Update

1. This week, we began formal, Act 48 credit worthy multimedia classes for staff. The course overview list is on our server here:

http://www.newmediatech.net/Act48/CurriculumGuide.doc

Marcelin, Tre, and I are the teachers. The course is every Wednesday , two hours each Wednesday from 1-3 pm during professional development. We each have syllabuses for our classes available upon request.

The courses being offered are PHOTOSHOP, WEB DESIGN, and VIDEO EDITING.

After the four weeks of classes, staff will then be using those 2 hours every week to complete their digital multimedia projects that were due at the beginning of the year. It would be nice to require staff to bring any work they've done for the project to contract renewals.

2. I had a good meeting with Shoana today, I asked her when we can get the High School website together, she said she can start working on it toward the end of next week. She also suggested that blogs would work better for the home page announcement system and I fully agree with this. The blogs are prettier and they allow the user to see news "right away" instead of having to click on the links.

3. I have agreed to speak at the Middle School Open house this weekend.

4. I am excited about May 3rd and looking forward to interviewing staff for next year. I am in the process of getting student content together for that event.

5. I need to confirm travel and lodging arrangements for the National Charter School conference with Dr. Walker. I am really pushing for them to also host a student coming. I would love for one of our students to present at the conference. I will follow up on this with Leslie Talbot, who is organizing our involvement in the conference.

6. I am encouraged to see that many classes are regularly using Blogging to track student records. Today I observed several 9th and 11th graders using and their blogs but also going to their advisor's blogs to get assignments. Additionally, I observed students who are using the "networking" system to build networks with all of their teacher's blogs.