September comes to an end

It feels as if we are really in the midst of the school year now.  I am noticing that the students are becoming worried about their grades, stressed about homework, and generally getting more comfortable in class, which isn't always a positive.  I am also feeling the stress of the school year.  It feels like being buried, okay, not really.  The work load is a challenge to handle and I don't know how to ease that at all.  I keep thinking back to the beginning of the school year when we were told to "take care of ourselves."  Now I keep thinking of when do we have time to do that!  I am also feeling a bit negative, and I need to watch that.  I find that most communication from the higher ups is negative and the work just keeps on coming.  It would be great to hear some positives now and then.  I will say that I am really enjoying my classes this semester.  I have great students and I am working to connect in some way with each one.  I try to have some conversation with each student each day.

A quick recap of projects/what we are doing in classes this past week:

Desktop Publishing:  We got some resolution to the printing issues we were having - that has helped a lot.  Students were cooperative about the issues and that was appreciated.  We worked on a few projects, primarily learning how to be creative with text and color.  I have completed a lot of grading, and will give students an opportunity to get in missing work prior to the progress report deadline.

eTechnology:  We visited Bruce the District Network Manager at Central Office to learn about the district technology.  It was a great trip and answered a lot of student questions.  We began learning about Excel.  Students have varying levels of skills so the challenge is to keep those with more skills challenged while getting those with less experience and skills up to speed.  I encourage students to help one another, I am trying to show that we are all teachers.  They are writing really complete blog posts - I have enjoyed reading them.  Next week I want them to share with their parents.

Mac Applications:  We are wrapping up the Keynote project.  I anticipated that some students would be uncomfortable with narrating their presentations and that is the case.  Our next project is iBooks Author eBooks - I really want the students to create something that is personal to them or useful for another class.  So far, they have generated some great ideas.  This is my first time through this project, so a learning curve ahead.