C.+Walter

= So what's happening in Computer Applications Class? = = SEPTEMBER 2010 ﻿   This week (Sep 27) we begin working in slide show software which I will eventually integrate with social studies. We will be working on projects associated with the 13 colonies. For this week, students will be researching a specific state and constructing a 9-slide project. This is to introduce them to the concept of planning, research and finally software. They tend to want to skip the planning and research phase. =

== (September 15) So far we have focused on integrating with Science. I taught students to create tables using famous men/women of science. I left blanks in the table and they had to complete the research. They seems to have fun with the "seek and find" nature of the activity. == ==Then I asked them to select a person off the table and write a short (very structured) 3 paragraph report. Mixed results. Research is clearly something we will need to do more of. The report was then copy and pasted into Wordle to create a word cloud showing the theme of the report. Students found this fun but challenging because I wanted them to save it and the program doesn't allow for that so we had to be creative.==

==Our final activity associated with science is I'm going to show the students how to create study sheets/flash cards in Google docs that they can access at school, at home, or wherever they have access to the internet. This is the first step in Google docs.==

So the students have used the following skills:

 * ==Formatting tables in portrait and landscape view==
 * ==Research famous men/women of science==
 * ==More indepth research to create a short, one-page, three-paragraph paper on a select man/woman of science==
 * ==Taking the research and creating a word cloud to show themes in their report==
 * ==Learning how to use cloud computing through Google docs==

In addition, we are using a wiki daily (check it out at [|www.walterpcwiki.wikispaces.com]) for writing prompts, video instruction, blogging, etc.
= ﻿October 2010 = ==﻿So the last few weeks we have been working on slide shows. The first one we did was to teach the kids how to research and format a simple slide show. The more recent one was an interdisciplinary one with social studies which is on the 13 colonies. The students had an option of choosing their content and then created a 16 slide show. Some of the students took those slide shows and created an Animoto from it. Some students created it in Google docs--the kids are getting quite adventurous and brave with experimenting. The biggest problem I had was that we use OpenOffice which does not allow kids to save as JPEG files and that is what Animoto requires. I had to let them take turn on the laptop--this wasn't all bad, they felt very special sitting with my headset at the laptop and working. It just slowed everything down.==

=﻿ ﻿November 2010 = == ﻿We are working 2 projects simultaneously. This teaches the students about managing time and gives them flexibility in where they focus each day. One of the projects is our long-term project on careers. http://walterpcwiki.wikispaces.com/Career+Exploration+Project Students have 6 choices for product on this one--from a newsletter to a Prezi presentation (of course the grade for a newsletter is lower than a Prezi:) Students may choose to work alone but I encourage them to work in teams (and offer to assign people to teams who have not been able for whatever reason to "pair up" with other kids. It's interesting to me that I included Prezi as a product for the ACE kids (I told them this was a "challenge" as I wasn't going to "instruct" how to use the software--it was up to them to do the tutorials and figure it out) and none of the ACE kids chose it--the other kids did. A few of them are just doggedly working on it and even come up during lunch. == == One of the products is Glogster so I'm spending some time teaching Glogster. I see this as a really neat vehicle for projects in other classes as well. http://walterpcwiki.wikispaces.com/Glogster+Assignment The kids have just really turned onto this. They are working at home on this and coming in and showing me all the things they learned they can do. I ask them to show us all on the LCD with my laptop--it's really a different experience to have the students become the teachers. == == We did a teambuilding activity that was a scavenger hunt. http://walterpcwiki.wikispaces.com/Teamwork+Activities The students were put in teams, a team leader was chosen to keep the answer document and to keep the team members on task. IT WAS A HUGE HIT! I was surprised by some of the students who stepped up to be the leader of the small group (groups were 4-5 members) and really did an excellent job. It was so encouraging to see the students work under peer leadership. ==

Next we will be on to spreadsheets. I am going to help them create a budget based on how much money their career make (estimating).
=﻿ ﻿December 2010 = ==Students really seemed to "catch on" to spreadsheets quickly. They liked the switch from language to math and were really excited when they saw how the formulas would work even if the numbers in the cells changed. We did projects like budgets, internet shopping sprees, figuring percentages of fat in fast food, etc.==

==﻿The career projects were a challenge to get finished. The kids really lost "steam" when they came back from Thanksgiving and with the approaching move at Christmas time. Most of them did get finished and you can see samples on the Student Showcase page. I am especially proud of the students working in Prezi since that was completely "trial and error" learning on their part. I did encourage them to work through the tutorials on the Prezi site and that did seem to help. They were really proud of their finished product.==

==I was disappointed when viewing the survey the students completed when they finished their project. Many of them expressed that they did not like working in groups or with another person. The reasons for this were fairly consistent--one person did all the work, lack of cooperation, lack of responsibility, etc. I think some of this can be addressed in how I set this up the next time. I learned a lot of lessons and will do things differently next time. Some of the changes I think would encourage better collaboration and responsibility include:==
 * ==Rather than having students pick one career to research I would have a group of 6-7 students researching a "cluster" of careers. For example, one cluster might be medical professions. Then the group would select 3-4 careers within that cluster to research and complete the project on. I believe this would show more career options and there would be specific tasks identified for each student. I didn't do that this time and it did seem to fall to the more responsible student in the duo.==
 * ==Another thing I would do differently is have the students work on one question at a time and go over with them the kinds of things they are looking for, what certain terms mean, etc. I think this would enhance their understanding of the results that they find.==
 * ==I would also do more "check ins" with who did what--on work days each student needs to complete a form what they did that day, what information they found, etc.==

Overall I was pretty pleased with this first attempt but see many areas where I can improve the structure that would help the students understand the project and content a bit better.
==There were some interesting things that I learned about what students know/don't know. First, I found they did not understand the concept of "linking." I had them put 5 links on their glog. They did not understand what they should link to or the purpose of the links. It surprised me because they use links all the time on the web but they could not see how they would use links. They also struggled with researching and finding information. They tended to type whole questions in the search box and had a hard time scanning for information. I need to do a better job instructing how to be a better "searcher" of information.==