Saturday, February 28, 2009
CED0515 Week 3
Ok I promise I won't make this an hour long post. This week we are focusing on spreadsheets and I couldn't be happier. I am terrible with spreadsheets and have always admired those who efficiently and effortlessly seem to use spreadsheets and this was a large reason as to why I took this class. To add to the joys of learning how to better utilize spreadsheets I also get the added bonus of learning how to better implement them through the use of technology. I have so effortlessly and easily learned how to use this feature that I have mandated that all of my coaches create a Gmail account so I can share spreadsheets with them. I have already created budget sheets, rosters, statistical analysis sheets, information documents and many more that I intend to have all of my coaches utilize. This one class has saved me several hours of documenting stuff for my other coaches that I can now have them do themselves. For that I am very thankfull. In addition to saving me time, this has also provided me with a system of checks and balances that will allow my coaches to see the finances and keep anyone from being able to accuse me of stealing money. In addition to my coaching, I've also created documents for my Architecture class and will soon be creating documents for my engineering program. In all I'm extremely happy with this portion of the class and look forward to continue to grow and learn in utilizing spreadsheets even further.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Class 2 week 2
Well, what can I say but thank the good Lord for an extra week. I have to be honest and upfront and say that I really haven't had much time to delve into all the work in depth, however, being as I will be gone at a conference all weekend, I will not have time to write a before the expected timeline so I will do my best with that which I've done so far.
I look forward to the ability to play with the search engines as I am one of those people who have gotten comfortable with my Google and that's basically all that I know. I have used Ask.com a little and yahoo sparingly, however, Google has been my nearly exclusive search engine for quite some time. I do like Google and find it very usefull, yet between what I learned about searching from our class combined with my knowledge that there has to be other good options out there as well, I look forward to the adventure of exploring these newer technologies.
As for the reading, (I really wish my book would get here) I have made it through Ch. 3, however, have not gotten around to reading ch. 4 yet. Ch. 3 really struck a cord with me because I find collaboration and communication amongst students to be one of my strongest strengths as a teacher and concentrate heavily on this skill as I find this to be one of the most important skills our students can learn. I see so many of my students come in with little to no social skils and know that these students will need to be able to communicate with their future co-workers, employers, and clients. Like I've always stated to my students, "you can be the brightest of the bunch, yet if you can't communicate your thoughts and ideas to anyone, all those brains don't mean a thing". In my field of Engineering and Architecture, these skills are even more so desired. In the field of Engineering, one of the greatest obstacles facing our Engineers is the lack of ability to communicate their ideas to desires to the laborers. Most of the laborers refuse to convey their thoughts to the engineers because they believe them to be too stuck up and set in their ways to change and don't believe that they have any clue about reality as it pertains to actual production. In the field of Architecture, we face this problem a little as well. In today's society, where more Architects are having to set down with the actual homeowners and decipher their desires and interests and put that onto paper, the necessity to communicate has obviously gotten more important. In addition to communicating to the homeowner, Architects must also deal directly with the General Contractor. As someone who has worked on the labor side of this, I can honestly say that there are several Architects out there who have no clue how to communicate with the GC and have no clue what it takes to build a house. I've had Architects tell me, after we've poured a foundation, that he changed the plan and we are now going to add brick, never mind that we live in Wisconsin and with our frost layers, that brick fascia would last all but a couple of winters before it was completely cracked, off kilter, or falling down. I had one Architect tell me to just stick to plans when his plans were off by 2'. When I explained to him that if I were to stick to his plan the house would be out of square by 4' he just could not believe that he was wrong until I told him I would go no further on the house until he came to the site and showed me how it could possibly work. Once arriving on site, he looked at the plan, argued with me for nearly an hour about why he was correct until I ordered my guys to set up the forms along the measurement he had provided and he saw that the East wall fomed about an 85 deg. angle vs. the 90 it was supposed to be. Ultimately, I think by teaching my students the ability to collaborate amongst eachother, I am teaching them how to respect others and their opinions. If my students are able to do this, I think they will be better prepared to express their ideas to others as well as constantly improve themselves by being attentive to the fact that others may have some knowledge they can learn from.
