In the land where I don't exist.

School site: CHS

Subject: Business Ed(?)

Sometimes it's a bit futile, but I do -try- to be a good sub, unfortunately today is one of those futile days.

I'm clicking through the assignments and I find "Business education," ooo a computer lab! I think to myself, this could be fun. In a way I guess it has been a pretty relaxed day, in fact I'm blogging from the class, this was however, after a sharp downward spike in caring.

Periods 1&2 : Sports Marketing

Wait, what? a class on "sports marketing?" There is a curriculum for this?  Sure enough there is a book, and everything, it has a band on the front with the title "Sports and Entertainment Marketing 2e," this book is from 2005 and I still haven't found a real academic value to it. Whoever sold this book to this program was a marketing genius themselves.

I always think electives are going to be calmer because I assume the students want to be there, sadly I underestimate the power of the all mighty apathy. The lesson plan seemed pretty straight forward, answer questions turn them in. Unfortunately the assignment only took most students 10 minutes. I tried to get students to stay off games and the Internet the first 2 periods, and was only successful for about 10 minutes of the period. Despite their lack of enthusiasm there were actually some people who turned some stuff in.

Periods: the rest of the day : Microsoft Word

Really? A class on Microsoft Word? I hope this is only a semester long class, I couldn't imagine the curriculum stretching much further than this. When I took this class it was "Microsoft office" i.e.; Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint, not just Word. The students in this class are about as lack luster as my enthusiasm is for a curriculum weak class like Word. By this point I had given up on being a patrolling games Nazi, and so I hear the agonizing sounds of getting fragged on Unreal tournament all period, how this was installed on the network I'm not sure, but in my day is was Wolfinstein, Unreal actually seems kind of dated. Others played "shell shock live," it looked interesting, it was a multi player 8 bit game of angles and artillery, kind of like a head to head missile command. The premise was to erode the other players platform, it looked fun, and the students were having a good time facing off against each other.

Computer classes have not changed much since I was in them, I remember my computer teacher being a lot more strict, I can tell this teacher is a lot more relaxed because there are students walking in and out, the place is trashed!, and generally no one really listens. The gaming has not changed much, in fact I have spent a lot of this post describing them, there is still network gaming, as the much preferred alternative to school work. Social networking is more prevalent, lots of tweeters, not too many facebookers though, I'm assuming because it might be blocked. I was just basically here for restroom passes and to make sure no one killed themselves, each other, or the equipment.

I would think computer classes might have evolved, I figure kids already have a base knowledge of computers at home, so they shouldn't need a "basic computing class" or "Microsoft Word," so maybe the class is dated, or I'm just out of touch with society.  I suppose if I ever want to catch up on my blogging I will take this class once again, but it has been an enlightening flashback kind of day.