Can't wait for our projectors!

Many of us around Hickman are growing increasingly anxious about our new projectors. As of now, there are just big black poles sticking out of our ceilings, awaiting the nifty device's arrival. I am particularly eager, especially as I do daily tasks for which a projector would make much easier. For example, I am currently typing warm-ups, printing them off, and creating transparencies for the overhead, so I can carry that around with me to my differnet rooms. If I had a projector, though, I could just open them up in a word document and, BOOM, there they'd be without the need of wasting paper or transparencies. I also did an activity this week where it would have been cool to have the projector as we created a class contract of rules. As a group, the students brainstormed what it meant to be respectful in three specific ways: 1) to the classroom and teacher 2) to their classmates and 3) to themselves as learners. The next day we brainstormed ways that I could show respect for the students. All of these ideas were typed up in a contract that we all then signed. It would have been really cool to have the projector so we could compile the ideas and create the document right there with the kids, really giving them a sense of ownership of this document.

I had a projector in the room where I student taught last year, and I did some really cool things with websites, showing film clips, and streaming videos from United Streaming. I was wanting to use use Google Earth to help the kids see where Gilgamesh takes place (a book we start in Sept.), but it's really not worth it to bring the projector in for that if i'm only going to use it for less than 10 minutes of every class. It might be worth it if I had the space, but the desks are crammed in as it is. Oh, I can't wait for the projector! I know that even if I use it frequently just for word processing purposes (as opposed to more complex, high order thinking purposes), that will be enough to really get the student's attention, because they are all about being on the computer (this is something we study hall/lit. lab supervisors have to monitor so that kids who actually need the computer for school work have a computer to use).

Anway--we're hoping for Novemeber? Maybe sooner??