shower plate

Visual Task Tips

I am making a list of the Technology Tools I use regularly and I will post those sometime soon, but in doing so, I came across a cool little know download that is helpful - Visual Task Tips

http://www.visualtasktips.com/

Once installed, it allows you to have a visual of anything that is on your taskbar. It is an easy download and free for non-commercial use.

Google docs - a learning curve

I created a rubric with which I can track quarterly progress of my students for the rest of the year - as I test-run the rubric. I have my results from 3rd quarter.

The learning curve of using google docs as an assessment aggregator is pretty steep. I am having trouble editing and moving columns etc.

To the basics, I did not know how to create a documents, so I went to templates and searched for rubrics and found one that made sense for what I was trying to do. I figured out what sort of questions it contained and then I started from scratch and made my own.

I have completed the rubrics for two classes and that information goes automatically to a spreadsheet. I created the formulas on the spreadsheet because I do not see any place that does that automatically.

There are graphs available which are very easy to generate, but they are not allowing me to save. That is something I have to figure out. It tells me it is incompatible with API.

This has potential, but after 3 hours at it today, I am finished.

A weekend to remember - not to Blog!

My son's wedding! It was a low-tech weekend - except that we all kept in touch around the resort via cell phones and text messaging! Then before I went to bed, I posted all my photos (and those of my sister) on Picasa and sent the link to the bride and groom. I said low-tech, right?

analyzing assessments

I spent time with "ReMark", but it is expensive and really not the best for what I am trying to do. Mark Richardson led me to Google Docs and I searched for rubric templates and I looked around until I found one that made sense for me listening rubric. I tweaked the template and now I have my own rubric. I look forward to filling in the data and analyzing the data! Project almost finished?

no dictionaries!

I just read Andrea's post about her activity in class where the students had to negotiate meaning of a text using an online dictionary. Very cool on many levels! Bravo Andrea! I love that they copied, pasted, highlighted, went to the web, typed, discussed and more - and never even used a pen or piece of paper. I bet they even stayed on task.

I have used this whole-language approach this year - negotiating meaning from a text just above my students' level, but not with the copy, paste, highlight, translate method... very doable and I especially like that they learn their is no perfect translation!

My mind is spinning... will I remember this in the Fall? Would the students be able to do this activity when there is a sub - ahh certainly, if I taught them the tools in advance!

Remark download

I spent the afternoon trying out the remark program. It is not intuitive. It is the program I want to use for aggregating my students' scores on their listening assessments and looking at their progress over time.

I managed to create a bubble scoresheet

I managed to scan it

I downloaded the program

I made some progress in getting the program to recognize the scoresheet.

I know what to do next, but I ran out of time. I am far enough that I can run off the score sheets and bubble in the scores.

There are a couple problems here: number one. the learning curve is very steep and I don't have time at the end of the year to devote to learning a new technology. number two. I don't know if there is actually a free version of this software and the pay version is $900! So, if I learn all of this and can't apply it next year, I may not be any better off?!?

I will be better for the journey, right?