550 wk 1

This is our first week with the new course and I am interested in seeing what this course will offer me. We have begun to look into the positives and negatives of online learning and I was surprised to hear what some people think online learning is capable of. Some online teachers think they can make a better connection with students online than in the classroom! To me I don't see how that can happen, but I will keep an open mind and see what I can learn. I have been surprised over and over again throughout the program and I am sure that this class will not disappoint. I am eager to see how my courses and content will blend with online learning, I do not see right now how I can teach any of my courses online, but I'm sure I will learn some good tips and tricks about online teaching along the way.

540 WK 5

This entire class on stats has been different than what I thought it would be. I was not happy to see the first bit of actual math, but once we got past that and began exploring how we can use data in education, I was pleasantly surprised. This week we explored google trends which would be useful to follow the trends of any hot topic. Students could use this tool to follow a hot current event and see when the topic peaks and also find some useful links on the topic. I also enjoyed looking at some of the stat sites. As you would expect, the CDC and National Archives have a ton of information. The CDC site is great, but the Archives site was difficult to navigate and it would be challenging to find specific information. I also enjoyed searching the internet for automotive trends and stats. Automotive and especially domestic automakers is a hot topic these days and finding stats is not all that difficult. What I enjoyed most about this class is reminding me that stats can be easy to find and useful. They should be part of any research and report.

540wk 4

This week learning about Bill Tancer and how cookies are actually used is very interesting to me. In the past I just assumed that someone was keeping track of my browsing habbits, but now I know who! Tancer has a unique business with Hitwise and I am sure that his data is strong evidence of browsing trends and user characteristics. If I owned my own business, much less ran a large corporation, I would NEED to employ the Hitwise group in some way, or be left behind by those that do. To monitor, track, and collect data on web browsers is absolute marketing brilliance. Using this data companies can better place their products in front of consumers and better serve them as well. I am glad that Hitwise claims to collect this data anonymously, but I am not naive enough to think that someone else might be tracking ME! Or that's just paranoia.

540 wk 3

This week as a group we designed and implemented our own survey. We chose to survey our peers on the advantages and disadvantages of block scheduling. The survey was short and simple, but I believe we got a clear view of how our fellow educators feel about block scheduling. During the survey process, I was impressed with how easy it was to create a survey with survey monkey and be able to analyze the data and draw conclusions from it. I enjoyed using survey monkey as an online tool for data collection. Survey monkey allows you to create your survey and share it with you participants as a link, on your website, or by email. This was a useful tool and a good experience.