Identifying and Evaluating Major Data Resources on the Internet

This past week we have had the assignment to investigate and analyze some online data resources that were provided for us as well as find and analyze some resources on our own.  My findings can be found here.  I was surprised by how some online resources that one would think would have their data accessible online did not.  One of these was the National Archives which had broken the link that our professor had given us due to some internal reorganization.  For the most part, if someone was looking for genealogical or census data, he or she would need to either pay for some microfiche to be sent to them, or to travel to a National Archive site for free access.  The National Archive site closest to Milwaukee, WI is in Chicago.  After that, the next closest is in Lancing, Michigan.  I was very surprised to find out that there is no site located in either the capital city of each state or in the major universities located all over the U.S.  However, I did find out that the only reason that this is the reality, is that there is just too much that needs to be stored in the National Archives to be able to digitize it all and maintain it online.  That being said, I am glad there are some enterprising individuals (such as the creators of Ancestry.com and Heritagequest.com) that are doing what they can to make this available for a fee.

Surveys, Analyzing Data and Other Questions

This week, we actually created a survey, solicited responses, and analyzed the data.  We chose to do a survey on who preferred the books and movies of the Lord of the Rings series or the Harry Potter series.  The link to our survey can be found here.  The results can be found here.  We were initially of the mindset that younger people (under 30)  would prefer Harry Potter, and older people (30+) would prefer Lord of the Rings.  One of the reasons we thought of this, is that people who are younger probably have not been exposed to Lord of the Rings, while Harry Potter has been almost universally known among readers.  The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series should have been more known by those who are older and were exposed to the books and original cartoon movies when they were newer.  Our group found that younger readers preferred Harry Potter, while older readers were more evenly distributed.  Males preferred Lord of the Rings by a margin of 2 to 1.  Females were reversed preferring Harry Potter by a margin of 2 to 1.  One thing that I wish we included were questions about if the survey taker was into role playing games (table top or online), Society of Creative Anachronism or LARPing (Live Action Role Playing).  I have a feeling that that would have been able to give us more information about the two series.  The people I knew had taken the survey and asked about it, the people who were into AD&D, online games, etc. seemed to prefer Lord of the Rings.  This might have to do with the fact that Lord of the Rings is not a book series for a person who has not been introduced to a "hard-core" fantasy series.

Surveys & Gathering Data

One of the things that we were assigned to explore this week is the creation of surveys.  This is something that I am somewhat familiar with since my students created a survey to gauge the thoughts of people about the Budget Repair Bill that was proposed by Governor Scott Walker this spring.  The main thing that I wanted my students to understand is that the data you can get from an experiment or a survey can be severely impacted by bias.  This could be bias that is found in the questions that are asked or the sample that is used to find the answers to your question.  My students, when creating their questions let their bias (against Scott Walker) influence the questions.  The population sample was also tainted due to being done in a school where most people had a natural bias against their pay and benefits being changed to a smaller figure.  So after all of the work my students did, I had them analyze the data.  To no ones surprise, the feelings about the budget bill and Governor Scott Walker were negative.  However, when my students realized that they had biased questions and sample, they understood that the data that they received was not representative of the state of Wisconsin as a whole, but only of one Milwaukee Public Schools middle school.

Week 2 CEDO 540

The statistical mean has had an extreme impact on some kids I deal with recently.  I was fortunate enough to be able to help coach the Milwaukee Swim team entry for the U.S. Youth Games in Cocoa, Florida.  Instead of using an automatic timing system (such as a Colorado Timing System) the Youth Games used 2 timers per each lane and then the meet manager would "average" the two times and record the "averaged time" to find the place of each entrant.  Unfortunately for one of our swimmers, even though she out touched the other swimmer, one of her timers stopped the timer late.  This meant that her mean time was 0.17 seconds slower than the other swimmer.  So, according to the mean, she did not win the race.  Unfortunately, this also meant that she did not get the points a first place finish would get.  The difference between getting first and second place points in this one race was great enough that our girls ended up getting 3rd place overall in the meet.  They only missed second place by 2 points.  However, our boys won second place and had enough points for the team total points won the team a second place finish.  Kudos to my wife for a great job coaching.

