Melissa Weihmayer
Murray Language Academy
5/6-5/11
2 hours Monday, 2 hours Friday
Tech Assistant

I continue to enjoy my time in the lab. We are still working on the same Audacity-Movie Maker projects. The third, fourth and fifth graders are all using similar programs, showing that these programs are accessible to really young grades. However, the projects themselves have variations between the grades which show the differences in age - the third graders are doing product advertisements while the fourth graders are reading well-known poems and the fifth graders do public-service announcements on more serious topics. Are the kids enjoying the project: very much so. Are they getting anything out of it? They are definitely acquiring computer experience - the fact that they're playing around with brand new programs (mostly with patience and curiosity) is a great skill to work on. However, they still get frustrated so easily, that I wish there were a way to teach them to calm down and figure it out for themselves before they just raise their hand to ask me how to do it. The conundrum of teaching computers, I guess. On a different note, we received twenty nice new computers from Dell this week, which were set up by Xavier and Joe and others, making the old language lab into a promising, usable space. I am currently in the works of tying up loose ends, such as hooking up speakers, storing old cables and power sources (SO MUCH COMPUTER JUNK), and the like.