Power point

This has been a really hard week. On Monday my nephew killed himself, so all week we had family coming in, we were trying to get answers to why this happened and plan a funeral. When I was at school I tried to stay focused on school and when I was at home I turned all my attention to my family.

What?
This week we had fun learning about power points and spread sheets. I'm not a very fast typist and I also try to write down the direction as we go in case I can't remember when I get home, so I tend to get behind, but it all works out in the end.

So What?
Usually after class I go home and start playing around with all the new tools we have learned, even the ones that we don't have a homework assignment for. But because of the events of the week, I only had time to do my part of the power point assignment for class rules. Since Jeremy took the lead on our last project we decided that Brie would take the lead this week and I would take the lead next time. On Wednesday night I had just a few minutes to serf the net so I looked for pictures that I might want to use in my slides. I found some great clip art but didn't save the sites so when I went back the next day to actually do my project I couldn't find them. There was one picture in particular that I wanted to use for my "respect others and respect yourself" I looked for it for over an hour. Since I couldn't find it I settled on the only other picture that I even kind of liked. It was a cute picture but blurry. On the slide it was even more blurry. That picture cost us a point. I will be more careful next time.

As I was putting my slides together I noticed that behind my pictures and also all the pictures of the rest of my team it said Write text or place text or something like that. After playing around with it I learned that we were placing our pictures in the slide but not in the box so they were just overlaying each other. To fix this I clicked on the image and dragged it to the side so it would be out of the way, then I clicked on the text box and hit delete then drug the image back in place. It worked like a charm.

Now What?
I want more time to play with the spreed sheet. I need to do some kind of spreed sheet for church so this will give me the perfect opportunity to practise. I also need to ask Jeremy about that math thing he does with his kids that he talked about in class. I know this will be a must to really get under my belt and as a teacher I will use it all the time.

Next week I need to do a five minute oral presentation on a five page research paper for my astronomy class. I can't wait to blow my teacher and classmates away with my power point. My own children have always preferred the teachers that used power point when they did lectures and then had them accessible on the Internet. I will use this for certain teaching elements in the classroom. Everyone learns in a different way and as teachers we need to use every tool we can.

Video:

I love this video so much that I shared it with my kids. I have a fifteen year old, a twelve year old and a nine year old. I have tried to always instill the importance of an education and good grades but kids, teenagers especially, tend to listen to their piers more than there parents. When they see some one their own age doing something they want to do they tend to make a stronger connection to "hay I can do that". I loved seeing how this young man knows who he is and what he wants to do with his life. There is nothing better than following your dreams and turning them into a reality.

It doesn't matter if you are six, sixteen or sixty, you should never stop dreaming, never stop learning and never stop reaching for the stars.