Google Shared Spreadsheets

In class today, my students accessed a Google shared spreadsheet that I set up for our What's for lunch? data collection. Each day this week different students are taking photos of four lunches of their classmates. Today I partnered them up to help each other with the data entry.

After teaching the class how to log in and access the spreadsheets - they began entering data. The student were completely engaged in the activity. They loved the fact that after everytime you entered a piece of data into the cell - the program automatically saved and updated everyone's page.

I observed:

• Students helping each other insert rows in the spreadsheet
  
• Students searching and finding nutrional data about food items
• Comments like: "This is so cool", "this is amazing".
• Students asking each other where they found their information.
  
• Students actively working on the assignment for over 40 minutes.

The novelty of the shared spreadsheet engaged the students in the activity and they completed most of the data entry during the class period. One student commented that she was going to finish up from home (another benefit of Google).

I was pleasantly surprised with their enthusiasm.

Cycle Two begins - What's For Lunch?

Today I began the second unit for my Action Research Project. The title is: What's the lunch? The idea is for the students to collect authentic data about what students at VCS eat for lunch and to use that data for further investigation with student projects.

The assignment for this week is:

• Choose four different lunches to evaluate on your assigned day.
  
• Take a photo of the lunch.
• Write down specifics about the lunch: day of the week, description of item, service size and costs (if hot lunch).
• Research the nutritional value of the lunch: calories, fats, and carbohydrates (g).
  
• We will determine costs of lunches brought from home in class.
  
• Log into Moodle or access the shared spreadsheet at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_VM5beL2JAqn6doweazPfw to enter your data.
  

Before the students are asked to analyze the data in Excel, I will review basic formula writing with functions (sum, average, min, max, count) and then introduce 3 new functions (If, Countif, Sumif) with a skill lessons. This week I will observe students using Excel and use a rubric to determine whether the students can complete the first assignment by themselves, with assistance from a friend, or help needed from the teacher.

The lunch information will be entered into the shared spreadsheet and students will work with partners to analyze the nutritional content (calories, fat and carbohydrates), the cost of the lunch and evaluate the waste that is thrown away. Students will determine how to calculate the information in Excel and then individually make graphs that represent the data in a visual manner.

Next week, each student will design a one page poster related to the topic of nutrition, cost or waste. There will be specific formatting requirement for this project, but students can select the message and design.

Finally, students will choose one of two projects to share with the community. They have the choice to do these projects by themselves or with one partner. The first one is to write a letter to the editors of three newspapers explaining their opinion on one of the topics: nutrition, cost or waste. Students who choose this project will use “track changes” for peer evaluation and learn how to set up a mail merge for their letters.

The second option is to create a simple podcast voicing their opinion on one of the three topics: nutrition, cost or waste. The podcasts will be posted to the school Intranet website. Students who choose this project will use “track changes” for peer evaluation of their script and learn how to edit an audio recording with Audacity.

Students will continue to blog about their progress and write private journal entries to the teacher.

That's the plan!

MidPoint Evaluation

1. What year are you?
1. Freshmen – 9
2. Sophomore – 3
3. Junior – 2
4. Senior – 2
2. Do you think the keyboarding practice this term has been helpful?
1. Yes – 9
2. Somewhat – 6
3. No – 1
3. Which skill in Microsoft Word was the most beneficial to learn this term? (multiple answers are allowed)
1. Font formatting – 0
2. Tables – 12
3. Borders – 7
4. Styles – 4
5. Indents – 7
6. Numbering – 4
7. Format Painter – 9
8. Paragraph spacing – 1
9. Other: Track Changes – 2
4. Which statement(s) best describe your opinion about conducting research for the career project (multiple answers allowed).
1. I learned a lot about career choices through my research – 11
2. I did not enjoy the career research – 1
3. The career research was easy – 5
4. Researching the career information was too difficult and the information was hard to understand – 0
5. I like using the pathfinders provided by the Librarian – 10
6. I would prefer to do my own research on careers and not use the pathfinders. – 2
7. I shared the information I researched during the Career Fair – 13
8. I did not share the information I researched during the Career Fair.
9. Other – 4:Learned some what about our careers, Didn’t help my decision in finding a job, It made me think about what I want to do with my careers in my future, The career research wasn’t too hard, or too easy

