Wicked Problem Project Presentation

 

Wicked Problem
 I teach a sixth grade typing course. At the beginning of the year, the program that the district uses as their instructional tool did not work at any of the schools in the district. It also didn't include an assessment tool that teacher found acceptable. Furthermore, the tool that teachers did like did not have the capability to record and store student data.

• Want more? See my original blog posting HERE.

Wicked Solution
 I found a free website that assists in the instruction of proper typing skills. In order to record their scores I worked hard to get students eligible to participate in the districts new Google accounts, and then instructed them on the use of various Google applications, but first using Google Spreadsheets as a means to record their scores. Not only were students now able to work from home, but all their data could be shared with all stakeholders including the students themselves, teachers, and their parents.

• Want more? See my original blog posting HERE. 

Wicked Connection to TPACK
TP - Reporting scores with Google Spreadsheets allows ALL stakeholders to view the data. It also creates a much cleaner workspace that is accessible in multiple locations.

TC - Technology improved the instruction of my content by allowing my classroom to exist in many places. It also enhanced my content because I ended up teaching students how to use various web 2.0 tools including Google Drive applications and blogging that I would not have otherwise covered in my classroom.

PC - I switched from using Microtype to TypingWeb and Typing Test in order to allow students to work on their improving their content skills right away. This change also allowed me to extend the classroom to any place with an internet connection.

• Want more? See my original blog posting HERE. 

Professional Learning Plan

You can skip the following video and read my comments about my PLN, or you can simply watch me talk about it!


As a student in the Masters in Teaching and Curriculum program, and also working towards a personal goal of earning a certificate for teaching with technology, I have followed two major goals: obtaining skills to enhance the learning experience for my students, and increasing my own personal efficacy as a teacher. I have had the opportunity to work in environments where technology was readily available, and in environments where technology was near non-existent.
While enrolled in CEP 810 in the fall of 2011, I identified some specific goals I had for myself as far as my use of technology as an educator is concerned.

• I wanted to stop simply using technology as a presentation tool I myself used, and start having students be the main users of the technology.
• I wanted to begin to re-purpose technology originally meant for other uses in order to incite student interest and to improve my own instruction.
• I wanted to transform my class websites from being a storage place of class materials to a forum for collaboration.
• By using Google Docs (Now known as Drive)
• I wanted to increase my social media presence.
• I wanted to begin the process of creating flipped instruction.

Most of the goals I set for myself at that time have been either fulfilled or partially fulfilled. I now use technology to present my classroom instruction nearly every day, but I also ask my students to respond to me using the same technology technology. For example, my daily warm ups are presented on our course site, and students must navigate to the warm up themselves in order to respond.

 

In addition to using my course site in a more interactive way, I have implemented the use of Google Docs. First, I instructed students on how to use docs one-on-one. Then I taught students to create their own docs. And now my students are creating docs from templates, on their own, and collaborating in groups of 1-30 students. We have done so much collaboration that several times Google has actually maxed out our documents and put students on a waiting list to participate.

This is a Google Spreadsheet my student uses to keep track of their typing scores.

This is a picture of a Google Doc I downloaded. Every student wrote what they thought on here, and then they responded to one another. In 5 minutes of work, 19 7th graders wrote a seven page document.

This student made their own post card using a template provided to them through Google Presentation

In order to make my instruction so tech based, and to get my students using the same technology, I have had to do a lot of instruction on how to use the technology. The thing about that is that everyone learns at very different paces in this regard particularly, and a lot of comfort in using technology is based on repetition. As such, I wanted my instruction to be such that students could make me go back and re-explain things. The best way to do that was to make recordings and screen casts, and that is exactly what I have done. In fact, there have been days that I had to go to meetings and I still gave instructions and/or lectures through the magic of the internet.

This is an assignment I have students while I was out. In the video at the top, I did a screencast where I went through the process (again) of how to use the program, and then talked a little bit about the assignment and the content that is involved in it. The "Post Card" above is the end product of this assignment.

