End of Year, Beginning of Major Work

Today was the last day of school. I am currently switching classrooms, so I have been busy the past couple of days with moving stuff and mostly throwing stuff in the dumpster. Amazing how much junk one can accumulate in 16 years.

I am almost done completing the Digital Communication trainings in my software. It has been a bit tricky since the IC3 exams use Windows Live Messenger, which is no longer being used by Microsoft since they purchased Skype. I was able to install an old version and used Messenger Reviver 2. It allowed me to get Messenger working for my screenshots. I still have to tweak the images a little, but nothing I can't handle.

I'm excited to get this training done so I can then go back and update all of my previous trainings to the new version. This will probably take a lot of my June this year, but it will be worth it.

IC3 Trainings

So, this last year the Utah State Office of Education has decided to basically stick with the IC3 GS4 for the standards for the required Computer Technology class. This is good, but frustrating as I spent the whole year before getting my students MOS certified. However, I decided to work this last school year with the IC3 in my class again and it has been very rewarding and educational for me and my students.

The first semester this year we purchased a license for Pearson's "Introduction to Computers and Information Technology."  It is a really good course, but it did not help many of my students t o become IC3 certified. I had to go in and find a lot of other resources on their site to help my students learn information. I think the course wold be really good for a student that is self-motivated to learn on their own and not just to get a good grade in a class. It does have potential, but I could not spend another semester trying to get it to work.

So, I decided to go back to the trainings I had created before and work on getting more created.  I was worried since the program I was using to create didn't make my trainings work well on the Internet. So, I started looking around for something that would allow my to create a Windows program from the html of my trainings. I was able to quickly find one and started making a Windows program that would house my trainings.

I quickly began to really like this new direction for my trainings as my students became my alpha and beta testers. I then quickly found many problems with the program I was using to create the html trainings and started looking around for a new program for that as well. Again, I was able to find something that will eventually allow me to not only create a Windows program, but to make a program for Mac, iOS,  Android, and possibly a Chrome app. I am totally excited about this.

If you want to download the current version of my program (it is still being developed and is not totally complete, yet), you can go to train2certifyme.com, hover over Downloads and click on IC3. You will need to fill out a form, then you can download the program. Go ahead and install it on student machines and have them try it out.

My IC3 Tests

So this last year I created tests for PowerPoint, Word, and Excel on my website. They can be found under IC3. Each test is 25 questions and are based on the questions in the Class Trainings. Students are requires to put their name, class period and teacher before they can take the test. In the end it will print this information and their score. Personally I would allow them to take the tests as many times as they need, but it would only count for.their grade if they did it in my lab with me proctoring them.

2012-13 Year

Wow, a while year has finally gone by. As I have said before, I am not much of a blogger, but here I am again.

This last year the state of Utah did a pilot program for the "Computer Technology" class. This class is required to pass in order to graduate. In the past I have taught the IC3 standards in this class. This last year we tested out the MOS Word and Excel standards. I was one if the 60 teachers round the state that tried the new curriculum. It was a pretty tough year, but I learned so much.

One of the best things we found this year was the Microsoft Official Academic Course (or MOAC) by Wiley ( www.wiley.com/go/moac). It has really good trainings to go through with your students in order to teach them the skills they need to pass the MOS exams.

I didn't just want to give my students the book and just say "Go and learn, and don't bug me" so I developed worksheets for them to go through as we completed the exercises together.

I just finished my ESL endorsement and really enjoyed some of the skills I learned as we went through our SIOP training. So, in my worksheets I put the following:

* The standards from the MOS exams in "I can ..." statements.
* The vocabulary from the chapters in the MOAC books
* The questions listed through the MOAC books

I wouldn't show the students the book, but I would go.through the exercises with them on ky demo computer. Whenever we came up to a vocabulary word or a question on their worksheet, I would soecificaly point out the word and define it or help them to answer the question.

It has been decided by our state office of education not to use the MOS standards, but to actually go with the IC3 standards. This is an improvement from what we were doing before. While I was teaching my students the IC3 standards and having them take the IC3 exams, mist of the teachers in the state were teaching the state standards and givibg the state test. Although the standards were somewhat similar to the IC3, the teat was mostly multiple-choice questions. We are now being encouraged to have our students take industry tests.

