It’s been a bit since I last posted a reflection on a week of Xcelerate. I had a small vacation over the first week of July. No classes were scheduled because of the Independence Day holiday.
During that small break, I was hoping to catch up on rest and get some other work done. I definitely caught up on rest, so much so that it feels like I’m starting over on my morning routine. As for the other work that I wanted to get done, I didn’t accomplish as much as I would have liked. Alas, my vacation ended, and it was time to get back to summer camp business.
This week brought me back to the computer lab. That always has its pros and cons. There was definitely a lot less set up and clean up than I was having to do in the previous week with painting and cupcakes. That’s definitely a pro. It was also nice to be in the same place all day, not having to travel between buildings while trying to squeeze in my lunch.
The class was about designing worlds, structures, skins and the like for the game Minecraft. I’ve never played Minecraft before. I don’t really know anything about it, other than the fact that the kids love it. This fact made me a little uneasy. It’s never fun to not be able to answer questions as well as I’d like.
In order to combat some of this, I asked for a flash drive with the programs the kids would be using, and the instructor was nice enough to send me PDFs of the lesson plans. Looking these over before the classes kept me more prepared. It was easier to manage.
I’m still not sure how I feel about Minecraft after all of this. It doesn’t seem like my sort of thing. The lesson on command blocks was the easiest for me to grasp out of it all because it’s essentially writing computer code. This is a subject that I’ve definitely had experience in through several other camps at this point.
There are only two weeks left of Xcelerate 2017. I’m approaching the home stretch!
Haley Noelle Cummings 