Author: David Wees (page 91 of 98)

December 5, 2009 / 1 Comment

Awesome student work

I recently had students do a project where they apply the distance formula to finding the shortest path for a traveling salesperson to travel between 8 cities. The basic idea is, the students use the longitude and latitude coordinates as substitutes for the x and y coordinates of the city, then they can use the distance formula to find a pseudo-distance between the cities. Of course, on any kind of largish scale, this makes no sense, but on a small enough geographic scale the error in the distances is small, and I made sure the kids were aware of this deliberate error. This project was intended to be a chance for the students to get lots of practice using the distance formula.

You can view a sample of the students work here which I have permission from the student to share. This was rather an exceptional sample for many reasons. The first reason is that the student went to extraordinary measures to format his document and arrange his work in a clear logical sequence. Another reason I really enjoyed looking at this student’s project was because he had obviously done research about the traveling salesperson problem, including appropriate mathematical terminology such as the ‘Hamiltonian path’. He talks about the limitations of the approach we took, the errors he found in the project, and suggests an improved method than the brute force solution. He uses technological tools to his advantage, learning a bit of JavaScript to find the coordinates of the cities, and using Excel to greatly reduce his calculation time for the distances between the cities.

If all of our students work was so neatly arranged and so carefully done, I think very soon we’d soon have much different jobs. Instead of ‘instructing our students’ we would be learning from them as equal partners. This what I strive for in my teaching.

December 5, 2009 / 0 Comments

Personal Learning theory – updated

I’m working on my personal learning theory again, as a reflective activity in my Masters degree. I created a very short summary of my personal learning theory before, and am now updating it to include vocabulary and ideas from the semester long course I just finished about learning theories. I hope most teaching colleges offer this kind of course as part of their teacher training, it has been incredibly valuable to me.

Here is what I have so far:

Personal Learning Theory

I personally think people learn through an unconscious process called experiential learning. They hypothesize about how the world should work, collect data, compare the data they have collected to see if it fits in their theory, and then revise their theory if they feel enough evidence has been found. In this theory, as described by Kolb (1984), people construct an understanding of the world around them using what they know as a basis.

Each piece of knowledge people gain has to be fit into their personal hypothesis. At first, people will "bend" their hypothesis to make facts fit which seem inconsistent, but eventually if enough contradictory data is collected, people are forced to revise their ideas. This is part of the reason why students have so much difficulty learning topics for which they do not have any background; they are constantly required to create and revisit their hypothesis, and to build theories about the information they are receiving "from scratch". "Ideas are not fixed and immutable elements of thought but are formed and re-formed through experience." (Kolb, 1984)

It is crucial during this process that the learner feels comfortable to make mistakes. Although it is possible that an individual learner will have a theory which fits all the facts as they are collected, it is much more likely that conflicts exist between their theory and the data. As the Lewinian experiential model suggests, observations of what one has learned or not learned are a critical aspect of the learning process (Smith 2001).

As drawn from the work of Vygotsky, situated learning suggests that "experience in the activities of the practice" (Kolb, 2005) are integral to the learning process. Without learners being embedded within a community of practice, their ability to make connections, draw conclusions, and verify hypothesis will be greatly hampered.

References:

Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as The Source of Learning and Development, Case Western Reserve University, retrieved from http://www.learningfromexperience.com/research-library/ on December 2nd, 2009

Kolb, D.A., Boyatzis, K.E., Mainemelis, C. (2000). Experiential Learning Theory: Previous Research and New Directions, Case Western Reserve University, retrieved from http://www.learningfromexperience.com/research-library/ on December 2nd, 2009

Kolb, A.Y, Kolb, D.A, (2005) Learning Styles and Learning Spaces: Enhancing Experiential Learning in Higher Education, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2005, Vol. 4, No. 2, 193–212.