So, one if my goals this summer is to create worksheets with standards, vocabulary, and questions for students to fill out as we go through my class trainings and the knowledge questions. I am hoping this will focus students' attention to the "why" we are doing this and not just the fun they have while doing it.

Train 2 Certify Me

So, I thought I would talk a little about my website that I and several other CTE teachers are putting together. It is called http://train2certifyme.com. I have been working on it this last summer a bit and have tried to update it when I get a chance. It is the place I plan on sending my students for trainings, tutorials, tests, and other information about the IC3 exams and more. One of the big projects I have been working on this school year has been to update my class trainings for Office 2010. It has been a lot of hard work and I have had a fun time this last summer teaching other teachers in my district how to create the trainings. Together we have created trainings for Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and we are currently working on Microsoft Excel. It is a lot of work, however it has been worth it as I have used these trainings with my classes this semester. In the near future I hope to begin to create the trainings for Windows 7, Microsoft Outlook, and Internet Explorer. I also have been looking into ways of making the trainings into Pre- and Post-Tests that will randomize the questions every time a student takes it. I have some ideas on how to do that, but it will be a few months to finally get these implemented. As usual, I like to offer all that I do for free. I have contemplated putting adds onto the site so as to help pay for the site and traffic, however I haven't taken the time to do that. Maybe that will be a project for next summer. Please feel free to use the trainings and other parts of my website in your classrooms. If you have any suggestions, they are always most welcome. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Summer

Wow, what a year!

This last year I also started teaching Spanish 1 at my school. It was really crazy and I had to spend a lot of time getting lessons, tests, activities, etc. ready for that class, so I was not able to concentrate on this blog as much as I wanted to. Even this year I will be teaching Spanish 2 and 3 instead of Spanish 1, so again I will be spending quite a bit of time getting everything ready for that class.

OK, so now I'm done with my excuses as to my lack of entries into this blog. Let's get into talking about the IC³.

I will have to say that I am totally excited because all but four of my students this last semester became IC3 certified! Many of my students in my first semester class did as well, but not as many as my second semester. In the end, 38 out of my 52 students became IC3 certified. That's 73%. Not bad actually.

This next year I will have three classes of 9th-graders, so I will have more opportunities to have more students become IC3 certified.

I have found out that this summer Certiport will be creating a Windows 7/Office 2010 version of the IC3. I'm excited about this. We just updated our computers in two of our labs to Windows 7 and Office 2010. It has taken some time and we are finishing up our second lab, but it is so worth it. My only problem is that now I have to update all of my trainings to be in Windows 7 and Office 2010. Which, really isn't a problem as it is just going to be a lot of work. However, it will hopefully keep me out of trouble. This is one of the many things I plan on working on this summer so that I can have it all ready at the beginning of the new school year. Again, it will be a lot of work, but it is all worth it.

Train 2 Certify Me

I guess one of the biggest things I want to write about is my website. It first started out as just a place where I could park some of my trainings since we were having difficulty with the IP address of our Moodle server. However, in the last few months it has started to become a lot more than that. I wanted it to become an official site where people could come to get trained on at least the IC3 exams. So, I stared playing with some of the scripts available on the service I have (http://www.ipage.com). I finally have the page up and going, but now I have to enter content into it. I have organized it according to the different levels we came up with in our collaboration meetings this last summer. Under each level I have created links for Pre-Tests, Class Trainings, Individual Trainings, Post-Tests, and what I have called Plus Tests. I'm really excited about the site and look forward to working with my collaboration team to develop the content if the site. If you want to see the site, it is at: http://www.train2certifyme.com Tell me what you think of it or how it can be improved (obviously some content right now would be the best improvement). Also, if you want to help with the content, please contact me. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Long Time

So, it has been awhile since I have written. I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but I have been teaching Spanish this year aw well. It has been a lit if fun, but also a lot of work. I have finally gotten to a place (for the moment) where I can actually write something here. I will probably write sone short entries so they aren't unbearable to read. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Summer Activities

