Its the end of the year as we know it and I feel fine

Fourteen days left...not that anyone here is counting.
The end of the year is always bittersweet. Summer - positive. Goodbyes - negative.
I teach many of my computer science kids for all four years they are in high school. They are going on to great things, but I still miss them.

So this isnt exactly computer science, but it is definitely teaching. And I could use a dose of inspirational.
In the past month I have tried to explain the whole Dave - Eggers/education thing to at least five people. Heres a summary:

• Ted Talk - while I am not a writing teacher, per se, this is exactly what I am trying to create in the lab. I watch this several times a year, always good for inspiration.
•  Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of Americas Teachers - I have not (yet) read this. Seriously folks, it is the end of the school year. If I make it to the end of the day without getting caught in a food fight I am doing really good. It is on my summer catch up list, promise.
• The documentary - Heres an NPR story about the documentary AMERICAN TEACHER. As a computer science teacher one of my grumbles is, well, other teachers grumbles. When they complain about lack of planning time I try to remain calm - most other subjects have age-appropriate books with worksheets and practice problems. Over my 15 years of teaching computer science I have probably written five or six textbooks. Notes, worksheets, projects, the whole thing. These things are in short supply for computer science teachers.
  
  One of the main points of his work here is the amount of money spent on textbooks, $8 billion. Now I do not mind developing materials for my classes, curriculum work is actually part of what I enjoy most about teaching. It is just sad that out of that huge total the computer science teaching community is so under supplied.

So here it is - a little reminder of why we do what we do. Something to get you over the hump until summer. Just curious, where do you find inspiration?

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End of 1st Quarter

As we have talked about all week, today is the last day of the Quarter.  Make it a good one!!

We will review for the quiz at the beginning of class, and then when I let you know you can go to Classmarker and take the quiz.

Once you have completed the quiz, if you have any missing assignments you are to work on whatever is missing.  If you do not have any missing assignments and you are "behind" with the speed test tournament, then Im going to have you compete today to try and catch up so that we have everyone in the same spot.  This means many of you will not be competing in the tournament today - I just want to get everyone in the same place since we had several people last week that were absent when we did this.

If you have everything done then you are welcome to go to the practice websites after the vocab quiz.

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Make up day! Everything due by the end of the day today!

If you have anything missing it will need to be turned in today by the end of the day.  My suggestion is to double check all of your quiz grades and make sure you arent missing any of those; I would also suggest looking to see if you are missing the Thanksgiving blog post (if this is missing send me an email with a link to your blog).  Lastly, the crossword puzzles are probably the next easiest to complete.  I mention those because they are easy to complete and should give you some quick points.

Beyond those two assignments if you have missing formatting activities that are partially completed you could take time today to get more of it done and then hand it in at the end of the hour.  Remember...some points is better than no points!

Tomorrow and Friday we will finish our bracket challenge!  If you are in first, second, or third hours I will not be here and the sub will be guiding you through the bracket competition.

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