My classes are heavily software oriented and yes, most of these softwares claim to be interactive, however, as our text states, they are in no way, shape, or form interactive. We try to overcome this by having our students design for others rather than for themselves. For example, I just gave my Architecture students an assignment today where they have to design a home for a family of 4. The family has $350,000 to work with and I subtract from that total for a chunk of land of their choosing. I let them pick between 25 acres in the country, a 1.75 acre golf course lot, a 3/4 acre subdivision lot and 1/4 acre city lot. I then ask them to research how much these lots cost by reviewing several Reality sites and coming up with comparables. What is left of the money is what they get to work with for building the home for this family of four. It is then up to the students to ask me what the ages of the family members are, what their interest are, and what they desire in a home. I try to give each student some different criterium to go off of but ultimately, this forces the students to learn that they have to work with the family not just for the family. I commonly throw out ideas that make little to no sense and inform the students that it is their responsiblity to give their professional opinions on the ideas, yet ultimately, the people paying the bills are the one who gets the final decision. We also try to come up with several community based assignments for our students to complete. Last year our students designed the new town square recreational park for the city. I asked that the City Chairman come and speak with my class about what their desires were and what they wanted to see in the end. I then had my students ask questions and begin their designs. As our students came up with more questions along the way, I had them call the Chairman directly to get the answers from him. I think too often we as teachers feel we need to handle the interactions of our students with the community and in reality our students are extremely capable of doing this very well. In addition to learning about the process of how to design for the individual, these students also learn the best ways to deal with the client. In addition to such assignments for my Architecture class I also setup much of my Engineering class as partner based assignments. I feel that this forces our students to learn to work with others as well as respect others ideas and opinions. I get a lot of very bright students in these classes, however, a big problem I run into with these students, is that they are so worried about getting an A that they refuse to give their partners enough credit and try to do everything themselves. I usually let this go for a couple of days and then inform the students that this grade is based more on how well they can work with their partners and not necessarily on their final project. This changes things exponentially and once the collaboration begins, we usually get better finished projects than they would have otherwise.
I look forward to the ability to play with the search engines as I am one of those people who have gotten comfortable with my Google and that's basically all that I know. I have used Ask.com a little and yahoo sparingly, however, Google has been my nearly exclusive search engine for quite some time. I do like Google and find it very usefull, yet between what I learned about searching from our class combined with my knowledge that there has to be other good options out there as well, I look forward to the adventure of exploring these newer technologies.
As for the reading, (I really wish my book would get here) I have made it through Ch. 3, however, have not gotten around to reading ch. 4 yet. Ch. 3 really struck a cord with me because I find collaboration and communication amongst students to be one of my strongest strengths as a teacher and concentrate heavily on this skill as I find this to be one of the most important skills our students can learn. I see so many of my students come in with little to no social skils and know that these students will need to be able to communicate with their future co-workers, employers, and clients. Like I've always stated to my students, "you can be the brightest of the bunch, yet if you can't communicate your thoughts and ideas to anyone, all those brains don't mean a thing". In my field of Engineering and Architecture, these skills are even more so desired. In the field of Engineering, one of the greatest obstacles facing our Engineers is the lack of ability to communicate their ideas to desires to the laborers. Most of the laborers refuse to convey their thoughts to the engineers because they believe them to be too stuck up and set in their ways to change and don't believe that they have any clue about reality as it pertains to actual production. In the field of Architecture, we face this problem a little as well. In today's society, where more Architects are having to set down with the actual homeowners and decipher their desires and interests and put that onto paper, the necessity to communicate has obviously gotten more important. In addition to communicating to the homeowner, Architects must also deal directly with the General Contractor. As someone who has worked on the labor side of this, I can honestly say that there are several Architects out there who have no clue how to communicate with the GC and have no clue what it takes to build a house. I've had Architects tell