Zach's first conference at Wilostar

Zach has just finished his first conference at Wilostar and he is the happiest I have seen him in months.  He had some initial difficulties joining the conference and let me know how dumb the whole world is, but once he got on, everything sailed for the next 2 hours, while I vigorously washed my cupboard doors in the adjoining kitchen and tricked the dogs into NOT seeing the mailman come by.

After years of playing MMORPGs (e.g., WOW) and MMOG virtual playgrounds (e.g., Roblox), Zach has the self-taught skill set to be immediately comfortable in the virtual classroom.  Who says that gaming is a waste of time?  At the virtual conference, students and the teacher talked to each with instant messaging, which displayed speech balloons above their avatars and ran the conversation in a dialogue box at the bottom of the screen.  It looked like a lot going on, but Zach is used to instant messaging, especially in Roblox, and using Skype to augment this. 

Later, the class broke into pairs and began rewriting a fairy tale bringing in technology.  Zach got a chance to work and chat with a new friend, who I'll call D.  He was happy to exchange essentials with D like citizenship, ancestory, what courses they're taking, and tips on managing study hall.  Zach was really pleased with the story they created.  When he was finished, the students went to study hall to finish up assignments and work on Teaching Textbooks math.  Zach was positively elated saying several times how fun it was.  Wait....did I hear him right?  Did my boy say fun? 

I was most interested in his comments as to how horrible and long this assignment (not an atypical one) would have been in the classroom.  He said he would have had to write down all his ideas and this would have taken forever, and he would have used small words and a simpler plot to cut down on the writing (i.e., writing stamina issues).  He said it was great to have the two of them writing on the computer, able to get down all their ideas, use big words, and to work efficiently without lengthy hand-written rewrites. 

I am never sure of just how much Zach is affected by his writing stamina.  The very fact that he would volunteer this virtual school versus bricks and mortar school comparison of a paired (or group) writing assignnment, gives me more insight into the extent of his writing limitations. 

I'm soooo happy to have him on the computer along with every other student at his virtual school, without needing an IEP and a "special equipment allowance" (SEA in Ontario) for a computer or the need to help bolster his confidence in using equipment that no one else in the class has and enduring all the probing questions as to why he is the only one.