An Introduction

This blog is to introduce you to the general idea and atmosphere of CPI as a Career and Technical Center. I want people to hear about us, and not in the old “tekker” kind of way. Career and Technical Centers are amazing institutions of learning; students leave here with certifications that adult students pay for. When students graduate they leave skilled workers ready to join the work force, or planning to continue in their field of study through post secondary education. Instructors are skilled and knowledgeable in the fields they teach, and enjoy helping students find a place in the field they have chosen. There is nothing here to make me feel that the old connotation of “tekker” holds true.

So over the next year, I hope you will follow along and see what happens in my classroom, what students are doing, where they are going, and how they plan to get there. I’ll also be allowing students to blog along with me, so you can get their side of the story too. My main goal is to educate and inform the general public about what we do here and how we do it. I hope to be entertaining, and humorous, but most of all I hope to be honest. It’s not always easy, and it’s not always fun, but it is ALWAYS worth it.

Best Regards,

Yana Boyd

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Attacked by Christmas toys? That's strange.

December is always an interesting month in our class room. There is an air of excitement flowing around the room in anticipation of the approaching Holidays. Sometimes students can get lazy around this time of year and begin to slack on class effort. In order to escape this classroom disease I had to come up with a way to keep it from entering our atmosphere.

So when we returned from Thanksgiving break I gave my afternoon students a choice: continue on the book work and get through our Illustrator and Photoshop lessons or start a new project. I am not going to pretend I thought there was an actual choice here, but I like to give options. “PROJECT” was pretty much screeched back at me the minute it left my mouth. GREAT! Truth be told, I like project work as much as they do.

The two projects I assigned will also be used in the PA Computer Fair. The second year students are creating a book cover for a short story of their choice using their acquired skills in Illustrator. The third year students are creating a Poster for a cause of their choice using their existing knowledge of Photoshop. This is a twist on projects I have given to previous classes, normally I choose the short stories and cause that I ask them to focus on, but because of the Computer Fair I wanted the students to be fully immersed in the work. Nothing allows for possible drowning like letting them choose their own topics.

Now it’s “Go Time”… research, research, research, thumbnails, roughs, comprehensive and finals. I am looking forward to seeing their ideas for each project. I required a one to two page paper with a synopsis of the story or cause they had decided on, and every student picked something different. This means the critique board should be crowded with a huge diversity of styles and design direction. We plan to critique these two days before Christmas break begins. This critique will be intense, and that is the way I like it. I hope everyone is adequately prepared.

The next day is our Christmas Party which I look forward to every year. We are planning a White Elephant Gift Exchange. I think it’s going to be so much fun. We will be having pizza which my students won from SKILLS USA Can Drive. And then, as every year since I started teaching, we will all sit on the floor with blankets, pillows, and party munchies and watch “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and talk about the brilliance of Tim Burton.

I love the Holidays. 
Mrs. Boyd
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