With less success, I have begun to re-purpose technology for the classroom. I am currently working with another teacher to create an interactive whiteboard using Wii remotes and an IR pen. We have been delayed in our project first from being an a waiting list for the IR pen for about an month, and then when our shared LCD projector was stolen. We now have everything in place and have begun testing, but have not gotten everything quite right yet. I have also been experimenting with using cell phones in the classroom, but have experienced some difficulty with reception. At this point, using web based questionnaires and quizzes seems to be much more reliable.

I have mostly failed to create a social media presence. I felt I was communicating a great deal through my course page and mass email, and at that point social media did not seem like a platform I would gain much from. At this time, that is no longer a goal of mine, but I will continue to evaluate that status in the future.

As I move forward, I want to continue to develop and advance these goals. I am also going to begin to commit a lot more time to collaborating with other teachers in order to create my flipped instruction. I have always believed that two heads are better than one, and now that I feel more comfortable in my own skin as an educator, I think I can begin to share myself and embrace the identity of others as well. I will mostly complete this work with coworkers on site, but I may also look to my personal support network, and the greater network of social studies and technology educators as well.

Support Group Map from a previous course

Group Leadership Final Project

My group has been working with Google throughout our creative process. We specifically decided that we wanted to focus on effective uses of Google Forms, Google Spreadsheets, and Google Presentation. We wanted to share some of our findings with our peers, and so we decided to create a presentation. We worked together in live time using Google Hangout and creating our presentation by making a Google Presentation (Google's version of PowerPoint). Each of us used texts and images in order to populate our slides. Most of our images were generated from screenshots taken of our work in the applications. We put it all together use a combination of Jing and Screencast-O-Matic. We did this because it allowed us to each have our voices in there, but also combine all of our videos into one. Throughout the presentation, each of us used visuals, text, graphics, and oral strategies to demonstrate the applications.

Working with a people online is a unique experience. I have done group work online before, but never as collaborative as this assignment. Video chatting and real time collaboration (not to mention merged together) is fundamentally changing peoples ability to meaningfully collaborate in cyberspace. Prior to beginning this course, as well as this assignment, I had never used Hangout, nor most of the tools our group covered. Now, I am working to educate others (including explicit instruction in my 6-8 class) on how to use them.

In the future I might go about making my final presentation differently. We searched for a free open source we could work on together in real time, but options in that sense were pretty limited. Ultimately, you get what you pay for, and for this we wanted to maintain a zero budget. I think I will continue to also develop web based instructions for how to use these tools as I teach my students the ropes. But for a professional I think this video is good in showing you what you can do without overwhelming one with details. When it comes to using Google Docs, the best way to learn is by trying.

(For a clearer image, set the video quality to 720p)
Reflection Questions:

• What tool did your group use to deliver the PD tutorial? Why? 
• What did you learn during the development process of the final product? 
• What would you do differently if you had to develop a similar product again?

Mobile Learning Lab: Poll Everywhere

Having One-to-One schools is a tough goal to achieve. They require the investment of a tremendous amount of money, especially for larger districts. There has been some research recently regarding the effectiveness of schools achieving one-to-one environments by issuing all students smart phones. The trick is that many of the features of the cellphone are disabled. Phone companies have actually begun to partner with schools in order to do this. One such example is Verizon Wireless. I think that using cell phones as a gap to computers is an interesting idea, but obviously there are some limitations as to what one can do using a cellphone. From my own experience with both tools, I can say with certainty that a laptop is much more powerful and has much larger capabilities. If one were to consider the fees associated with access to the phones I would think that the dollar figure per year would be similar to the full cost of a low grade laptop. At any rate, I think cellphones do have some functionability in the classroom.

In a district like the one I work in, most students have a cell phone with them at all times. I decided to use the website "Poll Everywhere" to test out using cellphones in the classroom. Prior to using cellphones in my classroom, I polled students asking:

• First I asked how many students had phones either pocket or back packs at that very moment; about 2/3's of my students raised their hands. 
• I then asked any student who had a cell phone but did not have it in class to raise their hands. Only one student out of thirty did not have their hand raised at this time. Meaning, only one student does not have a cellphone.

