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Analyze a 2×2 contingency table
Jun
20
Category : Feeds
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Dropbox Uploader is a PHP class which can be used to upload files to Dropbox, an online file synchronization and backup service.
Jun
11
Category : Google
Back in December of 2009 I attended the Google Teacher Academy in Washington, D.C. This post serves as my final reflection of my participation. First, take a look at the video I used to apply for the event.
I heard recently that my video was used as an example of getting a point across well without overly flashy transitions or video effects. Nice to hear.
Once I got to the Google Teacher Academy I was delighted to run into many friends. Some I previously knew, some I was just meeting. This entire process delights me more in terms of the people I met than the content I learned.
As a result of the GTA, I performed several activities. I posted to our school’s private blog tips and tricks about Google. I am not certain how fruitful that was since not many of my teachers read that blog much. Perhaps had I done it via email it would have been more fruitful, although we get so many emails I can’t swear it wouldn’t get lost in the mix.
The item I am most proud of is our group project. A few of us came together and decided to create an online video repository specifically geared towards Google products. It turns out that Google Certified Teachers often deliver training to their teachers on many of the same topics. Rather than reinvent the wheel, we created TechTrainingWheels.com. It hasn’t received the buy in I had hoped, but it may pick up.
So overall the GTA was a wonderful experience but moreso because of the wonderful folks I met and continue to interact with.
Jun
07
Category : Feeds
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Ever lost your phone and you go to call it to listen for the ringer and remember its on silent mode? If your like me (or my wife) you do it all the time. Now when you lose it you can use another phone to text a special message that you can set and it will turn silent mode off and the ringer volume all the way up so you can here it ring. You can also get the GPS location of your phone in latitude and longitude and a link to Google maps so you can even get directions to it.
May
11
Category : Feeds
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Instantly translate and preserve the layout of Office documents
using the Google Translate API.
Apr
29
Category : Feeds
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Bluetooth Radar displays both paired Bluetooth devices—devices linked to your computer—and unpaired devices just floating around within reach of your Bluetooth radio. Bluetooth Radar retrieves basic information from the unpaired devices but in the case of paired devices gives you additional options like file transfer and remote file browsing.
Apr
21
There is a wonderful discussion going on over at Bud the Teacher’s blog regarding Accelerated Reader. The discussion piqued my interest because of the mention of motivation. Here is my comment, and I encourage you to participate.
If you are interested in the motivational theory I often espouse, please visit this link for a great resource. Stay away from the wikipedia article on it, it stinks.
Comment here if you like, but I’d rather hear your voice on Bud’s blog.
Hi Bud,
Thanks for pinging me on this. While I am not terribly certain what I think about AR, I do have some thoughts about motivation.
However, I will keep them brief since your post is more about AR than about motivation. For what it’s worth, my school recently quit the formal AR program and has implemented something very similar. I am not sufficiently familiar with it to comment on its success or failure, nor am I qualified in that arena.
I want to hone in on what you said here..
“I know that motivation that springs from external sources isn’t terribly motivating when the external motivator is gone. In fact, I know that such external motivation can decrease one’s intrinsic motivation for the thing that being fiddled with.”
This can be true, but depends entirely on the context. You brought about Deci’s work, he and a second author named Ryan went rounds about this very topic in a series of journal articles.
Suffice it to say, I’d argue motivation is more complex than simply a series of external or internal motivators. I’d posit that motivation is more related to the anticipated value of an activity. When I was growing up I can recall asking teachers when I’d need a particular math skill later in life. Subconsciously I was trying to justift the effort I was going to have to exert to understand/learn/demonstrate the skill.
When one expects little value from a task, one will likely exert little effort. This is precisely why many students abandon school or do only the bare minimum. They see no value in school. But that’s another comment, I suppose.
What I am positing is based on the Expectency-Value theory of motivation, made popular by Eccles and Wigfield. I’d avoid the wikipedia article, it needs help.
EV theory boils down to two questions..
1. Can I do the task?
2. Do I want to do the task?When it comes to AR, it may be that students anticipate recieving value from the prizes, etc they recieve for reading. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
I doubt it is creating in them an expectency of value for reading itself.
Perhaps the incentives will help them realize they like reading? No clue.
Either way, EVT forms a nice framework for motivation and deserves a higher place in our discussion.
For more information on EVT, stay away from Wikipedia. Visit this link instead.
Yours,
Chris Craft
