Calculating the Cost of a Simple Summer Wardrobe

After our lesson Maths Fun - Exploring Real Data with Excel students were eager to have a play with Excel themselves. We were reading Onion Tears by Diana Kidd, and had read about how the main character Nam-Huong had arrived by boat with only the clothes she was wearing. We undertook an investigation to find out how much it would cost to get a simple summer wardrobe for Nam-Huong.

We began by considering the items of clothing that Nam-Huong would need and made a list on the board. After much discussion, and a last minute addition of a dress, we were ready to move on!

I put my students into small groups and each was given an iPad and access to a desktop computer (because we didn't have a spreadsheet app on the iPads). They were also allocated a shop to use for their pricing. We used Target, Kmart, Big W, David Jones and Myer. Students found the online catalogue for their store and searched through to find the price of the required items. They then added these to their spreadsheet.

Once they had all their totals, they used the formula =PRODUCT(B3:C3) and filled down the column. Once they had all totals they used the formula =SUM(D3:D12) to calculate the grand total.

Once everyone had finished, groups shared their results with the class and we were able to compare the grand total of each store. As always, when using real data the "answer" is never straightforward and this led to some great discussion. For example, one store didn't have all the required items in the catalogue and even when they searched the store online they were unable to find the price for a pair of socks. Another group had trouble finding a hat, and ended up settling for a Santa's elf hat. And one group was paying $25 per pair of underpants - severely impacting on their total cost. When asked, they said quite innocently, "They were frilly." I'm sure they were exactly what Nam-Huong needed when she arrived in Australia...along with her Santa elf hat! I'm not going to tell you who came in cheapest - you'll have to investigate that yourself. ;)

Further discussion arose about the need to monitor your online presence as a business to succeed in the market place. We talked about how many people now shop online, making it essential to have a website that helps people to find and purchase what they need. From our experiences there are some stores better positioned in this marketplace.

We had a lot of fun with this maths investigation and students rose to the challenge and learnt new computer skills. The following week we set a homework task where students could collect and represent their own data. One of my students decided to calculate cost and labour for a new pergola using Excel!

Maths Fun - Exploring Real Data with Excel

This term my Year 3 class is learning to collect, organise and represent data. I feel strongly about giving students opportunities to work in real world contexts and using available tools, so try to plan Maths lessons to achieve this. Early in the term students conducted mini surveys to find out about class preferences, recording the results in tally form. They then input their results using Excel and created graphs to show what they found.

This week we worked as a class on a project using the school lost property basket. We wanted to sort through what was there and find the total value of the items in lost property. On arrival at the basket, we found additional ways to sort the items. Within the basket were lunch boxes and containers, non-school uniform clothing items, and school uniform clothing items. For the sake of our task, we decided to work only with the clothing. We carried it all to an outside space where we could sort it.

Uniform items were set out in a physical graph.

Students sorted through the clothing, initially separating the uniform from non-uniform items. Uniform items were then sorted according to type and set out to form a physical graph. We put sticky labels on items that were named, so that we could also record this data, and possibly return the items at the end of our task.

Non-uniform items were separated.

One student was responsible for being our photographer and another wrote down our findings in tally form. We counted the number of non-school uniform items, but didn't sort these, as it would be harder to determine the value of these.

On return to class we used Excel to organise our results. To begin with, we wrote out all the items and the total number we found of each item. I introduced the formula aspect of Excel, demonstrating how to calculate the total number of items with =SUM(B1:B14). We then used the uniform price list to find the cost of each item, and entered it into the spreadsheet. We used another formula =PRODUCT(B2:C2) to find the total cost for each item in column D. I demonstrated how to fill down for the rest of the items. Finally we filled right from B15 to get the total cost. Students were blown away by the total value of the lost property. It was much more than they had expected.