CEDO 540 Week 1

This week we were introduced to the basics of statistics.  For the most part, statistics is the gathering and analyzing of data.  To many this is very boring stuff.  For me, it depends what I am doing with the data.  In many cases, I use data to try to predict what would happen in a future occurrence of something such as weather (which is all about statistical analysis) or even to predict the results of a future experiment.  I also attempt to use statistics along with the scientific method to help either prove or disprove a hypothesis that I might have.  For the most part, my hypotheses are relatively simple.  They can range from "Can I hit the snooze button and still get the kids onto the school bus?" to "How can I best make sure that I won't be one of the teachers on the cutting block next year?"  The snooze button hypothesis is tested on almost a daily basis, which adds to the amount of data that I have (for the most part, I can hit the snooze button at least once and get the kids on the school bus successfully). 
One of the books that was recommended to us in class, (How to Lie With Statistics) is a good review of how statistics can be used to attempt to prove a specific point of view if used in a biased manner.  I liked what I read enough to order a copy from Amazon.com.  The link for the book at Amazon is here.

CEDO 530 Week 5

This week we were able to see what others did with the Prezi's.  I was amazed at the ability of others to convey stories through pictures.  Just tonight, my wife was asking me to help empty her phone of all the pics my kids have taken with her phone.  She started deleting many b/c there "was a mess" behind the target.  I was crying "No! Don't!" because these were some amazing pictures that I could only hope to be able to take.  Unfortunately, my wife won the argument since it was her phone involved. 

The other things that we did were to finish our Pecha Kucha, create rubrics to score multimedia assignments, and review some technology in our groups.  I put in quite a bit of time on the Pecha Kucha, but in order to be perfectly understood, I will need a voice double so that my mush mouth won't impede other peoples ability to get my point.  The rubric was relatively easy since I used one of the websites to create it.  I just needed to modify the assignment a bit in order to add more technology to it.  The technology review has yet to happen as of this writing.  But I am sure that there will be much learned.

Prezi, Pecha Kucha and more.

First off, I apologize that I am posting late on Sunday.  I just got back home after a family weekend trip that surprisingly did not have internet connectivity.  I will definitely be suffering from the sunburn I got while fishing (well, not actually fishing, but taking off the fish of everyone else).
                 

This week we used the photos that we have been taking for the last month.  We needed to use them in our Prezi.  I am really impressed with the ease of use of Prezi as a tool.  I showed several of my co-workers and they were amazed at the way the non-linear and size as hierarchical organization.  I have a feeling that there are going to be many people asking me to show them what I know about Prezi over the summer.

Great Pictures on Prezi

We also needed to storyboard our Pecha Kucha.  This has been really helpful with the planning and execution of this exacting presentation.  I even had some of my former students critique what they saw.  The information was good.  I just need to work on my audio component.

Here is the link to the Pecha Kucha storyboard. 

Animoto, Elements of a Good Digital Story, more Presentation Zen

For the most part, I have really enjoyed playing with Animoto this week.  I was able to create a little introduction that I will be able to use in my classroom next year.  I also have already started showing other teachers in my school how to use it.  If I got it to work correctly, I have embedded my Animoto video below.


Looking at the different parts of a "Good Digital Story" according to Bernajean Porter was interesting.  There are parts that I am good at: "Living Inside Your Story", "Unfolding Lessons Learned", "Developing Creative Tension".  There are others I need to improve upon due to my love of verbal communication, these would be: "Economizing the Story Told" and "Showing Not Telling".  "Developing Craftsmanship" is something that I feel that everyone can improve upon since no-one is perfect.

The Presentation Zen chapter really reinforced what I found I need to work on while reading DigiTales.  I need to not overwhelm my students with words or pictures.  I need to use more "Empty Space" and use "Contrast" to better effect.  If I overload my audience with information, I have lost them.  I need to remember to simplify and stay on the message I want to convey.  

This week in CEDO530

We got the chance to use a site called VoiceThread.  This is a very interesting site where presentations are enhanced while not going too far from the "simplicity" ideas found in our book Presentation Zen.  For the most part, using VoiceThread a teacher can help create a presentation that not only is visually stimulating, but also allows the presenter to give detail without creating a slidument.  I am hoping I will be able to also use VoiceThread as a way to pre-plan some of the initial parts of the different sections that I need to teach.

