Tuesday, November 21, by Mrs. Morrow

Today we spent the first half of class putting the finishing touches on our PowerPoint presentations entitled, "Technology in the Real World." I was happy that most of the students chose some interesting people to interview. We had a variety of professions, from teachers to the medical profession, from agriculture to office workers. Students began sharing their presentations to the rest of the class. I could see good design principles put to use such as: similar color schemes and background templates to give the presentation consistency, no more than 4 colors per slide, keeping bulleted text short and simple (not writing too much text on a slide), and using transitions and animations with purpose. I want to encourage the students not to read their slides word-for-word, but rather, to add in personal insight and added information with a relaxed, informative quality to the speaking. No one really did anything more than was asked in the project. But we still have about half of the class to view tomorrow, so maybe someone will still impress me!

I'll tell you one thing that DID impress me... it was the patriotic collages that the class created and shared at the Veteran's Day program last week. Very Cool!! Here is Sam's just to give you a sample of the creative work the 8th graders are doing.


For our second time around the class for the blog post assignment, the students will still be required to write about what they learned during that day's class, as well as any outside information that they care to share. However, they will also be required to reposrt on one current event in the field of technology. They can get the information from the news and radio around them or they can choose to do some internet research. I have bookmarked several sites on our class delicious web links at: http://del.icio.us/kmorrow/8.

My choice of current event technology article for today can be found at:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127796/article.html
Microsoft's brand-new operating system (OS) named Windows Vista, will be available for consumer purchase on January 30. I saw a demonstration of Vista this past summer and it looked pretty sweet. It is supposed to be the most stable Windows OS thus far and they have been working on releasing it for quite awhile. If you want to buy a new computer now, you may be able to get an upgrade voucher to get it when it comes out. Office Vista is pretty impressive as well... you may be able to find its new features online in a news article as well.

Well, we are mid-way through another quarter of OPS Technology Trends. Mid-term reports are being sent home today and I have to say that this group of 8th graders are doing very well. I look forward to continuing to explore and expand our horizons with the technology trends of today and the future.