At this point, I asked that each student bring their phone in the next class session, and for the student that did not have a phone, or those who are not allowed to, I provided a computer. Instead of giving a traditional quiz, I created one using "Poll Everywhere." I have helped others use the site before, but had not used it in my own classroom, and thus did not have instructional experience with it. I shared information about the website on MACUL Space back in November. On MACUL space I inadvertently called the website "Poll Anywhere." That is not the name of the website, but Poll Everywhere does own the domain name as well, so if anyone attempts to use it they will be routed to the correct site regardless.

See my post in the image below.

I ran into a problem the week I was going to use Poll Everywhere in my classroom...I use to have a projector in the room I teach my 8th grade US History course is in, but another teacher removed it from the room and hijacked it for their own use. Poll Everywhere displays the poll of quiz questions almost like a power point, and at the same time provides students with numerical and letter directions on how to participate and "login" to a specific quiz. As such, one needs a projector. For this reason I signed up for the computer lab so that I could take my class to a room with a projector. Our display (and my subsequent Google Drive lesson), went very well, but I ended up having one very big problem: the computer room is on the first floor, and thick cinder block walls, and no windows. Which is to say, my students could not get any reception in the room. We then had to scrap the project. I had created a small quiz for them to take, but due to the issues I ended up just getting eight volunteers to meet me at lunch in the commons (huge ceilings and windows!) in order to take the quiz while crowded around a laptop. It went well, but obviously I will have to find out if...

1. I get reception in the other classrooms I work in
2. where the LCD projector went, and if I can get it back before I invest time or money into his website.

From my results I tell my students know the US had conflict with Britain, but it is clear my students by and large are unaware of the problems that the United States had with other countries. to be fair it could just be that students were eagerly looking for the first "correct" answer they saw. Had I known this during class, it would have allowed me to address the issue right away. If I used this site more in the future, I could use it to inform my teaching and let me know when I need to go backwards and review some things in all my classes. Poll Everywhere is a good tool, but only if I can work out the other kinks.

Wicked Problem Project: Part D - Findings and Implications

I have been working on my Wicked Problem Project for about a month now, and I have made some great progress. In my initial post I wrote out what my plans and goals for the project were:

1. Create a page for each student within my page that I give them control over to store and change their data.
2. Invite them to set their own goals (which should be based on their own analysis of their current data).
3. Teach them how to use their data to create visual representations in order to view statistics in a more engaging format.
4. Share and discuss their own data with others, including parents.
5. When Google is finally introduced to the students, I need to teach them how to create and maintain, as well as to share their own documents. (This might be lofty for 6th Graders).

I will judge the success of this implementation based on:
6. If students regularly input their data/
7. If this builds a conversation between shareholders
8. If after the introduction of students personal Google Doc Accounts, students successfully make the transition to Docs. I think I will probably try to build some docs lessons onto my main website and implement this in all of my classes.

Overall, I think that the project is a great success. 
 1. I managed to make all my students their own pages where they could organize their own data. On the side of my Wikispace page, I added a link to each of their pages. An unexpected bonus to their is that I was able to have them write their personal blogs on this page as well.

2. I had students set their own goals AFTER step #3 (creating visuals). The reason I did it this way is because my sixth grade social studies class has done work in assessing graphs and making predictions, and I have a handful of those same students in my sixth grade computers class as well, so I thought it would make sense to set their goals in the same way (predicting from projecting.

3. I had my students create graphs using the graphing function built into Google Spreadsheets. I also teach 7th grade computers where we learn a lot about Microsoft office, including Excel. It was actually easier to teach 6th graders how to graph using spreadsheets than it was to teach 7th graders excel. I realize excel has a lot more tools that are available, but it certainly made me think in the future I will probably teach the two side by side in 7th grade as well.

4. The Monday prior to Thanksgiving we held conferences at my school. I showed many of my parents the spreadsheet to give them an idea of how their students typing was coming along. A number of them had actually been shown the spreadsheets. I have also begun what I am calling the "30 words a minute club" (and have subsequently started the 40 words a minute club), and this has caused students to actually be curious in reading the data of their classmates. I feel that this is a great sign that I can increase students responsibility to be their own recorders, but also make their work more transparent to others.

