The wonders of Excel (or Numbers, in my case)

This week was all about Excel - or Numbers, if you're on a macbook like me. I saw on another student's blog that they learned how to use Excel in 8th grade. This impressed me!! I didn't know how to use the program until I was much older. However, either way, I love the program and use it all the time.

One thing that I use Numbers for very frequently is to make a spreadsheet for my grades. I have the sheet set up so that every semester I put in the classes I'm taking, the credit hours, and grade. I entered the formulas so it not only calculates my GPA for that semester, but my cumulative GPA as well. This has become a really useful tool that I use all the time - it's a really easy way to check what grades I need to get to keep my GPA high enough to keep my scholarship. All I have to do is put in different potential grades and I instantly see what GPA those grades will get me! It took some time to get the formulas right (you have to put in all the numerical values for A, A-, B+, etc.) and definitely a lot of tweaking, but now that I have it right I am so glad I took the time. I used to figure out my GPA by hand - what a pain. This is so much easier.

This semester I'm also a TA for EDUC205 (Human Development), and I've found that Numbers is useful for this particular aspect of my school life as well. The professor that I am the TA for likes to know the ranges and averages of quiz, test, and other assignment grades. All I have to is enter the grades in Numbers and the program will sort them in order and calculate the averages for me. Such a time saver!!

Cheers,
Brooke

Google Docs

This week my classmates and I learned about and used Google Docs - an awesome collaboration tool. As I discussed on our class wiki, I used Google Docs in high school to complete a psychology project. Using the site pretty much gave our group the "A." It made it so much easier to share our ideas and research without losing anything.

That being said, one thing I always consider when thinking about not only technology tools, but any type of classroom resource, is the real-world application of the tool. I think Google Docs is an extremely valuable resource for high schoolers (as exemplified by my experience with it), as well as middle schoolers (the age of computer literacy drops year by year). However, I'm really not sure if elementary school students could use Google Docs effectively. I know a lot of parents and teachers are wary about young kids using the internet in general, and being online is the first step in using Google Docs. It's also a but of a confusing site at first, and I think it might be too difficult for a young child to use.

However, I still think elementary school teachers can use Google Docs! I was thinking about whether or not I will be able to use this resource if I'm teaching an elementary school classroom, and I realized that I totally can: to collaborate with fellow teachers and parents! It would be awesome, for example, if all the special education teachers in an elementary school used Google Docs to collaborate on a monthly news letter about what is going on in their classrooms, since a lot of times special education classrooms get left out of the school community. Parents and teachers could even use the site to collaborate on agendas or newsletters for PTA meetings or fundraisers.

No matter what grade the educator is teaching, I think Google Docs is a valuable resource that is only going to get more and more popular!

Cheers,

Brooke

interesting article on an "educational" game

Hey guys!! This is my first blog post for EDUC286. In another class I'm taking this semester (EDUC259 - multicultural education), we read an article that I think is especially relevant to our tech tools class. The article is a criticism of the popular elementary school computer game "The Oregon Trail." I know that I played The Oregon Trail in elementary school, and I think a lot of other people did too. I had never thought about the game in a negative way - I always thought it was educational and fun.

However, this article really opened my eyes to some of the pitfalls schools might encounter when using games like these. Although the game claims to be educational and historically accurate, it actually is not. It does not portray women or minorities in a truthful sense, and does not give the player the understanding of the real events of westward expansion. The article brings up a lot of good points about how the game is subtly but clearly biased towards white males, and ignores a lot of the harm that westward expansion caused for the Native Americans.

I think it is really important to examine technology in the classroom very carefully before letting our students have access to it. I think technology in the school setting can be really great, but it must still be viewed (just as a textbook or other form on instruction would be) with a critical eye. Just because something is advertised as educational and accurate doesn't mean that it is - that's why a robot could never be a teacher!! We're here to evaluate these resources and make sure our students get the best and most useful access to technology that they can. Its not something I had really thought about before, but its definitely something I won't forget!!

Here's a link to the article: 

Oregon Trail Article 

I uploaded it to google docs, so you might have to sign in with your UDel google email info to see it. Its definitely worth checking out!