Show And Tell

This is a wine container, with the guidance of Mr. Chute, I created in Tech Design class. He was kind enough to give me some walnut to use as beautiful end pieces as you can see. I love working in the shop!

LED Project

I acquired a new skill last week--Soldering! Ask me to explain electricity and I may have trouble but I think this project turned out pretty good. The blue LEDs were so strong I had to re-solder my wiring to miss the resistor. That's because they use a lot of juice! Using these LEDs was cool because they were bright enough to lite my way home in the dark. If you look carefully at the top image you can see the On/Off switch I made to complete the circuit. The 9V battery is tucked inside the little box beside the On/Off switch.

Kinesthetic Teaching

I used this example yesterday to show folks how layers in InDesign and Photoshop works. I think they enjoyed it. I'm a big fan of teaching to the senses of touch (kinesthetic). I even had fun creating this little mock-up magazine.

Outline This

Here is a little Screencast I did for the kids at Cawthra Park Secondary. It seems they had forgotten how to create outlines in InDesign. I had taught it to them previously in their Communications Technology class. I apologize for the background noise, I was working on my laptop with a very sensitive microphone. If you listen close enough you can hear the fan from the CPU kick in.

Did You Know

I had an opportunity to attend my associate school's P.A. day on Monday. I hosted a workshop on PowerPoint for a group of teachers. It was quite an experience--each teacher displayed an archetype of every student I have taught to date. There was the one kid who always had their hand up, the student that would jump ahead in the lesson only to ask for help later, the student that sat silently and struggled, the student that constantly chatted with others while I was speaking and the student that had no idea what I was talking about. Wow.

On a more positive note, the beginning of the day started out with this informative video. I think you'll find it interesting. (Note: it runs for 13 secs before a new picture appears)

Para-Chutes

This is John Chute (my host teacher) and myself posing for a photo. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, and so for this Halloween I dressed up as my associate teacher--circa 1983. Everyone had a mullet haircut back then and so I imagined he would too. Luckily for me, he found this rather amusing as did the students. I had his outfit down pat: Golf shirt tucked in, tool belt on, safety glasses around my neck and a collection of various nuts and bolts in my pockets.