Learning Adventure 5

Assignment:

If you don't already own a copy of InspireData, get a trial download of it here: http://cf.inspiration.com/freetrial/index.cfm?fuseaction=inspiredata

Say you're a college student in the questionnaire before downloading. Use the Pepperdine address if you wish.

Install InspireData, help each other figure out how to use it and then import your tab-delimited file in order to ask a question of the data.

Next steps will be assembling the data sets so they may be used to explore complex questions with one tool. Of course, keep track of your own thinking, learning and experience.

Reaction:

I know for everyone, we are feeling the pressures of multiple assignments, changing gears every week with a new learning adventure, reflecting about our learning processes, and seeing the connections flow between each class. This past week and especially this next week are going to be exceptionally challenging for me for a few reasons: one I meet with all my students individually before they turn in ay writing assignment so my calendar is extremely full, I have parent teacher conferences for two nights this week, I need to finish Bill’s project, and trying to squeeze in my best work on Gary’s Learning Adventure all the while, trying to redo my AR paper so I can help my LC finish theirs. Sometimes, I feel like my brain is going to explode with all that is going on inside of it. Not to mention I have two of my own children’s parent teacher conferences (I need to find a geometry program for Jackson and a reading program for Emma if anyone has suggestions), making dinner, cooking, cleaning, trying to get laundry done, schedule speaking conferences with Karl, and find time to exercise. So before this learning adventure really came into full swing for me today, I am learning that I am a multitasker. This is how I get things done. When we received the learning adventure, l had just received an article through NY Times about presidential height weight comparison. The article was simply a chart showing black and white silhouettes of all the candidates with their height and weights indicated below. The chart displayed the following information:

Taller winner 17 times

Shorter winner 8 times

Heavier winner 18 times

Lighter winner 8 times

Tallest Lincoln 6 ft 4 in

Shortest Madison 5 ft 4in

Heaviest Taft 332 lbs

Not that this data is earth shattering, but I thought it might be more fun to play around with. After creating the txt file earlier in the week, I hadn’t done much with it until today. In the mean time, I read other people’s problems with the program (Donna and Dan) and enjoyed hearing about other’s successful ventures. I downloaded InspireData on Friday and played around with the tutorials as Dijlah had suggested. I was thinking about using this program with my students. Maybe when we do their wiki papers with A Whole New Mind. To totally digress on another tool, we used Polleveywhere this week to create polls about background information for Fahrenheit 451 and had a blast. (Gary- I wish you were on Skype because I so wanted to Skype you into our class conversation) I am totally going to use that again. I will be posting a blog post about that experience on LearningandLaptops.blogspot.com later.

So finally, today came and I have some time to work with my data. I had a minor glitch in the beginning to importing my data, but with Dan’s tips, I learned from his experience. I think the reflection part of the learning adventure is so important because of the problem solving tips and our ability to learn from one another. That really helps and I am learning how important it is to post where I am at so that others might be able to learn from me. I haven’t done as good a job on this one though. So, I imported my data and started playing with it. It was interesting to first try and figure out what I was doing with the instructions Dijlah had given. I played with different chart formats, arranged candidates into different colors. Then, I thought that maybe my data might not be the best because I was adding in height with ft and in included. I wasn’t sure if Inspiredata knew what this was since when I went to plot view I wasn’t seeing the charts I hoped to see. I finally went back to my data and took out the height indicators hoping that might help. I realized with taking away feet and inches I would need to differentiate inches and so I remembered decimal placements from my elementary school days. Now, I probably didn’t do it the way I was supposed to do it (Sorry, Mrs Orminston) but I did it the way it made sense to me.

I still ended up with really odd charts, but I did learn a few things from this experience: one, I learn best from people around me. I love hearing about their experiences and tips. I guess I am what you could call a social learner. Two, I learned that I might actually like playing around with data. Although what I am doing is not really making sense to me, I didn’t get frustrated because I realized it was more important what I am taking away from this experience than anything. I just kept clicking away trying to figure things out. The final thing I learned is this: If I take the past data and apply it to this election year, Obama has a greater chance of winning because he is taller and weighs more.