me, after we've poured a foundation, that he changed the plan and we are now going to add brick, never mind that we live in Wisconsin and with our frost layers, that brick fascia would last all but a couple of winters before it was completely cracked, off kilter, or falling down. I had one Architect tell me to just stick to plans when his plans were off by 2'. When I explained to him that if I were to stick to his plan the house would be out of square by 4' he just could not believe that he was wrong until I told him I would go no further on the house until he came to the site and showed me how it could possibly work. Once arriving on site, he looked at the plan, argued with me for nearly an hour about why he was correct until I ordered my guys to set up the forms along the measurement he had provided and he saw that the East wall fomed about an 85 deg. angle vs. the 90 it was supposed to be. Ultimately, I think by teaching my students the ability to collaborate amongst eachother, I am teaching them how to respect others and their opinions. If my students are able to do this, I think they will be better prepared to express their ideas to others as well as constantly improve themselves by being attentive to the fact that others may have some knowledge they can learn from.
My classes are heavily software oriented and yes, most of these softwares claim to be interactive, however, as our text states, they are in no way, shape, or form interactive. We try to overcome this by having our students design for others rather than for themselves. For example, I just gave my Architecture students an assignment today where they have to design a home for a family of 4. The family has $350,000 to work with and I subtract from that total for a chunk of land of their choosing. I let them pick between 25 acres in the country, a 1.75 acre golf course lot, a 3/4 acre subdivision lot and 1/4 acre city lot. I then ask them to research how much these lots cost by reviewing several Reality sites and coming up with comparables. What is left of the money is what they get to work with for building the home for this family of four. It is then up to the students to ask me what the ages of the family members are, what their interest are, and what they desire in a home. I try to give each student some different criterium to go off of but ultimately, this forces the students to learn that they have to work with the family not just for the family. I commonly throw out ideas that make little to no sense and inform the students that it is their responsiblity to give their professional opinions on the ideas, yet ultimately, the people paying the bills are the one who gets the final decision. We also try to come up with several community based assignments for our students to complete. Last year our students designed the new town square recreational park for the city. I asked that the City Chairman come and speak with my class about what their desires were and what they wanted to see in the end. I then had my students ask questions and begin their designs. As our students came up with more questions along the way, I had them call the Chairman directly to get the answers from him. I think too often we as teachers feel we need to handle the interactions of our students with the community and in reality our students are extremely capable of doing this very well. In addition to learning about the process of how to design for the individual, these students also learn the best ways to deal with the client. In addition to such assignments for my Architecture class I also setup much of my Engineering class as partner based assignments. I feel that this forces our students to learn to work with others as well as respect others ideas and opinions. I get a lot of very bright students in these classes, however, a big problem I run into with these students, is that they are so worried about getting an A that they refuse to give their partners enough credit and try to do everything themselves. I usually let this go for a couple of days and then inform the students that this grade is based more on how well they can work with their partners and not necessarily on their final project. This changes things exponentially and once the collaboration begins, we usually get better finished projects than they would have otherwise.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
1 credit down, 31 to go......
Is it bad that I am already counting? I'm not trying to be a Debby Downer, just extremely busy right now and not seeing any sign of a let up anytime soon. I think we as teachers should all be put in a position like the one I currently find myself in. As a coach, teacher, husband, and now a student, I am finding my workload to be ridiculously tight and trying to find time to complete everything a bit of a chore. It is for this reason that I think us as teachers should be placed in these circumstances. Many of our students are forced to balance work, athletics, family, and education and are often as busy as I'm complaining to be now. I think by putting ourselves in situations like this, we learn to empathize with our students and their workloads a little more. I think having an understanding of what some of our students are going though only makes us better as instructors. I'm not advocating that we give our students a free pass, only that we try harder to understand what they may be going through and what possible reasons may be when they fail to meet our standards.
