Day Five

The last day, for real this time!

We had the external review with the IHL ladies. We ordered lunch from Peppers, graciously paid for by the Department Head.  How nice!
Jilian Smart brought us many nice handouts about Character and Content. Her material was very organized and well-presented. It was still hard to concentrate because I knew I needed all available time to finish the presentations.  She left us some homemade body butter. Her products can be found at sapid.vip.

Last night I finished the musical presentation. I had to combine the Karaoke mp3 and my singing track with the 'GAETI 2018' lyrics.  Then, I inserted the audio into a PowerPoint. Finally, I 'recorded' the PowerPoint so the slides would advance as the song played.  It wasn't perfect but it worked. Somehow, there was an extra soundtrack giving an 'echo.' Also, the slides didn't transition exactly as they should have. Again, 'done is better than perfect.'   Some class members weren't familiar with the song 'Havana', but I think they enjoyed the easy Cuban beat.

Art projects got finished (after a lengthy lesson in how to use a ruler).  I was happy with mine and very appreciate that Ms. Latham gave us her guidance. It was truly a joy to spend that creative time each day. I'm amazed that I have such nice products from GAETI, things I can proudly display in my classroom.  This year's finished product -  'Fall in Mississippi.'

Our testimonial was basically a picture of us with our personal testimonial recorded. We had plans for a gallery of pictures, but there was not enough time to paste and identify everything!  I think the other groups pretty much covered what we would have, anyway!
Our Adobe Spark video -  https://spark.adobe.com/video/RgNkfOjXlEMZU   Hope, Cheryl and Mildred

Lots of free materials were waiting for us in our 'home base,' Room 201. I took a picture of some useful freebies with the comfy chair in the background. The materials we have gotten through GAETI have been so helpful to us! 

The best things, of course, were what we learned and the camaraderie we had throughout this experience. Each GAETI group has been different, but fun and memorable!

The things we have learned will touch a lot of students in the future. Thanks, GAETI!

Day Four

Today was a productive day. Good thing, since projects are due tomorrow!

This morning we talked about Service Learning. One example is having students handmake and deliver cards to a nursing home. When my own children were in kindergarten, they took children to sing Christmas carols at a nursing home. I've gone with church groups, too.  I had wanted to have my Spanish club make Christmas cards and sing at a home this year. It was my first year to have a club at my new school. I found out that there are no club meetings in the weeks before Christmas because of other school-wide activities.  I will still put this on the 'agenda' for this coming year. We will have to make the cards and start practicing our songs in October, I guess!  I also need to think of a project for the newly formed Spanish Honor Society, preferably an outreach to the Hispanic community. The service learning book should have some good ideas!

We had snippets of time to work on projects between presentations today.  I brought the lyrics home to 'smooth' out and rehearse with the music. It's hard to have a vision, but not enough time to make the vision a reality. Truthfully, I could keep obsessing over details for another week.  As my daughter believes - 'done is better than perfect.'  (I still have trouble with that!)

Kenya Horn was our morning guest speaker. She is currently a counselor at Mississippi School for the Arts. She gave a wonderful presentation about College & Career Readiness skills. There are beautiful handouts in our binders, including a 'SCANS' Skills Assessment for employability skills. Through GAETI, I've realized that we can all teach these 'soft' skills every day, just through our interactions with students and other staff members. There is no extra preparation time needed to be a good example!

I have to admit that even good schools do not always prepare students for life after high school. I feel that my high school did, however. We wrote term papers every year for five years (8th-12th grade). I don't see how English teachers in large schools could ever have time for this arduous process with all the students they have to prepare for state testing and ACT.

Personally, I feel there is so much pressure to get good test scores that most teachers are not free to do their best work. Also, students have the idea that what they are being asked to do in school will not really help them in their future lives. There should be more opportunities for students to investigate college and careers no later than their junior year of high school. Another help would be inviting former students to return as guest speakers. The more recent graduates should be able to 'connect' with the current juniors and seniors. Hopefully, speakers would encourage them to be more serious about their own responsibilities in preparing themselves.

Mr. Aaron Bailey explained how to teach students from 'Generation Z.' These students have an average of five devices (phones, etc.) and they need constant updates.  Their biggest motivation is security.  We must learn to build relationships with this generation of students so they know you have a genuine concern for their well-being. Good technology instruction and assessment tools for these learners include Kahoot, Quizizz, Socrative, and Ed-Puzzle. I have had success with all of these, plus Quizlet.live with students from all different backgrounds. The Blend-space site looks like it will have new resources I can use. Also, Screencast-o-matic may be a great way to create teaching videos for students to use in Ed-Puzzle. I could post teaching videos in Canvas for make-up work, review and remediation. 

In Art - we painted our backgrounds and printed our stories for the tiles. Then, we had a bit of time to work on projects again.

The final presentation today was about vocabulary activities and games. Vocabulary is the key to good reading and good test scores, including the ACT.  I have used Charades and Win, Lose or Draw for foreign language vocabulary. I used something like 'snowballs' but we didn't throw the papers before looking for our 'match.' I've used this to randomly sort students into partners while reviewing vocab. at the same time!  Mr. Stickman and Word Sneak might be hard to do in the early years of language learning. They had some very good ideas, though and actually experiencing the activities will help us remember new things to use!

Well, obviously I had to finish my blog at home. We needed the last few minutes of the day to collaborate on group projects.  I have the rewritten lyrics ready. We just have to record tomorrow. Well, technically- later today since it's after midnight. 

It will be a fun day, seeing each others' projects and sharing memories of GAETI!

Day Three

So ... we are more than half-way through our week and there is still so much to do! 