5. This goal is very incomplete. The reason this is incomplete is because they were only given access to their own school based Google accounts on Tuesday. As a result, they have spent the semester editing blank documents I created and embedded on their personal pages. Next semester, I will be making them create their very own from scratch an embedding them themselves. Obviously that will require that I do a lot of work upfront in terms of teaching them how to use Google docs, and a bit about web design, but I think it will be worth it.

6. Even though students are using docs that are owned under my email, they are putting in their own information, creating their own graphs, and really controlling their data overall on their own. This has eased the concerns I initially had in regards to thinking the scope of this task might be beyond the level of 11 year old students. The best part really is that it has simplified the process for me and allowed me to spend less time trying to assess their scores myself. I have even had students go on for their weekly test when they were absent so that they could continue the progress on their tables. It has been a really great experience.

7. As I mentioned below, I have talked with students, parents, and actually other teachers as well about the tables and graphs students have been creating. The conversation between stakeholders has definitely grown as a result of this project.

8. I actually have started the process of getting all my students on Google Docs, and introduced them to the potential of docs, but so far instruction on the particular tools has been pretty minimal. I will continue to work on this as I progress. In the future I will have students share their documents directly with me as well as their parents instead of just embedding them on their pages and hoping that the other stakeholders will navigate to their page. I also think that as far as goal setting is concerned, I will make my students have their parents contribute, and for me to approve of their goals.


This project took a lot of leg work at the beginning to create the blank pages, student pages, and embedding all the blank pages on to the student pages. So, if anyone else is interested in this they should know this. Obviously, I also said I think it was worth it because of the organizational and other benefits, but the time savings are definitely on the back end.

Wicked Problem Project: Part C - Implementation and Record/Editing Lab

In the following Podcast/Audio Recording I am going to talk a little bit about what has happened during the implementation of my Wicked Problem Project. I will include some information about:

• Surprises that I have encountered along the way.
• Unexpected Bumps along the way.
• Things that I am delighted about, and my hopes for moving forward.

 

SOME PICTURES OF THE PROGRESS

 

Data Visualization Lab

There are many ways to visual data: as a table, as a graph or chart, as word art, etc. This site has a lot of links to to websites that allow you to present data in non-traditional ways. For my latest CEP 812 assignment, I visited this website and investigated a few options that personally interest me. Below are my reflections on each.

SITE: Survey Monkey
ADDRESS: http://www.surveymonkey.com
PICTURE:

BRIEF REFLECTION:This website is used to create surveys. I do not like the feel of Google Forms personally, and do not feel it does a good enough job for analyzing data. Survey Monkey is a website I have heard people talk about, and so I thought I would give it a try. In January I need to survey all of my parents, and I think I might have them use this webpage to do it. The format option for this site is greater than those for forms, so I think there is some exciting potential here.




SITE: Text 2 Mind Map
ADDRESS: http://www.text2mindmap.com/
PICTURE:

BRIEF REFLECTION: This website is for making information maps. I have never seen a website like this, and find it very curious. I will certainly bring this page into my classroom at some point and working as a class to map an idea. I like how this map allows you to color code your layers. I tried many of the other mind maps as well, but none felt as clean, nor as easy to use, as text2mindmap. For the image above I was attempting to mind map what my 6th grade course is all about by categorizing the various topics we study.



SITE: Tagxedo
ADDRESS: http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html
PICTURE:

BRIEF REFLECTION: I have used Wordle in the past as I think it is a cool way to evaluate a large amount of text. I didn't know how Tagxedo would be different, but what I discovered was that it lets you determine the shape of your word art too. The picture above is from my MATC final synthesis paper. I thought it was neat putting it into the shape of something that means something as well, as opposed to a simple oval. The best thing about Tagxedo is that it lets you save the image as oppose to simply giving your a web address for how you can share. The day before break I had all my students using Wordle. I taught them how to take screenshots in order to save their picture into a word document they were writing, but it felt like a burden. On Tagxedo share is an easy to access option. I will probably start using Tagxedo from this point forward.

