Linking our APA Project Learning

today's the assignment

• editing APA paper and saving to PDF format to share, this will be done via google docs. 
• with google docs you can't publish a PDF to the web, but you can share with all your contacts or anyone you choose
• posting video captures, 1st capture the how to add functions to Excel jing  video add ins, 
• 2nd capture data analysis tools for  Excel how to TTest jing video

this entire process has been very beneficial, from exploring new excel functions, to apa style research, and using the jing video capture to help teach others the "how to" add features and perform significnt difference testing. it is note worthy that the citation / reference tool bar available as a part of MS Word will not let yopu indent the second line as required in apa fromat.

Understanding TTest Function APA Format

The TTest function allows you to look a data from a statistical point of view. this view is not easily understood and needs a data analysis tool to decipher all the numbers (exponentially large numbers) into smaller easier to understand format. the main goal is interpreting data as it relates to your research outcomes. report data apa format with standard deviation (Stdev) and the Significant Difference (SD) if any. all this really pints to is whether the intervention or test scores increased by chance or because you actually made a difference. you may not be able to know exactly what made the difference without further investigation and more experiments that add only one variable at a time and tracks a separate control group. either way you look at this data you main goal is for students to always increase their learning of concepts and skills and for you as a teacher figure out what methods are best at achieving that goal. the iste nets are designed for you to integrate technology into your teaching and your own personal learning because if you are excited about learning then chance are so will your students.

APA Formatted Research

today we will start an APA style research paper. apa has their own preferences for formatting that everyone must adhere to when doing research and submitting the research for peer review or grading, this unique style of formatting insures uniformed data reporting. this uniformed style will typically lead to less confusion when interpreting the data presented. this lesson meets the ISTE Standards as they relate to doing different types of research and data collection. it also requires you to format your project or paper in a different style that you may not have been familiar with like MLA. when you work with outcomes on pre-test and post test analysis you need a converter to check significant difference (SD) <.05>(NSD) Link to converter this is a accomplished by using the TTEST function on excel data. now the task is writing all this work into an APA style research paper due by 29Mar2011.

Hyd Fracturing

Tsunami travelling across Pacific

this is an awesome graphic of the tsunami ripple across the pacific ocean. it should be noted that these waves don't crash on the shore like waves they travel across the land until the land becomes higher than the wave. i should also point out that the tsunami wave loses very little energy once it starts to come into contact with obstacles and is travelling at a very high rate of speed.

In The Beginning? (Introduction)

Not the beginning of time but rather the beginning of this class. we have a class outline that I looked through, admittedly a somewhat brief look, but upon further review I noticed a few bits of info that may be eluding some future and current teachers, and you know who you are. these bits of info deal with learning and teaching in the 21st century. there are a couple of good links #1 is to "21st century skills" I assure you these are not teaching students how to put pen to paper. the others are a series of  files that link to the WV Teaching Standards as they relate to the State BOE initiative Global 21. standard 1 , standard 2, standard 3, standard 4,and standard 5 everyone of these standards has important info that future and current teachers should know the content and directives contained in them. the other standards we use in class to self measure our daily learning activities are the ISTE NETS here you can find the links to standards for teachers and students. there is also a great deal more to be explored on this site.
a parting thought just a bit off the technology track is a great book which will make you think and rethink about education today is "the end of education" by Neil Postman. he has other books out there as well that i like such as "teaching as a subversive act" one that i have only previewed but is now on my read list. check them out but be warned they will make you think!

Why is Technology still lagging behind in some Classrooms?

This is a great article answering the question in the title of this post. This article appears in Education Week an online and hard copy magazine targeting all aspects of the Education arena. I mentioned this site in an earlier post. Here is a link to this specific article LINK  there are many more articles of interest and membership for online is free to students. While you are reading and contemplating this article you may want to find out what some of the classroom requirements are for students and teachers so here is a link to the ISTE NET standards. CLICK HERE  even if you don't agree with some of the content you should always have an open enough mind to at the very least consider what others are saying and writing about. Carl Rogers said, "that everyone should really try to understand the other side and by doing so you may actually become aware of weaknesses in your opinion and allow you to develop a more educated opinion through this new found ability to see a different point of view."

Research Excel Style

Today is a great new day and the lesson of the day will point to yet another time in the future when adding more technology to your teaching delivery and managing your time will be an even bigger a necessity. today we learned how use more of functions on the excel spreadsheet like "averageif" and other logic driven formulas, inserting graphs of varying types to better visualize the data totals. this exercise will better prepare us to gather data and make graphs for future research papers. all this fits the ISTE NETS Standards in that teaching is very often research based and you should guide your students into similar types of research and data gathering techniques. this will work with any subject. another good data collecting tool is surveys, these are a good way to have students fill in demographic information about themselves that you can chart, they will also learn how to collect data from these surveys too. there would be a link here to my Excel Spreadsheet but Google docs doesn't fully support Excel spreadsheets.

More gradebook magic

working with excel and developing a spreadsheet based gradebook is a good idea just for ease of making changes and adding data. this activity allowed for multiple functions on spreadsheet formulas by using the "countif" and "if" functions which will make connections to Logic math and Set theory math,when you begin to use math questions "like if and only if" and "if then." if you as a teacher have a good understanding of how you add these functions they will then have real time meaning to why your students need to know and understand this branch of math. click here to see my spreadsheet activity. i also added graphics to further emphasize the good grades. all these activities strengthen the ISTE NETS Standards in both utilizing online access for students and parents as well as strengthen researching techniques to find tips on how to better use Excel formulas.

diigo link

this is a link to diigo   more to come on this post link

Desert????

I sure didn't think the desert would look like this.

This is what the drive from Flagstaff, AZ to Sedona, AZ was like on monday February 21st, 2011 after a very snowy weekend. There will be more pictures to come and I will show you some that actually look more like desert.

RTI

Is RTI doing what it was intended to do? Here is a link to an article from Education Week and online and paper publication that I think has some very valuable and informative articles. I receive the online version free as a student majoring in Education, you should check it out and join if you are so inclined. You should check out this entire article if you are in anyway teaching in the classroom right now or will be in the future. Click for Link Post comments to let me know what you think about the article and if you are teaching right now if RTI is working in your classroom.

Graphs and Spreadsheets making them work for you.

The scale you use will determine the contrast or lack of contrast of the data. today we did a gradebook spreadsheet. this tool should help you keep parents infromed even before report cards come out. this will also allow students to see where they stand. while you would not publish your grade book you will be able to provide custom views to each parent and student. Link to spreadsheet  This is an activity that  meets the ISTE NETS standard # 3. It also helps to become more aware of the other gadgets or functions available in Excel.