site frame - 10/28/06

Starting to create the actual website has been the most fun portion of this assignment. I created a home site and some of the main pages and have a CSS style sheet that manages all of them.

It has been fun, very addicting, and time consuming. I have to be careful about when I start working with the code because it’s hard to pull myself away. I wish I had a server to up-load the pages I have done so I could link them to this journal!

content analysis - 10/21/06

The instruction I created last week, over-all, seemed to be pretty effective. I made a paper based instructional lesson to give the student; they then had to read and work through the program themselves to learn the content—as they would be doing if the program were on the computer. The students, all of whom had never written a check or balanced a check book before, could write checks and balance a checkbook by the end of the instruction.

There were a few small oversights that were brought to my attention during the analysis. For example, the instruction starts with learning to write checks. The instruction covers what information to write on which line, but nowhere do I introduce how to write the fraction portion of the written amount, i.e. 83/100 for 83¢ or no/100 for no cense.

Some of the students reported that they felt like they learned how to do something valuable and that it was fun to choose things to buy that they wished they had.
I look forward, within the next few weeks, fixing those glitches and actually creating the site for this.

design instruction - 10/14/2006

This week I spent designing instruction for learning to write checks and balance a checkbook. I originally was just going to have a lesson on balancing a checkbook, but I realized that students first needed to know how to write checks.

The instruction starts with an attention grabber that will simultaneously demonstrate the importance of this task. I want to include a check-writing clip from the movie Catch Me If you Can (2002) with Leonardo DiCaprio & Tom Hanks. Then instruct students how to write out checks and balance their checkbook. They will then practice filling out checks and subtracting the amount of the check from their current balance; during the practice, there will be corrective feedback. When they are able to demonstrate proficiency filling out the check and finding the new balance correctly four out of five trials, they will be moved on to the fourth and final step of instruction. They will be tested with the same type of scenario that they had in the practice exercises. This next week I will test the paper based instruction with similar students to those who will use the final product.

captivate vs. camtasia - 10/7/2006

I was able to get special permission this week to download the software onto my IBM school computer to create this math site. The school is viewing the downloading as material that will assist me in instruction. It was the prospect of not being able to use one of these programs that made me change my project to begin with, but I still feel better about the math site then an on-line class organizer.

I have evaluated both programs and have decided on captivate 2. I have an HTML class and a Producing Distance Education Resources class that is focusing a lot on DreamWeaver. Captivate is going to allow me to switch between other macromedia products with more ease.

This next week I will start designing the instruction, it will be interesting to find an effective way to present the material.