Likewise, I think all of our students should have the opportunity to spend a little time in the same shoes we as members of this program find ourselves in. I find that many of our students think that they are going to get a job, make millions of dollars, buy a home that never requires any work and have all kinds of time to play with their toys that they are going to buy with all that money they are going to make. My students at least, seem to have missed the fact that most of us as responsible adults, work very hard for the money we earn and most of us, even though we work hard, have many responsibilities outside that job that keep us from being able to play with whatever toys that money has afforded us. They seem to have missed the fact that the house they intend to buy requires work to maintain or in my case, fix up. They seem to have missed the fact that in order to stay ahead of others who want their job, they will have to push themselves to constantly improve themselves in their jobs. They seem to have missed the fact that the family they envisioned will demand their time and likewise should receive their attention.
I know, I know, it will never happen. Just because we can't truly impress upon our students just how real life can be, I don't think it should stop us from trying. I regularly speak with my students about life and what happens behind the scenes of my life. Usually it deals with the fact of understanding the concept of money as I find most of my students believe that making $10/hr. is going to make them rich. When I ask them how well they think teachers are paid, usually their response is something to the effect of terrible. I agree and then tell them what exactly it is that I make/hr. This certainly opens some eyes. Of course, for reasons of full disclosure, I must admit that I break it down for only an 8hr work day and for the length of one school year as it makes the effect much more dramatic but still there is a point behind my doing so. When I explain to the students that with my salary along with my wife's who makes less than I do, we are able to afford a house, mind you it is 105 years old, I am able to afford a nice truck, yet my wife drives a totalled-out Saturn because she only has to drive 4 blocks to work, and I can afford little else, and finally I explain to them that my dreams of having a '66 mustang to fix up, a snowmobile to ride, a motorcycle to ride, a 4 wheeler to ride on my 200+acres of hunting land have all had to be put on hold because I first must pay back my college loans, my credit card debt that I've totalled up fixing up my house, and my bills, they start to understand that $10/hr. isn't going to cut-it if they intend to live life the way they think they want to. I then ask the students to go home, talk to their parents about what they make and what all they have to pay for. I ask them to talk with their parents about where they began and how they got to where they are. I find that these little peaks into what it takes to get the things that the students desire focuses the students and sets goals for them to achieve. In the same light, by putting myself in a situation where I am extremely busy, I can refocus my goals for my students and try to be more understanding and flexible when it comes to helping my students achieve the goals I've assigned them in the way I want to see them achieved.
I speak of this because of I've learned a lot from the readings this week but feel it was probably not the desired learning originally intended. By reading the text and having continued checkpoints along the way I realized that I was learning more than being asked to read it all the way through and then go back and try to remember what it was that I was reading. You see, I must admit that I've fallen into that old habit of thinking that by making the material harder and having the students work harder to get the information, that they must undoubtedly be learning more. In fact, I'm just teaching these students to find ways to cheat or get by with doing the work half way. This text reminded me that sometimes making the assignment as easy as possible is the most efficient way for the students to learn. It comes down to the fact that if this material was any tougher, I would have felt defeated. I would have looked at it and said no way, how can I get it done good enough to get a grade and call it good. The saddest part about this is I pride myself on being someone who believes in the mantra that if it is worth doing, it's worth doing well and I still found myself going into this with that defeated attitude. This is why I learned so much from this text. The text talked about using technology efficiently by providing examples and direction to make it easy for the student to learn. This can obviously be applied to more than just technology and for that reason I'm happy I've had the opportunity to learn from this text. Now if I could just make writ ting the papers so easy as I'm sure many of you have noticed writ ting is not my strong suit.
So 1 credit down, 31 to go and many more life lessons to go to help me better myself, achieve my goals, and who knows, maybe make it a little easier to afford my toys and buy myself a little more time to play with them.
