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.