So, it has been awhile since I have written on my blog here. Let's see if I can get caught up while I have a minute to breath. This last summer I worked with a group of Subject Matter Experts (SME's) on the new standards for the Office 2010 exams. It was a lot of fun and extremely educational. We went through all of the features of PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access. I worked with a group last January doing the same thing with Word and Excel. After spending several days working on the objectives we narrowed down the main tasks everyone that passes these exams should know. Then another group of SME's went through these objectives and rated the ones that thy should be on the exam. Then several of us went through and made questions for the exams. Several hundred people took the Beta exams and then several of us met together to determine the passing score for the exams. It was a busy summer, but very enlightening. -- Posted From My iPod Touch

Office 2010 Exams

Last January and these last two weeks I participated in a workshop to develop the Objective Definitions of the new Office 2010 exams with Certiport. All together I have spent ten days with great people hashing over what topics should be tested for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. I had a great time and learned quite a bit about each of the programs. I am totally excited to use Office 2010 and look forward to using it with my students as well. However, I probably won't be using it with my students until the 2011-12 school year. My district mostly doesn't like to implement zero software. That means any new software that doesn't have any updates. For instance, they don't like to have 1.0 or 2.0 or 10.0 software. They prefer to have 1.3 or 2.9 or 10.4 versions. Plus, since I prepare my students to take the IC³ exams, I don't want to use Office 2010 until Certiport updates these exams to use Windows 7 and Office 2010. I'm guessing this will probably happen in 2011 sometime.

However, I know that this next year I will need start preparing my practice exams and trainings for Windows 7 and Office 2010 so that I will be prepared to teach them when they come out. Of course I have to finish the Vista and Office 2007 version of my trainings before this next year. This should keep me busy for awhile.

Thoughts of the Last Year

So, it obviously has been quite some time since I have written on my blog here. School has ended and now I am "relaxing" duirng my summer vacation. A few updates:

• All but one of my students from last semester (13 out of the 14) pass all three of the IC3 exams (that's roughly 93%)
• I actually have about 25 students registered for my 9th-grade class each semester next year. Hopefully I will be able to increase that as the years go on.

I had a great time this last year with my students learning these essential skills they need for the 21st century. I would say the greates thing that happened this last year was being able to purchase the unlimited IC3 exams for a year. It totally changed the way that I taught. I went from trying to teach abstractly to teaching more concretely. Now, I'm sure a LOT of people out there would say that this is backwards, but it really helped out. By the end of the first quarter of the second semsester most of my students were IC3 certifed. I then could move on to more abstract teaching. Students were learning more about how computer worked and were working on projects in PowerPoint. It was very successful and there was a lot of learning going on both by my students and myself.

All in all, it was a great year. I'm looking forward to this next year and can't wait to have even more students become IC3 certified.

More Students Passing!

I am totally excited! In the past couple of days I have had four more students pass the Key Applications part of the IC³ Exams! Our hard work is finally paying off.

Three of the students were from my last semester's class and one of my students from this semester also passed the exam after only studying PowerPoint.

I had three students taking the tests today that found out the hard way that you have to click on "Answer Complete" before clicking the "Next Question" button. One student recieved a zero out of 1000 points because of this. This student came back after school and took the exam again and got a much better score.

One of the CTE directors also came and talked with me about being the Certiport Testing Center for the South-end of our district. It will be great. We worked out a system where students could take the Practice Tests before they come down to my school to take the exams. That way if they don't know the material, they don't have to waste their money to take the exams to find out they don't know it.

Since the Practice Tests are online, they can easily cheat on them if they took them at home. However, cheating won't help them to pass the real exam.

I am also trying to figure out what type of score a student needs to have in order to pass the real exam. It used to be that students needed to get a 900 out of 1000 on the Practice Tests three times in order to be ready for the real exam. Now I don't know where that score will be now that Certiport has lowered their passing scores on the exams. I will definately keep you posted. However, if you know of anyone who has this knowledge, please send them my way so we can collaborate. Thanks! -- Posted From My iPod Touch

Dropbox

So, I've been wondering where I have been for the past year-and-a-half. I recently found the program Dropbox from dropbox.com. This is one of the best programs that I have found. It basically creates a folder on your computer where you can store files and then share them with other users of Dropbox.

