What's in store

My presentation date is rapidly making its way towards now. I’ve noticed that the older you get, the faster things come at you. This is because the older you get, presumably, the more responsibilities you’ll have, which will take more time from what you have. That is exactly what’s happening with me, now that I’m coming closer and closer to my graduation date. As I sit here and think, I realize that my presentation date is only 15 days away. I understand that those 15 days will come a lot sooner than I expect. If you really think about it, 15 days isn’t a lot of time, especially when I have to prepare for the presentation, make sure everyone knows when to be there and at what time, start thinking about what I will need for everyone and send invitations to those who will attend. I am really nervous about the days to come because everything I do will affect the outcome of my presentation. Other than this, I just need to relax a little. I just hope that my presentation will turn out to be as expected.


Something that I haven’t mentioned was a few Wednesdays ago, Cesar and I went to an Alumni Association meeting, where we introduced our project to them. We started off talking about the assignments seniors were expected to carry out for the entire school year. Then, we talked about what we originally had in mind and what we plan to do now. We asked them to contribute to our project, since they are the ones we expect to tutor the students here at Chinquapin. We asked them to email us times in which they will be free and also to pass the word along to the other Alumni Association members. The meeting turned out to be a great success in my opinion. We got great feedback that helped us think about the schedule of this online tutoring program.

Meeting

April 20, 2011, Cesar and I will be attending the Chinquapin Alumni Association Meeting. Cesar and I have a 5 to 10 minute presentation ready for the Alumni. We hope that a lot of the Alumni are interested in our project and want to contribute. We will be taking the contracts we made during creativity to week to have them look at them and help us modify them. We still don't have a set place for our presentation, we are currently still looking. We may just do it at the next Chinquapin Alumni Association Meeting with their permission.

Title

Well Cesar and I are in a tough position at the moment for the simple fact that we can't schedule a date and a place to give our present. Our panel members have very different schedules which puts us in a difficult position. We also aren't sure where we want to give our presentation because we didn't want to give them at the ordinary place that others are doing there presentations: Chinquapin. We have several places that we have been looking into but have yet to receive word from them. We sort of have an idea of what our presentation will be about but not quite.

This coming Wednesday, we plan on attending the Alumni Association meeting. There, we will present our idea. We'll also mention how helpful it would be to us if they contribute to becoming the Alumni Tutors. I hope all goes well there.

Bummer

Unfortunately, we were unable to attend the meeting during spring break. This is a bummer because it would have been a great leap forward in finalizing our project. Since they hold a meeting every month,  I hope that we will be able to attend the meeting during April. I will contact Michael to help us get in this meeting. The sooner we attend the meeting, the better because it will help us achieve our goal, which is to have our tutoring program running by the next school year. It will be a difficult goal which will require us to put in a lot of effort and dedication during the summer. We realize that time is running short but we hope to have another trial period before this school year ends. We hope to get better result than what we did a Whittier Elementary, which was a great learning experience for us.

Alumni Association Meeting

The following after Creativity Week, I talked to Michael Scrutchin about attending the next Alumni Association meeting so Cesar and I could reintroduce T.A.C.K.L.E. to this association. Maribel and two other members from this association came down to talk about what they are, what they do and how they could help. I announced my project to them and they thought that it was a great idea. They were eager to get the program going.
Like I was saying, we plan to talk to the Alumni Association during spring break so they can contribute to this program by volunteering to tutor. We plan to show them our handbook draft, contract and presentation that we did for Creativity Week. We are very excited to show them our hard work that we have put into this project. I hope they will assist us in any way possible such as VOLUNTEERING. Would anyone recommend any questions or any ideas on how they can further assist us?

Presentation Day

On this day, we spent most of the time preparing and finalizing our presentation. Things didn't go according to plan, but the presentation went well. I believe the 7 or less people who watched our presentation liked our idea of creating an online tutoring course where the alumni are the tutors. Something that didn't go according to plan was that we were unable to fully present our program. In other words, we didn't get two people to use wiziq during our presentation, even though we had pictures of people using it the previous day. We accomplished a great deal during Creativity Week. We are many steps closer to finishing our project.

