#12

The 3 readings provided information about the prevalence of databases in the classroom. As article one relays it is useful to have a database to turn in assignments, evaluate, keep a calendar, and also, use as a research mechanism. It is important to realize that databases can take up a lot of memory, however, with they can be put on the web. But with the web there is always a question of security. The next article (America's Presidents) demonstrates that databases can be organized and easy as in her case with the American Presidents activity. She reveals that learning used to be about reading, writing, and math but now education demands so much more. The other demands are what she classifies as the "6 c's" these include: compute, communicate, conclude, confirm, categorize, and classify. She relates these 6 c's to early education and how it is imperative as teacher to teach students about databases and how to determine and "collect" what information is accurate, or not. The last article, Bells and Whistles, discusses how databases do indeed require "higher-order" thinking skills, which as a teacher we want to expand the minds of little ones as much as possible. She emphasizes how this is a good way to structure the classroom especially when the classroom only has one computer and discusses the ins and outs of databases (like the difference between pop-ups and value lists, etc).


Databases in education seems to be quite useful because it accessible, it can be shared, organized, it can store a large amount of data, it can be assorted and analyzed, modified, and often times (as the articles stated) requires higher level thinking skills. In creating my Inspiredata database I was able to see firsthand how organized, as a teacher, I could become by putting all my data in one place. Furthermore, it allows me to analyze the data I have gathered by using tools such as the venndiagram, stack plot, axis plot, and pie plot features. Hence, I am also able to sort and arrange it in such ways that I can understand and interpret. Additionally, it allows some student interaction. They are able to fill out questionnaires while as a teacher I can note the fields one must answer while making others optional. Overall, this tool as teacher is beneficial because I can gather and interpret my data to better understand my students but also areas where I could excel, thus giving my students the best education possible.

Midterm #10

In general, I found the midterm to be fairly easily. I seemed to struggle more with questions on the day one midterm unlike the day two midterm. On day one, the difficulty I had concerned the extentions of documents. I missed two of those, mainly because I did not review them when studying. Also, I had a difficult time with the question that asked to do an advanced search for an article with the word Ethics in the title. Honestly, I still do not know how to do that, so I just guessed. Other than that I understood how to wrap text in Word and write formulas for Excel.

On day two of the midterm, the most difficult thing for me was getting my brain in MAC mode rather than in PC. At first I spazzed, but then played around a little bit. In Excel I wasn't sure which format to open, I did a few trial-and-errors then figured out what to do and from there the task was easy to complete. The question on Inspiration was easy too. The most difficult thing was to know if my explanations were long enough (and that desktop publishing was Word), and for some reason I was having a hard time doing a screenshot even though I knew what keys to press. Finally, I figured it out. And the last question on Powerpoint was easy! Overall, I would say the midterm wasn't too easy or too hard, it was just right!