New Tech Standards & Requirement

The first standard I’d like to address is actually the 6^th – Technology Operation and Concepts.  I work with schools now for my job with the American Heart Association.  I’m constantly told by teachers in schools in all communities, even some affluent ones, that many kids don’t have access to technology.  

First, I find that hard to believe in this day and age, and second – this has to change!  I think all kids should have access to technology in the classroom and be able to use it.  Here are some strategies I would implement in a middle or high school science classroom to cover this standard:

·      make use of spreadsheets in my lab classes so students get the basics of how to use, create basic formulas, etc

·      have plenty of use of desktop or laptop computers to get the basics of the operating system (Mac or Windows depending on the district I’m in) and how to “get around” in that environment

·      Cover the use of basic USB devices that interface with the computer as we may be using devices to interface with the computer to take readings for labs.

Another standard of interest to me is Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making.  Any student that has a good grasp on making technology work for them in these areas has a leg up in the working world.  Some things I might do here in class are:

·      Again, using spreadsheets to collect and analyze data – I think spreadsheets are underused by most people and are very powerful analysis tools.  I would do many activities in class where we use different strategies to look at data.

·      I would go over how to pull abstracts from library websites and talk about what are appropriate websites for collecting research on scientific topics, but also general topics as well.

·      From the point above, I would also go over how to find alternative resources and maybe do an exercise where each student explores a different website for the same topic we are learning about.

Lastly, I’d like to look at Communication and Collaboration.  This is one of the most important reasons to employ technology and that what most of use use the internet for – to communicate with one another.  In class, I could:

·      Have students do a collaborative research assignment with a school in another country or state closely connected with the topic.

·      Showcase a variety of tools such as Screenr, Teamviewer, Skype and other common tools for communication and collaboration so that kids get familiar with them

As I mentioned in the beginning, a hurdle we face is the accessibility of technology in the home.  Students that can go home and get on the family computer (or personal laptop in many cases) will have much more practice at using these tools learned in the classroom.  How do we overcome this “digital divide”?  I think there are a few options:

·      Allow more time at school for technology

·      After school computer clubs and workshops

·      Buddy system – partner kids with computers with kids without computers to work together after school

·      Get information to families about accessing their local library for computer access

Analyzing Student Data in a Spreadsheet

I use spreadsheets pretty frequently at work and have been intrigued by them for years.  Though all the tasks required for this assignment were already familiar to me, I found I rather enjoyed the Google Doc spreadsheet as I have only used Excel.  I found the Google manifestation of the spreadsheet very nicely laid out and easy to use.  My only challenge was in how to publish and post the worksheet and graphs, but thanks to Barry's tutorials and his later revision instructions to publishing, I was able to complete the task.

But, even old dogs can learn new tricks and though I knew how to create formulas, there's always more than one way to skin a cat.  I normally choose the formula from the Sum button on the Excel tool bar, but in Barry's tutorial I learned that you can just start typing right in the cell "=Med..." and the Median formula pops up.  So, that was handy.  I will add one little trick I know which Barry didn't share (maybe the student has one up on the master?) and that is auto-formatting column width.  Barry showed us how to size all columns at once by selecting them all and then dragging the edge of one column to the size that you want.  However, and I found this works in Google Docs as it does in Excel, after you have all columns highlighted, you can double-click the edge of one and all columns will automatically size around the data inside them so that the widest cell in that column sets the bar, so to speak, for the column.  You'll notice in my spreadsheet that my columns are different widths depending on the data inside.  Of course, one can also format the cells in the column to "wrap text" so that even if the column is more narrow than the data inside, the cell will cut off the data at column width and stretch the cell vertically to allow the text to continue just below, in the same cell.


I found charting in Google docs to be much easier than Excel and Barry's tutorial really explained well the simplest way to create charts. When I do this task for work, which I don't do often, I usually have a couple of attempts before I get the chart I want. Google Docs makes it a simpler process by walking you through collecting just the data you want analyzed in the chart.

Chart A - Sometimes, having your bar graph run horizontally versus vertically shows off your data even better, especially when you have more data in the y column than the x.  This shows that virtually all students improved, as expected, from Pre-test to Post-test except Joel.  I would assume Joel felt he knew the material well since he performed so well on the pre-test, and maybe didn't pay attention well during the subsequent lessons.  Joel also had less than perfect attendance so he may have missed the days when material he was less familiar with was covered.

Chart B - Here we see the percent increase Post-test over Pre-test.  Victor obviously had the largest gains and seeing as the median score was well below a failing grade, the class had lots of room for improvement.  This chart is rather skewed because of Victors, well, victory!  But the rest of the class all improved as can be seen by the median and average scores of the Post-test.  With an A average for the class, I would assume victory myself with this lesson.  I would remind Joel, however, that even when we think we know the material already, we need to pay attention and maybe take a bigger role in teaching others.  This will help him engage further with the material.

Chart C - The students generally performed well on all the Formatives.  Interestingly, all students percentage-wise scored the same Formative 2 vs Formative 3.  For example, KayLynn and Jordan both scored 80% on each.  There were a couple, Rut and Lauren who did quite well on Formative 1 but substantially worse on Formatives 2 and 3.  I would focus a bit more attention on those two after seeing the results of the second formative to make sure the material was "gelling" with them.  Everyone else either did equally well on all 3 or showed increase in score from 1 to 3.