John-Steiner, V., Mahn, H. (1996). Sociocultural Approaches to Learning and Development: A Vygotskian Framework, Educational Psychologist, 31(3/4), 191-206, retrieved on December 2nd, 2009

Smith, M. K. (2001) ‘Kurt Lewin, groups, experiential learning and action research’, the encyclopedia of informal education, retrieved from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lewin.htm on December 4th, 2009

November 29, 2009 / 4 Comments

Comparison of different learning theories

The focus of ETEC 512 is the theory behind learning. We’ve spent the past 12 weeks looking at different learning theories, and discussing how these learning theories are applicable to our students and our lives. It’s been a pretty interesting overview for me, and one I’m surprised more teachers don’t have to go through. Although I suspect many of these theories feel far removed from the daily part of a classroom, really they embody the very essence of why we teach, and what our best practices are.

I’d like some feedback on my concept map I’ve created of these learning theories if possible. Click on the image below to see the map in full, then return here to add a comment if you can. This assignment is an important part of our final summative assessment for this course, I’d like to do it right. Feedback is always a useful way to improve one’s understanding!

November 19, 2009 / 2 Comments

Using Google docs for student report cards.

Here’s the basic idea. I create 31 identical (one for each of our 11th and 12 grade students) Google Documents using a agreed upon template. The teachers have access to edit the documents, and add their grades. Our IB diploma coordinator adds comments to the documents, and then we download the documents as PDF files, ready to be emailed to the parents. We could do this entirely electronically, but we are also going to print a copy to mail to the parents for their records.

The trickiest part is making sure that the documents that are formed will look good when converted to a PDF. I suggest using a very simple structure of the documents, in this case less is more.

Our document has our school logo at the top, a space for a generic comment about our program, a simple 2 column table to report grades in subjects, space for a more specific comment about the student’s performance, and then space for our IB coordinator to sign the report, which he’ll only be able to do once it’s printed.

See what it looks like as a PDF here:

View sample as PDF

November 19, 2009 / 0 Comments

Student created videos using free Windows tools

So today I tried an experiment out. I wanted to see if I could use Windows tools, freely available, already installed on our school’s computers, and produce reasonable student videos. I succeeded, and I’d like to share my success here. The process is pretty simple, and not too time-consuming, and best of all, student friendly.

For those of you who like the quick and dirty, the basic steps are:

Create individual frames in Microsoft Word (or any text editor).
Take a screen-shot of each of these frames. Generally this is done by pressing the ‘Prt Scr’ or ‘Print Screen’ button on your keyboard.
Paste the individual screen-shots into Microsoft Paint, one at a time and save each as their own file. You want all of the images to have the same width and height (400 by 300 is good or 800 by 600).
Open up Windows Movie Maker and import all of the image frames created in steps 1 to 3.
Drag the images and order them into the movie time-line below the collection of images.
Add special effects, like video transitions, subtitles, narration, whatever.
Save the project (so you can edit it later) AND save it as a movie as well.
Upload to your favourite video sharing site (Youtube, Vimeo, Pixorial) and share it with whomever you want.

Here’s an example video done by a student in a single 85 minute period (they actually had about 70 minutes to work on it because of pre-activity instructions).

November 17, 2009 / 0 Comments

Unscientific survey about paper use

If you are a teacher, I’m looking for some data on paper use in schools. Just looking for the answer to a couple of quick questions.

1. Approximately how much paper (in your teaching) do you use in a day?
2. How many teachers are at your school?

Please respond here:

http://is.gd/4XCAQ

November 11, 2009 / 1 Comment

Using filters in Gmail to automatically move “****** is now following you on Twitter!” messages out of your inbox

Here’s the basic idea. You have a bunch of messages every day from Twitter telling you that someone new is following you on Twitter. They clutter up your Gmail inbox, but you don’t want to delete all of them because they are a record of your followers, and maybe you want to follow some of them back.

The solution is to use the Gmail filters to send the messages directly to their own folder, so they don’t clutter your inbox. Here’s how you do that.