Group Leadership Project: Part B - Storyboard and Script

My group and I have planned quite a bit in the last week. We did some independent work on our own throughout the meet, then met together again using Google Hangout for several hours. Our task for this particular meeting was to design our storyboard and write our script so that would would be well on our way in terms of making our final group presentation. Below is a general rundown of where we are:

GROUP DIALOG

SPECIFICS:

• Effective Use of Technology Creation of a storyboard and a quality posting to your blog. 
• This is really parts 1 and 3... so I guess it is worth double points! 
• (1) Storyboard Create a storyboard that includes sketches for each scene, detailed notes on titles, transitions, special effects, sound, etc. The storyboard should reflect outstanding planning and organization for the visuals in the video 
• Pictures serve as sketches 
• Notes included on each slide 
• Transitions are all medium speed fades 
• There are no special effects or sound effects. We want the focus to be on our images and narration. 
• Storyboard created during 2 hour long group planning time. 
• (2) Script Create a detailed script that accompanies the storyboard. The script should indicate not only what will be said but how it will be said. 
• Script is including in Google Presentation under each slide in the "notes" section 
•  (3) Blog Posting Each group member will post the storyboard and script to their blog indicating which areas they worked on and how the work of the final product will be distributed. 
•  EACH PERSON ON THEIR OWN 
•  Forms: Evan 
• Spreadsheet: Joey 
• Presentation: Melissa 
• Final presentation will be done using the Google Presentation we created. After discussing all the pieces at length, one person will do a voice over narration using the script (found in the notes section) as to create a smooth and consistent presentation. The final presentation will be recorded as a screencast but posted on Youtube.

As mentioned in the notes above, we made out storyboard (with our script included on each page) using Google Presentation. Click here for a direct link to our document.

If you go to FILE and then choose REVISION HISTORY you can see that we were working collaborative for quite some time, although we spoke at length prior to actually beginning this document.

As you can see from this one example, each slide contained images and text. Below in the comment section is where we wrote out what we actually want to say during our screencast presentation. My personal focus in the project is on Google Spreadsheet. I accepted this portion because I have been investigating it for my Wicked Project as well. I also enjoy how it ties in with other aspects of Google. In the group dialog above you can see what other people have decided to do. So far we have worked very well with accommodating each other (we tend to have different schedules, and one member lives in a different state.) Google Hangout has been a blessing for us. It is very easy to work together when we can hear one another in live time, respond, and share all our documents. We choose not to cast this meeting on the internet, as we didn't know going in exactly how long we might meet, and what paths we might take. That was a good choice, because our meeting ended up being several hours.

Our remaining question is really whether we can use what we created on our storyboard to actually present. While we worked we added notes and pictures, but through the process gave each other tips on how we might write our content in a way which is more clear for a presentation (All of us were writing long paragraphs to start, and then we realized bullet points were probably more useful. We also were choosing images from the internet before we decided our own screenshots might be more effective. Finally, we were going to write our script in a separate doc until we realized that it probably would be more organizationally sound if we just left it on our Presentation in the notes section!). We also still must decide who will do the final narration. I have shared that I would be happy to, but that is not yet set in stone. We are tentatively scheduled to meet late next week, but pending the response to our first question form our professor, we may meet sooner. At that point we will decide who will be the voice of our presentation.

Wicked Problem Project: Part B - Application of TPACK

TPACK, or Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge, is a principle that good teaching essentially exists within a multidimensional venn diagram. The graphic below from Michigan State's Matthew Koehler shows how these areas interact:

My "Wicked Problem" is about how to record student typing scores in a more meaningful and accessible way. I started with a decent base in Content Knowledge (I know how to type and had my students learning and growing about their own typing skills), and I was teaching them in ways which were Pedagogically sound in my opinion (We learned about the various locations on a keyboard and were being sound by recording our scores and using them to inform ourselves in the process of setting goals), but our methods were not technologically sound. Now, we were doing our typing on computers, and we were recording our scores digitally, but using computers does not mean you are using computers well. Our recordings were disorganized, nonuniform, accessibility was limited, and finally our ability to to turn it into something more meaningful was nonexistent.