I created a folder and shared it with my collaboration group this last Monday. They were all pretty excited about it as well. I had created some keyboarding tests for my students in ExamView and some ExamView tests that I use in eInstruction's CPS software (for clickers). They were pretty excited to see that once I saved a file in my folder, it was copied to their folder immediately. We arranged for some other files to be added by the other teachers in our collaboration group. It is a pretty good piece of software.

One thing I really like about the software is that it actually copies the files to your computer. It doesn't just link the folder to an internet website. If our network goes down at our school I will still have access to the files. One of the members of our group has really gone wild with the files were are using. She has started fixing some of my errors on the questions and has come up with the idea to have review questions after every lesson in MicroType. Diane, you rock!

We are having our evaluation this year of our collaboration group and we will be showcasing Dropbox as one of our tools we have started using for our group. Also, this next Friday we will be having our professional development day with the teachers at our school. Glen Westbroek and I will be presenting on ExamView, but we also have discussed about showing teachers in our school how Dropbox works. I think this is a great tool to help collaboration.

If you are a computer teacher or keyboarding teacher and want to join our collaboration group, you can e-mail me, we would love to have more people in our group.

First IC3 Certifications This Year

Wahoo!!!!! I had two of my students from last semester come in and pass the last exams to become IC³ certified! I am totally stoked about this (if you couldn't tell). I also had a few students pass some of the other IC³ exams on their way to become certified.

I attribute this to the new Global Standard 3 (GS3) that Certiport has created. The questions seem better and the passing score has been lowered. I noticed the lower score for the Key Applications exam when I had my new semester of students take the real exam as a Pre-Test. I had three students pass it without any instructions. When the first student passed it (AV--these are the initials of the student so I don't give out information about a minor) I looked at the test results and it said the student had passed it. The student recieved an 800, which was good enough to also pass the previous version of the test (750 was the previous passing score). Then I looked at the required score to pass the exam. It was down to 680. I was shocked. Then the other two students (JM and KT) then also passed the exam. I was very impressed with all three students, although I wasn't really shocked. I've had these students before and they are pretty smart.

So, I decided to contact Certiport to find out what the passing scores are now. I was basically told that passing rate can change depending on how many questions are available in the testing pool, but it is roughly at about 70% give or take 5%. So, my interpretation would be about 650-750 depending on the amount of questions in the testing pool. This is awesome news! I believe that more students will be able to pass the exams with this standard. Not that the exams have now been made so that anyone can pass it. Students will still need more training, but I think it iwll be easier.

I've gone into the other two exams and found that their passing scores at this time are 710 for the Computer Technology and 660 for the Living Online exam. Of course from what I understand those scores might change here and there.

So, I am having my students from the first semester come in once a week during our Flex time so I can help them until they can pass the exams. One student had passed the Key Applications and Computing Fundamentals exams for the 2007 standard. This student (KD) took the Living Online exam for the GS3 and passed it. Then, another student (BS) took and passed the Computing Fundamentals exam. This student had passed the Key Applications exam for the 2007 standard. This student then came in after school and passed the Living Online exam.

I also had a great experience with my current 9th-graders that I blogged about on my class blog. I can't wait until Monday to see how much my students have learned. Stay tuned!

Formative and Summative Assessments #edchat

OK, so most of the time I cannot particpate in the twitter #edchat on Tuesday nights because I have activities that I am participating in. So, for a few months I've thought of making a blog entry for the topic of the week and then posting a link to it on the #edchat. So, this is my first attp at this.

Even though this blog is mostly about teaching the IC3 exams, I feel that this weeks topic is a great topic for my blog as well.