 We started our 'hump day' learning how to create a poster in Publisher 2016. I had some experience with an old version of Publisher. Today Ms. Agnew taught us how to divide the space into columns to help create a visual balance. We got some tips for working with textboxes and visual elements in the Publisher program. I also understand that once a Publisher file is saved, you should resave it as a pdf before taking it to be printed. The pdf 'flattens' all the layers so nothing moves or changes, i.e. the final product will look exactly as you want it.

After lunch, Ms. DeeDee taught us about genealogy resources such as Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.  We made free accounts for Ancestry.com and followed the steps to make a Family Tree.  Much more information is available with the paid version. On the other hand, FamilySearch.org is free. We searched databanks such as the U.S. Census.  I found my dad's parents (and my dad) in the 1930 Census of Hardy County, West Virginia.  Then, I found Randy's grandparents with their seventeen children, including his mom in the 1940 Census for Kansas. It would be quite interesting to spend time with this. We were encouraged to add videos of living family members so there will be records in the future.  I use family trees in my language classes when we learn family vocabulary.  I would have to play around with these resources a bit to see if the students copy and use the tree as part of their family project.

In art class, we dipped our tiles in glaze and started painting our backgrounds.  The tile-dipping took a long time. Fortunately, we still managed to get through the second part of Dr. Lee's Web Page design lesson.

Tomorrow - we must work on our projects! 

Day Two - GAETI 2018

Hello! We started our second day of GAETI in the lab with Dr. Lee. We learned how to make a video in Adobe Spark. This teaches us how to create our final video testimonial for this class. We practiced by making a sample video called 'Summer 2018.'  Here is a link to my video:  https://spark.adobe.com/video/Bzrcpwc674jrl   

For this project, I would enjoy inserting actual pictures from my vacation, rather than using the free pics in the gallery.  I need to upload my pics from my phone to Google Drive so I can work from any available device.  It will be easy to add narration and change the pictures once I have the actual material. This would be easy to use with my students. They have iPads, not computers. They tend to have trouble with anything that requires a great deal of editing or formatting.

The second morning sessions was about creating presentations. Stephanie Agnew from the MSU library gave us many points about creating and delivering good presentations.  We can check the library files to get a copy of her presentation. One excellent point (which I know from experience) was 'have a Plan B.'  Several times I've had to adapt to unexpected situations even though I had the presentation completely ready.  The Power could go out, the projector could malfunction, the students might not have their device ... All these things have happened to me before!

In the afternoon , Thomas Da Foe from MSU library taught us about 3-D printing. Students and community guests are allowed to used the printers in the library once they are trained.  The cost is figured per gram of filament used. The MSU library has the following 3-D printers:  MakerBot Replicator 2, UP! Mini and CreateBox Mini. You can design your own 3-D objects with a program such as 'Sketch-Up,' 'Autodesk,' or 'DS Solidworks.' Tech departments in public schools can request 'Sketch-Up PRO' for free! These are some objects printed in the library.

Here is the link for guides and tutorials from the library:
guides.library.msstate.edu/dmc

In art - we painted our boards with gesso (JESS-o), a glue-like substance to make the paint adhere to the wood. We had to paint 3 coats of gesso. During the 'drying' time, we chose and scaled our backgrounds. I'm using a sort of 'freestyle' background with areas of color so I won't really have to outline any shapes.

Since my tiles are about weather in the fall - my colors represent the sky, the leaves and the sun.

To finish the day - we learned some html code for creating a webpage. We used the program Brackets. It is an application on the lab computers. I'm sure I will need a manual to remember everything. However, it helps to understand how webpages are created via an authoring tool/HTML editor;  CSS - for styles and Java for animations.
w3schools.com has a tutorial for each step.


I had to finish my blog after I left class so I can share what I saw as I was driving home. There was a rainbow in the east, the direction I was heading! I was hoping to find a pot of gold at my house. Unfortunately, instead of a pot of gold - I found a box of tomatoes. Then, I had to stay up late to help my husband make salsa! At least the salsa is very good and we'll enjoy it this year. 

Day one - GAETI 2018

Today was a phenomenal first day for GAETI 2018!

The icebreaker was to introduce another person. I introduced 'Flo' Sawyer, who teaches World History at Starkville High. One unique thing about her is that she once had 8 dogs and 5 cats. We only have 6 dogs and 6 cats. Now I feel better.

The morning session was presented by  a husband-wife team from Yazoo City - the Funchess's.  He is a band director and she is a behavior specialist. One insight was how music can help kids manage behavior. We were encouraged to use music in our classroom. I love this because I already use music!  Songs are good 'timers' for short activities. Songs help students' listening and pronunciation in the target language. Listening and singing/following along with an authentic target language song are great ways to internalize 'catch phrases' as well as to observe grammar in action.

We started our art project - a 'story' told through six sgraffito tiles.  Today we carved out the images. My story is about how drastically the weather can change within a few days. When students retell this story they know the key weather phrases.

Our last session was so motivational! Reggie Ware talked about Practical Behavior Management. He was very entertaining, but 'spot on' with his analysis of behavior management. We practiced making a social contract for teachers so we could apply this to use with our students. The contract must have - rules, rewards, and consequences. When completed - the document is dated and all the students sign it. The contract should be posted so it can be referred to as needed. He remarked that students hold each other accountable by referring to the contract.  It's a great plan.

Last - we have been assigned groups to created a 'song' with lyrics to a popular tune. Our group of three includes me, Mildred and Cheryl. Our song is 'Havana.' We will think about it tonight and make plans tomorrow.

The other 'end project' will be a 'testimonial' about our GAETI experience. This will be a 30-second video with photos and a narrative. It will be a short week!