Working more with the data we had collected, we made a table to show what we found about labelling. We copied and pasted the first two columns from our previous table, and then added a column for the number of labeled items. We tried to make a graph with this information, but it wasn't representing what we wanted to show, so we had to consider other options. We then tried to find a formula for subtracting, and eventually discovered that we just needed to type =(B2-C2) in D2 and then fill down in order to get a column for Unlabelled. We were then able to hide column B in order to graph the results to show the total amount of each item with labeled and unlabelled displayed.

We then made one more quick graph to show the comparison of Uniform to Non-Uniform items.

We sent our findings to the Head of School and Junior School Director, as something that might be mentioned at the SRC meeting as a reminder for students to write their name on their clothing, check the lost property and take greater responsibility for their property.

The task took about 90 minutes from start to finish, and involved a lot of modelling in the classroom rather than students having a chance to work it all through for themselves on the computers. Many are now keen to have a go with Excel to create their own spreadsheets and use formulas. My plan is to try this next week, with students calculating the value of a simple summer wardrobe.

Tech Tips Tuesday

Introducing Aurasma

Put simply, Aurasma is the prettier version of a code reader with augmented reality elements. When you point your device at a trigger image (with Aurasma open), it performs an action that has been determined by the creator of the 'aura'. Unlike the Q code, however, in order to view an aura, the user must first follow the creator of the aura. Aurasma's appeal is in the 'magic' of finding hidden treasures in the world around us.

One of my coworkers has been trying to convince me to look into Aurasma for quite some time, but I just hadn't found the time. However, on a sick day recently I decided to give it a go, and was excited by the possibilities. It took a good day to get my head around both the Aurasma App and Aurasma Studio, but from that I developed a plan to implement the technology initially in Maths rotations, with further plans for Literacy later in the year. Initially I am working to create resources for students to access, but as we progress I would like to provide ways for students to create their own auras.

Basic terminology
Trigger - the image that Aurasma recognises which then triggers an action.
Overlay - the action that takes place when triggered. This could be an image, video or website.
Aura - the combined trigger with overlay, which someone can experience.
Channel - a collection of auras. This may be public, for others to find through search, or private.

Possible application

Maths

• pop up questions for items in a grocery store catalogue. This can allow for opportunities to differentiate.
• video teacher explanation for Maths questions posted around the room - to be used for self-checking
• pretend notes and coins with information about that denomination, and or questions relating to it.
• students create their own word problem to go with a number sentence and demonstrate how to solve it. Other students can then view these.
• students order images by their perceived capacity and then scan the image to see a video of the measurement to check their estimation. Groups could be responsible for photographing and recording the measurement of one container.
• posters of shapes or solids with a video of students labelling the parts and describing the features. These could be displayed in room.
• students print graphs of collected data and attach an overlay explaining their findings. To extend, there could be a pop-up questionnaire for people to share their opinions.

Literacy

• Book reviews which are displayed when the cover is used as trigger image.
• Students reading a short story aloud when the cover is used as trigger.
• Comprehension questions which pop up on some pages when students are reading. Students can record their thoughts to a group wall using Padlet when they tap on a specified area of the page. (Need Aurasma studio for this idea.)
• Book Study - students could add graphic organisers (eg. story map, sociogram, Venn Diagrams) to the texts they are reading and make book marks to show other readers which pages the Aurasma links are on.
• Character profiles could be linked to the cover or pages of a text.

Other

• use artwork as a trigger image and a student explanation as the overlay
• include Aurasma items in newsletters or classroom reflections

Some Concerns

As always, the technology provides a fun way to engage in learning, but needs to be monitored to ensure that quality work is still produced and a high level of accountability is maintained. Any use of technology is costly in terms of time and effort, particularly when learning something new. Some of the difficulties I have found so far:

• Aurasma Studio and the Aurasma App offer different options in terms of setting up channels and adding overlays. Once you know how they both work you can make decisions to use the one most practical for the situation.
• There is a time delay between the creation of an aura and its availability to other users. Therefore, you may not be able to create and view items in the one lesson period.
• It may take a little time for students to find and follow you the first time.

