3rd Post CEdO-540 Null Hypothesis

I looked a little bit into the site how to create a good survey. The bottom line is, "What does one want to correlate or prove?" I get tired of students constantly sneaking their cell phones out during class to send a text message. What could be soooo important that they should risk missing out on what I am trying to teach them? There is that recurring theme that has been echoing in my mind ever since I began teaching; the material that I wish to show them needs to be related to their universe. They must deem it as relevant and important to their futures. Not an easy task. I would love to see Governor Walker take over a class for a week and try to teach the students anything, but funny enough, I don't believe he has the credentials.

After reviewing what I have written so far, I sound scatter brained to myself.

My proposed Null Hypothesis will have something to do with cell phone usage.

540 Week 2

One of the activities that we had to perform this week was the investigation of survey software, cost and features, etc. I can only surmise that this exercise was to expose us to the possibility of being in the position to make such a purchase one day. I can't help but think that it can't be that difficult to write some macro and include it in a web site that would perform the same rudimentary questions that I would ask. In fact, that was a feature that intrigued me the first time I looked at google sites. The problem with writing my own macro to survey is managing the data after it's collected. Not so much with how to manage it, but the time involved.

CEdO - 540 1st Blog - Stats

I had small encounters with statistics while in high school in the classes that I took, but never had a class devoted to statistics exclusively. When I took my first statistics class in college becoming a math major, I hated it. It took something that was pure and tainted it. Up until this point, every math class had a set procedure to come up with the one (and only) true answer. Upon taking stats, there was this thing called a confidence interval and outliers. It made no sense to me! What did I care and when was I ever gonna use this? How immature I was!

After graduating college, I landed a job as a laboratory technician using my Chemistry minor - more than my Math major (or so I thought). In this job, I was entrusted to ensure the cleanliness of the effluent water used in the production of heat transfer equipment. I began to see what statistics were all about. It finally meant something to me and I had to know it or I would lose my job! Talk about incentive to learn something!

I must admit it has been some time since I have used stats, but the more I do the assigned work, the more I reminisce about the job that drove me into teaching. But that's another story.

I do get a kick out of all of the anxiety shown by my fellow 540 cohorts, not because I'm sadistic, but because I see myself years ago - before I had a better understanding of statistics. I don't claim to be an expert of statistics, but I will help anyone who asks to try to clarify any misunderstanding and if I don't know I'll admit I don't know (without the anxiety). So ask away!

By the way, I wasn't trying to call anyone showing anxiety over this class immature. You should have seen me whine when I began some of the papers that require citations and bibliographies. I have to say, I still dislike those! I did call up a friend of mine for help (an English teacher) who put me at ease...