Excel: NCES Chart

For this assignment, I used state reading statistics provided by NCES to create an excel spreadsheet and a scatter plot. First, I selected my search criteria from the choices NCES provides to the public. As shown in the image below, I selected 4th grade, reading, and gender as my comparison criteria.

After the chart was generated, I downloaded it and exported it to an excel file. In excel, I computed descriptive statistics for the total score, sorted the spreadsheet by totals, and created a scatter pot with my findings as shown below.

 

As shown in the scatter plot above, Virginia was ranked 9th in 2011 in terms of reading scores. We are six points above average with 41 states behind us. I think it's absolutely wonderful that we are ranked so high and I can't wait to see the 2012 comparisons to see if we climbed the charts!

Google Site

For this assignment, we were to create a website using Google Sites. Instead of creating a new site from scratch, I decided to use this opportunity to edit and revise my Teacher Portfolio because I will be using it to send to employers soon. I created my online portfolio a few years ago, but back then I wasn't nearly as knowledgeable about technology and how URLs and pages worked. This time, I was able to change fonts and colors, and create links to view my blog and my resume on Google Docs. I am really excited to be able to share this blog with future employers, because I think it is a great way to demonstrate my capabilities as a teacher and as a learner.

I had fun exploring Google Sites, but I must say that I feel it is pretty limited as far as web pages go. There were some things I wanted to change that I simply couldn't because of layout restrictions. For example, I wanted to make the text of my site title bigger, but it wouldn't let me unless I agreed to use a two row title (even though there is plenty of room to stretch it our horizontally). It's obviously not a big deal, but I do think appearance matters and it's aggravating when simple changes are prohibited. I like Blogger a lot better than I like Google sites because of the freedom and how easy it is to use.

I think this assignment best represents NETS standards 3 and 5. NETS standard three is represented because I am exhibiting knowledge of a digital society and using technology as a tool for professional growth. Nets standard five is represented because I'm improving my professional practice by creating an online Portfolio, which demonstrates the effective use of electronic tools.

RubiStar

For this assignment, I created an online rubric using a website called RubiStar. Rubrics are extremely challenging to create because you have to make sure you consider all aspects of the assignment. Not only do you have to make sure you acknowledge all of the different requirements on the rubric, but you also have to create a fair grading scale for missing parts. I think that's the hardest part. For example, in the rubric I created using RubiStar, I would have had a hard time determining when students should get a 4, 3, 2, or 1, but the website filled in the choices for me as soon as I chose a category. It was so quick! They also give you the option of changing the wording of the categories they suggest, if you'd like to be more specific in your criterion.

After you create a rubric on Rubistar, you can save it to their website for storage, save it to your computer, or print a hard copy. You can choose if you want to save the file temporarily or permanently and then go back in to edit it whenever you need to. I will DEFINITELY be using this website in the future.

Google Forms: Self-grading Quiz

For this assignment, I created a quiz using Google Forms and learned how to apply formulas to allow it to grade itself. After creating five test questions, I selected the first empty cell to the right of the questions in row one, and inserted the formula (=IF(B3=B$2, 100,0)). Rather than having to repeat the formula for each row per student, I simply dragged it to the empty cells. This formula creates a "grade" for each cell (basically informing me if the answer is right or wrong) but it does not give me a total average. To find the average of all of the answers per student, I used the formula (=SUM(I3:M3)/5) and inserted it to the empty spaces to the right of the other formula. The formulas will make more sense after you view my spreadsheet.

I am SO happy I learned how to do this, because it will save a lot of time only having to plug in one formula as opposed to manually grading several quizzes. The only obstacle I can foresee is not having enough laptops for every student to take the quiz. However, I like being able to implement technology whenever I can, and if I can find a way to make quizzes even a little interesting for students, I'm all about it. Not to mention the time saving aspects since they would be self graded.

To test your knowledge on basic sonnet forms, click here or take the quiz below!

Google Forms

For this assignment, I used Google Forms to create a survey that I could present to students during my student teaching internship. Google forms is a really efficient program because once users fill out the form, it automatically sends you their information and adds it to a compiled spreadsheet. As the overview video points out, the days of having to email everyone and then manually compile the feedback are over. The form provides the creator with a variety of question types (multiple choice, list, text, grid, scale, etc...) so you can turn the form into whatever you want it to be. It could be one big grid of information, or it could be an online quiz that would automatically record students' answers. I liked the idea of using it as a survey because students could fill it out at home on their own time, and choose whether or not they wanted to submit it anonymously or not. Many times, when you ask someone to share their honest opinions and criticisms, they are worried about anonymity. This type of virtual survey would eliminate that fear, not to mention it is a lot quicker for them to fill out.

In my survey, I asked students questions about myself as a student teacher, and about the class in general. I included one example of each question type, and chose a literary theme as the background. You can view the survey I created here, or view it below.




