Voki

Voki is a free service that allows you to create personalized speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile, and in email messages.

Studies show that using technology in education improves students' achievements. Voki is a unique tool to engage your students in creative expressions. 

As Albert Einstein once said: "It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."
Voki is brought to you by Oddcast, the leader in cutting edge, user-driven marketing.
(http://www.voki.com/voki_faq.php)
For this assignment I turned on the readability statistics in my word program and created a 68 word count introduction of myself.After which I used Voki to create my personal avatar.

                             What I did

This assignment is in line with Standard 2 of the ISTE NETS T.Which encourages teachers to design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessments incorporating contemporary tools and resources to

maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS•S. The use of Voki in our classrooms will make learning interesting and fun as well as improve student achievement.

To view my introduction please click here

Word Clouds

I really liked how wordle is described on their website,  "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

I did enjoy using this "toy" a lot as part of the assignment.

                  What I did

I  created a word cloud  from the NETS T Standard for 2000 and for 2008. As a future secondary math teacher I also created  a word cloud using the Virginia Algebra 1 SOL which will be very helpful for my students.

To view my 2000 wordle please click here 

To view my 2008 wordle please click here

To view my Algebra 1 SOL wordle please click here

NETS T 2000

NETS T 2008

ALGEBRA 1 SOL

              What I learned

One of the interesting things I found  about Wordle is that,the sizing  of the words is directly proportional to the number of times the word appears in the text (word count).

This leads me to conclude that the NETS T Standard for 2000 was mainly focused on the use of Technology whereas the  NETS T Standard for 2008 emphasized on Learning by both students and teachers.

Carpe Diem versus St Marys

For this class activity, I watched a webinar on the use of technology in Education.This was a very interesting section and I  was surprised at the data on how fast the world is moving from laptops and desk tops to mobile devices for technology.

Don Knezek, the CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education, compares education without technology to the medical profession without technology.

“If in 1970 you had knee surgery, you got a huge scar,” he says. “Now, if you have knee surgery you have two little dots.”

Technology is helping teachers to expand beyond linear, text-based learning and to engage students who learn best in other ways. Its role in schools has evolved from a contained “computer class” into a versatile learning tool that could change how we demonstrate concepts, assign projects and assess progress.

From this webinar, I realized that even though both schools were using technology, they each had different approaches towards the incorporation of technology in education.Whilst Carpe Diem students spent about half of the school day siting in front of their computers  learning and being drilled, students of St Marys carried about mobile devices and were actively engaged in hands on learning. 

Below are my thoughts on some of the issues raised.  

Questions and answers.

1. How prepared for you to engage in each type of learning (Carpe Diem vs St. Marys)?

Answer

I must admit that before this class I was very unprepared for the most part on the use of technology in education.However I have learned a lot from this course and I believe that when I start teaching, I will be able to engage in a balanced approach in using technology in my classroom.

2.Provide specific examples including devices and apps or software, of what you are currently doing in each model if you are teaching.

Answer

N/a

3.If you not in the class now, what would you suggest teachers in your field adopt based on current knowledge of mobile/wireless devices.

Answer

I would suggest a group math  apps called Hands on Maths. 

4.What would you recommend in terms of a school wide initiative to improve teaching and learning at this point if you were in a position to do so?

Answer

I would recomend that schools check out success stories of other school districts and see how best they can use the information gained to improve teaching and learning in their own schools.

There is  the story of this North Carolina school district that was looking for an innovative way to help close their math achievement gap in some of their economically challenged schools. They decided to try smartphones. It seems that the mobile devices are working, as the school district has seen an improvement in standardized test scores and students using them outpaced others in the district and across the state. 

The schools participating in the program, called Project K-Nect, use the phones in Algebra, Algebra II, and Geometry, allowing students to use them as calculators or to look up information on the web, watch math videos, and play educational games. Students using the phones reported feeling more confident about their math abilities, were more motivated to take other math courses, and over half are now considering a career in a math field.

5.A mixture of the 2 models (Carpe Diem vs St. Marys) is probably in everyone’s future. How do you see executing your version of the blend in your field?

Answer

I see myself moving more towards the St Marys approach to the use of technology in education since it is more hands on and interactive but I will also use the Carpe Diem approach often to assess student learning.

Excel T Test

The t test is a statistics test generally used to test whether means of populations are different. In the t test, a t value is calculated based upon the difference in the means and variances of the two populations. The greater the t value, the more certain it is that the means are different.The t value can be generally described as follows:

t value = (Difference between the group means) / (Variability of the groups)

The t value is a specific point on the x-axis in the t distribution(student’s t distribution). If this t value falls outside the region of required certainty, it can be stated that the two means are probably different. If this t value falls within the region of required certainty, it cannot be stated that the two means are probably different. 

The required region of certainty depends upon the degree of certainty required in the test. If 95% certainty is required, then the required region of certainty consists of 95% of the area under the student’s t distribution. The outer 5% is the region of uncertainty. This is also referred to as α (alpha) or the degree of significance. If the t value is large enough to be located all the way out on the x-axis in the 5% region of uncertainty, it can be stated within 95% certainty that the two means are different. 
  For more information on t test please click here

What I Did

The purpose of  this assignment, was to formulate and test a hypothesis 2 samples using a t test function
Here the categorical independent variable is gender  male/female. The continuous dependent variable is NAEP 2011 4th Grade state reading averages. The hypothesis is stated, then the null hypothesis. Our decision after doing our statistical analysis is to accept or reject the null hypothesis.

Research Question was : Does student’s gender impact 4th grade reading scores performance?

Hypothesis-

H0: (Null Hypothesis)
There is a difference between the male and female scores.
Gender plays a role in the reading scores of 4th graders.
H1: There is no difference.



I went back to the NCES data from the previous assignment and performed a t test to see if there is a difference between the reading scores of 4th grade males and females.

Conclusion

Since the p value is 1.60684E-07 which is greater than 0.05, we reject the null hypothesis and say that “we have a 95% degree of confidence that gender is not a factor in 4th grade reading scores of male and female students.”

To access my T -test data please click here

Future Application

Research topic question for my future class will be: Does student's attendance of summer school during the holidays affect academic grades positively.
Research group : Students in my 9th grade Algebra class
Dependent Variable :Students grades
Independent Variable:Summer School Classes
Null Hypothesis:There is no statistically significant difference in students grades after attending summer school
Hypothesis : Attending summer school during the holidays affects students grades positively.