Clarity between task and test update

This will be a fairly quick update of the happenings that have been going on in regards to my inquiry. So to top this list off. I have finally go some data!!!!!

Let me repeat that.... I HAVE FINALLY GOT SOME DATA!!!!!

This may seem like something I should have achieved last term or even in term one. Yet I have found there are consistent barriers to collecting data in my community. The list of blockers are as such

  •  Time... Release time is rare and although my school does do it's best to support me through this process, if a single teacher is away it can derail any plans of progress I may have had. This is also in part what we are striking for so hopefully changes will be made.  However after a busy few weeks of ups and downs I have finally had a chance to sit down and nut out the workings of my website prototype. I have managed to get all pages made and I am in the process of finalising some of the technical aspects of explaining the language used in asTTle

  • Getting google forms filled in: Although for some this may seem like a simple task to achieve, for two terms it has been unbelievably hard to get teachers to take 10 minutes out of their time in order to fill in a form that will actually give me some data to back my assumptions up. I have tried every which way to get this to happen, from bribes, to staff meetings, to going to each class to try and get the forms filled in and yet, due to my own incompetency in writing research questions in which I could gather accurate data, I have finally managed to secure a large enough pool of information which now shows my assumption was correct. Students do need some sort of clarity between their test and the tasks they practice with.

  • Parent support. I really wanted to gather data from a parents perspective, and having talked to a few parents I still believe that there is a need for a place where parents can go and learn how they can better support their child with reading strategies at home. I tried setting up forms on open nights and Parent Teacher interviews, however there was still little by in and not enough data collected to make my assumption a reality.

  • Finding resources: This is on going but I am now trying to gather the best resources around in order to teach the reading strategies. I cannot solely rely on Sheena cameron or other such books as although these do work I need to make sure any work that is given will actually have an impact. Therefore this problem is ongoing and I am still finding ways to maximise the potential for the work to be accessed within the site.
That's all there is though. Time is returning. Teacher buy in is getting better. Finding resources is slowly but surely making headway and I am confident that I will have a working site by the end of this year. I am truly looking forward to seeing this tool come to life and be used. I do need to start thinking about how I will maximise this tools use throughout the community as marketing and selling the idea that this tool is useful will be another hurdle I believe will come into play once it is completed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Day 1 PLD Manaiakalani Today has been a very intriguing day. As a professional my basic tool belt has been heftily filled, with a great amount of tools in which I can use, to not only increase my productivity, but to hopefully increase engagement within my school for staff and students. Learn: Digital content introduction Extending the power of Docs and Drive with extensions and add-ons http://www.blindtextgenerator.com/lorem-ipsum Talk & Comment - Instead of typing out a comment, voice audio. Docutube - Insert Youtube clips into documents rather than the link Lucidcharts - insert charts and diagrams into google docs Extensity - for managing extensions Grammarly - For checking plagiarism https://bitly.com/ - to shorten URLs Easy Accents - Quick and simple way to add macrons Select and Speak - Voice to Text Engine (works with Google Docs) Above is listed all the tools which I have developed my knowledge in. These are all free and very easy to us
Read more
Image
DI Intensive Week 3 Three weeks in to this course and I have been practicing in school to use forms and my google sheets to increase my productivity along with student engagement. My kids have loved using forms to produce data to back up their persuasive writing, and they have also enjoyed looking at how to create pick a path stories. For me I have used google forms and sheets to keep running records on the students basic facts knowledge. This has been great. Today in the Intensive we have been looking at Google Hangouts, our Gmail, and Google Keep. The focus is on being productive and using the technology we have to our advantage. I really love Google Keep as it allows you to take a picture of a book or a slide and then download the words from that into a doc. You can see that in the picture below their is a picture of some writing, I have then taken the actual text from it and it has pasted that below the image. This can be then cut or pasted into a document if needed. A very h
Read more
Image
DI Intensive Week 5 This week we have been looking at how to build a website and ways in which we can integrate this into our class work routines. I have built sites before and I am currently building one through the new google sites for my role as ICT PLD administrator at Wesley Intermediate.  The new google sites are a breeze to use, but are limited and are for those who need a quick easy way to get into building sites. Today however we did not use the new sites we used the old version. This allows HTML use and can be fine tuned. I liked building a work portal from scratch, and it has been interesting to go through the process of creating a different way for the students to go about their tasks. I will be trialling this in the coming weeks. My Google Site
Read more