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.
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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