Train 2 Certify Me

So, I thought I would talk a little about my website that I and several other CTE teachers are putting together. It is called http://train2certifyme.com. I have been working on it this last summer a bit and have tried to update it when I get a chance. It is the place I plan on sending my students for trainings, tutorials, tests, and other information about the IC3 exams and more. One of the big projects I have been working on this school year has been to update my class trainings for Office 2010. It has been a lot of hard work and I have had a fun time this last summer teaching other teachers in my district how to create the trainings. Together we have created trainings for Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and we are currently working on Microsoft Excel. It is a lot of work, however it has been worth it as I have used these trainings with my classes this semester. In the near future I hope to begin to create the trainings for Windows 7, Microsoft Outlook, and Internet Explorer. I also have been looking into ways of making the trainings into Pre- and Post-Tests that will randomize the questions every time a student takes it. I have some ideas on how to do that, but it will be a few months to finally get these implemented. As usual, I like to offer all that I do for free. I have contemplated putting adds onto the site so as to help pay for the site and traffic, however I haven't taken the time to do that. Maybe that will be a project for next summer. Please feel free to use the trainings and other parts of my website in your classrooms. If you have any suggestions, they are always most welcome. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Summer

Wow, what a year!

This last year I also started teaching Spanish 1 at my school. It was really crazy and I had to spend a lot of time getting lessons, tests, activities, etc. ready for that class, so I was not able to concentrate on this blog as much as I wanted to. Even this year I will be teaching Spanish 2 and 3 instead of Spanish 1, so again I will be spending quite a bit of time getting everything ready for that class.

OK, so now I'm done with my excuses as to my lack of entries into this blog. Let's get into talking about the IC³.

I will have to say that I am totally excited because all but four of my students this last semester became IC3 certified! Many of my students in my first semester class did as well, but not as many as my second semester. In the end, 38 out of my 52 students became IC3 certified. That's 73%. Not bad actually.

This next year I will have three classes of 9th-graders, so I will have more opportunities to have more students become IC3 certified.

I have found out that this summer Certiport will be creating a Windows 7/Office 2010 version of the IC3. I'm excited about this. We just updated our computers in two of our labs to Windows 7 and Office 2010. It has taken some time and we are finishing up our second lab, but it is so worth it. My only problem is that now I have to update all of my trainings to be in Windows 7 and Office 2010. Which, really isn't a problem as it is just going to be a lot of work. However, it will hopefully keep me out of trouble. This is one of the many things I plan on working on this summer so that I can have it all ready at the beginning of the new school year. Again, it will be a lot of work, but it is all worth it.

Train 2 Certify Me

I guess one of the biggest things I want to write about is my website. It first started out as just a place where I could park some of my trainings since we were having difficulty with the IP address of our Moodle server. However, in the last few months it has started to become a lot more than that. I wanted it to become an official site where people could come to get trained on at least the IC3 exams. So, I stared playing with some of the scripts available on the service I have (http://www.ipage.com). I finally have the page up and going, but now I have to enter content into it. I have organized it according to the different levels we came up with in our collaboration meetings this last summer. Under each level I have created links for Pre-Tests, Class Trainings, Individual Trainings, Post-Tests, and what I have called Plus Tests. I'm really excited about the site and look forward to working with my collaboration team to develop the content if the site. If you want to see the site, it is at: http://www.train2certifyme.com Tell me what you think of it or how it can be improved (obviously some content right now would be the best improvement). Also, if you want to help with the content, please contact me. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Long Time

So, it has been awhile since I have written. I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but I have been teaching Spanish this year aw well. It has been a lit if fun, but also a lot of work. I have finally gotten to a place (for the moment) where I can actually write something here. I will probably write sone short entries so they aren't unbearable to read. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Summer Activities

So, it has been awhile since I have written on my blog here. Let's see if I can get caught up while I have a minute to breath. This last summer I worked with a group of Subject Matter Experts (SME's) on the new standards for the Office 2010 exams. It was a lot of fun and extremely educational. We went through all of the features of PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access. I worked with a group last January doing the same thing with Word and Excel. After spending several days working on the objectives we narrowed down the main tasks everyone that passes these exams should know. Then another group of SME's went through these objectives and rated the ones that thy should be on the exam. Then several of us went through and made questions for the exams. Several hundred people took the Beta exams and then several of us met together to determine the passing score for the exams. It was a busy summer, but very enlightening. -- Posted From My iPod Touch

Office 2010 Exams

Last January and these last two weeks I participated in a workshop to develop the Objective Definitions of the new Office 2010 exams with Certiport. All together I have spent ten days with great people hashing over what topics should be tested for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. I had a great time and learned quite a bit about each of the programs. I am totally excited to use Office 2010 and look forward to using it with my students as well. However, I probably won't be using it with my students until the 2011-12 school year. My district mostly doesn't like to implement zero software. That means any new software that doesn't have any updates. For instance, they don't like to have 1.0 or 2.0 or 10.0 software. They prefer to have 1.3 or 2.9 or 10.4 versions. Plus, since I prepare my students to take the IC³ exams, I don't want to use Office 2010 until Certiport updates these exams to use Windows 7 and Office 2010. I'm guessing this will probably happen in 2011 sometime.

However, I know that this next year I will need start preparing my practice exams and trainings for Windows 7 and Office 2010 so that I will be prepared to teach them when they come out. Of course I have to finish the Vista and Office 2007 version of my trainings before this next year. This should keep me busy for awhile.

Thoughts of the Last Year

So, it obviously has been quite some time since I have written on my blog here. School has ended and now I am "relaxing" duirng my summer vacation. A few updates:

• All but one of my students from last semester (13 out of the 14) pass all three of the IC3 exams (that's roughly 93%)
• I actually have about 25 students registered for my 9th-grade class each semester next year. Hopefully I will be able to increase that as the years go on.

I had a great time this last year with my students learning these essential skills they need for the 21st century. I would say the greates thing that happened this last year was being able to purchase the unlimited IC3 exams for a year. It totally changed the way that I taught. I went from trying to teach abstractly to teaching more concretely. Now, I'm sure a LOT of people out there would say that this is backwards, but it really helped out. By the end of the first quarter of the second semsester most of my students were IC3 certifed. I then could move on to more abstract teaching. Students were learning more about how computer worked and were working on projects in PowerPoint. It was very successful and there was a lot of learning going on both by my students and myself.

All in all, it was a great year. I'm looking forward to this next year and can't wait to have even more students become IC3 certified.