My solution to this problem was to use Google Spreadsheets as a new recording tool. While I could have had students use forms to submit their scores to me, I wanted each student to have their own space where they could not only submit scores, but review old scores. Forms would have made it so that I was the purveyor of their scores alone, and therefore would not have allowed them to monitor and reflect on them. Initially this seemed like it was going to be an easy process where my efforts would be limited. I planned to have the students make their own spreadsheets and then share them with me. My district decided before the year to give each student a google account. Unfortunately, my school does not have 100% compliance, and they will not authorize any of the student accounts until that quota is met. As a result, I had to create a public page for all of them where their scores would be reported. I still instructed my students on how to read and write a table, as well as how to access their google spreadsheet. The result so far has been a great learning experience and much more meaningful use of technology.

Our ability to really analyze the core content of our course (typing skills) has been greatly enhanced too. Instead of having a disconnected word document containing not only journal entries, but also our score reporting, we have separate web pages (docs and spreadsheets are really interactive webpages if you think about it; each with a unique URL). In this sense, I have actually seen the implementation of my "Wicked Problem" positively impact not only my typing data entry, but also their daily journals in a positive way. My journals are now actually completed on my course site. This has allowed me to have students interact with each other using cyberspace. I am now able to moderate their web experience and model for them appropriate chat/blog/discussion protocol. One of my goals with this is to expand beyond data entry, and also get my students to create graphs of their information. I believe their will be real value in having out data represented visually as well.

Below are a few screenshots to show my current transitions.

This is a folder on my drive. Every one of my students has their own Typing Results document. They are provided with the links, and then they log on and input their own numbers. I have been using their data to share information with their parents, as well as to make notes to them about different goals I think they should aspire for.

This is what the documents look like when you click on them. I have formatted the date column so that no matter what they write in there it changes it to that format. Occasionally I still have to make a correct (for example a couple of my students didn't put a number in for the date, so it just showed "November," and if a student gets 0 errors, some will skip that column, even though I have told them I want ALL three pieces of data. I check their results ever week anyways though, so correcting their tables is not a big deal.

This is one of our warm-up. I have expedited the Microsoft Office units for my 7th graders and wish to teach them more about web presentation tools when we get into December, but I wanted to make sure I had a wide range of options for them to learn about and utilize. I was also curious to see what my 6th graders have used themselves, so I turned them into guinea pigs. They are instructed now that after they have completed their own warm-ups, they should read what others have written. The idea is that they can get new ideas. I picked this caption because I think their dialog is funny, and shows how the ideas of one student can intrigue and excite others. I also now know that anyone who had Mr. Fawcett as a teacher has experience using Prezi.

Group Leadership Project: Part A - Brainstorm

For CEP 812 I am working with a couple people to put together something people can use to educate others on the use and implementation of Google Apps for educators. We have been working together for about two weeks now. Our first conversations were help in Angel, but we started looking for an alternative almost as soon as we began speaking. Angel chat boards don't alert people when comments or replies have been made, and for that reason do not encourage dialog. We moved towards having a google doc for conversation. There our various contributions were color coded for clarity. 

One of our members felt better about communicating through email, as that was more connected to their mobile devices, and so some communication moved to that format. At that point, We also through the email dialog on the google doc as well. When it was time to have a more in depth and interactive conversation we utilized our lab work on video conferences, while still sticking with google, and continued our dialog in real time and face to face using Google Hangout. So far I have not encountered any problems with using Hangout to talk. Posting has a few limitations though: you cannot edit your conversations, and once you stop recording it immediately posts it to youtube. If you want to record more, you must start a new chat. These are minor issues in the scheme of things. The video was recorded and automatically added to youtube. You can see our conversation below:

Review of Group Meeting from 11/15/2012

1. All group members are present and participating in the session
1. Evan, Melissa, and Joe met from about 6pm-8pm. They recorded 49 minutes of their work together.
2. A technology is chosen to be taught (This will be what the tutorial is about)
1. Google Apps in general? Google Docs, Google Spreadsheet (Joe), Google Drive, Google Forms (Evan), Google Presentation (Melissa)
2. Social Media via Google Hangout?
3. A technology is chosen to facilitate the learning (This is the tool used to demonstrate the tutorial.  For example, Jing, Slideshare, etc.)
1. Weebly as a website
2. Screenshots and video (Jing, Youtube, etc.)
3. Google Hangout
4. Technical aspects of how the work will be completed is discussed
1. Each person responsible for a portion of the presentation
2. Check in before each part of project is due
5. A timeline of who will be doing what is created and agreed upon
1. Check-in for part B on Friday 11/23
2. Completed Weebly on Friday 11/30
3. Presentation recording on Wednesday 12/5

ADDED 11/18: Screenshot of video conference with group. This can be viewed with sound as an entire video by using the embedded youtube window in the original contents of this posting.

