Final Blog Entry

This is the final week of the semester for me here at Digital Bridges. The teacher evaluations went very well. Each teacher seemed very pleased about his or her project and how each looked. I also provided each teacher with a copy of his or her lesson on a flash drive for them to keep which made them all very excited. I gave the teachers the cheat sheet to use which is laminated for long-term use. On Thursday of this week, the middle school teachers are hosting an event with their Smartboard lessons, so I will be attending to see how their presentations go and to take photos. I am nervous and excited for them. At work, I attended the usual staff meeting, evaluated and assisted while Tommy taught the computer basics class at the library, opened the center on Wednesday, and typed up all of my final reports to be turned in at the end of this week. I also taught a Microsoft Word class on Wednesday evening to some students. This was a great way to end the semester here at Digital Bridges, and I am excited to come back and start again in the fall.

(10 hours)

Nearing the end of this semster long project

Over the last few weeks, there have been some minor set backs with using the room at Gnets to practice with the Smartboard because this room is also being used for the end of course testing and CRCT tests. I will be doing final evaluations on each of the teachers this coming Monday to finish up the project for the semester. I have been checking Smartboard equipment, perfecting the lessons with backgrounds, title pages, scanning content material and extra information that the teachers have requested of me.

In teaching the Computer basics classes, I have been leading the classes with either Dawn or Tommy as an assistant. There have been anywhere from 3 to 12 people at a class. It purely depends on the week and weather.

Also as a part of my Gnets project, I did a photo shoot and presented at the GCSU Student Research Conference on my work with technology and teachers in the classroom.

I have also been working at the center at the front desk making sure that people have what they need and answering their questions.

(30 hrs)

This has been a very busy and productive last two weeks of work. I have been helping and teaching all of the introduction computer classes that I can attend during the weeks at work. I have also been finalizing the teachers lesson for the Parent Breakfast in May. We are preparing for our big day on Monday when we go over all of the lessons with the teachers on the actual Smartboard. We will also go through the process of hooking up the Smartboard and getting onto the Smart programming.

There is a possibility that the teachers will not get to do their lessons at hte breakfast where I can evaluate each of the teacher's progress. This means that I need to have alternative ways to further facilitate this reevaluation of the teachers. So far, my ideas are:

To make a new survey
Make a quiz/checklist to evaluate teacher skills in our private lessons.
Have video of one teacher teaching his or her lesson on a Monday afternoon.
Talk to Pat about ways to enhance and encourage the use of Smart technology at Gnets.
Have the cheat sheet I made printed out and laminated for the teachers to use with the smartboard.

I am also preparing for a research conference where I will be presenting a week from tomorrow.

That is all for now.

(20 Hours)

Preparing with Teachers for lessons

The past few weeks have been extremely busy and exciting here at Digital Bridges. The teachers are each working on their individual projects with me. We are getting materials together and all are very excited to see the final projects up on the Smart Board and working! I cannot wait to see the student reactions to the lessons on the board which I will take as an opportunity to gauge the student, teacher, and parent reactions.
The past weeks have had great attendance at the Library classes, and I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to actually teach rather than assist this past week. The class went really well, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves while learning about how to search the internet and navigate the internet.
My time at the center has also been wonderful when I get the opportunity to work with individuals and see them learn something new about computers and technology. I have been gathering information for the teacher projects and pulling materials together. I also had the chance to help out with a different computer class on Thursdays which is teaching about Word Processing.
All of this is very interesting, and I am loving my time here at Digital Bridges. Every day has a different set of problems to solve, and I get a chance to learn new stuff about technology as well.
(20 Hours)

The Summit at Digital Bridges

This week Digital Bridges hosted the Entrepreneurial Summit at the new center with drinks and food from all of the best restaurants in Milledgeville. At the gathering, Digital Bridges had the opportunity to show off our new amazing facility, talk about our progress, and introduce people to the projects that each of us has going on here at this time. There were over one hundred and fifty people at this event, and it was quite a success.
In preparation for the event, I worked on having posters and preparing the space. I canceled my time at Gnets for the day so that I could be fully devoted to the needs of the center. On the day of the event, I arrived early to put on all of the final touches, answer questions, hand out gift bags, and introduce people to the center. We cleaned up after the event, too.
For the rest of the week, I worked on the teacher lessons, tried to locate new materials for the lessons online, work the receptionist desk at the center, and worked with individuals who came to the center. This was really rewarding to see when people got excited about using the computers that they checked out from our center.

(10 hrs)

Round 2 Continued

This week I continued to do introduction to Smartboard lessons with the teachers. I am working on making a cheat sheet of the Smartboard tools and what they do for the teachers. This was a great suggestion from one of the teachers who has trouble remembering what each icon does. Introduction to computer classes went very well this week with a high number in attendance. One of the students actually came to the Digital Bridges Center to practice her typing skills later on during the week. At the office, I helped a lady work her computer and become more comfortable with a touch pad. I also worked on my presentation for Tuesday when the Small Business Entrepreneurial summit which will be having their reception at the Digital Bridges building. We are very busy preparing and excited for this event.
(10 hrs)

February 18

This week was a lot more curriculum and planning based because Gnets was closed for President's Day. On Tuesday, I worked with Dawn at our Introduction to Computer classes that are going very well. I am actually an expert at creating Gmail accounts now. Here are just a few things that I have learned from helping with these classes: how to set up the projector and the screen, carry multiple laptops at the same time, set a home page on a computer, get multiple computers on the same network, and communicate silently with Dawn during our classes. I also attended staff meeting where we discussed our preparations for a big event in less than two weeks which is really exciting! The rest of the week was made up of hours working at the Center and developing curriculum. I also wrote up my monthly reports which will be sent to the Knight Foundation to make them aware of what Digital Bridges is doing here in Milledgeville on a monthly basis. Overall this was a very productive week of work.

(10 hrs)