Tech-no-lo-gy™

From the Possibly-Being-Salutatorian Dept.: I met with the speech teacher on Wednesday, and she explained to me the basics of writing a graduation speech. It's got to run for a few good minutes, during which I should talk about the things that have happened to our class in such a way that everyone in the audience can identify with. Or something like that. I've written a couple of sentences so far, so I'm going to need some more time to refine things. I'm supposed to meet with the teacher again on Monday for her to revise the speech and give me some pointers on public speaking. On Thursday, we find out who the valedictorian and salutatorian will be, and those lucky kids will then deliver their speeches to the speech teacher's class. Till then, I've got some writing to do.

Last week, Mr. Mumtaz told me that he was going to submit his web site as a GLIDES project. GLIDES (Global Learning Initiative through Digital Education for Students) is a program that some of the teachers at school participate in. It's a semester-long project in which a class addresses a central question related to their curriculum by making videos and stuff with Apple® products. So it was kind of a shock that Mr. Mumtaz would decide that his web site that he uses to teach his classes would make a good GLIDES (sponsored by Apple®) project. Most of the students aren't really involved in the creation of the site, although Mr. Mumtaz has asked me to proofread things a few times.

Thursday was GLIDES (sponsored by Apple®) day. In the afternoon, Mr. Mumtaz gathered the students he had chosen to explain the web site and how it involved technology and stuff. Kenny, Gilbert, Kortney, Amanda, and I were each asked to speak for a few minutes about an aspect of the site and how it tied into the classes Mr. Mumtaz taught. Gilbert wrote my speech for me, and he and Kenny decided to ad lib. Eventually, the time for the presentations came, and the auditorium was filled with... mostly students, but also teachers from other schools and maybe the occasional school-board hot-shot. First, someone came up and thanked Apple® for their involvement. Each class had about two people explaining their project briefly in a tightly scripted speech. Yes, tightly scripted and heavily rehearsed. As Mr. Mumtaz would say, we were in Barney Rubble. (Don't know how he picked that one up.)

Anyway, it seemed that we were going to be onstage for much too long explaining this web site that didn't even seem to have the makings of a GLIDES (sponsored by Apple®) project. We spoke pretty nervously onstage, it seemed, but we didn't falter much, even though I took most of what Kenny was going to say in my speech that Gilbert wrote for me. When we had finished talking about the web site to the audience, it was announced that the school was on lockdown due to a chemical spill or something nearby. After a couple of minutes, the lockdown was over, and everyone in the auditorium proceeded to the library, where people's GLIDES (sponsored by Apple®) projects were available for viewing on Apple® Mac®s and Apple® iPod®s. Mr. Mumtaz's table was very small and hidden behind a bookshelf where no one could see. We didn't get many interested parties coming around to see the web site in action. My job was to play the Space Invaders clone I helped make in Programming class and explain to anyone who was interested that there was a tutorial on the web site that was of use to us when making the game (actually, I had written the tutorial that morning).

Thursday night was the senior awards. Stay tuned for the details on how that went.

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