Week 06 Update

Listen while you read: https://app.box.com/s/58xxkh30ybm4z2lqbhwfxxeadiwoikrf

Continuity
During Week 5, as we considered application/productivity software, you had the opportunity to
work with an Excel spreadsheet-based grade book as the basis for your Activity Reflection. (As a
reminder, the activities on which you base your reflections are unscored, so please don’t stress
yourself out if you can’t execute a task perfectly or completely. The activities are designed to
hopefully provide a challenge for all skill levels.) Again, the purpose of this week’s activity was
three-fold: 1) to allow you to consider the role of productivity software; 2) to help you reflect
upon techniques for coming up to speed and staying current with any new-to-you software or
new-to-you task in a piece of software; and 3) to give some attention to the processes underlying
“black box” applications such as standard grade book programs. (This was not intended as a
proposal that you abandon whatever gradebook program you’re using now in favor of Excel.) :-)

While I was happy to see in my sneak peeks at all of your reflections that a number of you did
indeed give some consideration to the process of learning unfamiliar software tasks (e.g., “I
found a YouTube video on how to set-up a function”), I was saddened that no one verbalized the
recognition of how such a process can be applied generally to any unfamiliar software task.
(Perhaps you were just too zoomed-in on the Excel tasks.) I hope that you’ll reflect further on
how this process of supporting your learning of new software tasks can be useful as we move
forward in this course and in your professional life. (As a note, we will be looking at other kinds
of software and at hardware later on in the course.)

I might add that, if you are still struggling with how to reflect upon your task performance at a
higher metacognitive level in these activity reflections, you might wish to touch base with some
of your classmates for input. For instance, Emma, Colleen, Bianca, and Carol submitted
particularly strong Activity Reflections this past week. They articulated their process in
completing the assigned tasks and provided sufficient detail in their reflections that it was clear
for me what they took away from the experience. Nicole and Mary M. went even further to
touch upon their software learning tactics for Excel. The tactics they described could be applied
to other situations one might encounter with different types of software. I can’t speak for any of
these classmates I’ve mentioned, but perhaps they would be willing to discuss their approaches if
you asked one of them via the Webcourses@UCF messaging system (“Conversations”/Inbox). :-
)

I share these shoutouts just to help you foster connections that enable you make the most of this
class. I hope you are taking advantage of the opportunities. Perhaps it is helpful to say that
shoutouts have no reflection on scores for assignments. Most of you are great in that department.
I would just like to see all of you getting the maximum personal value out of each activity I’ve
designed for you. I’m funny that way. :-)

I’m looking forward to reviewing everyone’s AR#2 submissions in detail in the week ahead.
(And, as an aside, please remember that as pre-service or in-service teachers, it is the teacher
standards from ISTE that are to accompany your Activity Reflections, not the standards for
students.)

By the way, for the extra credit challenge of determining a relationship between two sets of
scores (i.e., the homework scores and the test scores), I had in mind the statistical procedure of
correlation. (This is the CORREL function within Excel.) A number of you submitted this
approach. Also, I’ve heard that task step 8 frustrated some of you, so I thought I would note that
to manually enable data changes on one worksheet (like student name additions/modifications) to
affect those data on another worksheet, you create an association between the relevant cells by
entering an “=” in the destination cell and then navigating to the originating worksheet and
clicking the relevant cell. Changes in the original will affect the destination. You can also follow
this approach between ranges of cells. (You can apply any function or formula to a range of cells
by first selecting the destination cells and then pasting.) Try it out. (Some versions of Excel have
an even more straightforward tool for automating this and other formulae.)

For Week 6 , we’re going to remain “hands-on” as you create a Teacher “About Page” (or online
profile). This task will be the basis for your next Activity Reflection. However, this practical task
comes after you’ve given some thought to the concept of your “online identity.” I’ve provided a
number of resources in your module to help with this process. While “teacher web pages” are
somewhat passé, many teachers still have no web presence at all. At the same time social
networking services like Facebook are continuing to surge in popularity among adults (even
while Facebook use is decreasing among the high school/college crowd in favor of alternatives
like Instagram or Snapchat or some new app released in the past five minutes). As a 21st century
educator, your digital footprint can facilitate helpful connections or lead to problems. It is my
hope this week to help you take control over how you are perceived online as a professional
educator so that you can be as successful as possible.

