My name is Mike Sagan. I am a Computer Applications and Desktop Publishing / Graphic Design teacher at Angelo Rodriguez High School, in Fairfield, Ca. My email address is mikesa@fsusd.k12.ca.us.

I am using TRGC 2.1 with my 9th grade Computer Applications students because I believe that the 9th grade is the perfect year for teenagers to begin thinking about what they plan on doing after high school. I have been teaching high school now for 8 years, and I've come to realize that a frightening number of teenagers stumble through High School with the notion that they are there because they "have to be there," and when they graduate, they still have no idea what they want to do with themselves. My classes, especially my Computer Application class, are designed to give teenagers the skills they need on a Windows based computer to be successful in any academic or employment endeavor they wish to persue. Therefore, The Real Game California Online fits beautifully, not only into my computer lab, but into my curriculum in general.

I am really looking forward to an exciting semester with TRGC 2.1 online!

1/13/10 First day of TRGC 2.1 Online with my students

Today was a short day, but it gave is just enough time for my students to login, read the first screen in My Zone, then work on completing the World of Work Survey.

2/18/10

Today represents the 8th class day in which we will be working on TRGC. So far, we have completed The Presession, and we will be finishing with Unit 1 today - Making a Living. As far as I can read from my students, they really seem to enjoy the curriculum so far. This could be partly because it takes them from strictly focusing on Microsoft Office for a while, but I think that this is only a small part of their enthusiasm.

I have given my students two homework assignments in relation to TRGC. The first assignment was mostly as a means of giving them something with which to work during our next class period, and that was for them to find two job offering advertisements, either within the local newspaper or online, and bring them into class. They were also to find and circle within those ads any of the following words: listening, speaking, writing, interpersonal, responsibility, leadership, reasoning, decision-making, or negotiating / negotiate / negotiation.

Each of the words they were tasked to find came directly from the TRGC glossary, and represented transferrable skills. When they brought the work in, we discussed as a class from what subjects in school they were honing each of these skills. It was an enlightening experience for them because they came to realize, some for the first time, just how important all of their classes were in direct relation to their future.

Today, we are doing a meet and greet within their respective neighborhoods, and each student will stand in front of the class and introduce him/herself as his/her role profile. Hopefully, this will result in a feeling of inclusion for each of the students, as well as a sense of community within the class. The last thing we will be doing (their homework tonight), will be to draw their vision of their home so that they may place it on the wall in the back of the classroom along with their Role Profile Activity Poster. I will also be placing black butcher paper on the wall for each of their "hoods," as well as trees, and maybe a park. This will be the physical representation of their communities.

Updates to come...

3/18/2010

Once again, it has been a month since I last updated, and much has happened with my students during that time. Currently, we are on Unit 2, Lesson 3 - The Financial Picture, and we'll be doing that lesson today.

I have noticed that, since this is my first time doing TRGC, my pacing isn't as efficient as it probably should be. However, my students are also learning Excel, PowerPoint , and keyboarding at the same time that they are doing this curriculum, so I'm sure that has much to do with my perceived pacing issues. I also find thatI spend a great deal of time expanding, and sometimes expounding, upon the current lesson, but I also believe that what I am doing is giving my 9th graders the benefit of my 20+ years experience living as a married adult, therefore enriching the program's content.

When last I commented, my class was finishing with Unit 1, and the lesson they were doing was Who am I, Who are You. I did what I thought was a very effective lesson in adult conversation preceded by mature and respectful introductings. The lesson was for the students to first make a business card in MS Word for their role profile, print 10 copies (1 sheet), then walk around the room for about 25 minutes introducing themselves to the other students, and trying to find those that met the criteria found in the activity sheet provided by TRGC.

This lesson was very good for two specific reasons. The first reason was that it gave me the opportunity to instruct 14 and 15 year-old students in the art of correct and respectful personal introduction and, more importantly, hand-shaking. That was great! The second this lesson was great was because it forced the students to immerse themselves within their role profiles.

Next, my students did Lesson 2.1 - After Work, and they discovered how important it is to learn to properly budget their time. Many thought they were too busy already, but when they realized what was involved in truly living for themselves, they came to understand why it is that many adults are often tired, and why it is that their parents get aggitated with them when they fail to get their chores done. This lesson was really a maturing insight into what it means when adults tell them to "grow-up!"

The very best lesson to date, however, was "Reality Check." I had two students have the "a-ha" moment I was hoping more would have. They spoke to their parents, as I had suggested, about how difficult it was to properly budget their income each month in order to pay their bills, save for a rainy day, and still somehow manage to break-even. One student, who's role profile is Lawyer, ended-up having to take the bus to work, live in the 1910 bungalo home, and have a used computer until her mom had helped her analyze her budget further and find areas of expenses that really were wasteful. When they were done working together (at home), the student had upgraded herself to a 1 room apartment, a small car, and a new computer! She told me that she has so much more respect now for what it is that her parents, and all adults, have to go through in order to "make ends meet." That was precisely what the lesson was written to accomplish.

Below is the verbage of the exercises I did with my class today:

Activity 1: Get into your neighborhoods and talk amongst yourselves about what you discovered about your monthly budget. Each of you will need to talk briefly about the greatest difficulty you had to overcome in order to make your budget work, and the nicest think you discovered about what you could afford with your budget. We'll spend about 10 minutes doing this.

