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