Parent Night

This is the first time I have used the data projector for Parent Night. It's only ten minutes per class and in the past I have filled it with talking (sometimes a little too fast). And it seemed to me that even if I wanted to use the projector, fumbling with it would take up too much of the time.

So what was different this year? I'm more comfortable with these machines, even to a certain extent with the one I have now which is new and not what I'm used to. (This reminds me of how it took me a while to get the hang of setting up those 16mm films in the projector when I started teaching!)

The other different thing was that I had a couple of things I wanted parents to see and the projector was the best way. In Justice and Peace, instead of just talking about the wiki and the blog, why not show them? The downside was that it made it seem as though those two tools dominate the course more than they do. One parent at the end seemed to need reassurance that we actually use the textbook. It would perhaps dismay some who are on the cutting edge of educational trends, but... yes, we do.