Hello everyone, I'm your live on the razor's edge, laugh in the face of death, Education Technology Teacher at Blue Grass Baptist School.

For those of you not familiar with me, I was the history teacher at BGBS for the last ten years.  This year I have been laterally transferred to the Technology Department and Mr. Michael Frick is now my replacement as the history teacher.  He was an excellent replacement for me since he has a Master's Degree in History Education.  I wish him well and look forward to seeing him "go where no other history teacher has gone before."

As for myself, I have a Master's Degree from Boise State University in Education Technology where I took coursework in every type of offline and online technology education you can imagine, from Instructional Design to teaching in virtual worlds.



This year at BGBS I hope to have a blast with kids all the way from the elementary level through high school. Since we are winding up our first week of school, we have already been hard at work getting passwords and accounts for your students as well as getting our "fingers dirty" in technology.  My younger students are already learning all of the components of the computer as well as how to use word processors and all of the little buttons, sliders, and doo-dads that are on them.

All of my older students are going to get the basic diet of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel.  I have already ordered Corel's PaintShop Pro so that the students will get to use a powerful graphic program that is very similar to Adobe's Photoshop minus the extremely large price tag Photoshop comes with. The school has already purchased the license for these programs and I will be uploading the programs to our 25 computers as soon as I can.  (Probably this weekend.)  Also, in the High School this year, I want to teach them how to start making and editing video so that they can make a documentary.

All of this will be coming hard and fast as the year gets rolling along, so stay tuned to this blog for more great Ed-Tech news!

God Bless & Peace Out!
Mark Ellis
Education Technology Teacher
BGBS