Shu-NCrew

North Carolina Virtual Schools has an end of course survey that collects data about student performance, student perceptions of teacher performance, and ways to improve how NCVPS reaches the needs of learners across the state.  I checked it out.  It’s a nice survey. 

Because of the perspective of the survey though, it’s difficult to ask questions that are course specific and teacher specific.  There is valuable data to be gathered about our courses and about ourselves on an individual basis, and we have plenty of reasons to want that valuable data!  In English IV, we have consistent grammar, vocabulary, and writing assignments every unit.  Do you have some types of consistent assignments?  As part of the revision team, student perception on which types of assignments are working and which types of assignments aren’t effective would be incredibly valuable!

What’s more, students are very honest in these surveys.  They’ll let you know where you are lacking and where you excel.  If you can take feedback, and I encourage you to grow thick skin and seek feedback whenever you can, then you’ll love this method as a way to way to get valuable feedback.  The video below goes over my survey on the second day I rolled it out via a url in announcements.  At this time, there are only 12 responses, but I’m hoping more and more students complete the survey!

Shu

Tags: course surveys, data driven teaching, data in education, feedback, online polling

file extensions connect files to the right programs by telling the computer which program to use to open your files!

When you hear things in trainings like ‘.swf’ or ‘.jpg,’ those are file extensions. Some have even become part of our regular vocabulary without many even knowing that they’re talking about a file extension! An .mp3, for example, is a type of file, even though now the word is becoming synonymous with ’song.’
    What is it, and what does it do?  This is important.  A file extension tells your computer what file type it’s dealing with so it knows what program it should use to open a file.  For example, can you imagine opening an .mp3 in Microsoft Word?  It just wouldn’t work.
    If you open a file in microsoft word, you’re opening a .doc file. It gets confusing when a program opens and uses a bunch of different file extensions.
    For example, why do we need .mov, .avi, .flv, etc… they’re all video types, right?  Why do we need .wav and .mp3?  They’re all audio, right?  Yes, but the difference is size in those examples.  A song in .wav is a different than the same song saved as a .mp3.  Imagine a piece of data is the size of a marble.  A file is made up of a bunch of data.  If you filled an entire classroom full of marbles and called it a song file, that would be size of a song as a .wav.  If you put a few marbles in a mason jar, you’d have the size of the song as an .mp3.  Now you’re seeing the advantage of using different file types, right?  File extensions indicate the file type -that’s important.
    How many file types are there?  Hundreds, so don’t bother trying to learn them all.  The good news is that there are way fewer that you’ll actually have to worry about, and most, you’ll find, you already know!  In the comments below, I’m going to start a list of common file types. I’m hoping folks will help out by listing file types they run into in virtual education with ’the skinny’ on each file type.  If we get a big enough list, I’ll compile it to a table and share it!

Tags: file extensions, file types

There is a new product out for use in education. It’s expensive, but it’s valuable as a data-gathering tool. It comes with software and about fifty credit-card-sized remotes. The remotes link up to a computer program, and the program shows what the button pushers pushed. The software works with PowerPoint, and the idea is NCLB-centered. That is, it’s all about testing. A teacher with an EOC (end of course), state-given final can design PowerPoint slides about his or her test. Then, the teacher shows the questions, the kids ‘answer’ them, and voila! -instant data.

With this tool, teachers have very pretty data that tells them what kids do and don’t know. As the first part of the KWL, (what we do know, want to know, and what we learned) this has been proven valuable data. The kids love the remotes, the planning is easy, and the tool helps teachers focus their lesson plans on where the students need the most assistance.

I’m a wine salesman as well as a teacher, and I often find myself talking shop while ‘at work’ in the wine world. Recently, at a wine tasting, I was talking about the remotes, my new toys in my arcenal. The woman I was talking to asked me how much my new toy cost the school. When I told her, she snorted wine, shocked. She asked me why I haddn’t bought 25 small dry-erase boards, put them under my kids’ seats, and used the PowerPoint slides to the same ends. The data wouldn’t be as pretty, but it would be pretty clear when the kids wrote a letter and held up the boards simultaneously whether they knew their stuff or not. Seriously, I told her that she should quit what she was doing and become an educational consultant. It was brilliant, and it would save thousands. I asked, what did she do, anyway? She told me she was teaching in a school in Raleigh, where she had been teaching for fifteen years. And that’s the value of experience, I reckon.

-Shu

Tags: badlridge training, best practices, educational ideas, gather data, KWL, school data, school technology, technology in schools, testing data, tips for teachers