testing, 1,2, 3, testing - 4/14/2007

I have not thought to post the address to show off my site. It is http://stu-inst.usu.edu/~cfelt/money

I was able to test the site out this week and found a few areas that I will change. The students use computers with 10-inch screens. With this different screen size, the menu on the budget page needs to be moved down, as is it covers up the needs/wants link. The wording on the final test for question number 5 needs to be redone. I decided the discussion board link on the first page should go directly to the discussion board where as in the lesson, there is an introductory page to let the students know what they need to do. The students who were going to the discussion board from the first page, already knew what they needed to do, they were just coming back to finish or check out other peoples posts. Also, I found a few more glitches that I didn’t catch with compatibility between Explorer and the HTML I coded.

up and running - 4/6/2007

This week was spent putting the second lesson into html code and getting it on the web. Although I had a lot of the formatting done from lesson 1, it took a good deal of time. Luckily, I had spring break this week and was able to commit an aberrant amount of time to the project.

After getting it all coded I begin html syntax checks through all the html. There were many errors that I needed to go back and fix individual. This also proved to be a lengthy process. But I feel good at this point, the project is mostly done and I have three weeks to evaluate the end product and make changes to it.

budgeting - 3/30/2007

The site is coming along. I had a great idea today for the budget page. I decided I would give the students choices as to their stage in life (or imaginary stage in life) and make there budget and expense options based on their stage in life.
So, I have single, single with child, couple, and couple with child. The student picks one of these areas and is given a living situation and expenses, They have to decide how much they will spend in each area: savings, housing, food, transportation, entertainment, personal care, and miscellaneous.

I designed the budget page so the student wouldn’t have enough money to get the high end options on all of categories. The students have to choose two areas that are important to them and kind of skimp on everything else. I like this because budgeting is all about making decisions on what is most important to the individual.

crossword puzzle - 3/23/2007

I am very pleased with my most recent addition to the site. In my design I implemented some games for the students to play that would reinforce some of the things they were learning on the site. I thought I might be able to use JavaScript to make some game for this electronic based medium. I did not, however, know how to do this.

I have been searching for a few days to find a script and hopefully learn how to edit it to make my own crossword puzzle. Well, I am please to say that I was able to do just that. It took a great deal of effort; I have never had JavaScript training of any kind. It was very much a “let’s see what this does” type method. But I feel a great deal of accomplishment having created it—even though it only accounts for one small page on my site.

ready, aim, fire - 3/16/2007

I feel that I have designed well and conducted sufficient user analysis to tweak my design as needed and I am ready to fire away, i.e. code it all and get it on the site. I realized this week that we have 35 more days until the project is due. SO, it’s time to implement all my theories and test them again.

user analysis - 3/10/2007

I have been conducting user analysis on my design, trying to find the most effective and interesting way to present this information. I thought it would be easy for my students to get excited about money, but managing money is something that is a little far removed for them to grasp fully. I have designed games and word searches to practice the content. The students have been more receptive to the games but still aren’t ecstatic about learning to budget there money.

While trying to make the instruction more teen-friendly I found some really great resources for educators from University of California Cooperative Extensions (UCCE).

back - 3/1/2007

So I am back… my hard drive died. I spent a week getting it fixed and then another week getting everything back where it was to begin with. It’s been an ugly process. But while I was waiting for the HD to get fixed I spent a lot of time at school figuring out my portfolio. http://stu-inst.usu.edu/~cfelt/portfolio/portfolio.html

I also spent a good amount of time designing the three other money lessons and implementing the usability study done last semester to improve the original site. In addition to the usability study, I received feedback from my peers that has helped me identify areas of improvement.

index - 2/10/2007

To help me design the new instruction created the framework for the site this week. I hand the change to do some peer reviews that gave me some good ideas and warned me of things I didn’t want to do. So since it was fresh on my mind, I wanted to establish an index for the site where the user could access both the simple and more complex lessons. I needed some sort of home base for the two. I finished this just before my hard drive started grinding again. I had to shut it all down Friday and have been able to get her to work ever since. I am afraid it will need to be replaced this time. But at least this time I am backed up.

I also am having to transfer everthing to a new server. The new address for the project will be at http://stu-inst.usu.edu/~cfelt/money/index.html. This transfer will take a little bit of re-coding for the pages with validating forms or messages of any kind.

social learning - 2/2/07

As I have been conducting learner and content analyses I have been considering the importance of social learning. I have decided that one way I can make this next section more engaging is to include dicussions. I am not sure at this point how I am going to achieve that. I will try a few different sites that have threaded discussion options and see which one does what I want it do. I think that the higher level skills that the students will be dealing with in this second section are more subjective and should be discussed by the students.

student response - 1/27/2007

This week I was able to get some feedback about student content knowledge by having them create a budget. I gave them a paper-based prototype of the content I would like to present digitally. I did this to identify areas in which I would have to make a concerted effort to instruct and which areas students were comfortable with. They were given an income and expenses to manage; it went pretty well, students did well when I told them exactly how much to deduct from their income with rent and utilities. They got hung-up when it came time to make decisions with their remaining money, i.e. how much they would use for food, gas, etc. The students had no reference to make an estimation. In the on-line version, I will need to scaffold the financial decisions better.

needs analysis - 1/20/2007

This week was spent preparing for and conducting a needs analysis. The needs analysis was created to discover if there existed a need among students at Menchville High School to learn how to make a budget and what kind of money management skills the students had. The entire sample group has not completed the survey at this point. It’s final exam time and I only see the students once during the week.

back in the saddle - 1/12/2007

This first week I spend deciding the direction I would take this next semester. I was reading “The Millionaire Next Door” and decided it would be a good idea to invest some effort into teaching wise budgeting and investment skills.

I am excited to generate more units to increase fiscal awareness among my students. But the next month will first be spent conducting needs and learner analyses.