I want to thank those individuals who took part in the Twitter feed on Tuesday. Very scrumptious. Apart from the tiny bones and feathers... It was there I received my muse and discovered my question. “Are screencasts an effective tool to deliver instruction and professional development to teachers?” Shortly afterwards, I surfed Google Scholar for any journal articles that relate and found a few. I would love to purchase some of the books and articles but alas...I’m broke. The results from the action research regarding screencasts are very positive. I’m especially encouraged by the excitement that the instructional delivery of screencasts created. Many of the recipients of screencasts felt more empowered by owning and being able to control the pace of instruction.
My concern with my forthcoming research is my ability to create effective surveys that reject any bias on my part and offer fair and balanced responses from the participants. I vividly remember my statistics professor discussing the many obstacles inherent to polling. One misplaced word and the participants are thrown off. I hope to find some guidelines regarding this tricky step or maybe it will be covered in this class due to the qualitative nature of the research. Bringing this issue up in the Twitter meeting might be all it takes. I find Twitter Hour every Tuesday and/or Thursday immensely useful for issues such as these.
This week’s blogs were very informative and some were downright comforting. There were some that proclaimed frustration and indecision and others that discovered correlation and causation. Regardless, reading each one was enjoyable. I found a few that I could relate to including a very well written blog regarding Writer’s Workshops. I’ve used Google Apps to design a Writer’s Workshop for my fourth grade class and right away I observed students’ new found “eagerness” to write. Having students add peer editors and instructing them on creating meaningful and positive feedback created a free flowing press room where ideas flowed in real-time. Stories were produced faster and they immersed their ideas both on their stories and the stories of two other writers. Anyways, I shared this concept and hope it helps. I also shared my experience with the online ClassDojo for classroom management. I figured it could lend itself to research due to it’s downloadable progress reports. Unfortunately, my troublesome time-management issues kept me from commenting sooner than I...or they might have liked. This leads me to what I would like to correct next week. When I’m done with this blog entry. I will open week four and begin. I won’t wait until Wednesday. There will be no more celebratory moments come Sunday at 12:01. I must pace my research and steps throughout the week. I’m writing this down on my walls with chalk tonight?
Again, thanks to those of you who pointed out that I don’t need a group of students under my wing at all times to commit to action research. Special thanks to Dr. Lee Graham for moving me forward on Tuesday. I’m looking forward to putting this together.
My concern with my forthcoming research is my ability to create effective surveys that reject any bias on my part and offer fair and balanced responses from the participants. I vividly remember my statistics professor discussing the many obstacles inherent to polling. One misplaced word and the participants are thrown off. I hope to find some guidelines regarding this tricky step or maybe it will be covered in this class due to the qualitative nature of the research. Bringing this issue up in the Twitter meeting might be all it takes. I find Twitter Hour every Tuesday and/or Thursday immensely useful for issues such as these.
This week’s blogs were very informative and some were downright comforting. There were some that proclaimed frustration and indecision and others that discovered correlation and causation. Regardless, reading each one was enjoyable. I found a few that I could relate to including a very well written blog regarding Writer’s Workshops. I’ve used Google Apps to design a Writer’s Workshop for my fourth grade class and right away I observed students’ new found “eagerness” to write. Having students add peer editors and instructing them on creating meaningful and positive feedback created a free flowing press room where ideas flowed in real-time. Stories were produced faster and they immersed their ideas both on their stories and the stories of two other writers. Anyways, I shared this concept and hope it helps. I also shared my experience with the online ClassDojo for classroom management. I figured it could lend itself to research due to it’s downloadable progress reports. Unfortunately, my troublesome time-management issues kept me from commenting sooner than I...or they might have liked. This leads me to what I would like to correct next week. When I’m done with this blog entry. I will open week four and begin. I won’t wait until Wednesday. There will be no more celebratory moments come Sunday at 12:01. I must pace my research and steps throughout the week. I’m writing this down on my walls with chalk tonight?
Again, thanks to those of you who pointed out that I don’t need a group of students under my wing at all times to commit to action research. Special thanks to Dr. Lee Graham for moving me forward on Tuesday. I’m looking forward to putting this together.
RSS Feed