Session V with Cristina and ... Just Cristina!

Cristina got to the room at 7:00AM, spending her extra hour pushing the tables together and sliding the chairs to their "rightful" spots.

An hour or so later...

The students started walking in and sitting in the same spots that they always do.

The only difference today was (it's pretty self explanatory... just look at the title!) Elizabeth is absent and Cristina is on her own!

The day started on track. At 9:00AM the students, all started their learn@UW.

When that was done, Cristina got right to teaching charts. Although this lesson went smoothly, when the topic of printing came along, Noah began asking questions, "How come you also have the chart because I only have the graph...," Which led us to discuss page break views and landscape orientation.

Understanding these topics went by quickly, though the "paste special" feature proved to be a bit of a challenge for the juniors ... though that may have been because they weren't following along as Cristina showed and explained the function of Formulas, Values, and Column width. :) Fortunately, they soon got it (when they listened).

The next part of the session included the Excel Functions Jeopardy Game. When the class was divided into two teams, Lejia was the one to start, but with a confused look on his face, he asked, "Where are the categories?"

"There are no categories because... everything's about functions - look at the title," responded Cristina.

Excel functions are pretty self explanatory, for example, "Adds" defines adding the arguments or "Exact" means two values are to be the same in order for the condition to be True. It isn't terribly necessary to memorize all this information . . . easily the students could just look it up under the 'Insert Function' button.

Noah and Thor eventually figured this out and were on a roll (their teammates were happy).

Today was just a day of gaming! After break was done, the students (just the guys...then again, there was only one female student) were excited to play THE EXCEL YOUR SKILLS excel game again, their profiles at the ready from last week!
When Kiran looked lonely, Cristina played with her. Cristina was sitting in Tenzin's spot and discovered that he had bought more than he could pay for out of his allotted and earned money... soon, other students' rule bending was discovered - Lejia had bought THREE calculators when you're only allowed one of each item!

"THAT's why you're winning," stated Thor who had been losing for the first time against anyone.

As everyone was in the middle of gaming (Cristina included), A.J. stepped into the room to see how things were going. But no matter where AJ goes, the students soon find a way to utilize him and his knowledge! Eddie was soon asking why, ".avi files don't work in Vegas." A.J. in turn questioned him about his lack of appearance.

During the exploration section, the guys were so set on winning that Kiran and Cristina sat back, played the game and chatted about their majors. Kiran and Cristina may major in the same thing: Business and international relations with a certificate in an East Asian Language.

When Thor was undefeated (besides losing to the "[unknown] cheating" Lejia and Tenzin, he played against his brother. "You have no weak point!" said Noah when Noah's life just kept draining..."Noo, it's ONE, it just hasn't come up yet," Thor remarked.

Well, the class continued like this with a couple of minutes here and there dedicated to explaining the hidden cells or the random die rolling.

When the First Permit Test was completed, the students were once again bummed about blogging. Because they expressed this to A.J., he came in and talked about blogging with Cristina. A.J. read one of Cristina's blog, as the class reminisced about the day the blog post described: Eddie remembered when he said that he was "perfect," but not Tenzin's remark, though Tenzin remembered it "like it was yesterday". The students may not realize it yet, but their reflection on the past through these blogs is allowing them to remember and retain more. ITA sessions aren't just going to waste anymore.

In addition, A.J. explained that blogs are like words to our eyes. We can't always listen to them (but we most certainly would love to), but we can always read what they say - anytime and anywhere (if internet is accessible).

In addition, Eddie stated that he didn't know what to write about, though he really wanted to read his peer's blogs. "You know... you can wri-" "about that," Eddie finished Cristina's sentence. Cristina smiled and walked away.

When the blogs were done, Cristina wanted everyone to send her an email so that she could pile their gmails together and send out the list to all of the students. Every one wanted to read each other's blogs! Hopefully they'll gain more motivation to write blogs for their friends to read and enjoy (or as Eddie put it, "talk smack" about each other).