Tech Tips Tuesday

Three Simple uses for iPads in the classroom

I've been trying to think of more ways to use the iPad in the classroom. We've had a great bank of iPads that have been useless because they can't be set up without the departmental passwords (which we haven't been able to obtain), and an additional small bank of iPads that were set up before the passwords changed. I don't really understand how that works, but decided to get started with the five that were available. I was also teaching some iPad demonstration lessons for teachers in my school, and some of these ideas were born from our discussions. I needed to use what was already available on the iPads.

1. Listening Post

This is an example of old ideas with new technology! The iPad can be plugged into a transmitter for a set of headphones so students can listen to stories without disrupting others. Obviously, students can listen to stories online, or read interactive book apps, but why not have students record their own stories or readers? I had one group record their reading of a reader for another group to follow along. The trick with this is to choose a book that the recording group should read fluently, and that the listening group will be reading at an instructional level. Our iPads didn't have an audio recording app, so we just recorded with video.

2. Graphing

Students worked in small groups to conduct surveys, collect and represent the data, and present their findings to the class. We had Draw Free, so I based the survey questions around the stamp images available in this app. Questions included things like: What is our class's preferred way to travel - car, train or plane? Students used the stamps in Draw Free to represent the data in a pictograph. We then plugged the iPads into the interactive whiteboards to display the graphs while students discussed what they had found.

Tasks for students

Students cut these roles into strips, put them in a hat and selected one to determine their role in this task

Example of pictograph

3. Story Making

Prue had a great idea to make stories with felt boards, take photos and have students write their story on paper. She then printed the photos and made them into books for students to read. We took this idea and explored it with the iPads. Again, students created pictures using the felt boards. They took photos with the iPads and wrote their story on paper. We then used a story making app - Story Creator - to make the 'books'. Students inserted their photos and recorded the audio for the story. We viewed the finished products on the interactive whiteboard.

Students working cooperatively on story making task

Example of felt board story page

Why use the iPads for tasks that can be done without them?
It's true that at times it takes more effort to organise lessons around iPads (or any other ICT for that matter) but using them increases student engagement in lesson content and gives students an opportunity to develop ICT skills. Due to the limited numbers of iPads, I feel that it also leads to greater use of collaborative tasks which help students to cooperate and share both ideas and resources. Outcomes in the Australian Curriculum call for greater use of ICT as a way of demonstrating understanding and creating content.

Tech Tips Tuesday

iDoceo - My New Best Friend!

So I've mentioned iDoceo a couple of times now, but really wanted to sink my teeth into it before I started blabbing about how wonderful it is... and that has been a hard task! At least four others at work have already taken to it on my recommendation and have started playing as well. We now need to find some time to share our ideas and tips!

Late last year I wrote about how I was looking for one iPad app to record work samples, grades, and to communicate with parents. There were a lot of apps which focused predominately on attendance, and classroom behaviors, or which focused on numerical results and averages. I was feeling disappointed and on the verge of giving up when I found iDoceo.

What I like:

It's SO easy to use! The designers provide support on their website and include a sample class with the app. If you set aside a night to play with it and then jump straight into using it to record data, you learn the ins and outs very quickly. Most things work by touch and hold or double tap - if you're not sure, try one of these! It's very easy to add images, video and audio - anywhere you see the paper clip icon.

It makes parent communication simple and effective. If you want to send an email, just look for the envelope icon. I set up email to send from my work email. In order to do this, I needed to make my work email my default account for my iPad (in the iPad settings). This isn't ideal when using other apps, but in my mind is still better than using personal email to contact parents. Before you can begin emailing you also need to include email details in the student data (found by double tapping a student's name). You can choose to email content to students, parents or all parents. You can email individual results or a whole column. I am going to have a fiddle to see if I can send it to another teacher in the case of differentiated Maths groups when I will be teaching and monitoring students from other home classes. If I'm unable to add an extra email option I will hijack the student email slot as we don't use student email anyway.