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Learning Adventure 5: Part 2

Assignment:
Imagine that you will share your data set for InspireData with the world in a form that allows learners or researchers to answer their own questions.

In order to do so, you may need to take action to answer the following questions:
• Is your data set complete enough for users to interrogate the database? In other words, if you constrained the initial database so that you could answer a specific question about one specific election, could more data be added to make the database more flexible? Not every user will have the same interests as you.
• Can you merge multiple databases created by your cadre mates in order to make the database more powerful? You may copy/paste, Append or Import data into an existing InspireData file.
• Would your new and improved database benefit from including notes? You may add notes to the file.
• How else might you embellish your new and improved InspireData file?
We can share the best files with the community of InspireData users, perhaps even officially.

Reaction:
Today, I sat down to complete the endless Learning Adventure 5. Gary asked us to consider the following question to complete this learning adventure:
* Is your data set complete enough for users to interrogate the database? In other words, if you constrained the initial database so that you could answer a specific question about one specific election, could more data be added to make the database more flexible? Not every user will have the same interests as you.
I was thinking with merging two data base sets that are comprehensive and including multiple if not all election years, that in essence I have create a good starting pointing for others to extrapolate out what information he/she needs to decipher. I think by almost adding in a multitude of data sets it could lead to too much information to sort through unless you exported it back into Excel to sort through the information sought after.

I am still trying to discern through InspireData how to sort the fields and label the information I specifically want. I think that through both InspireData which visually demonstrates so the information, it is a good pairing with the original txt files. I am no-data expert yet, but I do think I am feeling more confident about sorting through data and pulling different files of information together.

• Can you merge multiple databases created by your cadre mates in order to make the database more powerful? You may copy/paste, Append or Import data into an existing InspireData file.
I did this with Dan’s comprehensive election file as well as my height and weight comparisons. I think you could even add a set of election data from a specific election to make your set even more robust to a specific election in comparison to all the other elections that have taken place. This would be especially good if one wanted to focus on a specific election with a wide depth of data in comparison to overall trends in elections.

• Would your new and improved database benefit from including notes? You may add notes to the file.
I think the only notes that one would need or find beneficial with the new database would be the original sources used to compile these two sets of data.

• How else might you embellish your new and improved InspireData file?
One way is I suggested above that going beyond merging two comprehensive data bases you could compare them to one specific election with a deep depth of information. So you could in theory compare very specific information within a long period of time. For instance, I could compare the education background of voters in one election with the presidential candidates running for office, in comparison to making some predictions about other races in past elections.

Reflecting on my learning:
(Gary didn’t ask for this specifically, but I was proud of myself so I am sharing that) At first I wasn’t sure what data I wanted to deal with besides my own, and how would I get the data to merge. I haven’t dealt much if at all with data until this learning adventure. To be honest, Excel is one program I have managed to stay away from because I am just not a row and column girl despite my overly Type-A-ness. So, rather than seeking help from my cadremates, I decided to do a little problem solving on my own. How could I take multiple sources of data and merge them into one chart in Inspire data. I thought I could do it through InspireData but through much trial and error, I realized that option wasn’t working for me. I took a break and went to watch my step-son’s soccer game, and while driving home, I had an epiphany of Excel. I could use Excel to import all the data sets into then export it into Inspire Data. WAHOO! I swear there is sometimes no better feeling than figuring things out on your own.

So, I combined my data set since it entailed many years, with Dan’s set of data because his as well was a comprehensive set of years even more so than mine. I saw Dan’s posting and decided to see what I could build off from his. What I learned is that it is okay to struggle with figuring out technology because whether you figure it out yourself or ask others to assist you, you are learning along the way. Like Mihalyi Csíkszentmihályi explains in his notion of flow, that true learning occurs when you are struggling with challenges just beyond your skill set so that you are entering a higher state of concentration and thus learn more. When you are successful, then you are more willing to challenge your self again.

