Numbers 1.5 and 1.6

So it's pretty obvious I have been avoiding these two assignments for a while now.  I saved them for my very last post because I despise Excel so much.

Numbers 1.5
In this pre-post study a group of pharmacy students took a survey about Ebola, then sat through an information session on Ebola and took the survey again.  In this study the dependent variable is student's knowledge of Ebola, and the independent variable is the group of students.  There are not two different groups of students, however since the students were surveyed at two different times (pre and post) we are able to compare them since they are "related groups".  We are testing to see if the information session had any impact on the student's knowledge about Ebola.

Results:
To determine if the information session on Ebola had an effect on the student's knowledge I performed a t-test to compare the pre and post test scores.  This test calculates a p score.  If the p score is less than 5% (<.05) then the results are statistically significant.

For question 26 the results are statistically significant.

For question 27 the results are not statistically significant.

For question 28 the results are not statistically significant.

For question 29 the results are statistically significant.

For question 30 the results are not statistically significant.

For question 31 the results are statistically significant.

The Ebola information session made a statistically significant different in student's knowledge for 3 questions, but there was not a statistical difference between the pre and post test for the other 3 questions on the survey.

Here is a link to my results.

Numbers 1.6

This set of data compares 4th grade reading scores for both black and Hispanic students from each state.

Independent variable = Race

Dependent variable = NAEP reading scores for 4th grade

Hypothesis

H1    There is a statically significant difference between the NAEP mean scores of Black and Hispanic students on the 4th grade reading assessment.

H0: There is no difference between the mean scores.(null hypothesis)

Results:
I conducted a two-tailed t-test using the online calculator http://studentsttest.com/, which gave me a p score of 0.0023. That means that there is a statistically significant difference between Hispanic and Black students.

So as much as I hate how tedious calculating descriptive statistics and conducting t tests can be, I can honestly say I feel a lot more comfortable doing it. I also know how to find and write functions that are not preset in Excel with more ease than when I began this semester.

Infographic

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, thus infographics are gaining popularity quickly.  An infographic visually represents any combination of data and text someone wishes to convey.  The topics for infographics are endless.  

Here are some examples:

I love the idea of having students create an infographic that summarizes a research article.  It is a great way to alternatively assess if students understand what they read about.  So here is the infographic I created to summarize this article.

This was probably the most challenging assignment of the semester for me mostly because I needed to figure out what tools to use.  I began in pinterest by searching for examples of infographics, which lead to some research on how to create an infographic.  Ironically I found an infographic about how to make an infographic!

After doing a lot of research and creating some charts to use. I decided to use the google drawing application to compose my infographic.  Using this tool made it very easy after that.  I was also excited to figure out how to embed my image in this post!

I believe that infographics fall in the redefinition stage of the SAMR model.  While the technology used to create infographics is not in the redefinition stage infographics themselves are.  Creating infographics allows us to capture a great deal of statistics, facts, and graphics in one quick image.  People today are more likely to read an infographic than an entire research article, thus creating an infographic instead of writing an article is redefining these tasks. 

Final Project

My problem: I have to buy all my own copy paper for my classroom. I would like to cut down on the amount of paper I use by using online survey tools to take formative and summative assessments.  I'm also interested in cutting down the amount of time I spend grading, so if these tools are able to help me with that I would love it!

Online Survey Tools

In the world of online survey tools you have several free options as well as paid options.  Since I am a teacher and funds are limited I was only interested in exploring the free options.

The most popular tool is Survey Monkey.

When you create a survey using this software your survey cannot be longer than 10 questions.  There are 15 different types of questions you could ask, and up to 100 people can respond to the survey.  I found that it was pretty easy to use.  The major drawback to this application is that you cannot export the data collected from the survey.

Another great survey tool I found is called Typeform or CORE Plan.

