NAME:
Mr. Mark Erickson
SCHOOL:
Walsh Middle School
CLASS:
BCIS/Multimedia
SCHOOL PHONE:
512-704-0800x0929
Who am I?
It is an honor and a pleasure for me to be teaching young people here at
Walsh Middle School. I come from a background of many years in aviation
(USAF and major airline) as a manager, pilot and instructor. In addition to
that, I had a short stint as a Public Relations manager before going into the
USAF. I also had my own business as a personal and business coach. After
that career I dabbled in insurance and sales until I got into teaching again
and realized how much I enjoy teaching. I also taught in a couple nonprofit
organizations for several years. Most recently, I taught High School
Chemistry and Middle School Science before coming to Walsh Middle School.
This is my first year teaching BCIS and Multimedia. I am very excited to be
here and look forward to a very engaging, challenging and rewarding year.
Both BCIS and Multimedia will begin the year with basics: keyboarding (used
to be called typing), computer basics, and some HTML coding.
BCIS is a High School credit course and as such I will be gearing my students
up to do High School level work. I know there will be a transition for this,
but I believe they are capable of doing it and I will continue to encourage
them them to step up to that level. BCIS will basically be learning
Microsoft Office. I believe I will follow the lead of other teachers with
more experience and we will work on Microsoft Excel first. The reason they
do this is because it will give the students time to build their typing
skills before moving into Microsoft Word. It is also a little more fun to
learn with the graphs and charts. Then we will work on Microsoft Word,
hoping to finish it by the semester. Second semester we will focus on
Microsoft Access, then Microsoft PowerPoint and finally Microsoft
Publisher. We will cover some other applications as time permits.
Multimedia focus more on the Adobe graphic products where we will do some
projects. The second semester will focus more on video production
applications and video projects.
I have told my students that when they enter my room, they are not
entering a classroom, but a business. Their business is education and my
business is instruction. We are not only here to get credit for a course,
but also to discover attitudes and atributes that make for a successful
business person and a respected team member that is an asset to the
organization -- to any organization.
Vision Statement
My class will be a place of nurturing, compassion, truth, happiness, respect,
creativity, research and self-actualization. All students, staff, and parents
will be inspired to become partners in the quest for knowledge.
Mission
The mission of my class is to provide exemplary education, guidance, and
encouragement to empower all students to reach their individual potential and
become contributing members of a diverse community.