I asked a few of my family members to fill out the form so that I could see what happens when I get the feedback, and I was really impressed by how fast Google sent me their responses. Once they clicked "submit" at the bottom of the survey, Google Forms compiled the information in a spreadsheet that looks like this.This makes the form extremely easy to manage and keep track of the information. There are multiple views, but I personally like the "summary view" the best because it would be the most useful to quickly summarize students' information. Every student's answer is important, but if you just want to see majority votes/opinions, the pie charts and summarized information in this view are very helpful.

Now that I know about this form, I can see myself using it all of the time for both students and parents. One of my peers had the idea of using this form to gather guardian contact information, and I thought that was a great idea. It would be really quick for parents to fill out and I wouldn't have to worry about the form getting home to them to sign. There are many ways to share the form with others since it's just a matter of sending a link, so I could email it to them like I did to my mom and brother, or I could set up a class blog similar to this one and embed it like I did above. As long as I make my docs public, anyone has access to view them without being a Google user.

I'm so glad we did this activity!

Prezi

For this assignment, I created a presentation using a program called Prezi. Prezi is a presentation software like Microsoft PowerPoint, except it's completely different. One major difference is how Prezi uses a blank canvas instead of slides. As I was creating my presentation, this was one of the hardest adjustments for me because I kept feeling like all of my presentation material was disorganized. However, on the other hand, this feature allows Prezi to deliver more powerful presentations because you have a lot more freedom with the way you present the material.

Another big difference between Prezi and PowerPoint is how the slides are ordered in the actual presentation. Since PowerPoint uses a "slide" approach, the slides are easily numbered and the presentation presents itself chronologically per slide. I must admit, I really missed this feature as I was building my presentation and it made me realize that I take it for granted every time I present in PowerPoint. In Prezi, there are no slides so you create "paths" that connect each of your points in the order you want them shown. I believe it sounds easier than it is. At first I was going through and dragging the paths from point to point, but Prezi kept messing up the order and zooming in too far so it was throwing off my presentation. I couldn't find any information on how to correct the zoom, after many tutorials and forums. I was getting REALLY aggravated until I realized that I could position the information on my screen exactly how I wanted it, and choose to add my current view as my path instead of having the drag the cursor to each point. This made me really happy. At the end of the day, all of my hard work turned into this presentation. You can also check it out below.

Why is English class important? on Prezi

All in all, Prezi is a really cool program and you can create a presentation with a lot of impact, but you better have loads of time do it. I could be saying this because I'm not as familiar with Prezi (this was my first time ever hearing of it) as PowerPoint, but I do think that all of the tools, frames, zooming, and paths take a ton of time to get used to and it would take a lot of practice to create a truly powerful presentation like the ones in the video examples. Sometimes too much freedom can be a bad thing, or at least for me. PowerPoint has a lot of capabilities, I love the way it's organized, and I think it's much easier to use.

In my opinion, this assignment touches on all five NETS standards. Using and sharing this program with my students would expand our technology skills, while promoting critical thinking and inventiveness. By designing a presentation using this contemporary tool, I would also be exposing students to innovative technology and helping them grow as learners. Throughout my presentation I would exhibit legal and ethical behavior, and ask students to do the same if they used the tool to present information. Since this type of assignment entails so much, it could easily fall under each point of the NETS standards.

PhotoStory

For this assignment I created a presentation using Microsoft PhotoStory. PhotoStory is just what it sounds like; it allows you to use your pictures to tell a story. The program provides many options to customize the pictures, and you can even turn your story into an educational lesson by combining it with Microsoft PowerPoint like I did below.





For this assignment I took our Google Maps activity and created a "part two" so to speak, by creating a visual itinerary of some of the literary sites we would see when touring Massachusetts. First, I created a PowerPoint presentation of images representing each literary landmark. I saved the files as .JPEG files and transferred them to PhotoStory where I created voice narration for each slide. One of the many advantages of PhotoStory is the option to set a timer for each slide to keep presentations brief. With the twenty second timer set, I narrated the history of each image/slide. Once I finished creating my PhotoStory, I uploaded the movie to Youtube so I could embed it into this blogpost and obtain a URL to share with the public.

I thought this activity was really difficult and time consuming, but I'm glad that I did it because I learned a lot about videos and embedding, which are two subjects I didn't know anything about prior to this. For me, one of the hardest parts was figuring out to embed this video into my blog, even after I read many online tutorials. I switched the view to HTML, but despite what all of the tutorials said, you do not simply "copy and paste" (or at least that didn't work for me). You still have to know a bit about actual HTML codes to get it to work, because I figured out that it only works after putting "< br /> " before and after the video, which none of the tutorials told me. Oh well, now I know!