This website was so easy to use.  You can select a survey template or build your own.  There are a variety of different types of questions you could ask.  I really like the picture choice question.  For second graders this is a great way to assess.  It is also a great way to differentiate while assessing students.  A big difference between Typeform and Survey Monkey is that once you have collected data from your survey you are able to export the data.

However my favorite online survey tool was Google Forms.

Google Forms has a variety of different types of questions.  You can also add images and videos as part to your survey questions.  Additionally you can ask unlimited questions and have unlimited respondents.   The best feature of Google Forms is that is automatically collects the survey results into Google Sheets.  Since I had already set up a Google classroom, which students are familiar with logging in to it is easy to assign a survey for students to take.  While it doesn't exactly grade the form for me it allows me to see quickly what the student's responses were and analysis isn't difficult.  I was excited with how easy this application was to use, and it will solve my problem.

Within the SMAR model

This technology falls into the modification category.  These survey tools allow students to complete assessments and feedback questionnaires online instead of completing these tasks paper and pencil.  They also allow you to streamline how you collect and analyze data.  

Pecha Kucha

Do you all know what Pecha Kucha is?  I had never heard of it before!   It is a very strict format of no more or less than 20 slides which stays on the screen for 20 seconds or less! That's not a lot of time!  Some other key components to a Pecha Kucha is having a lot of high quality graphics and not a lot of text.  I could see how this format would be very beneficial especially for online classes.

I began by making myself a script.  I knew 20 seconds wasn't very long, and I needed to plan what I would say carefully.

Next I created my powerpoint presentation with graphics and text.  

Finally with my script in hand I used Screencast O Matic to capture my presentation.

Here is my presentation!

As far as the SMAR model I would place this in the augmentation category.  PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides are all software programs that have existed for years.  Pecha Kucha is simply a model of creating presentations to increase engagement.  By cutting down on text, increasing graphics, and limiting the time presenters are forced to get to the heart of their content and make it as engaging as possible.

Screencast O Matic

What makes an online video engaging?  According to a study done by Melanie Hibbert at Columbia University there are five components which make an online video appealing to students.  

1. The content of the video should directly relate to the content of the course.

2. The instructor uses a conversational tone and humor while delivering the content.

3. The content of the video is not something the students could have just read as text.

4. A high quality production.

5. The video length is 4 minutes or less.

So with all of these factors in mind I created a video showing first year teachers how to create online report cards using Edline software.  I felt this was important because there are multiple steps to this process, and while there are written directions, many teachers need these directions shown to them multiple times. 

So let me just say that was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.  When I first tried it, I didn't pay attention to the time because I thought there is no way this will take longer than 4 minutes.  Well my first attempt was 8 minutes long.  So I had to redo it, and I felt like I was rushing to keep it under 4 minutes!  

Screencast O Matic was so easy to use.  It was also super easy to upload it to youtube!  I had no idea that if you have a google account you also have a youtube channel.  I thought it would be super difficult but it really wasn't, and once it was uploaded to my youtube channel it was really simple to embed the video in the blog post...way easier than Jing!

As far as the SMAR model goes, I would place this application in the modification level.  Students could read text and directions, but by creating a screencast you are able to show them first hand what they need to know thus modifying what they had before. They are also able to rewind and watch multiple times if necessary.  T

Prezi

I've heard of Prezi before, and have dabbled a little here and there, but this is the first presentation I have created all on my own!

Here it is!  Habitat Prezi

All in all it was pretty easy, especially if you choose a template that is already made for you.  I typically use PowerPoint to create presentations, so I probably could have done this a lot faster with PowerPoint simply because I'm more familiar with it.  I liked how easy it was to insert youtube videos into Prezi, and I have to admit that Prezi has a certain stylistic component that PowerPoint just doesn't have.  I think it is easier to add more slides and pictures in a PowerPoint presentation, also powerpoint has the option of adding timing to the transitions (to be fair I don't know if Prezi does or doesn't I didn't play with that aspect). Prezi recently added a collaboration piece of technology, which is similar to Google Slides.

