Oh Excel we meet again...

Activity Reflection #2

I approached this week like I do all others… I read the module first (gives you a good overview and resources), I then read the chapter assigned to us in our textbook (again, informative, but not too much info. I didn’t know before), then I opened the PDF for the activity.  I then swallowed a cry, my nemesis has reared its head again… that’s right people, I do not get along with Excel!  You might say we have a hate – hate relationship, permanently.  The darn formulas never work right for me, even with all the helpful tutorials…

Ok, deep breath; I figure I should at least read the instructions before I go into full panic mode and have to sequester myself in a room and cry before I can do my homework. 

Ok, I can do step 1, I’m comfortable editing the context on just about any document format.  Step 2, no problem, I can insert columns, rows, cells… shoot I could have done a dancing dragon insert, that’s not my problem.  Ah… steps 3, 4, and 5 is where I have a small heart attack.  As I mentioned I can create a column and name it whatever you want it, but the formulas and I are so NOT on the same page.  So I asked the ‘help’ feature for help… didn’t like it.  I looked at the neat resources on our module, helpful, but again, not quite making sense to my non-Excel friendly brain. 

So what is one to do?  Easy, do it the hard way.  Therefore the first cell of each column had the ‘average’ function placed into it and after making sure the correct cells were selected and the end result (the product for the math teachers out there) was confirmed to be correct by my trusty cell phone calculator, I copy and special pasted the formula only onto the remaining 30 cells for that column.  Repeat process for the next two rows (obviously changing which values were to be averaged).  Grand total 30 minutes of messing with the Excel spreadsheet. 

Steps 6-8 were easy enough to do (I can sort no problem, I can highlight and bold and I can sure as hell copy and paste my way out of any pesky issues like names!).  Was this the most effective way to do our homework?  Probably not.  Was it the most effective way for me? YES!  What happened to step 9?  Answer: step 9 is the reason I don’t have an accounting degree, even with the hint it have me a head ache.

I know what Kelvin will most likely say.  Mrs. Stewart, you need to know how to use these tools to be able to effectively judge your students and to have numerical data to back up your results (the parents/principals like that sort of concrete data).  I know this, I need to play with Excel some more.  I admit, due to my lack of success with all previous attempts at it, I have not been a fan and therefore avoid it like the plague.  But I know what challenges are ahead and how important Excel type programs are in education.  I’ll have to sit through a few more tutorials and play with it some more.  Although I will say that Brevard County uses a similarish program but it’s not Excel (you can add columns and stuff on it too), so I can’t run away from it.  Maybe next semester when I see it every day during my internship I’ll feel better about it.  Until then I cringe at the thought of Excel formulas in my future.

So what did I learn regarding this week’s homework?  I learned that if need be I can actually do an Excel assignment without a mental break down.  I learned that I can’t run away from something just because I don’t like it (this lesson keeps coming around more and more as a grown up, irritating really).  I learned there are good resources out there, I might just have to be more patient with them (bookmarked said resources will go back to them later on to play with Excel).  I also learned that the students in the spreadsheet while not superb where doing ok (as per the graph chart I later made out of the results). And hopefully from your comments I will learn that I am not alone in my fear of Excel. 

Let me dock!

Ah the internet… like a persimmon tree it has a multitude of branches we can peruse at our leisure, it can provide us with the fruit of the gods or the fruit of temptation.  We navigate through it sometimes with a purpose, other times out of boredom.  But we are allowed to navigate… that is, until we get to school.  Then the ports of interested are (sometimes) closed.   Frustration ensues as one finds themselves knowing where the desired information is, but finding a firewall or nanny program keeping us away.                          

Now, you might believe this attitude means I support everyone having access to everything at all times.  That is not the case.  There are a) limits and b) circumstances we have to keep vigilant of.  Not only do we live in a highly litigious society, but as educators we have a responsibility to our students and to our community to not harm our students with information available to us by web-based resources (kind of like doctors but without the paycheck).  Our chapter reading was very clear on what our responsibilities are and how we should go about attaining the appropriate results.  And like most textbooks it is erring on the side of caution. 