CEDO 530 Week 1

Digital Storytelling.  The words bring some ideas to my mind.  The main idea is being able to effectively communicate (without confusion or distortion) with others using digital media such as audio, video or CG.
This week we were learning how to become more effective in presenting with programs such as the ever present PowerPoint.  I really appreciated some of the Presentation Zen ideas of simplifying the message so that it doesn't get lost amongst extraneous chatter.
I also am in the midst of taking pictures for 28 days straight.  I am not sure how I will be able to string all of these disparate photos into a coherent and cohesive story, but we'll see.  I know I will enjoy the challenge.
Oh, and we needed to write a story from the perspective of a future point in time.  I chose to write about reflecting on the lives of my daughters while walking my eldest down the aisle.  If you would like to read it, it can be found here (or copy and paste: https://docs.google.com/a/wolfmail.stritch.edu/document/d/1Cxr_dstLe5lG5B4MiDUzfTCkdWslt7czUQg0xQ8-m5U/edit?authkey=CJTs-eoO&hl=en# ). 

Final Post for CEDO 525 Enhancing Learning Materials through Technology

Over the past 6 weeks, we have looked at a lot of ways to enhance the ability of our students to gain and retain new information.  In many ways, I was re-introduced to ideas that I have been exposed to prior to this class.  The main difference is that with this class, I was able to understand how to apply many of these technologies for our students. In past workshops and graduate level classes, I have been told to use advanced organizers to enhance learning.  However, without being able to understand how to use them, I was where I started.  But, thanks to my classmates and professor, now I have been able to start using some of these organizers to help my students put their thoughts about new topics in order to be able to better understand these topics.  I am eagerly anticipating using the Cornell Note Taking Method for my students to learn more while we have a guest speaker who is going to be presenting his rock and mineral collection to the class.  I am hoping that using this note taking technique will add to my students overall knowledge base.

I'll sign off for this class using one of my literary hero's Douglas Adams, "So long and thanks for all the fish."

Identifying Similarities and Differences, Homework and Practice, and Generating and Testing Hypotheses

This week, we discussed how students learning can be impacted by: Identifying Similarities and Differences, Homework and Practice, as well as Generating and Testing Hypotheses. The effects of these ideas can usually be witnessed in the classroom setting.  In many cases, depending on how each of these ideas is implemented, each can be a positive or negative influence on a students education.

 Identifying Similarities and Differences
   Students have been proven to learn better when they are able to connect new information with prior information.  This can be useful even if students do not have prior knowledge.  If parallels can be drawn from the similarities and differences of the new material and related to the similarities and differences of things that students already do know their ability to learn new material is still enhanced.

 Homework and Practice
   Homework and practice can enhance the ability of students to learn new material.  However, if homework and/or practice is done without students knowing exactly what is supposed to be learned or practiced and why they should learn it, most of the possible positive effects of homework and practice can be lost.    


Generating and Testing Hypotheses
     This is something that happens in my science classroom on a daily basis.  Science is all about attempting to explain the world around us.  To do this, my students need to be able to research a topic, and then use the background knowledge they gained to make their best guess at explaining why things are the way they are.  We then use experimentation of some sort in order to then test to see if their hypotheses are supported or not supported by the data they collect from their experimentation.  People generate and test their hypotheses every day.  This can be seen in the morning when someone sleepily hypothesizes that they are able to hit the snooze button "just one more time" and still get to work or school on time.  If they are able to get to where they need to go, they have proven their hypothesis.  If not, they have disproven it.  The fact that people hypothesize all the time, and do not realize it, makes the process of teaching how to hypothesize relatively easy if the connection is made to prior experiences of the students.




One of the last things that we have had to do in CEDO 525 was to apply some of the learning strategies that we have been learning about to an online lesson.  I chose to use the online lesson from Learner.org's Interactives regarding the Dynamic Earth.   My full thoughts can be found using this link.  However, I found that overall, this is a useful site that would allow students to be able to get nonverbal instruction in the composition of the Earth and some of the major geological systems.  When I get to the geology section in my class, I am planning on using this as part of the review of the materials.

Cooperation and Collaboration

One of the videos we needed to watch this week was a talk by Clay Shirky at a TED event about how the "cognitive surplus will change the world".  I am somewhat inclined to agree with the speaker.  Overall, I believe that people want to help each other when it is feasible.  Mr. Shirky's premise is that through technology, people are much more able to help others with their resources.  Before the communication paradigm changed within the last 10 years, people were only able to help with what they knew about.  This meant that either they needed to be connected to an event though people in their lives, or needed to be made aware of a situation due to the traditional media.  This did not lead to many areas of need being addressed or an area of need being superficially addressed due to the attention of the media being redirected to something more "newsworthy" or just more "up to the minute".  If the earthquake in Haiti had happened fifteen years ago before this communication  paradigm shift, I do not believe that the global resources that are still being directed towards rebuilding that country would have been sent.  This would have led to a longer rebuilding period with many more deaths due to disease and/or civil unrest.  The country of Haiti is still recovering, but is much further along than it would be without communications platforms such as Ushahidi which communicates where help is needed.  This is just one example of how the world is changed by the "cognitive surplus" (the human impulse to help and the technological ability to do so).


