OETS

OETS, or Oregon Educational Technology Standards, is aligned with the national standards which present educators with a guideline for what today's students need to experience in order to become technologically literate. This is a list of the six standards: 1. Creativity and Innovation, 2. Communication and Collaboration, 3. Research and Information Fluency, 4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making, 5. Digital Citizenship, 6. Technology Operations and Concepts.

Today's students have grown up with technology and so, for them, it's just an everyday bit of life; because they are "naturals," they can teach me a few things along the way. As their teacher, though, I can help them build on what they already know by introducing technology they may not have explored. For instance, we can collaborate with another classroom using Dabbleboard.com or Scribblar.com, and teams can design a plan for a new playground. While working on this project, they will need to research various playground equipment,analyze cost,the safety features of the equipment and whether or not it fits into the school, city and state codes.

The great thing about technology, is that it can be adapted to any age group. The playground project would be terrific for kids in the higher elementary grades and all the way through to highschool levels. Early elementary students can use the Internet for researching a country they hope to visit or to connect with a penpal currently residing in that country. Babblefish and Google Translate are two sites where you can translate a letter, document or website from one language to another and I can see this as a tool to aid students in their communication with a penpal who may not speak English.

At any age level though, it is extremely important to have an ongoing dialogue with the students about digital citizenship. For one thing, if the child is old enough to surf, they need to be made aware of safety issues and the discussion needs to continue in every grade level from Kindergarden through 12th Grade. In conjunction with the safety issue, is the need to begin early on emphasizing the need for kids to question sources and to ask themselves questions about the websites they are visiting. Today's technology is fun and a terrific learning tool and kids are already pros... we just need to aide them in their journey... so the Oregon Education Technology Standards will be a handy roadmap for me to follow.

SKYPE

Alright then, a new bit of technology for me to play with. Wait....better go wipe off that green cucumber facial mask I'm sporting.... AH...now I won't scare you! What?? I forgot to turn off the sound? You're kidding!?! Whilst I'm cleaning up things..then I'd better clean up my language too! I don't know about this...well, I can see the advantages. For instance, kids in my classroom can penpal with cyberkids in Estonia or visit their dad who is serving in Afghanistan. Someday, I may be blessed with grandkids and will be able to watch them taking their first steps. Well, at least I know that my new little netbook has SKYPE capabilities now and I'm all set up and ready to roll...but don't look for me too early in the morning.

Analyzing Student Data in a Spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet below shows test scores of all 26 students. Test scores, 1-10, are posted for each student. Then, each student's scores for tests 6-10 are averaged and show the standard deviation. The class average for tests 6-10 is shown and this is where we find that 12 students fell below the class average of 191.7.



This spreadsheet reflects the scores of the 12 students who fell below the class test average.



The chart below is a graphic depiction of the 12 students who averaged below the 191.7 class average on tests 6-10. You can see that some students,like Katharine, started off slowly and then grew in leaps and bounds. Other students gradually improved over time at a more even rate. All students showed a steady overall growth.



Here is a link to follow if you would like to see both spreadsheets and the chart:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AoHf58rBn4-vdG9jUF9OS1NTZ2ZyQlp1c0piYkI2M0E&hl=en

My rate of technology aptitude showed an overall steady rate of growth throughout this assignment; although, if I charted it, you would see highs and lows resembling the Cascade Mountain Range. Unfortunately, I had absolutley no experience with Excel spreadsheets or Google Doc. spreadsheets before attempting this Ed Tech assignment. Fortunately, I could watch Barry's tutorial over and over and over and..again which helped tremedously, Laura gave us some pointers and Desiree spent hours helping me get it all put together. I can see that knowing how to use spreadsheets will be absolutely necessary when I'm teaching and so I'm glad to have gotten the experience.