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Learning Adventure 6

Assignment:


Learning Adventure 6 - Quilting in MicroWorlds EX
MicroWorlds EX is a modern multimedia programming environment for learners built upon a version of Logo that allows for parallelism. Using MicroWorlds in this simple project will help bring "The Children's Machine" to life.
Video-based MicroWorlds EX tutorials will be online by mid-day Monday. I'm encoding them as I write this.
There should be manuals in PDF form that accompanied your MicroWorlds EX download. If not, let me know and I'll post them for you.
Also, there is contextual help, online vocabulary (under the help menu), tutorials, techniques and samples within the software.
Of course, you may also ask questions.
This should be a fun simple collaborative project with no threshold and ho ceiling that supports your reading of Papert.
As my colleague and friend Tom Lough signs all of his correspondence...

FD 100

Reaction:

Day One: playing around while grading Senior synthesis essays on Beowulf.
I downloaded Microwords today (actually I had a free copy from Gary’s Constructivist Consortium he put on this summer- lucky for me) and went through the tutorials of geometry. I was pretty diligent in following the step by step procedures and had lots of flashbacks to programming Mr. Bill this summer at Virt Camp. Through the tutorial I could make the box pretty easily but then I noticed I had problems figuring out the measurements across from corner ot corner (Hello- Geometry!) Here is where I started at and you can see it isn’t quite what I was hoping.
Forward 100
right 90
Forward 100
right 90
Forward 100
right 90
forward 100
right 45
right 90
forward 100
forward 25
forward10
forward 10
forward 10
right 135
forward 100

Day Two-Three:

After playing with Microworlds for most of the morning after coming home from church, I had problems initially getting Microworlds to work again on my computer. It seems that I was the problem. Iintially when I used Microworlds the first time, I just went in and played around with things. That worked fine, but then today I was going to get serious and really make something. I opened up the quilt button and nothing would work for me. After talking with Greg about it (thanks Greg), he told me to go back to where I originally played with the turtle.

After making the initial square patch to start with, I looked over the serious programming that Dan and others had put together. WOW I am surrounded by simply amazing people that can figure this stuff out. I just was interested in making more traditional patched and here were these outstanding quilts that others had put together. I guess I get to fall short of success in light of what others have done, but for me, I was happy just getting the turtle to move around and make old fashioned quilt shapes. I learned that all the manuals seem to do for me is give me some basic guidelines but I really do seem to learn better in groups. It reminded me of Virt Camp, Colby started me off with programming the block by showing me some basics in programming and then the manual added a little more information, but after that it was all on my own with some help when I would get stuck. I remember being up late that night and Erin and Brooke finally coming over to assist me seeing as how their Olympic sport was similar to mine.

My programming for this patch quilt is simple as I stated before. I am really impressed more so by those that are in this program. It seems with each adventure, someone really peaks at shows the rest of us the possibilities. I took away from this learning adventure a sense of playfulness and giving myself some time to enjoy the wonder I am surrounded with. In comparison to Situated Learning, I moved towards to apprenticeship side of learning watching other model for me expertise in areas I have yet to fully explore. I learned from those around me and am glad to be part of a program that is so much about the process rather than the product.
My program:

setc "red

repeat 4 [fd 100 rt 90]

setc "red
rt 45
fd 113
bk 113
setc" red
seth o
fd 100
rt 135
repeat
lt 90
fd71.7
lt 90
fd 71.7
seth o
end

Where I am struggling is getting it to repeat without me clicking to make it repeat. Also, I thought I programmed my turtle to return back to the start by programming in the right coordinates (If that is what you call it) but it doesn’t seem to exactly do what I want it to do. I feel like I am always saying that in these reflections. The other thing I am wondering is where do I save my patch to? And how do I save it? Do I just do this like a normal save?

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Learning Adventures with Gary

Learning Adventure 1

Learning Adventure 2

Learning Adventure 3- Suspended

Learning Adventure 4

Learning Adventure 4 Part 2. 1

Learning Adventure 4 Part 2.2

Learning Adventure 5

Learning Adventure 5 Part 2

Learning Adventure 6

Learning Adventure 7

Learning Adventure 8

Learning Adventure 9

Learning Adventure 10

Gary's Famous Responses

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Asus Releases Eee PC 1000h

Asus's latest compact discount notebook incorporates everything from previous models with many notable improvements. It is slightly larger than its predecessors, which makes it easier and more comfortable to use. This model features a 10-inch screen with a native resolution of 1024x600, a necessary improvement on the 901's 8.9-inch. Also, the keyboard is much larger, almost as big as generic notebooks, which is intended to be more comfortable than the previous models. It weighs in at only 3.6lbs, a bit heavier than the ultra-lightweight 900 but still light relative to standard notebooks.