In terms of the SAMR model I think Prezi is simply a substitution technology.  It takes to place of other presentation models like Powerpoint or Google Slides and doesn't provide any functional change in what they can offer.

Maps

This was a really fun assignment!  The 5th graders in our school take a field trip to Washington D.C every year.  There are so many great places for kids to visit in Washington D.C, so it was fun to plan and imagine.

It was easy to do.  You start here with google maps.  

It's easy to search for places and add them to your map.  The feature that I really liked was that there was often a website linked in the site information box that you are able to click on.  If I shared this map with students they would be able to access information about the site they are visiting very easily.

I also created an interactive itinerary document.  Students can work on this throughout the field trip or begin to explore the sites and access information before they leave on the field trip.  I used google docs to create this document.  Again, it was pretty easy as many of the features are very similar to Word documents.  I was able to insert pictures of the places they are visiting as well as links to all the places they are visiting.  If you use google classroom you could just share this document with students for them to begin working on it.

Here's a link to my itinerary document.

It would be interesting to have students create their own map of the places they visit in the order they visit each site and share it with the teacher.  It would also be a convenient way to keep track of everybody ;-).

As far as the SAMR model.  Creating a document in google is so similar to creating a Word document it would just be considered a substitution.  You might be able to consider it augmentation because sharing the document with students and giving them an assignment is easier.

Creating maps and sharing them students before a field trip would be considered redefinition.  Paper maps were not able interactive or provide facts and information.  Google maps provides links to websites so that you can access information on the site before you visit.

Presume

So I've heard of prezi and used to in place of a powerpoint presentation, but I've never used it to make a resume.  This was a lot fun and a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.  If I had a video of me teaching I would embed it within the presentation.  I could also add examples of student work and my lesson plans.  If I really wanted to I could also insert a copy of my teaching licence.

So without further ado here's my presume!

As far as the SAMR model.  I think this would fall in the modification level.  We've always had to write resumes, but they consisted of only text. This applications allows to you embed videos and photos to greatly modify our current resumes.

Numbers 1.4

When doing research and analyzing descriptive statistics one of the most important questions to ask is "Is it statistically significant?"  How do you figure that out?  Using previous data on 8th grade reading test scores I will show you.

Null Hypothesis 1: There is no statistically significant difference between Black and White test averages.

Alternative Hypothesis 1: There is a difference in the 8th grade reading performance of Black and White students.

I made this hypothesis because the average score for white students was 274 while the average score for black students was 256.  After doing the t-test I got a p-value of  0.0 which is less than .05 which means we can reject the null hypothesis. 

Null Hypothesis 2: There is no statistically significant difference between White and Hispanic test averages.

Alternative Hypothesis 2: There is a difference in the 8th grade reading performance of White and Hispanic students.

I made this hypothesis because the average score for white students is 274 and the average score for Hispanic students was 249.  After doing the t-test I got a p-value of 0.0 which is more than .05 which means we can reject the null hypothesis.

Null Hypothesis 3: There is no statistically significant difference between Black and Hispanic test averages.

Alternative Hypothesis 3: There is a difference in the 8th grade reading performance of Black and Hispanic students.

I made this hypothesis because the average score for black students was 256, and the average score for Hispanic students was 249.  After doing the t-test I got a p-value of 0.0 which is more than .05 which means we can reject the null hypothesis.

So, in all three cases we could reject the null hypothesis which means that ethnicity does play a statistically significant role in how students score on reading tests.

I found this assignment particularly difficult and I think I ultimately ended doing it like 3 times...;-/.  I have Excel on my computer, however could not find the data analysis button.  When I put the formula in manually I got the p-value of 0.  But I wanted to double check myself (like any good researcher) and so I used the website Dr. Pierce provided for people who don't have Excel, and I got completely different p-values like 4.2, 8.4, and 4.1.  So naturally I was confused.  Finally I uploaded it to google sheets and performed the t-test again and got p-values of 0.0.  So I went with the answers I repeated as the correct answers (I hope!). 

