Keyboarding....and stuff

I keep waiting for my optimism to run out but unfortunately for all of you pessimists out there I do not see that happening any time soon. Each day I am finding myself trying to solve new problems and I LOVE problem solving. I thrive on it, it feels so good to take a situation that others have given up on or turned their backs to and say...WAIT this might work. My current challenge is to find a way to make keyboarding a more engaging and invigorating activity than it really is. We had our first go with an activity today and I was not impressed, it makes me want to design my own application because I feel I could adapt it to be more engaging for my students, but this would take a great deal of time that I currently do not have.

I am thinking about creating a program that would act as my evaluation of keyboarding skills so that we would work through these tougher activities and have a motivating activity to look forward too. The truth of the matter is that my strategy is to create meaningful lessons that feel like games for my students, I had success with this during student teaching and last weeks activity was a hit but they take so darn long to make. I am working on a program that will act as a review game for classroom teachers and I want to get a classroom Web site created before too long as well. I wish I knew how to slow down and take everything in stride but my head is constantly racing with new ideas and I want to try them all now.

The Promethean ActivBoard is proving to be a great tool though it will take getting used to after having a SMART Board. The students love using it and if I can find a way to keep an entire class from getting too excited and noisy it will be even better. I have a higher tolerance for classroom noise than most teachers as long as it is stemming from the activity and the students are just excited, but its borderline ruckus and I don't want any administrators getting the idea that I can't control my classroom. I have decided that the best way to avoid students causing problems in line is to work until their teacher comes to pick them up. I managed to time it well today and was even able to finish my class summary before they were whisked away. I'll keep trying this and see if it becomes too hard to get the room ready for the next class, so far so good.