Web-Conferencing

The following screen shorts are of a post I made on the discussion board of MACUL Space. Below that is the same text from that posting.

There are a lot of different tools one can use to video conference. Most of my MSU course have used Adobe Connect. I have been largely unimpressed with that service. I've personally used Skype, Facebook chat, and Facetime in the past. Other options include Google Hangout, Vyew, MS Live Meeting, WebHuddle and Yugma to name a few. My group decided to go with Google Hangout.

The main reason we decided to go with Google Hangout is because our project in this course is centered around Google Apps, and it makes sense that along the way we should learn about other relevant applications Google offers even if it wasn't our original intention to use it. What was discovered along the way is that Google offers many cool and useful functions in live town to chatters. These tools include sharing Google Drive documents, linking youtube, having chat rooms for those who may be experiencing auditory issues, live screen captures, and other cool google based tie-ins. We made our choice together through chatting on a google doc and through gmail: see our conversation here.

Our first attempt to video conference went pretty well. We did a couple takes on it because our unfamiliarity when we started. For example, Google Hangout allows you to directly post your conference to youtube. When you do that you must name your video, but you cannot pause. So if you click stop it automatically post your video and then you start again. Once we realized this we were pretty smooth sailing after that. If you taught in a hybrid experience I believe this would be an awesome way to have an online conversation. I also think this would be a good way for students to work together one projects even if they cannot physically meet together.

Based on our positive experience, and general comfort with Google Hangout, we decided that we will continue to use Hangout for all future group meetings.

ADDED 11/18: Screenshot of video conference with group. This can be viewed with sound as an entire video by using the embedded youtube window in the original contents of this posting.

Survey Lab

I haven't done too much in my time as a teacher with surveys, but I am glad that this lab came along because soon I will need to. My district uses a pretty detailed evaluation system, and for it I had to make several goals. One of my goals requires that I solicit parent and student responses, which is to say this experience will come in handy.

Anyways, I had my 7th grade technology class take the general survey that was required. I used Google to make the survey. Here is a screenshot:

As far as student responses were concerned, my results followed this basic trend:

• Students tended to reply that they learn about computers and technology in school and in my classroom. Obviously, this is a self fulfilled prophecy in that my class is a technology course lol.
• All students felt comfortable using computers in order to complete school work. Again, this is a result of the fact that we are two months into the semester, and we work on our computers ever single day. 
• One student said they did not have internet at home, five said they had internet but didn't know much about it, and the remaining students responded that they had high speed internet.

Generally felt comfortable and familiar enough to:

• Send and receive email
• Write first drafts on a computer
• Edit your papers using a computer
• Open files on a server or network
• Find information on the internet
• Create or contribute to a social networking site such as MySpace or Facebook
• Play computer games 
• Work with spreadsheet/databases

Generally felt uncomfortable  and not familiar enough to:

• Create a Hyperstudio or PowerPoint presentation
• Create a Video
• Update your Blog 

Students confidence stems largely from use of computers (both laptop and desktops), cell phones, Ipods, and video games.

Using Google forms was an okay experience. It would have been better if the questions were different. The format of the questions was not always a great pairing with Google Forms. For example, to do questions 7, 8 and 10 I had to make separate questions for each topic. This resulted in my quiz looking tremendously long. I later did some research and discovered that I could have made it as a grid to solve this dilemma, but it was after I had my students take the quiz. I guess that means it isn't so much a problem with Forms as much as the question instructions which probably were not written with forms in mind, but rather forms just being suggested at a later time. I think this experience has enough positives that I will certainly try using it in the future though, but probably never for actual assessments.

