Wednesday, March 25, 2009

What next?

Now that the parent presentations are behind me, I find myself questioning what I am going to do next. The next steps to my project are to outline a budget and apply for grants. The budget I will put into an excel document. Mrs. Haynes says that it will not be too hard, so we will probably do this next week. As far as the grants, I am looking into places where I can apply. I know one place I will present to is the White River School PTA. I intend to use some of the slides from my Smartboard presentation. That will be in April.

I recieved my first draft of my thesis write-up back yesterday. My thesis reader likes the idea for my project very much. I passed with distinction. I am very excited about the approval!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Parent Presentations

Tonight was the parent presentations. I think that overall they went well. I think that I did well, too. I recieved a lot of compliments on it as I was handing out the bookmarks we made. The bookmarks have the logo of the program on them. The logo is READ (in all capitals, each letter is a different color: red, yellow, blue, and green) and a little girl standing on an open book with her hands on her hips. It is really cool to be able to say that I have a logo now. Anyway, I am glad that the presentation is behind me, but I think that it was an okay experience. Plus, now my project is out there. A.k.a. everyone knows about it. I think some of the other parents and my peers are excited about it like me now!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Done!

I am done! I just completed my Smartboard presentation for the parent presentations tomorrow. I am very excited because I think that it turned out good. All that is left is to write note cards for me to use as prompts and to keep me on track tomorrow during the presentations. That is very important to get done now.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Presentations and name

Finally, I have a name for my project! I intend to call it READ, which stands for Reading Encourages Academics and Diversity. I think that this name it nice because it will mostly be known as the READ program, so it is short and catchy. However, it also has the more meaningful/official name. I like it and am getting more and more excited about the program all the time.
The parent presentations are just around the corner now. They are on Sunday. I am nervous, but also excited because this is the first time I really get to show everyone that I am serious about what I am doing, I like what I am doing, and it will be very benficial to the school. I think it will go well, however, I still have a lot of work to do for it.
All week, I have been working afterschool with the Smartboard putting my presentation together. Yesterday, Mrs. Haynes and Donna helped me organize my ideas and I was able to get a lot accomplished. Today, though, when I went back to work on it more, the flash did not work on some of the special effects. This was very disapointing because all of the work I did yesterday was almost all gone. So, today I had to spend with Mrs. Haynes trying to figure out the problem and try to fix it. We found a solution, so I will continue to move forward with it now. I am going to get as much done tomorrow as I can and finish it on Saturday. On Saturday, I will also practice it over and over and over!

Friday, March 13, 2009

Presentation and title

Tonight, I have been working on organizing my ideas for my presentation. They are one week from Sunday, so this coming week I will spend putting the presentation on the Smartboard. On top of just putting together the presentation, we have been working on possible title options for the program. We have it narrowed down to two that we like, so I emailed Mrs. Haynes to see which she prefers. I am looking forward to hearing her response.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Smartboard

Yesterday Mrs. Haynes showed me some things on the Smartboard program. They were all kind of basic things, but still very cool. I think that my presentation will end up being more fun with the Smartboard animation and its assets.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Working hard...

I have been working hard on my project this week. I have emailed my thesis advisors to let them know about my new email and blog. Currently, I am waiting for their replies. I have been thinking about this blog more and I really think that it is a good idea. It is a different way than simply journaling my progress. I will begin the organization on my Smartboard presentation, hopefully, this weekend. I think that I will also be able to use this Smartboard presentation to present to the PTA at the elementary school and any other places where a Smartboard is available. Other than my Smartboard presentation, I am trying to come up with a name for the project. A possible idea, that has been thought about the most, is Hannah's Bananas. The Bananas stands for Books are nice and necessary and super. I do not know if I like it completely. I also think that I want to change the super to some other 's' word. It's a lot to think about.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

First post!

Today I made my blog. I am going to use this blog as my journal for my honors senior project. I thought that it was going to be difficult to start the blog. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was not hard at all. Yesterday, I set up my gmail account. Now that was tough! Mrs. Haynes and I could not find an account name that was not already taken. We were able to find one eventually, so it is set up. I am going to email my three project advisors to give them my new email and tell them that I started this blog. This week, I am going to start putting my Smartboard presentation for the parents together. I am excited for the opportunity to use the Smartboard. The parent presentations are going to come very quickly and I have a lot of work to do on it.