CEDO540 - Session Four

So I understand the use of this competitive intelligence in data gathering and how it relates to statistics however I'm struggling with it's application to the educational field. I feel that post-secondary education may have more stake in that type of data analysis as there are ever more options for students and it would be interesting to see what keywords and search terms are resulting in hits to a big name school - say UW Madison for instance. Other schools both in and out of Wisconsin could use that type of information to gear their websites to garner more of the market.
However, I still have issue when it comes to applying this weeks material to my position in the educational field. The potential for applying this type of mainstream data analysis would no doubt prove useful in a world where the new mantra is "making data driven decisions" but until the platform exists - HitWise for education per se - this weeks exercises proved interesting but not really applicable.

CEd0540 - Session Three

Ahhhh, the return to work after the lovely vacation. I have to tell you that I really did enjoy working on the survey. Some of my perceptions about teachers and technology were supported and I'm really considering a follow-up to delve a little deeper. Who was it that said "The answer to one question only poses more questions?" OK, that was a really bad revision, but you catch my meaning - I really am wondering how to bridge the gap between great classroom instruction (utilizing technology) and just getting by with what the school requires.
I think about our technology inservice in the fall of the year and it's more about the nuts and bolts of how to get back online if you forgot your passwords over the summer or some new feature of a tool that we've previously used. Our district does offer some great trainings coupled with the time to begin implementation but topics are limited in scope again to what the district/school determines is beneficial. We have a new host for our web site that allows individual access to editing teacher or groups pages and our district currently uses Moodle so those trainings abound.
The problem is, we lack the visionary "look to the horizon" approach to see what's coming (or just recently arrived) so we can gather the energy and excitement. I can talk all I want about Prezi or Animoto and how great they are, but until educators have the opportunity to sit down and create with plenty of time, they won't learn how cool those apps are. (BTW - I did make one teacher sit down and create an Animoto to play behind her as she talked to the high school students about scheduling classes for next year...her first attempt at Animoto!)
But until we can get broad trainings and support for all teachers, then we're limited to an educational field with pockets and islands were great things happen in the realm of technology rather than an ocean of success.

CEdO540 - Session Two

Arggggg... I think I have the z score table figured out and then it escapes me. So I really had no troubles with the first three study guides but the 4th is my challenge right now. I have answers to all of the questions - sometimes two - and therein lies the problem. I'll be emailing Jim or asking tons of questions later tonight!
On to brighter topics. The research and background information on surveys and their creation always leads me to consider ways to incorporate these into my classroom. I currently use Infinite Campus when I want to survey my students on a topic as it automatically posts the next time they log in and keeps appearing until they've completed the survey. I usually survey students at the beginning of the year (looking at why they chose the course, what they expect to learn etc.) and then at the end to evaluation both their and my semester together. Occasionally, when I write new curriculum units, labs, or lessons I'll also post a short survey to gather feedback on how it went from the student perspective.

CEdO540 - Session One

This week was a statistical review and preparation for more data analysis. I really enjoyed looking at the WINSS data through the Wisconsin Department of Instruction web site. I found the site extremely easy to navigate and it was really easy to manipulate the variables to look at many different aspects of education. The site is enhanced with the ability to simply look at general state trends or to focus on specifics. I choose to see if the ACT scores on the science portion showed any gender differences. Many sources cite females lagging behind their male counterparts in science and I wanted to see what the data for my school would bear out. (Results can be found here.)

I have to admit that when thinking about the assignments I kept putting them off due to what I perceived would be tedious, like I remember my last statistics course. What I had forgotten was that I really like mathematical analysis and working with data - so when I finally sat down to start these assignments and guided practice I found myself enjoying playing around in Google Spreadsheet to create a chart (which I had never done before). The YouTube video "What is Statistics" was a bit outdated but the material was still applicable. Simply working through the video identifying problems, describing data collections and conclusions felt very comfortable as I teach science so I felt very much in my element. I may even "steal" the assignment to use with my students when I discuss types of data collections and the scientific method in general as students sometimes have a hard time grasping the real-world relevancy of the textbook presentation.

