ITA Holiday Luncheon, December 12th

Not to irk those ITA instructors out there who are former students, but at one point a very prominent staff member of ITA stated "that was the best ITA Holiday Luncheon ever!" Over 400 attendees registered beforehand, the party was held at the Alliant Energy Center, as ITA was too large for a UW venue.

We kicked off the morning over in B203 with a frantic wrap-up of BTWs, a few permit-test retakes, and (eventually) rehearsals of the Juniors Excel game skit. As it had gone the last session, the students took charge of the performance, working out in the hallway and calling their own shots. Us instructors should have taken the morning off! (Actually, we were desperately trying to get the remaining students to finish their BTWs and most certainly should not have taken the morning off.)

After an hour of that shenanigans, we all climbed on a big ol' school bus to head over to the event. Actually, a small crew decided to drive their own car, for which they were swiftly reprimanded by Excel upon arrival. But we all made it!

Paul, a trained actor, first lead the students though a cool-down/warm-up relaxation gig. Kevin decided he could use a stretch as well, so speaking from personal experience, it was great. Calm and cool, until about 12:15, the Juniors ran through rehearsals, which improv kept lively each iteration.

The luncheon: kicked off by Bronson and his little brother playing an unbelievable original piece on classical guitars. Next, everyone grabbed some lunch while dual projectors showed the lovely Freshman/Sophomore Photoshop/Illustrator pieces. Don't quote me on this order, I'd had a lot of coffee by this point, but I believe the seniors then presented their "Senior Thesis", with great stuff from educational flash games to websites and marketing designs for non-profits.

The Juniors then presented -- it was the stuff of legend. An Excel Game competition, with half the class rooting for "Noah" the Jock and the others for "Terrence the Terrible Tigrr" the Nerd. Eddie was the sports announcer, and some excellent lines included "great weather out there folks, for software sports fans, not too chilly, clear skies." AJ reffed keeping things (largely) clean. The Terrible Tigrr won, declaring he was taking his entire team to wallgreens with the $5,000 dollar prize. Noah said he went out there and gave 100%, but his competition put up an excellent game. Maya concluded, letting the audience know the Excel unit isn't all about acting, but we actually learn some spreadsheet software.

The Luncheon continued with an amazing song from Carrie, done in sign language, and then the keynote speaker, Police Chief Noble. Bronson and Bro finished things off with another mind-blowing guitar piece, and the day was won.

First day of Zon in B203!

As our title implies, Zon introduced herself today here in B203, to a rousing 9:00am round of applause. Next, the students worked on their By The Ways, finding data about colleges (Harvard included).

After break, Noah and the class of 2011 took control of the classroom in rehearsing for the holiday luncheon. It was so much fun. The students came up with having one team be jocks and the other nerds. Eddie became a sports announcer, and the "crowd" came up with dances.

Finally, the students took their Road Tests and worked on their blogs.

Session VII: Road Test!

Elizabeth started the day explaining that today was their last session... and Open House! (Unfortunately, some of the students did not even know this =X)

When the students got to work, they all thought that they had more time next week to finish their BTW. When A.J. walked in to confirm that the instructors knew about this, they realized that Elizabeth had thought they had more time too! Unfortunately for the juniors, the time in the morning was given to the freshmen and seniors. So.. they now have to finish their BTW in FIFTEEN minutes!

Maya had been missing for two sessions and believed that she would not finish the BTW. In addition, she had only taken the permit test once! And today, they're going to do the road test? Nevertheless, the instructors believe in Maya's ability of completing the road test! Good luck, Maya~

***

When break ended, all of the students gathered in Kevin's room and started their rehearsal for the Luncheon. Thor directed the junior class with the Excel Your Skillz Game skit while Terrence played a geek and Noah, a jock. Though the rehearsal was longer than expected, the students all enjoyed it.

When the students started their road test, they didn't know where to save their file. Elizabeth eventually told them that they were going to send their files, which was at the bottom of the page. The "Final Question."

This triggered one a good example of learning to follow directions exercise that Cristina has done in the past.



It'd be fun to see who passes =D

Session 5 B203

Today the students were given a chance to review, with Kevin's review sheet to guide them. Since Kevin was gone, Felipe took over the duties of head instructor, and the students asked questions. Terrance and Thuy Dan were asking some really good questions about functions and formatting. It was great that the students were thinking about Excel, and a lot of them had been thinking about it between sessions.

After the break, AJ came in and talked to the students about Google Docs. The intro video, wherein a young man tries to get his friends to edit a letter asking a girl on a date, went over like a house on fire His friends circulate the document to their friends, everyone paring the letter down to the basics, until it's eventually shared with the woman he's hoping to ask out. It's cute and fun and shows just how useful and easy to spread Google Docs can be.

The students had a great time editing a shared document, some of them a little too much fun. Lakoye got a little too excited about making changes to other peoples' entries, but enthusiasm is always appreciated.