It is at this cautious intersection that I find the wisdom of Dr. Poole on the subject a bit of a calming reference.  Dr. Poole’s article “Risks involved in integrating the internet into the K-12 curriculum” (2009), points to 8 risks and good, usable, school friendly solutions to these potential risks.   The list includes inappropriate material, cyber bullying, and inaccurate information.  It also touches on a topic that I found interesting… wasted time due to teacher inefficiency with resources… a topic I feel is the reason for this entire course.

And while I can see both sides of the coin, my gut tells me it is ethically inappropriate to cage our educators into a corner and expect them to perform their jobs while not allowed the tools and resources that are available for FREE to aid them in their quest to further the knowledge of their students!  (For those of you who have taken Ethics at UCF, I’m using Dr. Nash 3^rd language for this statement)

A good solution for me would be what my old job did for the staff.  Everyone had limited internet and intranet access, so that they could assist customers with basic questions and they could take required tests/courses online.  The supervisors were given a higher level of flexibility with in the network and were allowed access to quite a few popular web sites (YouTube, Facebook, and most emails were still off limits), and then the directors were given open access to the internet.  We all had sign ins and if you were found to have broken the internet usage protocol there were a series of steps to be taken for reprimand (first an email and a meeting, then something in writing, then a downgrade in access, etc.).  Why can’t we do that for teachers?  Continue to keep restrictions available for students and follow Federal regulations (the funding for all public libraries including schools are tied and require there be a filter program), but allowing teachers to access the information they need without hindrance and just punish those who aren’t adult enough to follow the rules! 

Plus, we are educators; we should educate our students on how to navigate the internet (Drexler’s video mentioned this, so does the PEW Institute’s research on internet usage in the 21^st century, as well as the national standards for internet usage that our textbook uses as a focus).  Scaffold it, it’s not an all access pass all at once – for some reason in education there seems to be an all or nothing mentality that applies to technology usage; the reality of slow and steady progression depending on age and maturity level seems to be lost once you are out of the ‘school’ level.  We don’t set our kids on their feet at 6 months and expect them to walk!  They crawl, they pull, they toddle, and THEN they walk… why is it so different with the internet access at school?

In the mean time, we need to make sure that we allow accessed teachers at the very least, and allow them to decide what is appropriate for their class of students.  It’s frustrating when you can’t access your homework at school because your blog is blocked!  If your instructor is setting it up, it needs to be available to the students… some sort of network/password protection issue maybe? Let progression come at its own pace, if we are good parents and good educators we can model good behavior for our kids and thus allow them to learn to use the internet in a productive and progressive way. 

 

PS: I know at times this whole thing seemed a bit disjointed, but I greatly dislike the fact that as adults we are given fewer freedoms than our students.  After all, they can hack the system in 5 minutes flat; we need to call IT and Congress before we can get something to work on the classroom computer!  I am not condoning hacking either; I’m just not naïve enough to believe it happens ‘rarely if ever’… ha!

References:                                                                                                                                                                                      

Nash, R. J. (2002) “Real World” Ethics.  Teachers College Press, New York, NY. 

Poole, B. (2009) Risks involved in integrating the internet into the K-12 curriculum.  Retrieved on September 20, 2010.   http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/poole/poole018.shtml

We network in our sleep (Week 3)

Reading Reflection #2

I wake up in the morning, I check on my son (he sleeps in, I’m lucky), I make sure there is water in the dog bowl and that Seth goes outside.  While he’s protecting our backyard from wayward squirrels that dare invade his territory I turn on my laptop.  Within minutes Seth is back in and I’m in front of my laptop looking at my homepage (CNN international news).  I then check my two emails (personal and school), then I check on my Facebook page to make sure nothing fun and excited happened while I was sleeping.  My next stop is usually the portal for my web classes where I check to see if anything is due, or was graded and what my classmates are doing.  At this point I set to work on whatever is first on my priority list and do as much as I can before the call for breakfast interrupts me. 

