ASP Day 1 Visit

I have been placed at Whittier Elementary for my Technology Club in-school experience. I am really excited about this because I have been spending some time at Whittier on Monday afternoons helping with the Math and Science Club, which is also a part of the After School Program.  I had already met Katelin St. Peter-Blair, who runs that after school program expertly, and had some familiarity with the students and the school.  The club will meet Tuesday and Thursday from 3:30-4:30.

On day 1 I arrived at 3:30 and met up with Katelin.  I was the only EDU370 student that showed up this day, so it was a pretty laid back day.  I waited while students had snack and then we all went down to the library. Katelin showed me where the computers are stored and the resources available.  I met the librarians.  Whittier has a bank of MacBooks for students to use, which is awesome.  

I didn't have anything planned for Day 1 specifically because I kind of thought I would just be doing an orientation, but Katelin left me with the club so I just went for it.  I met the students, of which there were seven 3rd grade boys.  They were a great group, all really excited for Tech Club.  I think this is because they love computer games, but some mentioned an interest in doing presentations with PowerPoint and Prezi, so I think we will try to do that as well.

I had all the students introduce themselves and tell me one thing they were really excited for in Tech Club.  Most answers consisted of playing games on the computer.  I introduced myself and then we went over some Rules of Respect for Tech Club.  I had the students tell me some rules that they already have at their school and we wrote them down.  These rules mainly consisted of not talking while others are talking, following directions, and being responsible.  The last rule they said was "Always Try," which is one of the main rules in their school, which I thought was neat.

For the last 20 minutes I let them have free play time on the computer. We came up with three websites of games for kids that they could choose from.  These included coolmathgames.com, lego.com, and disneyxd.com.  They were quiet and respectful for the rest of the time which was good because 2nd graders that were doing silent reading time also shared our same space.  

After day 1 I got in touch with all the other EDU370 students and we made a plan for the rest of the program.  For each of the 6 visits, one of us will plan the main activity and the rest of us will be there to facilitate.  I offered to do day 2 since I had already been there, so I made a plan for day 2.