Class, Please Take Out Your Phones

Welcome NCEA attendees!

Below is a copy of my presentation. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Please visit Room C10 for a collection of help and how-to articles written for the faculty at Nolan.

If you would like to see current examples of my current class websites

• Economics
• Macroeconomics AP

If you want to implement something like this in your class, PLEASE follow at least very basic security guidelines. You are in effect extending your authoritative voice onto the internet, you don't want to loose control of it. There are plenty of security how-to articles out there, or you can look at this presentation (pdf) I gave to the Marianist Education Consortium summer workshop on the topic.

Correlation Does Equal Procrastination

The panic spike is an observable phenomenon in the analytics of websites hosting academic or other study-related material for high school students, particularly second semester senior students. The term "panic spike" is a bit of a misnomer, it is actually a cluster of visitor spikes that occur just prior to and on the dates of major exams.

These events taken on their own, with no other supporting data, can be difficult to interpret. It could simply be an indicator of last-minute study, a brush up or skimming of the notes before the exam.

By itself, the data may suggest but not prove lack of preparedness in students. Correlation does not equal procrastination. However recent traffic spikes like the one pictured above are more pronounced that spikes observed last semester. That in itself is suggesting, but any diagnosis of senioritis would require an examination of traffic data combined with exam performance data. That additional information however is above the classification of this blog and will not be reported here. It is our hope that the above reported information will be combined independently by individuals with access to their own grades, and thereby offer appropriate encouragement. 

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A more old-school performance metric.

I posted the above text on my economics notes blog, the place where I host all notes for lectures, videos, and anything else I do in class. My reasons for using that platform have already been explained on this blog, so I won't get into it now. But this semester has given me second thoughts.

It's not that I am afraid they are using the site to cheat, but the knowledge that nearly all of the material covered in class is available online may have lead some of my students into a false sense of security. My initial thought was to pull down the website just prior to exam time, but that would only encourage them to make copies ahead of time and thereby procrastinate by a nearly identical method. I want to keep the site up, I think it does genuinely help. But perhaps stronger use guidelines in the classroom are appropriate.

In any case, it's fun to see this kind of data in the classroom. Imagine if we could get detailed data on textbook use and engagement. Without, of course, giving reading quizzes to make sure they do what you told them, which has the side-effect of padding their averages (and wasting time).

I wonder if, once the transition to e-textbooks eventually takes place, Google-style analytics on their use will be available to teachers?

Just a thought...

It's Our Room...

Merry Christmas Mr. Skees!

For your gift, we decided to flood your classroom. Now we know you could smell it from the top of the stairs, so it isn't that much of a surprise. You can say goodbye to those stacks of paperwork neatly organized and filed you left on by your desk before break, and pretty much anything else you left on the floor. We missed your furniture (but might not next time, you never know), but we did manage to kill all of the boxes of tissue left from the last semester your students gave you. Now, you might be thinking that you get new carpet out of it, but just remember...they still don't know where the water came from....but cheer up! You get to teach in the auditorium for at least a week!

It's our room. 

sincerely, 

The ghosts of band members past

I found the above scrawled onto my office window. It only showed up after I kicked the AC on and the glass fogged up.

Winter (Break) is Coming.

The semester is coming to an end. I have been teaching economics and AP Macro for just about 82 school days. Teaching a new subject for the first time always seems to suck, and these two classes are the fifth and sixth times I have taught a new subject in four years. This means I have not had time for much of anything but school since since sometime back in July. But that's not a bad thing. 

It's good to know that I have been keeping my students busy too.

One of my economics students tagged my school Facebook account in this post.

Today is the last day of review and exams are next week....

Slenderskees

It's Halloween in the Dungeon, and you are invited to take part in a scavenger hunt. I came back to find this stuck to my classroom door.

Here are the rest, in no particular order.

Have you seen the Slenderman?

Valkyries(?)

I have been Norsemen moderator for less than a quarter, and have had maybe a half dozen requests from girls to join the Norsemen. I'm told that we are a boys-only group, but I haven't checked. In truth, I stalled every time I was asked the question.

At lunch today, a colleague told me about this.

Do You Think They Have Too Many?

If you're just joining us, see the label secret_war.


Underground safe-house infiltrated by the infected, then raided by Administration officials; large number of arms in custody.

September 14th, 2012. The Dungeon.

A safe-house operated by an underground movement dedicated to eradicating the infection fell this morning, dashing hopes that an end to the infection was in sight. Reports are still coming in, but eyewitness reports state that an infected man managed to slip past security and enter the safe-house. Once inside, the infection spread quickly from person to person. As many as three more were infected, almost and entire squad. "It was a shot, desperate fight," said one eyewitness, who barely escaped this morning's incident. "People panicked and just starting shooting everything that was moving." said the same witness, who also alleges that several non-combatants were wounded in the firefight.

Moments after the fighting had stopped, Administration representatives raided the safe-house, immediately disarming the infected. "We literally have trashcans full of guns," said one source inside the administration. The raid by Administration officials may have been a godsend to the underground, say observers, who point out that the arms confiscated were prevented from entering the hands of the infected. "It may have prevented a victory by the infected," said the observer, "concealable weapons, assault weapons with high-capacity magazines, explosives, you name it, they had two of them."

Some believe that the safe-house in question was a main arms cache for the underground, which may have been why it was targeted by both the infected and the Administration. "The infected saw a way to win the war, the Administration saw a way to clean up the streets," said one observer. "As always," said one spokesman for the underground, "the Administration is missing the point."

There is no lack of speculation as to how the safe-house was penetrated. But the general consensus is that a member of the security detail assigned to the safe-house was lured outside and infected. The man then re-entered the facility, somehow managing to bypass security, and infect others. "Once it got inside, it would spread faster than people could get out, that is the nature of the infection," said one member of the underground, who had returned to the area to see if anything had been missed. "The question is," says the man, "how did he get past the checkpoint? Did he have help from the inside?"