While we’re on the topic of connections in education, I thought I might draw your attention to a
role model in this area who might lead you to even more global connections yourself, if you’re
willing. Lisa Nielsen is a connected educator with a large global digital footprint and many
connections. Check out a brief interview with her and links to further information from the
“Connected Educators” site: http://bit.ly/nielsen_interview

Logistics
In Week 6, in addition to the regular online module, we’ll have a reading from an online text
linked from the module. The readings in the module and the online text (including a lot of linked
resources) will provide you with the background necessary for the hands-on task associated with
AR#3. Those of you who have chosen to do so, will also continue on with your contributions to
our Information Stream via Twitter or Diigo. Many of you are making really thoughtful and
abundant contributions each week. For those who do make multiple postings, as I’ve hinted
previously, you might consider spreading out your contributions manually or via a service that
will allow you to schedule your Twitter postings to appear throughout the week. Often, when we
see a chunk of postings from the same person back-to-back we’re not as likely to click each of
your links. Also, as mentioned previously, and most of you do very well with this, please
remember to provide contextualizing annotation within your Twitter microposting or within
Diigo. There are many positive examples for each. (That is, don’t just post a link or a link with a
statement like “this website is cool.” It makes you sound like a spammer.) If your Twitter
postings still aren’t showing up in our Twitter widget, you’ve probably not followed the
suggestions I laid out for you in the “Start Here” area of the course, and you’re still being
blocked from posting links. (Take another look at those tips for getting unblocked.)

Personalized Learning Plan

As I’ve mentioned previously, this is the week to decide whether you will pursue an optional
“Personalized Learning Plan” during the remainder of this course. I’ve supplied some details on
this process within this week’s module. If you do not wish to pursue this option, just continue on
with the assignments as they are outlined in our materials. If you do wish to pursue the
Personalized Learning Plan, I need to hear from you prior to this week’s due date so that we can
discuss your ideas.

Feedback Form
Remember that I’ll post a link to an anonymous feedback form each week in the
“Announcements” area of Webcourses@UCF. Please use this to provide general feedback on
your experiences during the preceding week and to ask any questions that you don’t feel
comfortable asking directly. I’ll summarize and respond to this feedback in each week’s update.

1. All of you that I’ve heard from found all the instructions clear, with the course work
activities taking on average right at 5 hours to complete.

2. Several of you commented specifically about working with Excel with the comments thus far
being all positive (e.g., “I actually enjoyed the gradebook.”) I’m sure some of you were less
than thrilled. Again, though, I’ll just note that the key takeaway from this week is how to
approach any unfamiliar software task or software program to make the best use of your
time.

3. A couple of you reported feeling a bit disconnected from classmates despite this week’s
synchronous web conferencing opportunity. [I would just encourage all of you to take
advantage of all of the connection opportunities available to you and not just decide ahead of
time that an online course is “less personal.” Some of you work very hard to engage. The
more of us who do will benefit everyone’s experience positively.]

4. One person noted that I missed a mention of the “textbook” in our course materials when
updating them for this term without the text. As you can imagine, I’ve done a lot of editing
on our materials, so in the event of finding one that “fell through the cracks” it would be
helpful if you would please contact me with the precise location so that I can fix it. :-)

If you haven't yet filled out the Week 5 Feedback Form, feel free to add your comments. I'll read
them, but obviously I can't respond to them in my weekly update recording as I did to those I just
mentioned. (However, if one or more people raise an issue that needs action, the whole class will
hear from me.)

Secret Word
If you include the word surmount appropriately within your AR#3 submission, I will include 2%
extra credit on your AR#3 score.

Reach Out
Please reach out if you need me. That’s what I’m here for. I think at this point you know how to
find me, but if in doubt, all of my contact info is in the “Overview” document in our Syllabus
materials.