After reading Chapter 5 (I believe) let me be the first to say that we should fire Ms. Groves! She is diffinately a creativity squealcher.To delete a student's work is...well unthinkable. I think I pretty good at going with the flow when kids say something, or do something that is way out there, but I remember one time, I couldn't think of what to say except no to a student, I saw that child shut down immediately. I have made it my goal to somehow take what a child says and turn it for the positive and use it as a teaching moment.
The recipe assignment was fun, I had a few problems with the formula, until my group mate helped me, and it took awhile to figure out how to lenghten a cell. But, it still is not embedding correctly, there, so here it is here https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AnNy7zQtklUSdE9DYVM3UWpDZkhwQTdoLXhPallYZ3c&hl=en&authkey=COexqZYG
I think creativity many times lost in youth. And that is really scarey, because I think this Country was built on people that were not afraid to dream and fail. Rather that tell, I like to show a concept and let the kids figure it out. For example, one lesson that is great fun is Roman numerials for third grade I write IX=9 and XI=11 on the board and have them tell me what I and X stand for, and I go through all the numerals that way. They have fun and they teach themselves. But, sometimes it is just easiler to tell rather than design a learning experience.
I have used NetTrekker before, and found some excellent lessons, however when looking for ones on spreadsheets, I didn't find much that excited me. maybe I was just searching wrong.
Now, I want to comment on the text. I am finding the information excellent, BUT the way the text is set up is driving me crazy. Were do they want me to look next, and how many different types of information can they put on one page? I understand that this is how texts are now set up. Even in the non-fiction library books now there is lots of white space, the blurbs of information, different concepts on one page. But my mind is hardwired linearly, so I feel very disjointed when I read it.
4 comments:
I haven't used NetTrekker before. I was excited to explore it, but didn't find much for my area. I also was a bit frustrated with searching for lessons involving spreadsheets, so I adapted something on there to suit my class.
Glad I could help with the recipe!
Sandra,
I am right there with you on your thoughts on Ms. Groves. I really couldn't believe she did that. Seems pretty heartless to me. There are certainly better ways she could have handled the situation. If it was a lesson in following directions, she would have a point in that the directions had not been followed. But to totally erase the picture is unthinkable. I think what I would have done with that situation is have her keep her new picture, but have her redraw her original picture, just so that she followed the directions just like everyone else. Having two pictures would not be the worst thing in the world. At least she would not have crushed the little girls pride.
I also liked doing the recipe exercise. I had never used a spreadsheet before, so I was ready to learn. But, like you, I had trouble with the formula to multiply. I had to ask for help as well. But I did take the time to play around with a few of the other formulas, and I think that I could probably use the averaging formula to do grades, or maybe show that feature to the teachers at my school that may not know about it. Like you, I am just finishing up my LMS program, and this might be something that I could show others as part of my job. Using a spreadsheet might also be a good way to do daily and weekly lesson plans.
I haven't used NetTrekker before, although I have used similar systems at other colleges. I found it difficult to find lessons with spreadsheets through NetTrekker. I got frustrated with the search after a while, so I had to walk away.
As a librarian, there are so many ways you can use spreadsheets. Do you think you will use spreadsheets with students often?
I knew about NetTrekker but I haven't really utilized it to its full advantage. I was really excited about Google spreadsheets, especially Google Forms. I am trying to get the staff at our school to use Google docs and forms. We send out so many attachements that it just gets annoying to constantly update to the newest copy. I am sure there are ways that you can use this tool as a library specialist. What are some ways that you would incorporate this at your school?
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