentations are over!

We had our presentations this week.  We were on a weird schedule so we could have senior exams in the afternoon of testing.  The laptop shut off during the presentations and had to be restarted.  As a result, we did not get the last team done during that session.  We had to do their presentation the next day. 

Team Audiation had a good demo but they used a black background and white writing on some of the scenes and they did not show up well on the wiki page.  The only thing left to do is upload the videos and basic housekeeping.

In the home stretch

This is the last full week that we have seniors in class.  They are frantically working to get done.  The following link is to one of the student's project page where you can see his running character for their game.  He is a very good artist!

Peddling as fast as I can

Time seems to be speeding up on us.  I feel like this hamster peddling away and not getting anywhere.  We haven't had our room for two days this week because of end of course testing.  That means we will have to pick up the pace starting tomorrow.  Lots of work to do and not much time to get it done.

Still Trying to Get Work Accomplished

Well, this last week was an interesting week.  The six weeks ended on Friday.  We were out of the building on Thursday from 1:20 to 4:00-4:30.  The students were not in attendance on Friday.  So needless to say, not everyone got their work completed. 

This week we need to get back on track and get more of our games uploaded to team pages and individual student wiki projects pages.  Check out Sarah's wiki page and projects!

Back to the Grindstone

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time off this week.  In addition to catching up on paper grading, I have tried to catch up on things around the house that have been let slide.  We have also had our granddaughter some and that time is priceless.

So back to school tomorrow and getting ready for the end of the 6 weeks.  It will be another busy week.  My students were to blog about how they intend to complete their games on time and be ready to make their presentations.  We'll see how that works out!

Presentation at Board of Education Meeting

The Board of Education has a meeting at each school in our county. The staff is given an opportunity to talk about their programs and classes.  One of my Globaloria students talked about how the class is set up and demonstrated his teams' game play at this point.  The audience seemed to enjoy the presentation very much.  One board member wanted to know when the final presentations would be given.

We have spring break next week and when we come back, we will only have about four weeks to finish up and plan our presentations.  This semester has seemed to fly by!

Busy week coming up

It is going to be another busy week!  There's a Board meeting Monday, a CTE advisory meeting on Tuesday and our Annual Talent Show on Friday.  Throw in preparing for end of course tests and it will be busy, busy, busy!

We did not get as much accomplished last week as we wanted to because of the Online Writing Assessment.  They used my classroom and it was not available for my class on a couple of days.  We will have to make up for lost time this week. 

State FBLA Conference

We just finished the 2011 State FBLA Conference in Charleston.  Our students enjoyed themselves and we had two 1st place winners, two 2nd place winners, two 3rd place winners and six other events with places in the top five. 

One of the highlights of the conference was the guest speaker, Eddie Slowikowski.  This is the second time that I have had the pleasure of seeing him speak.  See the video taken at the conference.

Rowan's Journey Into Physics

The ?RIDDL3R$? team is making progress.  Check out their team page!  Each team member is doing their part and the game is starting to come together.  There is still plenty to do, but I am sure the end result is going to be great!

I will be out of class on Monday and Tuesday next week for the State FBLA Conference.  About half of my class is involved and will be attending also.  Then we will have to work hard to catch up the rest of the week!

Making Progress

Sometimes it seems as if we aren't making any headway but I've been checking out each teams' progress and I am seeing nice examples of artwork and programming.  Some of my groups are correcting their own programming errors and moving right along.  I am really getting excited to see the final product. 

I would like to welcome our principal to Globaloria.  She is attending a workshop this week and my students are looking forward to seeing what she does with her wiki page.  I know that some of the students have already added her as a friend.

Before you know it, it will be May and time for presentations.  We still have a lot of work to do!

Five Days in a Row

Believe it or not--we just completed a five day week!  I don't think that has happened since before Christmas.  I'm really hoping that the groundhog was right this year.  An early spring would be great! 

We made more progress this week.  I am hoping we can start getting more accomplished.

SNOW DAZE!

Well here we are again! It is beginning to look a lot like last year.  We had school 2 1/2 days this week.  Just when it seems like we are making progress, another storm comes along.  We managed to make it through semester tests and missed the first day of the new semester. 

It looks like we will just have to make the most of every class that we are able to get in.  Hopefully the students will be able to get a completed game done by May.