5. Evaluation how well your group worked together on the career project

This statement is …	False	Partly true	True
Everyone contributed to the research	0	2	14
Everyone contributed to the poster board or interactive project	2	0	14
Everyone contributed during the presentation at the Career Fair	2	5	9

6. Please rate your understanding of the following Excel Skills

	I still have difficulty with this skill	I need some help with this skill	I am comfortable with this skill	I could teach another student this skill
Formatting the spreadsheet	0	2	10	4
Writing a formula	0	1	10	5
Creating a graph	0	2	7	7

7. On a scale of 1-5 rate your teach on the following items:

	1 Poor	2 Just Ok	3 Good	4 Very Good	5 Excellent
Knowledge of technical skills	0	0	2	4	10
Availability for help	0	0	3	6	7
Feedback give to you about your progress	0	2	1	10	3
Ability to teach new skills	0	1	1	4	10
Friendliness	0	0	2	4	10
Motivates me to learn	0	0	5	6	5

8. What suggestions do you have for how this entire career project could be improved in the future?

1. Nothing
2. More time to do research and maybe more to the point topics... The topics assigned for this recent project were broad
3. The presentation seemed chaotic during lunch
4. I think that more sites should be available on the library thing
5. I think that it was done really well, but it could be better if we could choose somewhat what careers we wanted to research.
6. This could be improved by giving time for more research. if you have more information, then there would be more to put on the project and the presentation.
7. Maybe more interactive. Find other things for different groups to do.
8. No presentation to school. Most people didn't really care. Instead, present to classmates.
9. Research more careers than two. Get different information about each career. That’s about it. It was good.
10. Maybe have the groups have a little bit more time to actually put together the poster board. like you could have a "poster board day"
11. I think that we could have the same thing happen, basically, but spend more time on the report, the speech/ presenting part.
12. I thought it all worked out fairly well. Its not gonna be perfect as thats impossible for any ideas in school but you basically did it the best way we could and we all worked together and learned plenty of things and then were able to share those with the school (while giving out candy as well).
13. I think that maybe next year or whenever it is done again, that more research should be done on the different jobs. The that my group provided was not very exhaustive
14. It was pretty good.
15. It could be improved if the students gave more creative ideas. Everybody else are almost same; doing PowerPoint, poster board. But, there were some creative ones, like playing guitar, bring cookie, and tickets.

9. What recommendation do you have the teacher of how she could tech this unit differently in the future?

1. No, none what so ever
2. For me i did not need the Microsoft office help but maybe for some people, we could have touched on word, excel, and power point a little bit more.
3. Focus more on teaching the skills rather than so much emphasis on the project.
4. more progress reports
5. I don't really have any recommendations. The teacher did well.
6. This would be better if we had time to practice the presentation before and make a script or something so that we know what we should say to people who come to look at our project
7. You’re doing great, lots of vocal energy. Maybe a few field trips (educational) to learn about computers.
8. No detailed research on a couple specific topics, but instead, several more general topics, so we can discover more jobs without having to research a job we find out we don't like.
9. I think it was very well taught.
10. i don't have really any recommendations for you.
11. I think she taught it well, but could explain the project more accurately in the beginning.
12. About the same answer as #8. It wasn't "perfect" but I can't really think of another way it could have been done so good job!
13. Stress that more research should be done on the specific careers that a group chooses to cover.
14. I would like to learn the skills in a more linear format.
15. I think project was a good one. Maybe doing other project in the future will be good.

