Daily Summaries of Camp Courage

Internet & College Preview Camp 2002

Monday July 15th:

Another year of Internet and College has begun. We are excited to get started using the many computers in the lab just off of Cedar Lake. In this summer’s camp program, we will be using computers to explore the WWW and college opportunities. This morning we began with email, or being able to send electronic messages to ourselves or other DOIT Mentors on a discussion list set up just for camp. This afternoon Jeni Mundl, the technology coordinator at Courage Center, helped us explore careers using the Minnesota Career Information Systems software, in which we answered some questions and the computer found careers we might be interested in. The Advanced Group began work on their multimedia movies with IMovie, which includes hooking a digital video camera to a FireWire port, and creating multimedia presentation, with the use of various effects within the IMovie program.

Tuesday July 16th:

Today we discussed some applications for computers and the internet including search engines, and discussion lists. Aaron then told us about a discussion list he has set up for the campers at camp to exchange messages about the week. After getting everyone's e-mail address, he sent out a message to begin discussion on the list. In the afternoon we were with Jeni Mundl, who showed us some surveillance techniques along with WebCams, and then showed us some of the history behind model rockets before launching a few in the upper REC field. Chris, our technology specialist launched the rockets after a thorough lecture on the unpredictability of these rockets.

Wednesday Jul. 17th: ]

This Morning we watched a video from DOIT showing some young adults' success stories in life on their own. One of the most key things to success is understanding how you learn. We went to a few web sites which gave us some idea of our personalities and learning styles. In the afternoon we discussed some more success strategies for college, and Connie Light gave us some tips on what we can do now, in high school, to prepare ourselves for an easier academic transition to college.

Thursday Jul. 18th:

Today was the big day of our field trip to St. Bens, a college just 30 minutes north of Camp Courage, where we learned a bit about the school itself, got to see what a college campus looks like, and got to try some of the college food, which is surprisingly better than camp food! Being able to look in a dorm gave us the full idea of what the living on campus would be like. We also heard about St. Ben's various programs, including athletics, and majors to get us thinking about the not so distant future.

Friday Jul. 19th:

Today we began the "bare bones" work on our Web pages, including writing our biographies and selecting what we would like up on our web page. We investigated various links and other things to put on our Web pages. In the afternoon we heard from our three interns on the various stages of life after high school, including transition from home to living on your own, the beginnings of independence, starting school, finishing school, and some of the real life challenges involved with each stage.

Saturday Jul. 20th:

We began the day of looking at one of the most challenging aspects of school for student at any age, communicating and advocating for their needs in learning. We were introduced to Dave Burgstahler, an accounting professor at the University of Washington, who gave us a little bit of perspective on the professors’ expectations of students with disabilities. We then role-played various situations in which we had to advocate for ourselves. We learned how to effectively communicate our needs to a professor, with the use of the disabled student services office, or other assistance on campus. In the afternoon, we began looking at the HTML, the background skeleton to any web page, and began putting our page together.

Sunday Jul. 21st:

When he slept in this morning, and then had a demonstration from Kris on what the various wires and pieces of hardware inside a computer do to make it run. We also learn more about our Web pages' accessibility and watched a video on keys to employment. In the afternoon, Roger Upcraft discussed the value of work experience before college and the importance of resumes. We then explored the various places of employment one might find themselves in after completing a degree in a certain field of study in college. From there, we went to a special barbecue, cooked for us by Chris, as a way of celebrating our computer accomplishments at camp this week.

Monday July 22nd:

To wrap up camp this week, we get to kind of let our hair down, and have some fun on the Internet, including a scavenger hunt, where we were given a list of various things to find, and once we found them to write down the URLs. In the afternoon, we demonstrated the start of our web page, and the advanced group demonstrated their movies that they have been working on as well.