Then, once the Google Docs section was finished, the students began to work on their BTWs. Some of them thought they could just use the information that Kevin put into his example template, but we made sure they understood that the information was out-of-date or just completely made up.

Here's an example of what Thuy Dan made:



Here's an example of Eileen's work:


Then students worked on a project about where they may want to study in the future. It was very interesting talking with the students about what colleges they're looking at and what they plan to study. Jasmine is looking at UW - Milwaukee, simply because she's planning to study nursing and they have an excellent program for that. Having attended UWM for my graduate degree, I was able to offer her some advice on looking for a place to live in the area, since there's a good deal of reasonable apartments in the campus area, and very little dorm space. This led to me telling the students to check out apartments in whatever area they're looking at, since on-campus housing is not the only option they should explore when filling in their budgets or, indeed, for planning out this next, very big step in their lives.

I look forward to seeing the completed projects, and I know the students can't wait to have it finished!

Session VI: 2nd Day of Excel (and 1st Day w/ Zon)!

Many of you (or perhaps just A.J.) may be reading this title and thinking... "Zon's working with Cristina and Elizabeth?! Didn't I tell her to work with Paul and Felipe? Hm..."

Well, Elizabeth had unfortunately missed her alarm clock today. So Cristina was on her own again, BUT because Zon was in Felipe and Paul's room, Cristina stole Zon from Felipe and Paul.

During the review, the projector went out! And because this is Information Technology Academy, we definitely needed the projector, so Elizabeth and Cristina (and Zon) sent the students on an early break... of course the class would start early. In the meantime, the instructors hoped for the projector to fix its sweet self.

The projector was probably overheated because it started working after a couple minutes of "off" time.

Unfortunately, due to these technical issues with the projector and other confusion, the students got a longer break which took away from their learning time; however, the projector started running and Elizabeth realized that the speaker jack was flipped and it really does work with a Mac (because it's universal, but the instructors completely forgot this).

The introduction to the Google Documents was a video by Google, and can be found here. It's a hilarious sketch on a guy who is trying to ask out a girl he likes, but fails pretty miserably at writing her an e-mail to do so. He enlists the help of his friends (via googledocs!) to help him win the girl :)



After the Google doc introduction and brief run through, the students began their BTW.

***
College research queries soon became the focus of the day. Eddie looked into MIT, while Cristina told Ivan, who is interested in film production, about checking out universities in California. Kiran shared with Elizabeth her interest in University of Massachusetts in Amherst. "I'm not sure why I want to go there . . . but I just do!" The college search process is stressful, but each student has so much promise. Though the process may not always be comfortable, it will be well worth it when they have come to the end of it satisfied with their college careers.

After some work time passed, Ivan mumbled something and Noah replied, "You shouldn't be doing that right now, you should be doing this."

"I am doing that, so don't be coming at me like that," retorted Ivan.

And then the two went back to work. Then they started talking about the STEM panels today.

***
When break time came, the students didn't want to leave their computers (some really didn't). Kiran asked, "Can I just sleep here?" She was denied, and was sent out to "socialize." Although she may not have felt she needed more socialization time, she and others had a good time out in the hallway enjoying one another's company away from computer screens.

***
When the time came to take the Permit test again, the students discovered that there was no test available on learn@UW!

"Yay, free time!," cried Thor.

Cristina, luckily, was quick on the draw, much to the students' disappointment - after she activated the quiz, the students began their second attempt.

***
After they completed the permit test, Elizabeth instructed the students to utilize the quiet test-taking atmosphere to work on their blogs. This transition went smoothly; at one point, though, Lejia needed help to capture a screen shot... so he yelled out, "CRISTINA" which took everyone in the heretofore silent room by surprise! He was listening to music at the time, so perhaps we can forgive him. ;)

Overall, another fine day of Excel-ing for the juniors!

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).

Today was largely review for the Excel students, in order to cover topics that might not have been given enough depth in previous sessions, as well as to prepare them for the upcoming Permit test. Terrence asked some really good questions, and was on-the-ball when it came to identifying functions. In general, everyone was interested in the graphing and other visual representations of data. Excel has a lot of different ways to do it, and the students got into how many options are available.

There was a lot of energy in the room this morning, and after the review session we had a few minutes for the Excel jeopardy game. Their enthusiasm got the better of them, though, since they largely went for the 500-point questions right away. But, points for effort!

During exploration, students had another go at the Excel game. Unfortunately, due to technical (and a few motivational) issues, we didn’t have more than 4 pairs playing throughout the hour, and no tournament either. Yet students learned some Excel, profiles were made, and battles were won (and lost).

The College BTW was introduced, to an unprecedented, completely silent room. When Kevin asked why that was, a few students replied “because this is actually interesting!” So hopefully the college BTW will be worthwhile.

The Permit Test brought the usual round of resistance, but it didn’t take long for people to start working. Some finished quickly, some took their time, and then afterwards people did their blogging. Several of them posted screenshots. They seemed interested in the game and the college sections, for the most part.