First you open up one of your messages from Twitter where someone has followed you, even if this messages is in your deleted message folder. You need to know what the return email address for these types of messages, and it appears that this message varies depending on WHO Twitter is sending their follow information. You may notice that the format of the emails is twitter-follow-davidwees=gmail.com@postmaster.twitter.com. Whew, thats a long email address! Anyway, select the email address, excluding the < and > like I have done and get ready to paste it soon.

Second you click on ‘Create a filter’. You can create the label for your Twitter messages first if you like but I’ve chosen to start directly into the filter. The link for creating a filter is probably right next to your ‘Search the Web’ button, but could be somewhere else. I’m using a neat space theme for my Gmail theme, so maybe this looks a bit different than in your gmail box.

Once you have clicked on this button another dialog will come up. It will be helpful at this stage to know a piece of information, specifically the email address I told you to copy earlier. Now you fill in the information requested as follows.

You may notice that I have pasted the email address from step 1 into the from box and into the ‘Has the words’ box I’ve inputted ‘is now following you on Twitter!’. These two things combined should ensure that none of your other email ends up in the wrong location. Now you click on ‘Next Step’. You can check that the search works by clicking on ‘Test Search’ but trust me, this should work (unless Twitter changes their email address for your follows or the message that you receive when someone follows you).

You should up with another box appearing. You want to check some of the boxes. First, since the objective here is to avoid cluttering up our inbox, we select ‘Skip the inbox’. I’ve left ‘Mark as read’ unchecked since I want to know when people follow me, but that’s up to your personal preference. Someone like Alyssa Milano with over a million and a half followers would probably want to check this box. I’ve also checked the ‘Apply the label box’ and am about to choose a new label. Clearly, if you have already created a Twitter label, you can choose that here, otherwise you can create that right now. You will probably want to also apply this filter immediately by checking the box next to ‘Also apply filter to 140 conversations below.’

You then click on ‘Create Filter’ and you should be done. All of your messages from Twitter about new Twitter followers should nicely slide over into your custom label, and any new messages should automatically jump into this folder. You can then check this folder periodically to see if there are any new followers you should follow back. You get the convenience of knowing who is following you, without the inconvenience of having to manually delete or categorize these messages.

November 11, 2009 / 7 Comments

Creating a WiiMote interactive white board at my school for under $50.

So someone sent me a link to the video below and I decided to act upon it. I thought I would link my resources I find for this project here, and keep you all up to date on how it is working.

The immediate attraction for this project was the idea of being able to create an interactive white board for what looks like close to $50. Our school currently has three Smartboards at the Upper school and three Smartboards at the lower school and three times that many classrooms at each building. This means that only 1 out 3 lessons is taught using a Smartboard at best, and teachers tend not to use the Smartboards. Part of the problem here is the Smartboard technology is not immediately obvious how to use, and part of it is because of training, but access to a Smartboard is a big problem for most teachers.

First I had to do some research into the controllers themselves which are necessary, which are basically a Nintendo WiiMote and a Bluetooth receiver on your laptop. According to Amazon the WiiMote costs about $35 and the Bluetooth receiver costs about $4. You might also want a cheap tripod to mount the Wiimote onto, that should cost another $15 or so and is useful but optional (my tripod cost me 9 dollars) since in the video below you can see Johnny mounts the Wiimote directly on top of the LCD projector. You also need an LED pen, which you can apparently build for about 5 dollars or purchase online. Total cost so far is 44 dollars or if you are lucky and find a cheap tripod (like I did), 53 dollars.

As for turning the Wiimote into an interactive white board, Johnny Lee (the inventor of this process) has instructions up on his website. He has also created a community forum where you can post questions, and if it is like most online communities I know, get answers to your questions.

Johnny Lee has also presented at TED, so you know there are some very smart people who love (and have tested) his idea. What I really love is the demonstration of the VR system he has designed using pretty much the same hardware with some different software.

Here’s a good video showing a pressure sensitive pen, which will make writing much easier. The brand name of the pen casing is called Tide-to-go pressure tip pen. Yes, as in Tide the laundry detergent company.