10. If students had the CHOICE to help the teacher choose a topic for future projects in Computer Applications, which of the following topics interests you the most? (multiple answers and suggestions encouraged)

1. Teen Issues (drinking, smoking, dating, etc.) - 12
2. Athletic topics (team stats, steroid use, sports promotions) - 7
3. Discovering new technologies (podcasting, video, blogs, Web 2.0 tools, IM, Free software, Lego Programming) - 4
4. Famous People (historical, political, music, etc..) - 4
5. Pop Culture of the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s - 4
6. The History of … (music topic: Rock-n-Roll, historical event: famous war, Invention: TV, etc) - 8
7. Everyone gets to choose their own topics - 11

Resume

Learning Activity

In order to give a personal touch to the Career Unit, I had the students make resumes this week. Initially the students looked at resume samples on the Internet and in our textbook to determine their purpose. Student then designed their own resume for homework. We spent one class period editing the content in small groups. Each student looked over their classmate's resume and make suggestions about word choice, content clarification, etc.. The next day the students used the “track changes” in Word to make suggestions for each other and then at the end either accepted or rejected the changes. Learning how to use the track changes feature in Word was a new skill for ALL of the students. I plan on using it throughout the semester.

Some other Word formatting skills I taught the students to use on their resumes: Adding space before/after paragraph, customized borders around text and paragraphs, font effects such as shadow and small cap, paragraph shading and changing margins.

The final resumes were printed on parchment-type paper to take home. They looked great!

Data Collection
I had the students evaluate their first draft of their resume. The results were:

March 13th Pre-Assessment Question: What do you think of your resume at this point?
1. I didn't make a resume - 0 responses
2. It's OK - but still needs a lot of work - 4 responses
3. It's pretty good - maybe one or two adjustments - 11 responses
4. It's awesome - I don't need any revisions - 1 response
17 responses / one student absent

March 16th Post-Assessment Question: What do you think of your resume at this point?
1. I didn't make a resume - 0 responses
2. It's OK - but still needs a lot of work - 0 responses
3. It's pretty good - maybe one or two adjustments - 5 responses
4. It's awesome - I don't need any revisions - 5 response
10 responses /data will be updated on Monday when students return from school activity

Observation

• All of the students made adjustments to their original resume (even the student who thought his was awesome!). The changes were in content, word choice, and formatting.
• The students reaction when they saw the final resume printed on parchment-type paper was positive. One student remarked, "Wow, this looks professional" - and it did!!
• Every student assessed their resume higher after the revisions.
• All students used new formatting skills on their resumes.
  

Career Fair Today!!!!

Today my Computer Applications students hosted a mini-career fair in the lobby of our school at lunch. It was fun, hectic and full of energy - basically - organized chaos. The class was split into 6 groups and each group researched how careers can be grouped into personality types.

Today, the groups presented their information to the student body. To entice students to stop by the kiosks we placed bowls of candy at each table. We also offered a raffle prize - so if someone stayed and listened to the presentation they would receive a raffle ticket to win "A future career organizational kit" (complete with jump drive, pencils/pens, scissors, and a cool pencil pouch!). We had a pretty good turn out. Lots of kids took the "personality test" to determine their category and visited the kiosks. Several teachers at my school stopped by to ask the students questions about what they learned. A student reporter from the school paper took pictures and interview students for an upcoming article. My ARP is focused on engaging students with authentic assignments. The students will participate in a survey this week to get their impressions of the activity. Overall I am pleased with their efforts.

View pictures of our event at http://www.flickr.com/photos/colettec/sets/72157594586847731/

Authenticity and Improvements

As the students finish up their tri-fold displays this week, the thing that I see missing from their presentations is some interactions with real people in real careers. All of the information they have gathered is from books and online resources. Earlier in the unit, each student did interview someone about their job but that was before we chose which personality career they were going to focus on. I did hear two groups talk about interviewing a few people and showing their video for their interactive presentation - but that never happened. I did show the Artistic group videos from Unitedstreaming.com but they ended up not using them either.

I ended up being gone when the students were working on the career resumes and did not get a chance to teach some of the Word skills that I wanted them to use: paragraph format, indents and styles. We ran out of time and I cut the portfolio activity from the assignment.

If I do this unit again next semester, here are some of the things that I would change:

1. Invite guest speakers to class
2. Wait and have the students conduct the interview with someone in their field after they have chosen their topic.
3. Show some of the unitedstreaming videos earlier in the unit.
4. Have them use the "Best Jobs of the 21st Century" book for data for Excel project because some of the research took too long.
5. Walk them through the first Excel assignment and check for understanding as we go along.
6. I would wait and do this unit at the end of the semester when the students have more technology skills available to them.

Photo Gallery

Working on Career Projects in class:

www.flickr.com