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).

Word Level 1 Finished

Wow, yet again another couple of crazy days while I got the Word Level 1 tasks and questions ready. I know there are a lot of mistakes because I encountered quite a bit yesterday as I was getting it ready for my students. Luckily my students are pretty good at finding the mistakes and pointing them out to me. Which I fully appreciate because then I can get the kinks worked out for next semester.

this will rake a day or two to go through, so I know I need to start working on Level 2 right away and not slack off like I did this last week. -- Posted From My iPhone

Word Level 1

So, I've been workin my tail off the past couple of days to get the tasks and questions for Word Level 1 ready for my students. Of course I took about two weeks of from doing any of these only because I was pretty worn out from doing the three levels of PowerPoint. But, now I am ready to go again. After I finish this I will be going back and finishing up the trainings, then I will create the Pre- and Post-Tests. Then I need to start on Level 2. My work seems to be never done, but come next semester I will be totally ready. -- Posted From My iPhone

PowerPoint Level 3

So, I did get this done this week. It has been a crazy week and I have been working hard to get this level ready for my students. It worked with a few glitches, which are expected.

I now have to create Plus Tests for all three levels, but that should be pretty easy. I usually only have 15 questions in them, so I just have to change the Post Tests to 15 questions and then publish them.

So, tomorrow I plan on having my students go through the Inpics website to actually use PowerPoint 2007. I know that some of my students used it last year, however they should now have a new perspective on the software.

The inpics site is really cool. It has pictures to give instructions on how to use the software. We purchased many of what was then called Visibooks years ago when they first came out. It was great to see the inpics site come out, because it was free and it could be updated easily.

After that I really want to get them on Google Docs to start collaborating on a project. I will of course have to get parental permission for them to sign up and I will also need to talk with my administrator to make sure it is okay with him. However, I am really excited about the idea of introducing Web 2.0 technologies to my 9th-graders.

-- Posted From My iPhone

PowerPoint Level 2

Holy cow! What a night. I spent most of the evening and nightime until about midnight preparing my Level two tasks for my students to do today. I also then got up a little after four this morning to finish up. Oh, the life of a teacher! I know all of you that aren't teachers are jealous that you can't do this. Wait . . .

I had ten tasks done in CourseLab before I left school yesterday, so I only had thirteen more to do. That might nit sound like much, however it can take anywhere between ten and sixty minutes to do each task, depending on the complexity.

However, it was all worth it. There were some glitches that my students pointed out to me and I am in the process of fixing, however I did have them ready to make a Pre-Test and the trainings ready. Now I am working on the Level 2 Post-Test which is a bit trickier.

I have to take a copy of my Level 1 Post-Test and add the Level 2 questions. I've already copied them in. However, I then have to go through each question to make sure the hotspot links are going to the correct slide or frame. It doesn't do relative links, just absolute. So when I import them if I had a link going to slide 35, now it migh need to go o slide 77. So I have to go in and tweak each part of the task. It's a lot of work, but it will be worth it.

Then I will need to go in and start on Level 3. Once that is done I will need to start all over again with Microsoft Word, then Excel, then Vista. It is going to be a really busy semester, but I think it will be worth it and I am learning a lot myself. Luckily I have the weekend to recuperate and work on everything.

I also plan on purchasing Certiport's new Practice Tests. I I remember right I think it will be about $1,500 for the year. That is pretty steep for a one-year license, however if I don't see that it is worth it, or if I think I can create my own later, then I don't have to purchase another license. However, I think it will be a great thing for my students to take right before taking the real tests. That way they can get used to the correct testing environment as well as seeing the way the IC³ asks the questions. As I've said: a lot of learning for me. -- Posted From My iPhone

Plus Tests

I also just remembered that I have to create what I calk Plus Tests. Although I don't have to do them until I'm done with Level 3. Plus Tests are to help students remember the items taught yo them when they start learning other subjects.

For instance, I usually start teaching PowerPoint because it is one of the easiest items to learn. Once we go through all three levels we move onto Microsoft Word. When we inish a level in Word and students take the Post-Test for that level I also have them take the Plus Test for PowerPoint. It usually is just 15 questions long and includes questions from all 3 level of PowerPoint.

We then move onto Excel and they have to take two Plus Tests at the end of each level (one for PowerPoint and one for Word). This helps out with retention when it comes time to get ready to take the Key Applications exam. Hopefully this will help them not just dump the information from their brains.

I guess I could just add questions from PowerPoint into the Post Tests, however I don't have any control as of yet of how many questions can come from each area. Maybe I can look into the JavaScript code for this as it randomly selects questions. That way students only have to take one test and I can get more results. Interesting idea! I'll have to mull that one over.

OK, so thinking about it some more I've decided that it isn't a hood idea just to incorporate questions from previous subjects into future Post-Tests. I realized that if I am to share these tests with other teachers (which is my intention), then they won't necessarily be teaching the material in the same order I will. So, Plus Tests it will be.

Any other ideas out there?

-- Posted From My iPhone