CEDO 550 - Week 2

I used Creately to do my Venn diagram comparing Synchronous and Asynchronous online learning.  The tool set looks phenomenal and it is free as long as you only want to do one drawing at a time.  Not sure why it looks blurry when inserted in the blog.  If you click on it, it looks just fine.

CEDO 550 - Week 1

After seeing some of the sample courses and packages that are being offered in today's online learning "game" I have to admit that I am pretty impressed. I spent some time on the discussion boards saying how I thought that online learning was more geared towards advanced, self-motivated, organized students but now that I have seen actual sample lessons (K12 website) I think that there is much more hope that these online programs can help struggling kids as well. The GUI is impressive and caters to visual learners and there is enough variety among the ways that material is presented and evaluated that I think a wide range of students could have an excellent chance at success when finding failure in traditional classroom settings. The main topic of discussion during our web conference (group work) was how we thought that self-motivation was key to the success of an online learning program with students. We were leery of its potential effectiveness with unmotivated students but after seeing how attractive the online schools and their programs look it has given me reason to believe that there might be hope. I have seen unmotivated students at my school turn over a new leaf with opportunities provided by technology. Case in point, 12 out of the 14 struggling students given iPads have shown marked improvement in the areas of motivation, organization, and creativity over a 3 month period. Technology has that positive effect more often than not on today's youth. It is not always able to be explained but we can certainly take advantage of that allure to reach students in ways that we couldn't reach them before. Online learning is a perfect example.

CEDO 540 Stats - week 5

This week we covered some interesting statistics sites like the CDC, NCES, and WINSS.  I haven't been to most of those sites so it was interesting to explore them a little more in depth.  I also thought it was interesting because I was exploring the sites from a statistical analysis viewpoint.  One of the statistical sites that I chose on my own was the Mapping Service provided by the City of Greenfield.  I love GIS/Mapping and there are similar services provided for almost any decent sized city or county.  It is so interesting to look at the different layers of information that encompass a parcel of land.

Another tool we looked at was Google Trends.  It was interesting to see how certain hot topics or search terms fluctuated in popularity in relation to events that might have happened.  It was also interesting to see how certain search terms compared to each other in popularity over certain periods of time.  I am hoping that the social studies teacher will find some way to incorporate Google Trends into their current events assignments.  I could also see other teachers using this with students to show them how interest in certain topics is influenced by major events in politics, sports, Hollywood or even the world.

CEDO 540 Stats - week 4

This week we worked some more with standard scores (or z-scores) in the guided practice.  I have to be honest that it seemed a lot harder this week.  Our instructor gave us some sample problems that helped but analyzing the data using this method is pretty tough.  I'm guessing it gets easier with practice but I'm pretty turned off by it right now.  At this point, if I ever ran across a situation where I needed/wanted to analyze some data sets and show the implications of the z-score I'd be very likely to find someone who could do it more painlessly.  Or even better, I'd find a piece of software or an application that could do it for me.  Don't get me wrong, the data is extremely valuable...the path to getting that final data is the painful part.

Our survey group assignment is finally finished except for the final analysis part.  We decided to use Google Forms to administer the survey because of the ease in creating a survey and the ease in sharing the resulting spreadsheet among the group members but I almost wish we had tried something else.  Gathering the raw data through the Google Form is not an issue at all.  It is manipulating the data that causes some minor headaches.  I am pretty good with MS Excel so writing some of the formulas came pretty easy but Google spreadsheets are not nearly as smart as Excel when it comes to auto-fill and dragging your formulas around.  I knew what I was getting into with Google Forms - I just wish we had tried something else that did the reporting for you.

Finally the Bill Tancer video.  It is not surprising to me what kind of data is being mined by ISPs and the such but it is the mystery of where that data is going and how it might be used that is scary.  Internet privacy, or lack thereof is one of those things that you try not to think about.  I remember putting together an advertisement on Facebook when I was working for a Social Sports League and the detailed specifics when it came to choosing what demographic we wanted it to hit was amazing.  We could specify an age range, geographic area, salary range, people interested in sports, and the list goes on.  Its not going to get any less invasive either.  Not sure what can be done besides "unplugging yourself from the grid" and that is not going to happen anytime soon for me lol.

CEDO 540 Stats - week 3

The new term we added this week that interested me was standard scores or Z-scores.  Here is a link to a good explanation of Z-Score , how it is calculated and how it can provide a meaningful way to compare data and understand how defective a process is.


Our group assignment will take a few weeks but I am eager to get started.  The assignment is to create a survey, administer it, collect the data, and then provide an analysis of the data using various statistical averages, calculations, and charts or graphs.  My group was deciding between using Survey Monkey and Google Forms.  Ultimately we decided to use Google Forms because of it's ability to share the collected data easily, we are all familiar with it and it is not limited to 10 questions like Survey Monkey.  Our topic will be Internet Safety and our targeted student groups will be grades 4 through 8.  We are expecting to see a difference between the knowledge of grades 4/5 and grades 6/7/8.  I will start administering the survey on Monday with my classes so we'll see what happens.

CEDO 540 - week 2

This week we talked about some more terminology and topics.  We talked about terms like census, sampling, opinion, marketing research, quantitative research, paid survey, and questionnaire.  It turns out that my memory was a little hazy when it came to defining these terms.  I had some basic understanding but there were some missing connections that I neglected to make.  It was good to review them.  I have to admit that I am still a little confused about skew.  I understand the creation of the "tail" when taking sets of numbers and deciding how the typical bell curve would look but I don't quite understand how to decide if its skewed to the left or right.


One of the main focuses this week was the survey.  We took a look at a website called Capterra that listed good survey resources, both online and offline software packages.  It might have a slight bias towards their "featured" survey tools but it still would be a good place to start when looking for survey options.  We were asked to review both free and paid survey services and analyze 3 of each.  We found that almost every online survey tool had a certain level of free features and then an option to upgrade by paying for some of the more powerful features.  Survey Monkey, Adobe FormsCentral, and Google Forms were my favorites.

CEDO 540 - Week 1 Stats and beyond

I really love stats.  From looking at sports stats and figuring out trends to analyzing the results of surveys I have really enjoyed working with statistics.  This first week was kind of an introduction to some basic terminology and we were to analyze a few scenarios as a group and then document the different situations and identify how stats were used.  I am very eager to delve deeper into the world of stats and come up with ways that I can use them to improve my teaching, training and even make improvements to my school.  There is a small part of me that is a little scared because I remember having a Stats class in high school that got really in-depth and I didn't do so well.  Hopefully I can handle it if we get that involved.