SAMR

SAMR is model for technology integration.

The first step in this model is substitution.  In this case the technology is only a substitute for previously used technology.  For example teachers used to use overhead projectors to project notes and images.  Now we have SMART boards, and I find that I most often use it for writing notes or showing pictures which is exactly what I used to use my overhead projector for.

The second step in this model is augmentation. In this stage the technology is still a substitution for previously used technology, but provides functional improvement.  For example, teachers used to use overhead projectors to project text and images.  However this was limited because you could only manipulate the text so much.  Now teachers have document cameras that allow you to project worksheets, books, images etc. and model in a more direct way in this way enhancing what was previously done by the overhead projector.

The third step is modification. In this stage we see more student growth.  Previously teachers might have had students type of an essay or create a powerpoint in microsoft word.  However now with Google Docs students are able to collaborate and share ideas while still creating a powerpoint or writing an essay.

The final step is redefinition. This is where the most student growth occurs.  In this stage the student's technology usage completely modifies how the students respond to the material they are presented.  So instead of typing up an essay in Word, students may use movie maker to create a visual response to information.

Numbers 1.3

Another Excel sheet!  This one involves some descriptive statistics for 8th grade reading test scores.  Surprisingly the girls had a higher average test scores! Virginia falls solidly in the middle compared with other states.  There are 24 states above us, and 24 states below us.  With and average score of 267.2 we are only 10 points below the highest state.

Here's the link to the whole Excel document. Numbers 1.3

Self Portrait

This was a fun activity, and it was easy to do.  However, I'm struggling to see the applications for my classroom.  If I taught art that would one thing, but I don't.  My second graders would really struggle with this type of activity.  I'm also having difficulty embedding the image I created.  So hopefully the link works!  In case it doesn't I was able to embed a picture of what one would look like.

This is mine!
Self Portrait by Jess Cable

You can try making your own here!

Jing Screencast

Part of my job is to mentor new teachers in our building.  I often have to show them how to use the software and technology our district uses.  So I decided to create a screencast to show teachers how to input grades in our GradeQuick software. I'm having trouble actually embedding the video, but you should able to find it here.

Numbers 1.2

Today I converted the number grades from the previous Excel document I posted to letter grades using the IF function.  While I did not previously know how to use this function, I didn't find it difficult to use.  However, I don't think I will ever use this function of Excel because as I mentioned before my school district has an online grade book software program that we use called Grade Quick.  It does all the calculations for you!  Also, my school district is moving away from all Microsoft products due to the expense and migrating everything to Google Docs.  I would like to know if all the same functions that work in Excel also work in Google Sheets. Any thoughts?  Comment below!  Oh, and here's the link to the updated Excel document.

Jing Graphic

Jing! I had not heard of this software before!  How cool.  Here's the image I created to help teach my students the parts of a letter.

Diigo

Have ya'll heard of diigo?  I hadn't, but I'm glad I know now!  First of all it is a great research tool.  It allows you to highlight and annotate sections of text while you are reading.  It also allows you to save articles as bookmarks and tag websites or articles for future reference.  Second, you are able to share your bookmarks with other users.  Finally, diigo is able to recommend articles and websites based on what you bookmark. This really seems to move the web forward.  It's like the 2.0!  It's a place to find new knowledge and information and share that with a community.  Now not only are you just reading and thinking about an article online by yourself, but you can share your ideas and thoughts with others who have common interests.  It allows you to bookmark websites and share them with friends who have similar interests instead of just storing websites on whatever machine you are working on (this is my favorite aspect!).  I can't tell you how many times I lost all my bookmarks because they are just saved to the machine I'm currently working on.  I look forward to seeing what other people share and creating a collection of research and resources to use!

