first day at the ctl

Today was my first “official” day at the CTL. I learned how to use the Meeting function in GroupWise and saw the CTL library. Also got familiar with the voice mail. They had a computer all ready for me when I got in at about 12 today.

I decided to start by exploring Prezi a bit. I looked over some of their presentations on how to use it. It seems to be pretty dynamic and I’d like to at least try to use it for my own presentations, in some way, shape, or form.

POSSIBLE PREZI ASSIGNMENT--
Possible introductory assignment for English 0090 students (and maybe even English 1021 students): based on http://prezi.com/gco-vb9vvvy2/30-things-about-me/ (“30 Things about Me: All About Brooke Ahrens”). Have each student present a Prezi on his or her life. (Although I think 30 is a bit much…10 is probably sufficient.) It could even become the basis for a narrative essay or paragraph.

Here are presentations on grammar that I have already completed for English 0090—
• Parts of Speech/S-V Review
• Missing Comma Errors
• Misplaced Commas and Fused Sentences
• Fragments and Modifiers
• Verb Errors
• Pronoun Errors
• Apostrophes
• Wrong Words and Capitalization

Here are presentations on grammar needed for English 0090—
• Achieving Parallel Construction
• Active vs. Passive Voice
• Punctuation Info

For grammar pres.---either (a) add in more exercises in PP or (b) change them to Prezis.

Other English 0090 presentations needed (most likely)—these could use Prezi
• Writing a Paragraph
• Writing a Brief Essay (before revision part of course)

I am going to be teaching English 0090 both in person and online, most likely, in Fall 2011. So I’d like to have the grammar presentations be done in such a way that I don’t have to have two different versions. I do think that my grammar presentations could use the following: (a) voice over, (b) more examples, and (c) additional exercises with answers.

Because I want consistency for both my online and FTF classes, I don’t think I’ll be using the “clickers”. I should ask M. Mendez if he has found a way to embed quizzes within PowerPoints….

At the end of the day, I played around to try to make my own Prezi on “Writing an Effective Pargraph.” (http://prezi.com/o_wyng8tij2u/writing-an-effective-paragraph/) I didn’t get too far but I get the jist of it. Remember: double click=text. Still a lot to learn.