As we are all taking at least one web class, I’m going to go out on a limb and say we all have some variant of this routine for ourselves.  We do these things automatically, like pouring out the cereal into a bowl or turning on the stereo in the car… most times we never give it a second thought. 

But after reading the second chapter in our book I can tell you that I (and you with your routine) just interacted with at least 5 if not more Internet functions.  I turn on my computer and it automatically searches and finds the Wi-Fi in my home, it uses that to connect to the internet via a cable modem.  I in turn use my ‘home page’ to read the news and view videos of stories I find interesting.  I then check my email, and then connect with family and friends via a social networking site.  Lastly I enter a different kind of social networking site which is a cross between several different internet services (blogging, video/audio, cooperative learning environment, test module, poll center, etc.) to see what my classmates are doing. 

It is within this interactive classroom environment that I feel that the “Networked Student” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA) by Wendy Drexler has the most impact on my life.  Like the student in her video, I have a class with no textbook (not this one), and I do all my research for it online.  Viewing blogs, journal web sites, educational web sites and pick my friends brains to do my research and my projects.  And I’m a technology immigrant!  (Or so our book would like me to believe)  I keep track of all this information (as I mentioned in my previous blog) with my *favorites* option on my web navigation window – aka. Internet Explorer (that is my one divergence from the video; I don’t like the web sites that can do this for you). 

And this is also where I agree with the soon to be Dr. Drexler, this interconnectivity within the community of the web is the future, not only for our students, but for ourselves.  Whether we know it or not we are all slowly coming into it … what do you think Facebook is?  We share, we collect, and we look for the things we are interested for on the web; join communities of like minded individuals without discriminating on gender, race, or world location.  We don’t even ask this stuff most of the time!  This is just the example of an adult with a bit of web savvy and who has an interest (isn’t that practically all of us?).  

Now think about our students, and their innate ability to do what we consider work in a heartbeat, with no effort and with every benefit imaginable.  They were practically born into doing what we just spent a chapter reading and a 5 minute video learning about without trying.  They do this whether it’s for math class or for finding out what the coolest cell phone cover.  Our students live in a world where connectivity is the norm and anything else is an oddity.  That is why some of them find school so hard, there is no connectivity, they don’t see how today’s lecture in science relates to tomorrows lecture in history.  We have to make these connections more obvious for them, help them to see that it all does really matter and that it will eventually help to remember who Einstein is and what he did.  But in doing so we have to also help our students learn how to find this information within a reliable accredited source, not just what ‘Becky’ posted on her Tweet last night. 

 I believe Drexler has the right idea.  We (as educators) are the ones who teach our students how to learn, what is appropriate and inappropriate on the internet.  We should teach our students how looking for information outside of the ‘traditional’ classroom is fun and does not need to stop just because the year is over.  If you are interested in something there is no reason you shouldn’t be able to keep up with it throughout your life.  And after all, that is all we want students to do, learn to love to learn.  Even if all they want to learn about is how to beat their new computer game. 

So many sites, so little space in my blog (week 2)

At first glance I was confused about this activity reflection… How concise was I supposed to be?  I’m a verbose person by nature; this is going to be hard. 

While doing the textbook reading I noticed there are some pretty extensive lists of sites between the Ch. 2 special feature and the later Appendix B pages.  I happily dove in to investigating the web through both my trusty Google search engine (I’m a big Google fan, I figured out how to work it long ago and it gives me what I want and tells me how fast it did it in!), and through the directory search feature of the web sites I was already in (another feature I love, because some web sites are so convoluted I need the site map to get to what I want).

I started with the Florida Department of Education (www.fldoe.org).  I wanted to see if they had uploaded the latest World language SSS… nope, still pending.  I got to see a rough draft thanks to the nice people at FFLA (Florida Foreign Language Association – www.ffla.us/).  They sent us (their members) a review link to ALL the Florida Standards that are being updated and that YOU as an individual can review (link to it is here… take a go at them http://etc.usf.edu/flstandards/index.html )... I’ll let my sarcastic tone speak for how I feel about some of the ‘revisions’… 

The FL DOE site also had a really nice ‘student’ section and a good search feature.  I’ve spent a lot of time on this site over the last few months (my summer classes might as well have listed it as a required text!), and therefore felt pretty comfortable navigating the site.  And my overall feeling is that it is very easy to use.