Wicked Problem Project: Part A - Description of Need or Opportunity

As I talked about in a previous post, and in my video blog, I am in the need of some better organization for both myself and my students in my 6th grade technology course. The basis of my course if suppose to be typing. Due to some tech issues, I had to abandon the program that had been used by the district, and move to a web based program. Actually, I had to move to using two web based program (with one being education, and the other strictly an assessment tool. The problem with the assessment tool is that it does not track growth. As a result, I had students keeping track of their scores both physically (on paper) and electronically (a word file). What I really wanted was something that was kept in live time and viewable to myself, students, and parents. 

After reading my initial posts, Ms. Plair recommended I use part of google docs to accomplish this goal, "why not use Google Forms as a way for students to enter their scores each day?" She went on to add, "(t)hink beyond just the Docs and look at Spreadsheet and Presentations and even SketchUp." I decided to forgo using forms, as they are great for reporting data, but not for sharing it with others. I thought docs would prove to be somewhat messy, as students would have more leeway in regards to how they input their information weekly. I did not want to give students that much freedom, as it would make it more difficult for me to quickly review the data. Presentations did not seem like the best way to store data, although I think it might be interesting for students to use presentation in order to create a review which documents their own growth later. Finally, I am not familiar with SketchUp, so I will need to further aquatint myself with that later. Therefore, I decided that Spreadsheets is where I would start. I figured that using Spreadsheets, I could create a template, therefore controlling the design each student followed.

This led to a problem that is actually schoolwide... Troy has recently decided to jump into Google feet first, but because my students are below the google required age, they actually have to submit permission forms first. That process is not yet done in my school, and they are waiting to roll out the accounts until every student has submitted these forms. Therefore I just created a document for all of them and stored the link to each students individual pages on a document shared on a word file. Each Friday my students conduct their tests, and then click on their individual link and input their data. This allows me to have their numbers in a single space, updated regularly, viewable to me from any location, and neat. It does not, however, allow parents to view the data, or students to find their link offsite (unless I suppose to mail themselves the link or write it down somewhere.

I keep a class website where I put much of what we do in class online. I currently teach four courses though, and I probably put the least amount of information online for sixth grade typing. For our class, I think moving forward to make our work more collaborative and accessible I need to:

1. Create a page for each student within my page that I give them control over to store and change their data.
2. Invite them to set their own goals (which should be based on their own analysis of their current data).
3. Teach them how to use their data to create visual representations in order to view statistics in a more engaging format.
4. Share and discuss their own data with others, including parents.
5. When Google is finally introduced to the students, I need to teach them how to create and maintain , as well as to share their own documents. (This might be lofty for 6th Graders).

I will judge the success of this implementation based on:

• If students regularily imput their data
• If this builds a conversation between shareholders
• If after the introduction of students personal Google Doc Accounts, students successfully make the transition to Docs. I think I will probably try to build some docs lessons onto my main website and implement this in all of my classes.

 SOURCES:
http://www.google.com/educators/p_docs.html
http://educationtechnology-theoryandpractice.blogspot.com/2011/06/google-docs-for-teachers-and-classrooms.html
http://thetechcurve.blogspot.com/2012/04/managing-google-docs-in-classroom.html

Something funny happened with technology...

Have you ever noticed that sometimes technology is really straight forward... and sometimes it is not? I feel like podcasting is one of those "is not" examples. There are plenty of voice recording services out there, but the most common one is "Audacity." The problem with audacity is that it creates files in a format that is not recognizable to other audio players. Now, you can convert the files to other types of audio files such as MP3, but you need codec's and service packs not provided by Audacity. Get where I am going with this? But, as one must do with any problem, we find a way!

Step One: I downloaded Audacity and made a voice recording.

 

Step Two: A downloaded the Lame Library kit for Audacity that allows users to convert files into MP3's

 Step Three: Using Audacity and my new converter kit, I saved my file as a MP3

Step Four: I uploaded my new MP3 file on a server of my choice, in this case archive.org

Step Five: I used the embed code provided to me on my server site and put it into my Blog so that everyone else can listen to me complain about what issue is bugging me in 6th Grade Typing class.


Step Six: I made sure my page was sending out the podcast using my RSS and Feedburner tools.

Video Introduction