By Kendra Krenz

I attended a school board meeting the other day as part of one of my class project. The meeting was opened with a prayer by an elder who has been a member of the school board for many years. There were some issues brought up I wasn’t aware of. First of all, this year we have three new teachers, two are non-locals and one is local native certified teacher who graduated last spring. We have 136 total students and that number will probably fluctuate in the few weeks.

We continue to have new students coming from other villages as well as Anchorage to attend school here. Possible reasons for that could be student’s parents are separated or are divorced. This is a serious issue for the community, because in the past they didn’t have to deal with it as much. Students are staying with various family members. The school staff has to deal with finding the new student when they need to reach that student and they don’t know which house to contact them. Other community members also feel that some of the new students are bad influences on local students and in the community. They are concerned with new students coming to school here without parent supervision and rely on other relatives to take care of them. The school board members strongly feel a child should be living with the parents while attending school in villages, unless they are going away to a boarding school.

For several years the graduating class in Kongiganak has been very limited. Under our new administrator we had more graduates last year. Students from other villages may have seen the increase in the number of graduates from this village last May and decided it would be an easier way to get a diploma. I don’t believe this is the reason, but that could be the thought process.

There has been a concern amongst the school staff that students are coming tired and fall asleep during class periods. The teachers are instructed to make sure the students are awake during the class periods. Parents should tell their children to go to bed early. Students are also asked not to go home during lunch period because some students don’t return to school or come to class tardy.

The administration and community have been concerned with students playing in dangerous areas near the school. Kids are not supposed to be playing around the school property after school and on weekends. They want this to come to an end in order to prevent an accident. Some student’s are hanging around on the school pump or even climbing on teacher housing fuel tanks. The village police officer should be addressing this issue and parents should be watching their children.

Subsistence was also addressed in the meeting. The subsistence life-style is very much part of this community, where people will always be dependant on land and water. The school uses a subsistence activity form but it’s not required by the district. In the last few years students have failed to completed coursework and have been denied credit for a class because they have spent too much time during the school year doing subsistence activities. Parents have been notified that students missing 20 or more days of school (excused/unexcused) will receive failing grades. The next community meeting will address how many times per quarter students can take an excused absence for subsistence hunting.

The School Improvement Plan for 2007-2008 school year was discussed at the meeting The major goal this year includes helping student succeed. There will an after school program for students who need to improve their reading, writing and math. Students falling behind in coursework will be required to stay an extra 30 minutes for tutoring by a certified teacher in order to help them in their weak areas. If students are doing well, they are not required to after school program.

The school board was in favor of the new improvement plan to keep track of the students progress overall and oversee what it takes for students to continue to succeed.

Reflections first week of Class

Reflections for ED 429 Class

I really enjoyed learning everything we covered for this class. I was impressed we can utilize technology tools in so many ways. It was interesting to be able to learn about the Panraven. Panraven is a website you can create an account, upload and share your photos and create a digital story. I was frustrated learning the process at first and I never thought I would be able to create a digital story.

We also learned about the Flickr website. You can create an account with flickr and share pictures and create a slideshow. It was a unique way to share our pictures using flickr and be able to view them as a slideshow on our blog spots. I had fun creating slideshows with flickr.

Overall, we also learned how to create power point using excel. We used inspiration to map out our ideas and create an outline. We had options to make a creative project using these technology tools we learned in class. It was fun to create an IMOVIE as well.

We sure covered a lot of technology tools in a week. I wonder now what our future will be like in technology in the next century.

It was nice meeting everyone in class. Thank you so much Skip for teaching this class to us. I learned a lot!

Home Again

Hello Everyone,
I am home as of this week. I am still waiting to get internet and phone service at home. I have relocated to a different school housing since I've been back, so I am rearranging my new home again.

Hope everyone made it back safely home.

Experiment Flickr slideshow Update

I was able to go back to my Flickr account and edit the pictures to 400 px size. It looked so much better on my blogspot because the size was just right for viewing. Also, I went back to my Flickr account after I noticed the title on each page was not in the size I want. So I edited and pasted the titles on the description of each picture I edited.

Experiment using Flickr Slideshow

I found out using a 500px was too large to view the slide shows on my blog. The first set of pictures(Yellowstone & Tetons park) were just right, I used 400px. Make sure you have the right PX size when you post your pictures.

Top of the World

Trip To Top of The World
Wainwright & Barrow Alaska 4/2006



Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Flickr Slide Show Experiment

Here's a slide show of pictures I took in July 2006 at the YellowStone Park and Grand Tetons.
Enjoy!

YellowStone & Grand Tetons National Park 2006


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Reflections on Power Point and Inspiration

Reflections on using Power Point and Inspiration

I think using technology tools is an excellent way to enhance teaching students. Using the power point you can teach students how to present topics/projects. Power point has unique features, you can create a slide show. You can create excel spreadsheets using the chart wizard and include animations and sounds, like we did for the 429 class. You can also take screen shots of what you’re presenting and save the picture and drag it to a power point slide show.

The inspiration program has given me ideas how to help students in the future to map out ideas. I find the Inspiration a very useful program to make an outline, and use it for any class projects. I also found the custom animation very unique, and it helps to make a class project creative. With using custom animations you can set the speed, and create a sound using the options menu for example. There are other unique tools that are also added.

I am excited to use these technology tools and help demonstrate them to students and peers.

Testing

Hi,
I'm Kendra Krenz, originally from Kongiganak, AK which is located 90 miles southwest from Bethel Alaska. I am currently working on my Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education.

I am new to blog and would like your opinions about blog.

Kendra Krenz