Here's the link to my diigo library so far!

I'm currently using Google Chrome, but I don't have any browser add ons, so I was a little nervous about installing this.  However, I found that it was pretty simple to add-on the diigo extension to my Google Chrome browser.  As soon as I installed the add-on I was able to start bookmarking and annotating whatever I was reading.

Numbers 1.1

Excel is a spreadsheet application that allows you to crunch numbers and create a visual of your data.  I find excel to be very tedious and I rarely use it in my classroom or for personal use.  This assignment used excel to help calculate grades, which if you don't have other options available is certain a tool you could use.  However, Frederick County Public school uses an online gradebook called gradequick, which calculates all of our grades and averages for us.  It also tells you minimum and maximum scores automatically.  It's so easy!  So with all of that said, I am not a huge fan of Excel, but I managed to complete this week's assignment.  Link below!

Numbers 1.1 Assignment

Jeopardy

So we've all heard of Jeopardy, and understand the premise that participants answer in the form of a question.  I have to say that this was a little harder to create than I thought it would be because you do have to think backwards.  My second graders will really love playing this as a review game at the end of the quarter.  However, an idea for using this software for high school teachers is to have their students create their own jeopardy games.  Not only will it be a great review for them, but it will also challenge them to think backwards.

Here's a link to my jeopardy game: jeopardylabs.com/play/q1-social-studies2

Word Clouds

Have y'all heard of these?  They are so cool!  I once received one framed as a gift.  It was all about teachers.  So cute!  Anyway, I've known about word clouds for a while, but never considered using them in my classroom.  I've also never played around with it or created a word cloud.  So I started this assignment by googling "free word cloud generators".  One of the first links that popped up was a great blog with the top 5 free word generators.  It explained what each one was and how to use it.  I used the first one in the list called Word it Out. 

 This the world cloud I created:

It was very simple to use and allowed to to change the fonts, colors, and size of text.  I liked that it was easy to manipulate and allowed you to regenerate the image multiple times.

So how would you use this tool in your classroom?

In second grade we spend the first few weeks of school answering these questions "What is an author?", "What is a scientist?", "What is a mathematician?" in order to foster the idea that students will be all of these things during the year and thus how they should act while doing these activities.  So I decided to ask them "What is a scientist?" and I typed what each student said into the generator and then created the image.  The students were amazed with the image.  We talked about why some words were bigger and some were smaller, and how it all worked.

I liked using this tool and I think it worked well to engage my students as well enhance their understanding about what a scientist does.

Here is a link to a great article I found with more great ideas on how to use word clouds in the classroom.

Do you have other ideas on how to use this tool in your classroom?

Are Learning Styles Meaningless?

Learning styles are complex.  When I was in middle school (about 15 years ago).  I remember taking an assessment to try and determine my learning style.  At that time there were only 3 to choose from, auditory, visual, or kinesthetic.  Today there are 7, which can all be traced back to those 3 main categories. 

They say you are usually a combination of several.  So with all of that in mind I would hypothesize that I am mostly auditory/visual/solitary.  I took a few free online assessments because even though I had a pretty good idea what my style is I was curious to see if I was right!

First I took the VARK assessment.  According to this assessment I have a multimodial learning preference.  My scores for each category were all very close thus giving this result.

I also took a learning syles assessment that has more categories.  I also had similar results to the VARK assessment with high scores in verbal, visual, and solitary.

So I was right! Yay!

But what does this mean?  Who cares about learning styles?  

A recent article published by Pasher et al. (article) posits that learning styles do no matter at all. He acknowledges that people tend to have one or two ways that they prefer to be presented with information.  However, he says that this does not have any effect on education and learning in general.  Based on my learning style results I would tend to agree.  I was not high in any specific learning style, rather at similar scores in all categories thus, promoting the idea that learning style does not effect how I learn since I don't fit into a specific category.  I would also tend to agree based on what I see in my classroom.  Second graders have a difficult time telling you how they like to learn best.  Therefore I use a variety of strategies that cater to multiple learning styles throughout my lessons.  I find that presenting material in more than one format helps keeps students engaged throughout the lesson.  Also I've found that specific subjects tend to have certain strategies that fit different learning styles better.  For example, science and math are best taught using hands on experiences and manipulatives which would lend itself better to people with kinesthetic learning styles.