Activity 2: Now, you'll tour the room and visit one other person in another neighborhood. First, you'll introduce yourself to the person you are visiting with a proper introduction (name and handshake), and then you'll need to find out four bits of information about that person:
1) How much more or less they take home (Net Pay) each month than you do.
2) How much they spend on their housing and transportation compared to how much you spend.
3) How much they save each month, and whether or not it is enough to save for 3 months of unemployment by
the end of one year.
4) What one thing they wish they had the money to afford based upon the items found within their wish list.
Be sure to include your name and role profile at the top-right of the page, their name and role profile on the first and second lines of the page, then write the answers to each of the four questions above, being sure to number them according to the question being answered (i.e., 1-4). Leave a blank line between each answer so that it is easy to read. Turn this in to the homework box before the end of the period. 20 points!

Activity 3: The Dream Cloud. Once you've completed activity 2, open the Dream Cloud Worksheet from the share drive, read the instructions, then complete the sheet. You'll need to print this sheet today before you leave because, for homework, you'll complete the worksheet and return it to me on Monday, 3/22. This is worth 30 points!

I have attached the worksheet mentioned in Activity Three, and it is called 2.3 - Dreamcloud Worksheet.doc.

Updates to come...

5/19/2010

It has surely been a long time since I've updated this site with the goings-on in my class, but it late is better than never, I guess. Since I last journaled about TRGC Online, I completed a PowerPoint Project entitled "What I Want To Be When I Grow Up," and I completed lesson 2.4 - Getting Away.

Below is the information about the PowerPoint Project:

PowerPoint Research Project and Presentation - What I Want To Be When I Grow Up! This will be a major research project that will culminate in a PowerPoint Presentation that you'll give to the class in late April. What you'll be researching is the occupation you see yourself doing in 10 years, and how you see your lifestyle as a result of your occupation, and your income. You'll have to research the occupation from the list of occupations available from The Real Game California Occupation Guide, and then you'll have to develop a whole role profile for yourself based upon the role profile found within the guide.

Here are the specifications for your project:

- Your Project will be a minimum of 20 slides, and no more than 25.

- Title Slide - You must have a title slide identifying

o who you are,

o your age in 10 years,

o your occupational goal,

o a picture representing your occupation.

This slide must be colorful, with a full-color background, a colorful title (white is okay if it fits with your color scheme), and may not have any animations. A Transition, however, is perfectly fine.

- Your Education - Give me at least 2 slides identifying the education you'll need in order to have your chosen occupation, what school you would prefer to attend, and why you chose that school. You must have at least one picture of the chosen school on each of the slides. Be sure to identify the degree that you would need to obtain in order to have your chosen occupation.

- A Day In Your Life - Give me at least 4 slides describing a typical day in your life. What time do you wake up? What time do you typically get to work? Where (State, City) do you work? What do you do when you are at work? When do you get off from work? What do you do in a typical evening? What time do you get to sleep?

- Workin' For The Weekend! In 3-4 slides, describe what you like to do for fun on the weekends! What are your hobbies? Where do you like to go? Do you participate in any sports? Boy/Girlfriend? Photography? Do you work as a DJ? The last slide in this series must identify, using a spreadsheet from MS Excel, how much money all of your activities cost! Remember that any kind of entertainment is going to cost some money, even if it is just in gas getting to and from the activity. Remember that you need to eat, and that eating out costs more than eating at home! Identify the expense by name in one column, then identify the cost of the item in another column.

- Describe Your Lifestyle - In 4-5 slides, identify your lifestyle in full detail. What kind of home do you have? Do you live in an apartment, condo, home, trailer, with a friend? How do you get around? Do you have a Car, motorcycle, minivan, bicycle? Do you use public transportation? Do you wear fine clothing, or do you buy your clothes from stores like Wal-Mart, or Kohls? What kind of gadgets do you have? Do you have a tower computer, or a laptop? When you describe each of these items, you must provide a picture for each, describe why you made the choice you made, and how much these items will cost you to buy, and to own. Remember, a TV costs you one time when you buy it, but the service costs you monthly! The same holds true with your cell phone, your car, and your computer (Internet).

- Adding it all up! Now that you've decided on how you live, budget it all out! Using the template provide in MS Excel, calculate your monthly budget. You'll enter your income and deductions using the pay-stub from The Real Game, and then you'll identify and account for each of your monthly expenses. Though this Excel worksheet will not be available for you until after Spring Break, you'll need to keep track of how much you are spending the same as you did in "Reality Check" in The Real Game! We'll go over this part in class, and how the Worksheet will work for you after Spring Break. This portion will be 4 slides - 2 slides for the budget worksheet, and 2 slides describing how you had to make your budget work. Remember the rule of 3 – You must have enough money saved each month so that, by the end of 1 year, you have a 3-month unemployment buffer! The magic numbers are housing and transportation.

Conclusion - In 2 slides, tell the class what you learned from this exercise. Are you looking forward to the day you can live the way you mapped it out in this project? Did you discover that your dream occupation, though what you want to do, isn't really able to support your dream lifestyle, or is it the other way around? This project will be worth a total of 150 points, and the rubric for the project is available below.

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

PowerPoint Presentation Grading Rubric

The 2.4 - Getting Away lesson was a bit taxing on my students, but they were able to complete it in two regular class periods, and I had them complete a worksheet along with their vacation discoveries. The worksheet is attached.

Any questions, please don't hesitate to comment!