CEDo 515 - Post 5

One of the most important things that we are doing this week is learning how to evaluate software to see if it is a good educational tool before we use it in the classroom. I often try to make use of software or an application before I really evaluate it. Often times, I sort of evaluate it as I am trying to make use of it for the first time. This has the tendency to waste a lot of time and energy. Now after having learned and found some good ways to evaluate software, I can save myself a lot of time and frustration when preparing new software for class use. One example of this was that I wanted to start using our new laptops more often by using the Google package of applications. Once I started trying to lay things out and start planning for class, I realized that a lot of the Google applications ran very slowly or disconnected very often on my school's network. If they did this for a teacher, they would almost certainly be completely unworkable on for a student. After wasting time on this I decided to make use of the student learning community tools that the district has available for all teachers to use with their students. This moves much faster and is very easy for the students to get used to because they have either already used it, or just because it is fairly easy to use. I would still like to try to work Google in with them because it is something that they could use out in the real world.

CEDo 515 - Post 4

I watched a set of videos on a Congressional Lawmaking simulation with students (http://www.intime.uni.edu/video/028iahs/0/). This lesson is designed for 12th graders, but could be simplified for younger students. This lesson goes through how laws are made in American government. The teacher or students choose a relevant and current topic to debate and attempt to pass a law on. In this simulation, the teacher has two classes and one serves as the House of Representatives and the other the Senate. The simulation goes through many different steps of the process, from committee hearings, questioning, statements, etc. Students also play many different roles, from Representatives to Senators to lobbyists. Students get to grill each other on the large and small parts of the bills that they are trying to pass.

By participating in and completing this activity students gain and improve immeasurable skills, including: democracy in action, tolerance, speaking and thinking skills, collaboration, dialogue skills, compromise, responsibility and civic involvement, research and Internet skills, video taping debates.

I already do a very simplified version of this in my 10th grade U.S. History classes. I have only tried it once and did not plan it out as much as I would have liked, but it worked so well even without the planning that my colleague and I are planning to keep building until we get to something like this video shows. With that in mind, this video will help me beyond what words can say. It already lays out everything that really needs to be done to go through a good Congressional lawmaking simulation. Since my colleague also teaches a video editing class, we are sure at some point to work in video recording and editing skills to broadcast the debates to different classes, etc. This is going to be a very powerful project, and this set of videos is drastically going to help us with setting it up.

Cedo 515 - Week 3

This week we are talking about spreadsheets, Nettrekker, and evaluating software. Spreadsheets are something that I am not afraid of, that I use occasionally, but that I don't understand completely as far as inserting functions and things like that. I know enough that I was able to put one together for my wedding so that every time I added or subtracted a guest it automatically added or subtracted to the total. I was also able to create a honeymoon budget spreadsheet that had the amount that I wanted, the amount that I had, then I just put in how much more I added to it each month and it would tell me how much more I needed. That was very helpful and even though I don't claim to be a wizard with spreadsheets, I believe that I still know more about how to use them than most people. I would like to bring spreadsheets into my classroom more, especially after looking at some of the examples. I like to have the students look at all kinds of graphs, charts, and information, but the spreadsheet would allow students to make their own. There is no better way to get students to understand how to read graphs and charts than to put one together by themselves.

We did a magic square spreadsheet. I was not looking forward to this because I hate sudoku and anything like it. I started out by guessing quickly, then realized that this was getting me nowhere, so I decided to use logic. It started with realizing that 7,8, and 9 would never be in the same line, and everything fell into place from there.

We also explored Nettrekker. My district subscribes to this and I have a link to it on my Moodle site for my students. I often direct them there so that they can find good reliable information without having to wade through all of Google's garbage.

We read Chapters 5 and 6 in the book about Creativity and Problem Based Learning. I worked both of these concepts into my classroom last semester. I encouraged both in one project. I organized the students into groups, then they had to answer the question, "How could the Civil War have been prevented?" The groups then had to come up with an invention or idea that could have solved or prevented many of the different causes that led to the American Civil War. I realized that I and the teachers that I created this with actually went through and did many of the steps listed in Chapters 5 and 6, but it is really nice to have them all listed right here.

Something interesting that I've found both in my short experience and from talking to others in my group is that very few people, even qualified people, are able to evaluate and choose the software that they use for their district/job. This is generally because there are other people that are hired to do just that. Many of us have to simply use what is given to us through all of the bureaucracy. This is bad because we are unable to choose what we think might be best for ourselves and our co-workers. It is also good because we have other people to go through all of the different options that are out there, there is somebody that is seemingly more experienced that is being paid to do it.