So what do you think? Are learning styles meaningless?

Why Blog?

Audience. Community. Presentation. Comments.

So I'm pretty new to this whole blogging thing, but I've followed a few blogs for several years here's what I think so far.  People create blogs for various reasons.  Some people have opinions and ideas that they would like to share with the world whether the world wants to hear it or not.  Some people create blogs to share ideas and thoughts with others as part of a community.  They require comments and sharing from the audience so that the whole community may learn and grow together. Still others create a blog for themselves and see it as more reflective.  They do no require comments and their audience does not matter to them. Blogging for the purposes of a class is unique because it is not voluntary and must meet course requirements.  It is also publishing your learning in a public venue.  

I considered starting a blog at the beginning of my career as a way to reflect on and share what I was doing in my classroom, but feared that I wouldn't have time to keep up with it.  Now I have started a blog.  When I first began I was at a loss of how to address my audience (To be honest, I'm still figuring that out).  I've decided to keep this more narrative and steam of thought. As I continue through this class I will be doing a lot of reflecting on how I use various web tools in my classroom.  I am hoping to share ideas with an audience of my fellow classmates and anyone else out there who is interested in my thoughts.  I am also hoping to develop and foster a sense of community with my fellow classmates as we will all be exploring the same tools. I would appreciate any comments and feedback, so we may share our learning.  So with all of that being said I have a few questions.

What blogs do you follow?  Why do you follow them?

I follow several women who are primary elementary teachers.  I love reading their blogs and getting new ideas for classroom set-up, activities, new strategies.  I feel a part of a community of learning and sharing when I read and comment on these.  Some of my favorites are:

http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/

http://fun-in-first.blogspot.com/

http://www.stepinto2ndgrade.com/

Top Web Tools

In December 2014 the Edublog published a list of the best of the web in education.  I found the list of top free web tools to be very interesting.  I had heard of many including:

This is one of my all time favorite apps!  I'm not going to lie, I may be slightly addicted to Pinterest.  I use this app for all aspects of my life, but I mostly use it for planning lessons for my classroom.  It is so easy to hop on Pinterest and search whatever topic I am planning for new and creative ideas.  

My school district recently made the jump to all things Google.  While I am still learning all the components and possibilities available to me, I have to say what I know is simply amazing.  I can't wait to discover what else I can do in Google!

Symbaloo has recently replaced my portaportal website.  It allows you to collect all your favorite websites and apps in one place for students to use and explore.  It is a great organizational tool for your classroom!

I am familiar with Dropbox, however I do not use it for classroom purposes.  I mostly use it for sharing pictures and videos with friends and family.

Do any of you use these tools in your classroom?  How do you use them?

I had heard of a few other tools from the list like Padlet and Class Dojo, but I don't currently use them in my classroom.  I'm hoping to learn more about these tools throughout the course of this semester.

 

Do any of you have any advice or thoughts on how to use these apps in your classroom?

I hope you all enjoy your long weekend and are able to relax!

~Jess

Introduction

Hi everyone! My name is Jess Cable.  I can't believe I started a blog!  I teach second grade at Apple Pie Ridge Elementary School.  I just began my 7th year of teaching!  I moved to Winchester 6 years ago after graduating from King's College.  I was born and raised in New Jersey, but I'm happy to call Virginia home now.  I love to teach math, which ironically was my worst subject growing up.  Some of my hobbies include crafting, reading, and photography.  I am excited to learn about new technology available to use in my classroom this semester. 

Happy Blogging!