Day Three

On Day Three, we scheduled to join Brenda and Rebecca in Bay City. We wanted an opportunity to test our program with students. Brenda and Rebecca told us that the younger students at the Boy's and Girl's Club down in Bay City. Susan told us that we would be using our time inefficiently if we spent two hours driving up there. So we decided to find somewhere locally to test our program. We went to Whittier Elementary and tested our program with the students there. They were first graders up to fifth graders. It was a very successful operation because we learned from the students' experience. First, they definitely like the program and used it successfully. Due to the fact the the wifi was acting up, we were only able to use our program for a limited time. So we helped them with their homework, which helped us learn another thing. Second, the younger the students are the more likely it is for them to use this program. It was a fun experience for us.

Before going to Whittier, we created a contract and a handbook for the alumni. It gave them the guidelines, tips and responsibilities of joining T.A.C.K.L.E.

Day Two

On Day 2, we had a big success.We figured out how to make the video chat work. Cesar and I were on our chinquapin account, where we decided to video chat right next to each other. I admit it was lame but the reason we did this was because we wanted to see if our camera was working. Prior to this, we went on our wiziq account to test the online tutoring course since we ran into a setback the previous day. As before, it didn't work. Once we were able to video chat on our chinquapin account, we verified that our video cams we working. We were puzzled and couldn't quite figure out why it didn't work on our wiziq account. So we decided, for some odd reason, to check wiziq without logging off of our video chat in our chinquapin account. We were surprised to find that the video chat worked on wiziq if the video cam was already in use. We finally solved one obstacle. For the remainder of the day, we worked and finished our alumni ad and Susan helped us form a group on Facebook. With the help of Bridget Anderson and Betsy Phillips (two very lovely and helpful women), we named our group Tutoring by Alumni Cultivating Knowledge, Learning and Education. T.A.C.K.L.E.

Day One

Just as planned, we explored wiziq and learned new things about using an online tutoring course. We learned how to give the students control of the lesson. Before giving the students any privileges, they start off only with audio controls, meaning they are only able to hear the teacher. There is a button that the students can push to ask for access to video, microphone and other tools. We also learned how to upload a video from youtube and how to share a screen shot. This sharing of the screen shot tool is very unique and a key tool for this website. We ran into a problem, which we were anticipating. We couldn't figure out how to get my video chat to work. We tried everything to get it to work but couldn't. We tried for hours. We went to a FAQs page where we found out our problem and still couldn't get it to work. Susan tried to help us but couldn't. Due to the fact that Francisco was gone all morning, we couldn't find time in our schedule to ask him to help us with this problem. We were also unable to create a Facebook page because we were blocked from that website. I am satisfied with the progress we made. I'm ready for day two!

Creativity Week

After much debate, we have finally figured out what exactly we plan to do for Creativity Week. Tuesday, we plan to explore wiziq and learn how to use the applications and tools on this website. Cesar and I have already created accounts for wiziq. During this first day, we plan to find out the best/worst circumstances for wiziq. We will jot down notes so that in the end, we will create a how-to manual for the students and alumni who choose to participate in this tutoring. We talk to Francisco Perez about the difficulties we come across so that we can know what to do when others come across those problems. We also plan on creating a group for Chinquapin Students and alumni on FaceBook, inviting them to create a wiziq account. We also plan on blogging more about what we did during that day. Wednesday, we will continue exploring wiziq to see if we have mastered using the website. Next we will starting a draft on our ad that we plan to send out to the Chinquapin alumni, asking them to contribute to our online tutoring. We will contact our panel members, informing them about the changes we've made to our project. We will ask for a time that is best to meet with them in this email. We will finish our final ad on Thurday and talk to Francisco about making the ad. After that we will set up our presentation for Friday. Friday, we will show our ad that we created and briefly show students how wiziq works. We will need to be using a classroom. It will be in the Fan Room.