The Eee PC 1000h features the smallest transistors in the world. The 45nm transistor technology is designed to reduce power usage and heat output without sacrificing performance. Battery life ranges from 3.2-7 hours. The processor runs at a native frequency of 1.6GHz, and built-in power management can increase it to 1.7GHz. It comes with 1GB of DDR2 RAM (supports up to 2GB) and a 80 or 160GB hard drive. The Eee PC 1000h is powerful enough to utilize the high speed Wi-Fi 802.11n that is standard for this model.

The Eee's name comes from its slogan: "easy to learn, easy to work, easy to play," thus the 1000h is designed to be as easy as possible. It comes with Windows XP Home and Microsoft Works. It has a built-in 1.3 megapixel webcam and bluetooth, and the software is already setup and ready to use. For security, the 1000h comes with anti-virus software and 10GB of file-encrypted storage. The Eee PC 1000h comes with a one-year limited warranty. This
notebook is designed for someone with a budget and basic needs, and is priced at a very reasonable $649.

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New MacBook Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Air Released By Apple

It looks like the rumors were true that Apple will be releasing a whole new line of laptops. We know they are true becasue that time is upon us. The first thing you might notice when looking at their new line of laptops is.. well they look almost exactly the same. Most of the changes are under the hood, but one thing that has changed is Apples new laptops are all formed from a single block of aluminum. The new aluminum body is lighter and stronger than the previous body and frame. Also a new GPU has been integrated into all the new laptops. The new GPU is the 9400M and Apple promises that the new GPU is 5 times faster than its last Intel integrated graphics chipset. Here is a full list of specs for each laptop.

MacBook Pro Specs
Starting Price- $1,999
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
15.4” LED-blacklit display
2 GB 1066MHZ DDR3 RAM
9400M Integrated / 9600M GT Dedicated 256MB
250GB HHD



MacBook Air Specs
Starting Price - $1,799
13.3” LED-backlit display
9400M Integrated Graphics
2GB 1006 MHz DDR3 RAM
120GB Sata Hard Drive
1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo



MacBook Specs
Starting Price - $1,299
13.3” LED-backlit display
2GB 1066MHz DDR3 RAM
9400M Integrated Graphics
160GB Hard Drive
2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

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Polling to establish background knowledge

With the start of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, I always enjoy the beginning conversations watching my students grasp that the predictions Bradbury made in 1953 have come true in our society today. Throughout the unit, I turn over the learning to the fishbowl method in our classrooms where students lead the discussions. We are focusing on building on the question “What does it take to challenge the system” with our previous readings of Macbeth and Lord of the Flies.

This year I started things a little differently. First, I showed them Michael Wesch’s “The Machine is Using Us”. We had an excellent conversation about technology and human connection. At one point, we even Skyped in my graduate school professor Dr. Margaret Riel, Gary wasn’t on Skype so I couldn’t bring him in. My students really questioned the web making us redefine what family is.

The following day, before we read Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, I used Polleverywhere.com to create an in-class texting poll asking them to submit their answers to the following questions. The paired up in class with one other student who had free, unlimited texting and then once I put up the poll question, they text in their answer, after discussing the possibilities together. It was AWESOME! The twosome discussed their answer, then we took sides in class. I had one participant be the voice of the yes, no, or maybe on each question presenting their case, and then opened it up to the entire class for discussion. They were so into it, it was challenging to bring them back to move onto the next question. Talk about motivated learners.

Here are some sample questions in the poll format:
Poll 1
Poll2
Poll3
Poll4

Also, here are all of the questions that I turned into the poll. What is great about the poll is that not everyone has to have a cell phone. Kids can also use their laptops to answer the questions. The polls can be embedded into blogs or simply downloaded as PowerPoint slides. There is a limit to the number of people who can complete the poll in order for the poll to be free, but pairing kids up, gives them a chance to discuss their ideas before presenting to the class their viewpoints. Kids who normally do not say much in class, were jumping into the conversation when we used the polling program.

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