Today's theme has been dealing with data. Blogger and sheets are great tools to investigate what might be happening with our students. Blogger collects data about the number and frequency of posts, the number and origin of views and comments, even the type of device a post was viewed from and the browser that directed the traffic. If students are using labels effectively, these can also be useful to dig into.
I have learned how to use sheets through a process of trial and error, googling, frustration and eventual progress. If I have seen someone else do something with sheets that I want to do, I generally find out a way to do it. The cool thing about coming to something link the DFI is that I find out the things that I didn't know that I didn't know about. I made this chart using the 'Explore' tool in Google Sheets. It is amazing to me how much spreadsheet software has improved over time, it really has become way more intuitive. What I like about the 'Explore' tool is that it places the emphasis back on the 'so what' of the data by allowing users to ask questions, picking out correlations in data and automatically generating charts that might be useful.
I wanted to have a look at the blog data for those students who had been top bloggers in the SLJ 2017-18, to see if their strong summer blogging had been maintained throughout the following year. What I saw was that the students who were the most frequent posters over the SLJ also posted regularly throughout the year. Some of the students who participated in SLJ look to have left their Kootuitui school, or stopped blogging early in the year. Something that I have taken from this exercise is the importance of teachers incorporating blogging as an everyday activity in the classroom.
As I was working on this, there were all sorts of other questions coming into my mind, and possible applications for blog data. How could would it be to have a blogathon? Is there a way that we could get people to sponsor us for the number of posts we make, or the words we write? It could be great for competition between classes, clusters etc.
I love the wonderings emerging through your blog posts Cam. You are already digitally fluent and have the skills you need to be at home in a digital world. I am pleased you are making the most of these sessions to ponder the 'WHY's and to imagine the 'What if's. We seldom get this time given to us.
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying reading and hearing about what you are taking back to your schools too.
Dorothy