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.