Findings and Implications

Tai Kimmerly

Tammy Maginity

CEP-812 - Apply Educational Technology to Practice

08/07/11

Findings and Implications

            Though this project has not yet been implemented, I plan on implementing it as soon as school begins. Since it is summer, I have no students to practice with! However, in order to simulate how the excel file will work, I entered a fake class into my grade book, along with fake grades. The grade book automatically averaged all of the grades into a summary page. This is the information that I would enter into the students’ report cards, if they were real. The real challenge will be getting into the habit of using the tablet in my every day classroom. This will be the proof that the project is successful. If it is simple and handy enough to use on a regular basis, that is my definition of success. If I find myself jotting notes on pieces of paper because it is easier or more efficient than using my tablet, I will know that the project either needs changing or just will not work

            The problem of practice was focused on the recording and management of assessment results. Through an excel spreadsheet, I feel I have developed a very efficient system for keeping track of assessments for multiple classes and benchmarks. Grades will be kept in class files that I will be able to access through my Dropbox, or through Google Docs. I am going to try both methods with different classes and see which works better.

            If I tried anything like this again, I might contact someone with a greater knowledge of the program that I decided to use. While I feel very comfortable using Excel, and use it for a variety of things, I am sure there are better shortcuts that could make the process more efficient and effective. There are things that I would like to make a spreadsheet do, but am not aware of the program’s capabilities enough to accomplish it. It may very well not be capable of some tasks I imagine, I just don’t have the expertise to know.

Any lessons I learned are ones common to anyone working with a document on a computer. Save your work frequently. If something goes wrong, you don’t want to have to redo hundreds of cells worth of formulas. The benefit of using Google Docs in this situation is that it constantly saves changes. However, you also lose many of the formatting options available in Microsoft Excel. Also, buy your equipment at a store with a great return policy (not Toys R Us). That way, if your equipment doesn’t quite fit your needs, you can exchange it.

I also may decide to approach this project from a different perspective altogether in the future. If I knew anything about writing software, or had contacted someone who knew how to write software, I may have been able to accomplish some things that I could not accomplish in Excel. For instance, I would love for my grade book to be able to transfer grades into the school’s report card program. I don’t know if this is even possible, but if it is, that would be the next step.