week 5

I know I'm 2 days late but...thrilled to say I survived stats! I also think that I actually learned quiet a bit about stats in the process! I am also much more comfortable with the terminology and processes. :) woohoo!!

I would have to stay that discovering google trends this last week was probably one of the highlights in this class. I really enjoyed being able to see how certain things were trending over time. the way google set up trends was also really cool. I like to be able to change the region and time period to make sure the information is relevant to my needs. I am not sure how I can use this for my professional life yet, but do have fun with it in my free time. Maybe I will stumble upon a "prom dress" phenomenon myself!

Week Four

Statistics and Art...

Well now that we are over half way through class I have raelly been pondering how I use statistics in my classroom. I have never really considered doing too much data collection as my curriculum doesn't really have data collection assignments (tests, quizzes, homework) but rather projects and process grades. I am thinking that when I am back in the classroom next year (I will be out on FMLA for the remainder of this school year) that I will begin to track my students grades using some of statistic concepts we have been learning.

I know that my school uses data A LOT and we analyze it through a variety of different tools...MAPS, WKCE, Explore, AIMS, STEM, etc. but this data rarely makes its way into the specialists classrooms (music, art, p.e., health, spanish, face...) on a regular basis as we have such limited time with the students. We know the students scores and how/why the data is important but it is much more difficult to use it daily in our instruction.

I now know how to analyze data that come directly from my curriculum and students to make it relevant to me.

Week 3

Oops!! Having a baby last week has really screwed up my schedule!! :p I seem to have missed week 3's blog response.

Real life stats connection...

After having my daughter I was all of a sudden given tons of statistics about height, weight, breastfeeding, SIDS, etc. and I was thinking about how stats are everywhere in every profession (including motherhood!) Now that I am home and somewhat more coherent, I am wondering about how they get their statistics. Are they samples or populations? What does it mean if my daughter is not on the "charts"? (she was really chunky) How do they know that certain blankets and sleepers help lower the risk of SIDS? It just suprised me that there are statistics all around us that we don't even think twice about. I am now questioning how statistics guide many of our programs in schools and curriculum...interesting thoughts to ponder!

Week 2

With all the protests and controversy in Madison over the last week I find I am looking at the "statistics" of the situation differently. I have seen a couple of polls and it is interesting how different some of them really are...having some background knowledge has helped me try to find the polls, surveys or studies that are relying on accurate info.

I have to say that this week was less intimidating than last week and I am feel a tad more comfortable with my ability to actually do stats. :)

Week One...Stats

Well having not taken a math class of any kind since my freshman year of college I would have to say its a little bit scary. I like math but statistics seems to be a little bit different than most of the math classes I enjoyed!!! :) This week was a somewhat overwhelming and hard to navigate but am sure that things will eventually all make more sense.

I am really hoping to gain a better understanding of stats and its terminology through this course. I also am hoping to learn how to calculate results accurately.

SMART goal

I am really excited to start adding curriculum material to my google site in the next week or so before I leave on maternity. I really think this is going to only add to my instruction and student learning.

S - I will create, maintain and use a google site for all my art classes
M - I will be able to use it for my personal use this year. Next year I will have the site ready for students access and use for announcements, homework, rubrics, links and collaboration activities.
A - I will update my google calendar weekly and add any new annoucements as needed. I will check the site daily and make time afterschool to update.
R - I will be creating a page for each course (not class section) so that it will be manageable to update. This site will be a great way to "house" my important information for the course in a clear and efficient manner.
T- I plan to have the site ready for student use by the beginning of next year as I will be out on maternity leave in 2 weeks and will not be returning this school year.

Week 5

I am in love with my google site. I have been playing with it over the last 2 weeks and am really excited to get it "ready" for next year. I know that this will be a really cool part of my instruction next year and am exited to use it as the classroom "hub" for online communication. Currently, I haven't uploaded anything on it, but plan to post the videos and podcast on soon. I also like that it is so incredibly easy to use!

I know on an earlier post i mentioned using edmodo, which I still plan on trying, but find myself gravitating more to the google site for my classroom.

Some features that bother me about google sites are:

• limited creativity options ofr themes
• can't change background colors on specific pages
• limited layouts