Likewise, I think all of our students should have the opportunity to spend a little time in the same shoes we as members of this program find ourselves in. I find that many of our students think that they are going to get a job, make millions of dollars, buy a home that never requires any work and have all kinds of time to play with their toys that they are going to buy with all that money they are going to make. My students at least, seem to have missed the fact that most of us as responsible adults, work very hard for the money we earn and most of us, even though we work hard, have many responsibilities outside that job that keep us from being able to play with whatever toys that money has afforded us. They seem to have missed the fact that the house they intend to buy requires work to maintain or in my case, fix up. They seem to have missed the fact that in order to stay ahead of others who want their job, they will have to push themselves to constantly improve themselves in their jobs. They seem to have missed the fact that the family they envisioned will demand their time and likewise should receive their attention.
I know, I know, it will never happen. Just because we can't truly impress upon our students just how real life can be, I don't think it should stop us from trying. I regularly speak with my students about life and what happens behind the scenes of my life. Usually it deals with the fact of understanding the concept of money as I find most of my students believe that making $10/hr. is going to make them rich. When I ask them how well they think teachers are paid, usually their response is something to the effect of terrible. I agree and then tell them what exactly it is that I make/hr. This certainly opens some eyes. Of course, for reasons of full disclosure, I must admit that I break it down for only an 8hr work day and for the length of one school year as it makes the effect much more dramatic but still there is a point behind my doing so. When I explain to the students that with my salary along with my wife's who makes less than I do, we are able to afford a house, mind you it is 105 years old, I am able to afford a nice truck, yet my wife drives a totalled-out Saturn because she only has to drive 4 blocks to work, and I can afford little else, and finally I explain to them that my dreams of having a '66 mustang to fix up, a snowmobile to ride, a motorcycle to ride, a 4 wheeler to ride on my 200+acres of hunting land have all had to be put on hold because I first must pay back my college loans, my credit card debt that I've totalled up fixing up my house, and my bills, they start to understand that $10/hr. isn't going to cut-it if they intend to live life the way they think they want to. I then ask the students to go home, talk to their parents about what they make and what all they have to pay for. I ask them to talk with their parents about where they began and how they got to where they are. I find that these little peaks into what it takes to get the things that the students desire focuses the students and sets goals for them to achieve. In the same light, by putting myself in a situation where I am extremely busy, I can refocus my goals for my students and try to be more understanding and flexible when it comes to helping my students achieve the goals I've assigned them in the way I want to see them achieved.
I speak of this because of I've learned a lot from the readings this week but feel it was probably not the desired learning originally intended. By reading the text and having continued checkpoints along the way I realized that I was learning more than being asked to read it all the way through and then go back and try to remember what it was that I was reading. You see, I must admit that I've fallen into that old habit of thinking that by making the material harder and having the students work harder to get the information, that they must undoubtedly be learning more. In fact, I'm just teaching these students to find ways to cheat or get by with doing the work half way. This text reminded me that sometimes making the assignment as easy as possible is the most efficient way for the students to learn. It comes down to the fact that if this material was any tougher, I would have felt defeated. I would have looked at it and said no way, how can I get it done good enough to get a grade and call it good. The saddest part about this is I pride myself on being someone who believes in the mantra that if it is worth doing, it's worth doing well and I still found myself going into this with that defeated attitude. This is why I learned so much from this text. The text talked about using technology efficiently by providing examples and direction to make it easy for the student to learn. This can obviously be applied to more than just technology and for that reason I'm happy I've had the opportunity to learn from this text. Now if I could just make writ ting the papers so easy as I'm sure many of you have noticed writ ting is not my strong suit.
So 1 credit down, 31 to go and many more life lessons to go to help me better myself, achieve my goals, and who knows, maybe make it a little easier to afford my toys and buy myself a little more time to play with them.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
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