Facilitating Collaboration - Session Five

Well, to be honest, I haven't been giving class my full attention these past few weeks (hence the tardiness of this post). No excuses though! I loved creating the Ning for my science department (thanks Terry for the idea...) In general, I'm all about being organized - my students swear I have OCD and having things up and running before using them on the job is my usual procedure. But, with the creation of the wiki for my students in forensic science and other (new) topics I'm covering in my classroom, it really feels liberating to say to my students that we'll be tackling some of the material together and that it's new for me too. That's not to say that I can jump into a classroom unprepared, but I no longer feel guilty (not sure if that's the best word) when something doesn't go as I planned or something unforseen pops up. I have been confronted by the students that are out there to push buttons and will ask questions until they trip up the teacher to "prove" how little we know, but I've always been able to handle them with some finesse. It's just that when I've planned a lesson, activity or lab and I haven't anticipated all of the angles, my usual internal response is frustration that I didn't have it perfect. With really focusing on collaboration these past weeks, I've learned to let a little bit of that go and have been able to bring in some activities without hours of preparation and pre-planning attempting to find all of the stumbling blocks ahead of time.
So this week, I've been just working through the immediate task at hand and I've set up my sci dept wiki, invited the other teachers to it, but have yet to see any collaboration. I've run into the same issue with setting up a blog for my staff development team here at school. I started small with both endeavors - for staff development I only invited 3 members and my sci department consists of just 4 others. Everyone is so busy that they really don't want to take the time to learn something new, even if it will benefit them immensely in the near future. (Although I just realized that we have a sci dept meeting today and I may have a captive audience...)

Facilitating Collaboration - Session Four

For the class this week, we're to start a wiki or Ning and I have half a mind to use one that I just created for my Forensic Science final exam. My class has no textbooks and so I often copy off various print sources for my students and provide additional online resources through the class Moodle. When starting this class, I decided to play around with the idea of having the students create the class text in a wiki (Ning is blocked at our school) as their final exam. I set up the wiki and created pages that would be like the chapters in a book. Next, I added members (I created user names and passwords for the students that contained no identifying information in case the wiki is ever made public) and checked to be sure that all students had access. Finally, I assigned students to groups and pages that they would be editing together. During our final exam periods the students created content following a rubric we had put together the previous day. I gave them three days to edit and in the process, students created a few new pages and re-organized the groups while working in etherpad to be sure that each student was contributing. Creating this wiki (I've opened it up to a protected status so that you can see what we're up to) was our trial and error session that I will use to plan out and create a new wiki for facilitating collaboration. I'm hoping to include the podcast I'm working on. I've scripted out an explanation of one of the anatomy labs we do to study the effects of muscle fatigue.

Facilitating Collaboration - Session Three

So this week we worked on RSS feeds, setting up a photo sharing site and thinking about Nings in education. How can they be applied to my school or job? Well, first of all I have to recruit some individuals willing to go out on a limb so to speak and get out of their comfort zones. For example? I started a blog for my teacher development group - we're looking to implement a portfolio component to the high school curriculum - and I invited the three other members of my team (start small, right?) and there has been no action (as you can see here). I'll I've heard back that it was too confusing and hard. It was too much to take in just to keep information accessible. UHHHGGGG!(I feel like Charlie Brown when Lucy pulls the ball away at the last second...)
Soooooo, I must first find a few individuals willing to be daring - OK, open-minded at least - that will succumb to my exploits of engaging their brains. The RSS feeds are easy - I already envision my students blogging (when the sites are unblogged - I mean unblocked)and subscribing to their feeds so that I don't have to search out their individual blogs to find updates (I was wondering how Louie has managed that all of this time.) I also see using feeds when I find cool blogs that I want to follow, like the science ones I found last week. I've also played with the RSS reader account provided by Google and have created a shared page with interesting blogs I follow.
Photo sharing is also an easy incorporation for me. I've been taking photos during my classes and labs - not of the students, but of the labs and activities themselves. I plan to post these as slide shows and use them in video clips (like those we made in Animoto). I want to post them in various places - my school web pages, our Moodle, the Wiki etc. This would make them viewable by those in the class and on the outside - I hope to help parents answer the question "So what did you do in school today?" Now, understand that there wouldn't be updates by day, but an overview of topics and activities.
Finally, I would love to use Ning in our school, but the site is blocked as social networking and I'm having a bit of a time getting our tech crew to adjust and tweak the filters so that the district is maintaining their policies while opening up restrictions in some areas. So I started a wiki in wikispaces (I'd link you to the home page, but it's private right now to "protect" the students) instead.