Week 4

 

Math and Excel 

 Data analysis and graphing is one of the major domains in mathematics. Students are often told to collect data on various subjects, however it is critical to understand that simple data collection does not demonstrate understanding of data analysis. Therefore application such as excel helps students organize and analyses the data collected.

The activity we did in ICT class today, involved students using ICT to analyse the data they've collected. We have collected our own data and created a graphical representation using excel.

'There are many advantages to using using excel in the classroom

• It is simple to use and students can easily analyse the data as it gives a visual representation
• Excel can easuly convert any chart or data set into a web page, making it very easy to share information among groups. 
• As a teaching tool, students can see how different types of graphs and charts can be used to represent the same series of data
• Students can also compare data between any two or more variable

Some of the disadvanges of excel are

• Excel makes data analysis so easy that some students may think that they come to their conclusion too quickly without takign enough time to thoroughly check everything for accuracy and reliability.
• Students find it easier to crunch numbers in Excel. this can lead to students just thinking that their jobs is complete when they are really just at the begining. 
• In Excel there are many ways to do just about everything, this can be overwhelming for students who need less choice when making decisions on how to represent data' 

Retrieved from Excel in Classroom http://www.teach-nology.com/tutorials/excel/print.htm on 17th of August 2010.

Dream time stories - Morning Star

One of the main aspects of a creative classroom is the ability to use various methods to deliver one material. It shows that there is much learning and interaction happening in the class. In ICT today we’ve learnt how we can use two simple programs to engage students.

Using the videos on Dust echoes (http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/.au )about dream time stories, we chose a short video clip to watch and retold the story in our own words using concept maps on inspiration. Our concept map included few pictures of the story and its narration.

Often students are told to read a book, or watch a movie and write a summary of the book or movie to test their comprehension skills. This was different! Not only is this a different method of assessing comprehension skills, but it is also away to engage students as well as an opportunity to teach something new. There are many steps involved in obtaining the final piece. And each step requires the student to be focused. Using this method, students are encouraged to be creative, to analyse the material they will present and how they will present it while evaluating each step as they complete their work, thus demonstrating higher order thinking.

Various other activities can be derived from this such as using the same program students can collect photographs and create a concept map without captions. Students then swap their work and the other student will write the captions on it. They can then see if the story they had in mind was similar to the captions the other student wrote.

Week 3

Making a frog jump!!

The importance in critical thinking and problem solving skills is evident in our day to day living. ‘Critical thinking is the ability to think critically and rationally. It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking’(Powell, 2010).

This week’s activity was to creatively come up with a way to ‘make the frog jump’. The materials we were permitted to use included cardboard, sticky tape, scissors, rubber band and a picture of a frog. The activity was carried out in a paired group, and as a class we came up with many different and creative ways to make the frog jump. This activity needed us to critically think and analyse in order to solve the problem.

It is important to involve students with such activities, in order to learn problem solving through critical thinking. ‘Cognitive research is revealing that even with what is taken to be good instruction, many students, including academically talented ones, understand less than we think they do’ (Powell, 2010). This is due to constantly providing students with information rather than allowing them to search, analyse and solve problems on their own.

Publisher

Week 2

Publisher is a great program to use for many things. I have used it before but haven’t really discovered it the way I have in this class. It is amazing! there is a template for almost everything that you need. From creating flyers and brochures (like the one above) to creating a web page, it simple with clear instructions. It is a great program to use with students and derive many activities from. One activity could be “create your own product and advertise it”. They can also create an e-portfolio showing the work they do at school, their achievements and their ambitions etc. This is supported by VELS as progression point 3.5 shows that students should know how to develop an electronic portfolio of selected visualising thinking files with annotations that identify similarities and differences between their electronic and non-electronic learning strategies. 

Activities on publisher can be connected to different domains such as English as students will be reading and writing. Though there is a clear link to ICT through the use of the program itself, for many of the activities students would need to research and use the web to find information thus improving their ICT and researching skills. Publisher can also be used for other projects relating to other subjects such as Science and Civics and citizentship.   

Figuring things out .....

I wasn't in class week one so I've missed out on how to do all of this ...so I am clicking away to figure things out .. .so I will share more when I know what I am doing. Sooner than later.. I hope