The IC3 exams would be considered a Summative assessment while the Practice Tests I use in class as well as the trainings I have mentioned before would be part of the Formative. However, I can also see that the actual IC3 exams could be used for Formative assessment as well. The reason I say this is because the exam will give you an idea of what you may have failed and so you can go back and study that topic and return to the exam again. It is a great example of Assessment for Learning.

In the past when I've had my students taking the exams I have paid for them one at a time either out of my pocket or out of class fees. This made it very difficult to have every student take the exams and if they failed then it was even more expensive for me to have them retake it. However, this year Certiport has created a new system where I paid a yearly fee and I can have unlimited exams for my students. This has totally changed the way I teach my class. I used to require certain students to pass the IC3 based on their proficiency in class. Now, I am requiring it for all of my students. Since it is unlimited I can have them go back and study the topics again and return to take the exam.

I have had one student this semester that failed one of the exams, returned to the Practice Tests, asked questions, and then re-took the exam. He passed it. I just had another student fail one of the exams today and we went over his results (the IC3 exams never show you if you got a question correct or not, it just gives you your overall score and the score you received on each of the main topics). We could see where he was almost passing one or two of the topics and now he knows where he needs to study. I know he will be able to come back and pass the exams.

I have seen a change in my students in the past couple of weeks since I purchased the unlimited exams. The focus on our classes is to pass the exams. So, whenever we are going through practice questions or other exercises it is based on how to complete that type of question on the exam. When my students take the Practice Tests they need to do as much on their own, however sometimes it helps to ask how to complete a task so they can get it into their brains. Once they learn how to complete the specific task and know the reasoning behind it, they tend to remember it. The focus of our classes has gone off from completing specific assignments for a grade to learning tasks and knowledge in order to pass an exam. I've really enjoyed this focus because the preassure is put on the students to do the learning. They tend to ask more questions and think outside of the box.

I'm looking forward to this next semester when I will be able to start the semester with my students taking the real IC3 exam as a "Pre-Test" and then helping them to pass those exams. Luckily my students this semester are totally interested in learning this material. Several have asked if they can retake the class next semester. I have also told them they can come in during our Flex Time to be able to relearn or take the exams.

I think that this type of scenario is what is best for students. This allows the students that know the material to pass the exam quickly while the students who need a lot of help can get that help. There is also a lot more material that the "advanced" students can learn from instead of just playing games or nothing at all.

Anyways, this all appear as ramlings, but it was a great way for me to post my comments for this #edchat.

Two More Students!

So a total of five students have now passed the Key Applications exam. One was my student who failed it last week. I am so excited for them!

I also tested my 8th-graders today on the same exam just to get data from them. One of them also passed it. Another student nearly passed it with 733. This will be goo data fir next year. -- Posted From My iPhone

Two More Students Pass!

Two more of my 9th-graders passes the Key Applications exam in the past two days! I'm so excited to see my students being able to demonstrate their proficiencies.

However, there is some not so good news. I had one student take the exam and didn't pass it. I will have to see if sitting down with him one-on-one will do any help. I know he is smart and can complete most of the tasks, so I think it just might take some time. Luckily I have unlimited exams for a year and he can retake it after a little more study. -- Posted From My iPhone

First Student This Year to Pass an IC3 Exam!

So, I just had a student pass the Key Applications exam!!!!! I'm so excited! I require that my students pass the Practice Tests with 900 or above three times before they can take the real exam. This student finished passing the Practice Tests today after school. I asked if he wanted to take the real exam and he did. He barely passed it by six points, but it is still passing it. I can't wait for my other students to start passing these exams and see that they can actually do it.

Key Applications

So, it has been awhile since I've actually written anything here (blog, what blog, I don't know anything about a blog). I got pretty behind in trying to prepare the trainings and tests for my students and other things have come up in life to prevent me from moving forward with them at the moment. However, I am hoping to have most everything ready by next semester so that my new set of students will be able to benefit from all of my work.

I have been working on the wording for the tasks that students need to do and have finished all three levels for Microsoft Word (for just the wording) and also the first level of Microsoft Excel. I still need to make the tasks for Level 3 of Microsoft Word, but then I can work on Excel. These are the real big ones that I have to work on. I also have to work on Vista and Internet Explorer for sure.