Surprisingly the DOE site is much easier to navigate than the Brevard County site (http://www.brevard.k12.fl.us/); which while trying to be user friendly has put so many links on its site I find it distracting.  I, again, spend a lot of time on this site; as it is my county and I was trying to find a job this summer.  I do admit that once you get use to it it’s not bad to navigate around… but until then you might click on 30 things before you find what you want.  And the search feature is not very refined so it might not lead you to anything of use. 

I found the Department of Education (www.doe.gov) site to be very useful, and it had a ton of resources for everyone (educators, parents, kids), with links that I felt were pretty well organized and easy to follow to other fun sites.  That was my biggest problem… I could follow links for days!  That’s how I ended up in the Smithsonian’s web site, so many cool lesson plans, and a pretty virtual tour you could take your class through.  It has already been added to my favorites list! 

I then went onto the sites the AR instructions recommended we see and decided to review the following sites:

A to Z Teacher Stuff – atozteacherstuff.com

First, I liked the name of this web site, seemed pretty comprehensive and catchy.  I was not disappointed in the sense that the structure of the web site was easy to follow.  The search feature even had several different options for how and what you wanted to search for (including a Google link).  I was disappointed that yet again this is a site for the ‘core’ subjects and some electives are left out.  It would be nice to have the foreign languages included in a site like this.   

Kid’s Search Tools – www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm

I thought this was a fantastic site!   As a parent you don’t have to worry that the magical web suddenly bring up a picture or a site your child should not see, and as an educator you can feel safe in the knowledge that you’ve directed your students to a safe site.  The only down side is that this site can be seen as pretty child like for more experienced users (and that can be your average 8 year old), so the appeal may not be there for the older students.  But in a classroom, where you need to search for something in front of your students and don’t want any surprises this would be a great tool.  (This would never actually happen as we have all read our text book and the Online users guide for educators and know that we should preview ALL sites before we let the students see it… but just in case…)  I also like the fact that the site has specific division and you can type in your search depending on the type of information you need to find. 

The Gateway to Education Materials (GEM) – www.thegateway.org

At first, I thought I wasn’t going to like this site.  There was the issue that one link seemed to link to about 50 others and I couldn’t figure out how to actually SEE the activity or lesson plan each link seemed to be attached to.  Then… then I discovered this site’s search page, and everything changed.  This site has something lovely and rare in the internet world…. Instructions!  Granted it took me 3 minutes to find the instructions, but the good ones are always hard to find. J 

The instructions let you know that you can either use a subject directory for this site, and click your way to where you want to go (a rabbit hole if I ever saw one); OR you could use their handy dandy search engine feature and get a more refined list! [So nice to have the option…and to have the special feature at the end of Ch. 2 in our book (Teachers Discovery Computers by Shelly, Gunter & Gunter) to clearly define the difference between the two options.]  Once I got the hang of it really cool lesson plans, tools, and widgets just magically appeared even in my hard to find subject of Spanish!!  And the best part, you can always go back to the main page and click on *find standards*, a couple of clicks and you are all good to go.  This is one that is going on my ‘school web sites’ list. 

Talking about that, I’ve decided I will stick with my old trusty *favorites* button and the folders I’ve created within it to save any useful web site.  Not only is this feature easy for me to use on either one of the computers in my home, but I felt it was better organized that what Diigo was trying to do to my selections.  No offence, but way too much work for something that right now takes 2 clicks for me.  I’m sure I’ll get some response totting the greatness of this site and how you can access the list from anywhere, etc.  But I just did not like it.    

I feel I should wrap this up, it’s pretty long, but there was just a lot out there. 

Overall I found that the sites I did visit (when not too busy to navigate through) were very helpful to the public they were intended to use them.  The parent/children sites were often very ‘child like’ but full of substantive materials that if available to every student would be of great help to all.  Now if we could only get all students a computer with internet access and someone to help them.