Screenr-TeamViewer

This is a brief presentation on TeamViewer, the remote-client and presentation tool highlighting the general operations, usage and applications of the program.

Personal Productivity Tools

I really enjoyed learning about these three awesome personal productivity tools: TinyURL, DropBox, and Teamviewer.  I have already started using them.

First, I have been curious about this TinyURL thing for a while.  I’ve mainly seen these URLs popping up in tweets and I had thought this was a Twitter-specific URL address.  Now I understand – since tweets can only be 140 characters, and many links are longer than that, Tweeter’s use this service to shorten them to a tweet-friendly URL.  I can see this being a time saver in the classroom if you are creating handouts for kids to take home with URLs.  Shortening some longer URLs will make it much less likely to make mistakes when copying.

I have downloaded DropBox and plan on adding the iPhone app as well as, for work especially, I would like to be able to access docs on my phone to show clients in the field.  This awesome service allows one to have a DropBox folder on each computer (or smart phone) they may have.  These folders will sync with one another so you always have the latest edit of your document wherever you may be computing.  Plus, you can log into the DropBox website and access docs online as well, if you are on a friend’s or library computer.  This will be a great service for the classroom because a teacher as they can sync documents with the school computer and home rather than copy files to an easy to lose thumb drive.

Lastly, there is Teamviewer.  This app allows a user to log into a peer’s computer to help assist with a computing problem, make a presentation to several viewers remotely, or collaborate remotely in real-time.  I found out about this app in our EDUC 520 Adobe Connect session in week one, and that weekend I used it to help my aunt with some tech issues.  It worked great, my only complaints were that it was a little hard to read her screen on my small MacBook screen, and for some reason my mouse appeared as this awkward striped block which made it hard to accurately direct my mouse on her computer.  Other than that, it worked great.  I’ve also used GoToMyPC and LogMeIn which worked well too.  Teamviewer would be valuable to a teacher to help with students schoolwork if they cannot come to school for some reason.  Or, to hold an after hours homework help session with students being able to log in and see the teacher’s screen as he or she worked through some tough problems or other assignments.

I can definitely see using all three of these powerful little apps in my classroom.

What is Cloud Computing and Web2.0?

I've been hearing much about cloud computing, less about Web 2.0, in the news and was thrilled to find out I'M ALREADY IN THE CLOUD! Basically, the "cloud" is a network of servers and computers housed on the internet, with multiple redundant backup where personal files, application and many computing services reside. iTunes might be an example of this because as I download music on my laptop, my personal list of tunes is also stored on iTunes servers. This is how I can access my playlists from another computer simply by logging into iTunes. Google Docs are another example of cloud-based applications. Rather than editing and storing a document on my laptop, I can start, edit and store a document in Google Docs. Lastly, services like Picasa let me store my valuable photos of my daughter without fear of my laptop crashing and losing her history. With the multiple redundancy of cloud servers, I know my pictures are safe. Here's one of my favorites my daughter took of me

 I can also see that moving into the future we can probably have smaller and smaller devices for personal computing as space will not be an issue with most of our applications and personal files stored, not on our laptops or desktops with massive memory, but on cloud servers with practically unlimited storage.

Google Reader Project

Our EDUC 520 Team 2 created a presentation on Google Reader - Google's application which allows the user to subscribe to various news feeds and blogs all in one place.  

In this presentation you will find:

• A brief description of Google Reader and a few of its key features
• How this tool could be used to improve productivity or enhance teaching/learning
• Our team's reflections on this tool and how we might use it
• Resource links where one can learn more about Google Reader

For this project, I helped share how this tool can be useful by being able to subscribe to "bundles" of news feeds - several feeds on the same topic.  I also provided a YouTube site on how a fellow science teacher utilized this application.  Last, I shared my reflections on how I might use this in a science setting and also a drawback in that I could see it also quickly becoming overwhelming if one doesn't manage their subscriptions.

As a science teacher, I can see this as being a great time saving tool in that I can subscribe to multiple science related RSS feeds so I'm keeping up on current events for class discussions.  Also, I can share the latest research on topics we may be covering in class.  And, my students could use it to subscribe to all their teacher's blogs and keep up with classes in that manner.

At first I didn't really get the uniqueness of this application as it is very similar to MyYahoo personal page.  There, I've also subscribed to many RSS feeds on science topics and other topics of personal interest to me.  However, I'm not sure one can subscribe to blogs on MyYahoo.  Sometimes in the Google environment, I'm not sure where I am or how to quickly get to another area.  So, I'm still getting more acquainted with the Google world.

I hope you enjoy our presentation and can take something from it to make Google Reader work for you!

Post # 3 - Reflection on Welcome Activity

As mentioned in “Did You Know”, the internet only took 4 years to reach 50 million people and now with the prevelance of smart phones, that virtual landscape is accessible to billions of people world wide.  Due to this, we as teachers have many more tools in our tool belt to share information with students, and for students to share information with each other.  As mentioned in the “Vision for 2011” video, we no longer have a choice of whether or not we want to participate in the digital community.  However, In my work with schools and students with my job in school fundraising projects, I have come to realize too how many students in our state still don’t have access to this technology.  Many do not have cable TV, computers, let alone smart phones.  So, while my philosophy of teaching embraces incorporating the digital world into my classroom, I also struggle with how not to disenfranchise my lower income, non-digital students.