Janie Spahr - February Post

Well of course there is FETC to talk about. It was great, and I think that some of us instead of paying ourselves the stipend from the grant may use the money to attend FETC again! Think about it. I loved the vendors, but I think that most of the WV Technology conference hands on sessions are better!

One of our main focuses in February was preparing kids for the online WorkKeys by using online KeyTrain. This is one thing that I wish would have been part of the TIS training because it is something all CTE teachers must do - online!

I served as the proctor for the AutoTech students who took the Ford AAA Motor Skills exam. It is also an online test. The top two scorers will represent PHS at the State Ford AAA Motor Skills contest. There is alot of pre-test preparation online for KeyTrain, WorkKeys, and the AAA test. It takes a lot of time to do this, and that is why we need to have a full time TIS - CTE. But instead we have digital age specialists who aren't certified! Do any of you have this problem?

On February 8, I went to the NASA Building at Fairmont to NetTutor training. It is sponsored by GearUp. It is online tutoring in Math, English, and Science. It works like a chat room. We are currently in the process of getting our students their passwords and training parents and students how to use the program. Since I am a GearUp tutoring teacher, I will have students using it in my Open Lab after school during tutoring hour from 3:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Our new tech guy is in the process of installing CS5 in my Computer Lab. I will then begin teaching DreamWeaver in my Web Page Publishing class. This will be alot of work for me because I have only used CS4. I will have to learn all the updates for CS5 - kind of like going from Word 03 to Word 07!!! I will then use this in my Desktop Publishing class next year, too.

I have been helping teachers who are taking other WV Learns classes do their online classwork. They have to upload through WebTop. For some who are unfamiliar with this process, it can be tricky. I was glad to help them because it only helps me learn more about what I may be doing in the future.

I spend three days in Charleston with a HSTW team evaluating Scott High School and Ripley High School. I got several new technology ideas from the Business teachers at these schools. We did the usual --shared websites, textbook information, etc. I also shared some of my thoughts on how to keep and encourage students to participate in their Business programs because they are endangered. I can't believe they would want to get rid of their Business program. I was shocked beyond belief to see that Ripley still has a typewriter lab!!!

My Web Page class has been doing tutorials on w3schools.com. It is an excellent tutorial site for HTML, CSS, Flash, etc. I have also learned alot from this site. It is about like learning DOS (do any of you remember?).

I've been playing around in my cloud. Has anyone else? My account is jespahr@hotmail.com. If anyone wants to share in your community cloud, let me know. I've been telling some of our teachers about it, too. I think they are interested in learning about it. It's just finding the time to do it with everything else that we have to do.