2nd Post for 550

My experience with online communities has been limited by choice. I do not have a facebook or any other type of social networking account. For the most part, I have a negative opinion of them as being a waste of a perfectly good resource, computers, much like television has the majority of its programming breaking down social mores in the pursuit of more money. Perhaps, I have not yet seen or found the right community to become a part of. I have a hard time joining and using one when I read a story every now and then about someone’s privacy being compromised or identity being stolen or the number of criminals who are using them.

The biggest benefit of collaborative groups is being exposed to different thoughts and ideas of how to solve a problem. When one works on a problem alone, s/he is obviously limited to her/his own individual experience.

I believe the greatest challenge would be to get me to subscribe to facebook, my space or something else. I am amazed that I continue to look and use my twitter account, but I have found some really great teaching resources (that keep me going back).

My thoughts regarding the social development and socialization issues are: Students need to be warned of all of the dangers that are out there in cyber space and shown ways to use the computer that will help others and themselves to a better future for all.

I hate to sound so cynical and pessimistic. I am teaching in a district where cell phones and ipods are to be confiscated and turned into the office for parents to pick up if used during school hours, yet, for some students it is worth the risk. I would like to find a way where cell phone usage can be a positive rather than a negative. The ipods should stay turned off.

1st Blog of 550

Identify at least two synchronous and two asynchronous online learning tools that would be appropriate for your targeted online learners.

Synchronous learning tools –

Wallwisher.com – A graphic organizer/webpage where users can post messages, thoughts, ideas, (similarity/difference lists, KWL charts, etc.)

Asynchronous learning tools –

Khanacademy.org – Over 2100 videos (tutorials with examples). It is a great site for students to use to “brush up on their math skills as well as get a preview of the next level.

WolframAlpha.com – Self proclaimed “computational knowledge engine”. This site is considered a primary resource for research as well as a site for students to check computations of various mathematical problems.

Screenr.com – Screencasting software resident online and accessible from twitter, facebook and other locations. There is no need to download any software. Students can make a screencast up to 5 minutes long that explains there solution in solving a problem and choose to submit privately to others or publish to the web.

Synchronous and Asynchronous learning tools:

Graphing Calculator 3D (www.runiter.com). Downloadable Calculator that will graph equations and inequalities in 2 and 3 dimensions (free version available).

Google Sketchup – Free downloadable CAD software. This can be used, not only to design architectural structures, but to demonstrate and calculate formulas and applications involving 2 dimensional polygons and 3 dimensional polyhedra.

Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 – Free Downloadable Calculator that will solve everything that traditional calculators will, as well as, algebra, trigonometry and triangle solver (not the ambiguous case), statistics and calculus. MM4.0 will also show solutions of Algebra problems (step by step) with explanation and has a handwriting recognition feature.

List four different types of activities that you might use with your targeted online learners and identify an appropriate online tool to use in implementing that activity.

A probability and statistics lesson could include using Quizicon.com. Quizicon.com is a site that has timed quizzes from subjects such as the 100 most popular words in a given language, Greek letters, the 50 States, etc. The object is to name as many as possible within a 5 minute time span. I could have students work alone or in groups and take specific quizzes, gather the data of how many answers they were able to get and see what kind of distribution arises (Normal, Poisson, etc.). We, as a class, could then calculate all of the statistical parameters associated with the data and make predictions about the results of people who have yet to take the specified quiz with a given confidence interval.

In calculating the volumes and/or surface areas of various polyhedral, the students can use Google Sketchup to construct a visual representation and explain how they arrived at their answer while orbiting the figure and giving appropriate dimensions.

As stated earlier, I could assign the students to use Screenr.com or some other screen casting software to make a screen cast that will explain any type of mathematical problem using Google Sketchup (for Geometry) or a word processing software or presentation tool (MS Word, Google Docs, Powerpoint, Animoto, 280 slides, others) to report to the class or just me.

Yacapaca.com can be used to give a quiz or test to students during class or at their leisure as a means to assess their current level of understanding.

Is my initial contact warm and inviting? Are there things I did particularly well or could do better in the future?

I believe I made my initial contact e-mail warm and inviting, while trying to maintain an authoritative demeanor. Having yet to conduct an online course, I feel it is important to be open, yet firm. I made an admission of being a terribly slow reader, not so much to show vulnerability or weakness, but to invite openness and honesty. I believe every teacher wants their students to eventually consider him/her their friend, but not at a cost of loss of respect or authority. This is why I felt it important to spell out that my students should address me with Mr. This policy, and others, can obviously change with time. I used a somewhat subliminal message (the word “welcome” in a number of different languages) as a backdrop in my welcome pdf file to send that message as well as a cute picture of my puppy to offering a feeling of warmth and ease. I did not include a starting time in my initial contact - just recognized that looking at the others.

Is my initial contact clear and concise and yet user friendly? What are some strategies that help to format your contacts to make them as clear and concise as possible?

Once again I believe I made my initial contact e-mail as clear, concise and user friendly as possible. I wanted to put more, but believe too long is a bad thing, concise being the key word. The strategy that I employed was putting myself in a student’s situation and answering the following questions: What do I need to know now? How do I communicate with my teacher if something goes wrong?

Last Blog for 540

The timing of certain events in this world and this program never cease to amaze me. Doing the Google Trends assignment over the past couple days in the wake of the 8.9 Richter Scale reading earthquake was very ironic, yet enlightening. With the quake producing tsunamis that reached Hawaii and the western coast of the contiguous U. S. and watching the changes to the searches and their locations in Google Trends was fascinating to watch. Now, with the possibility of core meltdowns in the reactors of the nuclear power plants there are related searches going on that are flooding the search engines. I've also seen the Japanese Nikkei Index and yen being hot topics in searches. God help us!

I find it very sad, this being selection Sunday for the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament, that something so relatively trivial as college sports will begin to eclipse the hardships, the poor residents affected in Japan are dealing with, in the minds of our citizens so quickly.

4th? Blog of 540

I don't think I ever want to stop taking classes during my lifetime. I remember thinking a few times before starting this master's program, "Where else can I go to look at interesting info on the web". Now its a matter of managing the time to go to all the places I want to investigate further.

Also, I am becoming more aware of the new knowledge I have acquired. For instance, I now know what the little icons mean at the bottom of the screen at the end of TV news programs. And there was a clue on "Jeopardy" that showed the icon for RSS and asked what it was (in actuality - the icon was the answer, the contestants had to say "What is RSS?"). I would never have known what that icon was before this program and would have gone on with my existence in ignorance and obscurity - all the while thinking I know so much. I also saw Diane Sawyer's intro to a piece on the current TED conference that just convened. I must admit I wondered what TED stood for and tried to find it a few months ago but deemed it relatively unimportant. Incidentally, TED stands for technology - entertainment - design. Thanks Diane! I did take the time to look at the 3 videos ABC news deemed worthy of my time. One of them was shown to us in an earlier class from this program.

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...