New Ideas

Originally, we planned to create a summer program here at Chinquapin to tutor those who fail to get accepted into this school due to their prior education. Most of the time it isn't that they are dumb; instead, it is a lack of care that they are given from their teachers. it seems, nowadays most public teachers aren't concerned with whether or not the children absorb the information. I feel like I have a responsibility to lend them a hand because I know how hard it is to ask for help. I want to make the first move to show them that I really care about them. I thought the best way to do this was through the summer program. My part was to recruit the students, while Cesar was going to get student-teachers. We talked to Ray about hosting the program here at Chinquapin. He said it was a great idea and that we just needed to talk to the residence since this is their home during the summer. Initially, we had our intentions set on this program. Then, one day Susan approached me and asked me to tell her exactly what we had done so far and what we need to do. After telling her, she told me that it is more difficult that just putting an assignment together and expecting them to learn it. We had to know what knowledge they had, their weaknesses, and how to create a curriculum. We had to piece all of this together before starting the program. After talking to her, I felt that this project was more difficult than I imagined. I also felt as if this program was less reasonable to reach.

Several days later, Susan came up to me and told me that she had a new idea for our project. We scheduled a meeting and talked about tutoring online. I did research about it, so I knew what she was talking about. While researching, I noticed that there may be less comfort. I figured upfront tutoring would benefit them by being able to absorb and build a bond of trust. She brought to my attention that a upfront tutoring can be gained after a while of online tutoring. They can build comfort gradually and then meet. She talked to us about an online tutoring website called wiziq. Susan, Cesar and I now all have an account and we explored it a bit. It was really interesting. We plan on getting all the alumni to contribute at least two days or so out of the week. They would only need to spend about 2 hours tutoring. We plan on starting off with students here at Chinquapin who need the tutoring. This is a more reasonable goal and will last "perpetually." (as Susan put it)

Houston to Highlands

Cesar and I have discussed transportation issues. We came up with having the students be from Highlands Elementary in order for them to be able to provide their own transportation. This way it would be less expensive for the program. I have been trying to get in contact with Highlands Elementary to see if they are willing to recommend some students for our program. We have put some thought into the insurance policy here in Chinquapin and what risks we are taking by establishing this program. We need to talk to Ray, to get a clear idea. 

It’s been…quite a while!

I haven’t posted anything since last semester and everything has gone fine since then. Since then, I have received an acceptance of the invitation, which I sent out during December, to most of my hopeful-panel members. Dana Lipinsky, Rob Christy, Betsy Phillips, Frank Duffy, and Molly Socha are now part of our team, in which we plan to receive assistance from each one in different ways.

Sometime last week, Cesar and I talk to Morris Nwogwuwu and Kathy Heinzerling about Breakthrough since they worked for that program. After our discussion with them, we received a 7th grader’s application and were told the requirements that they needed. This helps us out because now we are able to base our application and requirements needed on theirs. It won’t be exactly the same but similar because our two programs are very similar.

We have been thinking about our program and thought about if it will work. We thought of several things to ensure that it’ll work and figured the best thing to do is test it out. In order to do this, we would need time to set up a time and place so that applicants can come to “test” our program. We were thinking about making Chinuapin become our place to have our program. That means we would have to coordinate all of that with Ray.  

We originally planned to meet Frank Duffy last Tuesday but that plan got destroyed. We were told that we couldn’t miss any class periods and couldn’t use school days to interview people. We now have to reschedule that meeting with Frank soon. Frank is part of Pennies for Peace that is an organization that was formed with the help of people from Three Cups of Tea.

Cesar and I wrote a proposal, planning to go to an elementary to observe, interview and analyze the students there. Susan wants our proposal to be a lot more specific so that is what has been on our plate.