Strategies Discussed 


   The educational strategies that were discussed in class this week were: Cooperative Learning and Reinforcing Effort.  Many examples were cited and many possible problems were posed.  I have attempted to use both in my classes and have had mixed results.
  Using cooperative learning can be a useful tool where students are able to add their strengths to a group assignment.  In many cases, this is where "shoulder partners" are used in professional development situations.  In the classroom, there needs to be a level of trust built up between the students who are expected to cooperate in their learning processes.  So, in many cases, having students rely on "shoulder partners" that may change often (when ever the seating chart changes), is not the best idea.  When assigning students to work in groups, I usually attempt to have students strengths and weaknesses complement the weakness and strengths of the others in the group.  If I did not attempt to do this, the ability of the group, or at least individuals in the group, will be severely limited in the ability to enhance the learning of the group as well as the quality of the product that is made by the group.  Also, if strengths and weaknesses are not considered in creating a group, one of the major problems of group work usually creeps to the fore.  This problem is that not all group members contribute to the product made by the group.  If this happens, not only is the learning of all the group members compromised, but there usually are hard feelings on all sides due to the level of effort not being "equal". 
   Reinforcing effort is also something that can have mixed results (and has) in a classroom.  There is a very fine line between reinforcing a good level of effort and reinforcing an inadequate level of effort.  I have seen this in many cases with regards to my special needs students.  Some of my students feel that as long as they are not a disruptive force in the classroom, they are owed a good grade for a class.  While this might be the case for severe cases of emotionally and/or behaviorally disabled individuals, it should not be considered appropriate for students who have specific learning disabilities.  In the case for these students, they need to be pushed to achieve as much as they can in all areas, even in the areas of their academic challenges.  This is something that is very frustrating for the teacher who is doing this, and usually met with resistance by the student who has been given standards that are not as high as could be due to their limitations.  I am the father of two girls.  One is in the Special Education program due to having such ear and sinus infections that she was effectively deaf for the two years before starting school.  My other daughter is precocious and into everything.  My wife is also worried about ADHD for both of them.  However, when I get to see my kids after I get home from work, I ask them the same question every night.  It is, "Did you do your best in school today?"  Even though one daughter might have some delays, this does not mean that she should be able to give less effort at learning what is being taught in the school.  To me, if she has a problem with learning something (in this case reading), then more effort should be expended to get her to where she is expected to be.  This means that I as her father sit with her and help her with her homework and make sure she logs onto Raz-Kids in order to try to get her caught up to where she is expected to be for a "normal kid".  My "precocious" daughter is not allowed to relax on the fact that reading comes more easily for her though.  She is expected to do her best, and her mother, her grandparents or I work with her every night after she comes home from school.  Maybe I am more of a parent like the "Tiger Mom" that has been in the news, but I truly believe that I need to teach my kids that they should strive to do the best that they can do when they do something.  I don't go as far as making them study until they go to sleep, we do go to movies as a family and play games, but if they need to get some work done, that is expected to come first, regardless if they "don't want to" or not.

Helping Students Learn & Retain Knowledge

This is version 2.0+ of my blog this week.  For some reason, when I attempted to save my original versions, I got a "You were not successful" page and had to start over several times.  This version is not as complete, but  is better than if I had just given up..



This week we were looking at using advanced organizers to help students learn and retain knowledge better.  One of the articles we read was written in 1960, but is still appropriate to teaching students today.  The gist of this article was that if teachers are able to connect new information to the prior knowledge of students, then the learning and retention of the information is enhanced.

Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizer

My class starts daily with a "focus question" that brings higher order thinking (according to Bloom's Taxonomy) and gives students an idea about what we will be doing during the class period.  For the majority of students, this is taken in stride and they at least make a guess when they do not "know the answer", even if there is not technically a "right" answer to the question.  The problem with this is that in some cases, I have students who do not want to think more than it takes to find specific answers that would be located in a textbook.  These students exhibit a huge amount of resistance to the probing questions as well as attempt to disrupt the discussion of the questions.