I also want to create some basic Level 1 questions for Microsoft Access, and Microsoft Publisher for when I teach about Software. Sometimes I've noticed that students don't fully understand these type of programs because they don't use them that much. I also have to come up with something for "education and entertainment" programs as well as "utility" programs, and "other types of software." This will be a challenge, but I know I can do it.

I am just about ready to have my students take the Key Applications test. I am purchasing Certiport's practice tests and unlimited IC³ exams (see your Certiport sales rep for more details about this). I'm excited to get the Practice Tests because I can see if my students are prepared enough for the exam or if they need to remediate about specific subjects. The former practice tests looked just like the real IC³ exam environment, so it makes students more relaxed about taking the exams. Having unlimited amounts of exams is going to be great because ususally I have a few students who fail it the first time and need to retake it. I have a small amount of students that end up taking it about 3-4 times before they pass it (of course I usually have them take the Practice Tests several times before they retake the real test).

The semester is more than half-way finished and I still haven't had my students take one single IC3 exam. I will have to start getting them to learn about the other subjects a little quicker without putting a lot of preassure on them. This tends to make taking the exams "unfun."

Oh, and least I forget, I have started putting on the Internet the trainings and exams that I am having my students complete. They are located at: http://moodle.oremjr.alpine.k12.ut.us/ic3/. Not all of the tests or trainings are ready, but you can try out the ones that are there. If you have any suggestions, PLEASE e-mail them to me.

Collaboration

I am totally excited about this coming Monday. Last year we started an intra-district collaboration team that met twice a month during our collaboration times. We started creating a wiki for our group and we got ExamView up and running for the majority of us. There were just four of us last year, but This year we have 1-2 more people joining our group and at least one other that can't make it to our meetings, but still wants to collaborate. We might eventually use Wimba to get him in our meetings, but we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

What I really am excited about is being able to work on what I have been doing this pat month with other people. Even if I can get someone else to go onto Google Docs and write up the questions and tasks, that would be huge. I don't min creating the tasks myself. My wife does say that I am CDO (that would be OCD, however the letters have been alphabetized), and I know I can sometimes get a question done really quick, so I don't mind doing that part.

What I've also started thinking about is distributing the tests to other teachers. This is one of my biggest goals is to be able to collaborate on the test results with other teachers. Years ago a few of us from our school went to Provo to hear Richard and Rebecca DuFour who I see as some of the "fore-fathers" of PLCs. It was a pretty good day, but the one thing that I still remember (and it has been about 6-7 years) is their explanation of the DRIP problem.

DRIP stands for Data Rich, Information Poor. Or in other words we have a lot o data from student test scores and other items, but what do we do with it? They suggested that if we had common assessments and then compared our students results with other teachers that gave the same assessment, we could then see what strengths other teachers have had and learn from them what they did to help students learn that subject better.

We did this two years ago with our group one day. I had the other two teachers that gave the same State test that I did send me their results by student. I then created a spreadsheet that showed how many of their students were proficient 80% or above) on each standard that was tested. We could then compare our students' proficiency rate as a group to the other teachers. What ensued was a great discussion of what we all did to help our students do so well on those questions. It was very exciting and enlightening.

As the "leader" of the team I want to be able to have some common assessments with the other teachers in my team so that before the state test comes around we can know if our students are ready. I would also like for more teachers to be able to have their students take the IC³ exams. If more will do that, then I think that our great CTE people at our district (and for those of you who know me, I am NOT being sarcastic about that--they really are great) would possibly help flip the bill to havestudents take these tests. In fact, it could even go viral and we could follow Hawaii in having every student in the state be IC³ certified. However, I've got to calm down and stay focuse on our little group of collaborative teachers.

I will of course send out the invitation for any other computer teacher out there who wants to join our collaboration. The only requirements will be to submit test scores for inividual students when you have them (no names are required, just test scores), and a willingness to help keep our tests and trainings up-to-date as possible.

You may contact me through this blog, or you can find me on Twitter or Facebook (both use the username of pbhanney).