October 22, 2009 / 1 Comment

Turning Math word problems into Math video problems

Last year I tried an experiment after being exposed to research about the Jasper project. The basic idea of this project is, turn difficult word problems into authentic video problems which include potential extensions. The experiment was this, have my students create the video word problems, and start creating a library of these problems to use with my future classes.

The experience of creating the problem has some minor mathematics in it, after all the students need to formulate a difficult problem, verify that they are able to shoot the problem on video and then show a working solution to the problem (on paper or handed in separately in digital form). These skills are quite difficult, and are higher order skills in Bloom’s taxonomy.

Here’s an example of one of these word problems on the right.

It’s important to note here that there are some very difficult mathematical concepts embedded in this video. Students will need to be able to understand rate problems, solve for the distance of the falling object using kinematics, and use trigonometry to determine the distance that needs to be traveled, and then go back to rate problems to answer the question.

The whole process from start to finish took about 2 weeks (or 8 classes). One class to brainstorm the idea, one class to decide on the script and come up with the text version of the problem, and a few classes to solve the problem and do some in-class video editing. Yes, this is a lot of time, but in terms of building student self-esteem, working on very important collaboration and planning skills, it is worth it.

There’s no way that is actually enough time to produce such a high quality (for a student group) video, so I know for sure that lots of time was spent on this video outside of class, probably many hours of time.

So this process also inspires the students and gets them excited about your material. They will work much harder when they are excited about coming to class.

The video editing process itself was fairly straight forward. Most groups shot the clips with standard digital cameras, and then recorded the audio tracks after their video was done on their computers using Audacity. One group used iMovie for their editing and production, and the other 3 groups used Windows Movie Maker which was totally sufficient for their needs. If you want a no-install option, you can look at using Pixorial.com which I’ve tested out myself and works fairly well. It only really lacks two important features, the ability to edit the audio track separate from the video, and the ability to modify the video itself (instead of just moving it around), such as slow-motion, etc…

Check out these other two videos. Maybe use them with your class and try and solve the problems. As far as I remember, all of them have solutions, although some will require students to estimate distances.

October 19, 2009 / 0 Comments

Thought question #2

Would Vygotsky agree that young children are essentially egocentric?

I think Vygotsky would disagree with Piaget when the latter suggests that young children are essentially egocentric. First, Vygotsky’s work was often opposed to Piaget (Miller, 2002, p370), so it was clear that Vygotsky had a negative opinion of Piaget’s work.

More importantly, in Vygotsky’s theory “…the mind is inherently social…” (Miller, 2002, p373). He would suggest that egocentrism implies inward thinking only, and that the cultural and social aspects of cognition which he observed would run counter to this intuition. When observing cognition, according to Vygotsky, it is essentially impossible to distinguish between internal motivation and external social influences.

An example of this is in the interplay between a mother and a child on page 374 of Miller’s work. The mother is directing the child through a difficult cognitive task, and it is clear from the exchange that the young child’s cognition is strongly influenced by his mother’s attention. In fact, the task would be impossible for the child without his mother’s support.

Vygotsky would disagree with the statement because of his belief in how the development of cognition can be observed (Miller, 2002, p378). A child’s current state is not examined by looking at one moment, but instead by observing the child’s change through an activity. In this case “process is more important than activity” (Miller, 2002, p378). These changing states can only be measured in the context of the activity, utilizing social tools.

Finally, Egocentrism presumes that a child is looking at a process from only his or her own point of view (Piaget, 1948). Vygotsky might suggest instead that the child is observing everything from the presumed perspective of his or her parent’s point of view. Apparent egocentrism, as in the example of Piaget’s famous three mountain’s experiment, is the result of a lack of appropriate language to adequately describe the situation out of the context of their parent’s guidance.

References:

Miller, P. H. (2002). Theories of Developmental Psychology, 4th Ed. (pp. 367-396; Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Approach). New York: Worth.

Piaget, J., Inhelder, B. (1948/1956) The child’s conception of space. London: Routledge and Paul Kegan