Non-linguistic Methods

The longer I am in the classroom, the more I employ non-linguistic methods of conveying information.  Maybe it is due to the prevailing entertainment culture of current students, but most are not practiced at being able to sit and listen to a lecture on a topic.  However, if that same information is put into a YouTube video, they will pay attention raptly for 20 or more minutes.  Streaming video has become an integral part of my classroom, since it is one medium that I know my students are engaged by.

Summarizing and Note taking
 This is a weak spot for most of my students.  Most students have been trained to copy verbatim from textbooks to answer questions posed by their teachers.  In my class, I try to design my lessons so that this is not able to be done.  If I ask questions, I ask some that would need to be answered by synthesizing information from multiple passages.  Another thing that I have started doing is that I give my students a synopsis of the unit we are going to be investigating.  The only problem is that these are worded using scientific terms.  One of the first assignments for the units is for the students to translate these synopses into "regular English" so that anyone would be able to read it.  This is done in groups so that the students who do not have the best reading abilities are still able to participate with the rest of the class.  Once all the groups are done "translating", the groups all share out what they thought the synopsis meant.  We then discuss these interpretations as a class, and what their teacher actually meant.  This is usually an engaging discussion. 

Review of 3 Non-Linguistic Applications.

Setting Objectives, Providing Feedback, Providing Recognition.

This week we were supposed to reflect on Setting Objectives, Providing Feedback, Providing Recognition as well as the article Feedback that Fits.  These three areas are where many teachers have weaknesses.  In some cases, all three are weaknesses, or sometimes one or two are.  For this reason there are many technologies that have been created to shore up these weaknesses in order to best help the student to be able to achieve.  Feedback that Fits is an article that encompasses the different ideas we are supposed to blog about.

Setting Objectives - 
  
Setting the objectives for a class can be both easy and hard.  This is easy due to the fact that state educational standards are published and give each teacher the objectives for the class(es) they teach.  The hard part of this is being able to discern how to best communicate these objectives to your students.  The way that MPS is attempting to communicate objectives is requiring teachers to post "What we are going to learn today is..." and "What we are going to do today is..." somewhere students are able to see it.  If these postings are not referenced by the teacher during the class however, it is only lip service to the true objective, getting the student to understand what they need to from the lesson.  Rubistar is a nice program that allows the teacher to create a rubric that shows students exactly how they are able to earn the grade they want.  Unfortunately, when most rubrics are used, they become a simple checklist.  While this allows for unbiased and quick grading, this might also not allow for the depth of feedback that is needed when used to score and given back to the student.  I have to admit to having used rubrics in this manner in the past.  However, it does not allow for the true differentiation of scoring that is required.  This leads into the next topic.


Providing Feedback-


In many cases, teachers might jot down a word or two on assignments as feedback.  Sometimes, a section might re-teach a topic in order to redress the issues found in the work produced by the students.  These would be examples of written individual and group verbal feedback.  Using a rubric would also be a benefit to students so that they would be able to see how they are able to attain a certain grade as well as how they did compared to how they thought they did when the rubric is returned.  If details are included on rubrics, these can be incredibly effective modes of feedback.  The Milwaukee Public Schools uses an online gradebook that can be accessed from any computer by parents or students to see how the student is progressing in the class.


Providing Recognition-


In many cases, the recognition that students I see has almost all been negative.  This does not mean that I am the source of this negativity.  Personally, I attempt to emphasize the good that I find in students.  This can get worn down over time, but I do try to make sure students know that they have the ability to do what is right for themselves and the others around them.  In many cases, words of encouragement, a note recognizing the good in their work, behavior, etc or a phone call home letting the family know about something positive can be a great motivator for my students.  For the most part, negative recognition is seen as earning "street cred" so that most recognition of negative behavior results in more negative behaviors.  Many of the students that I deal with are in the situation outside of school with at most one parent who lives at the same address.  In many cases, the only people who recognize the student for anything (positive or negative) are their teachers.  This might explain why students who have the reputation for being "chronic disruptors" come to school every day they are allowed to.  Recognition of being a person, good or bad, can be a huge motivator for students.  Teachers and the people in those students lives need to recognize this and make the effort needed to reach them.  

Technologies available-

There were many ideas for using technology for giving feedback.  The main problem with the online or e-mail generating technologies is that for the students I have, the main technology they have outside of school is their cell phone.  Depending on the applications they need to be able to be seen (for example adobe flash), the technology centered feedback might not be able to be received (the iPhone).  For the most part, I would suggest that in an urban school system, some of the traditional technologies of stickers, a good word, or recognition in front of peers can be great motivators.