You can collect a range of data and use text, icons, numbers and annotations. As an example, the other day during a handwriting lesson I used a tick to indicate correct pencil grip, a cross to indicate incorrect pencil grip, the letter l for left handed or r for right handed. I included an annotation containing a photo of the writing sample and brief notes on my analysis of the letter formation.
Having information such as this located all in one place will make it less time consuming when it comes to report writing as the hard work will have already been done. In theory there should be fewer surprises for parents as they will have seen work samples along the way. It would even make sense for student outcomes to improve as a result of greater awareness and focussed efforts by caregivers both at home and at school.

Other tools I use alongside this:

Dropbox - for backing up. This worked a charm for me and was something I was very worried about when I upgraded my iPad. Unfortunately, only 2GB storage comes free but you can earn more with referrals, so if you're thinking of signing up, please use this link and we will both get a bonus 500MB.

Blurr - for blurring other students' faces in photos before sending to parents.

Sketch Pad Express for iPad- for writing on/editing work samples to highlight aspects without writing on the original (useful for pointing something out to parents).


If you are looking for a way to streamline your record keeping and provide feedback to students and their parents, this is the app for you. I look forward to exploring it further as the year progresses to determine how it fits with the variety of challenges facing teachers as they pass through the plan, teach, assess, report cycle.

Tech Tips Tuesday

This Week's Tip - Strengths Spreadsheets

I am in the process of conducting a study about enrichment at my school. We are due to write a school policy statement about how students are identified as being gifted and talented and how they are supported. We believe that all students have strengths that need to be identified and nourished.

For this phase of the study I have been focusing on the students in Year 4 to determine what students' strengths are and whether they are accessing the programs we currently run to develop their skills. The Strengths Analysis has been a very lengthy process and to manage all the data I created a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has helped me to see the information and sort it in different ways. I can now identify students' areas of strength and see which programs they have accessed in the past year.

While I don't think that all teachers need to do such an in-depth analysis of their students, I DO think that teachers need to determine students' strengths early in the year. While we quickly notice the students who are performing below their peers and put actions in place to assist them, I don't know that we do as good a job on the top end.

It is important to determine students' areas of strength in order to provide them with experiences to extend them throughout the year. This can be done with a simple spreadsheet using data from the previous year:

• Put your class list in the first column (with surname first to allow an easy sort by name)
• Put students previous grades in additional columns under subject headings
  
• Copy and past the data into additional sheets - one per subject
• Select the data on each page (including names) and sort by grades in the subject
  

If you want to do a more detailed analysis, you could ask students to identify their areas of strength with a quick survey. You could also draw on results from state or national testing.

So then what? Firstly, keep this data in mind as you plan and teach - make sure that you are giving these students opportunities to develop their strengths and interests in class. Then, find out what enrichment/extension programs are available in your school to meet students' needs in these areas and recommend that your students join these programs. If there are no programs, bring it up in a staff meeting and see if anyone has any ideas.

Tech Tips Tuesday

This Week's Tip: Survey Savvy

Lately I've had the need to create some surveys. As part of the Enrichment Committee, I took on the role of creating a survey to find out how students like to be rewarded for their achievements. As part of the ICT Committee, I'd like to know what aspects of "My Classes" teachers require support with. I decided to look online and consider my options.

Survey Monkey was a popular choice and came recommended from a number of my tweeps. I liked the look of it, but the free version did not meet my needs. It allows for 100 responses to the survey, and there are more than 100 students at my school. It also limits the number of questions to 10.

I stumbled across Tiger Survey through a Google search. It is completely free and has special features that cater to schools. I found it frustrating to set up the survey I was creating, but once created it was easy to use. Some aspects don't work the way they should, but for a free product, it's not all bad. You can choose to make the survey and results public or private and can also print a PDF hard copy for those who would prefer that option. I'd suggest creating a tiny url for the link to make it easier for classes/teachers to access the poll.

Vizu Poll is a simple survey tool for polling people on one particular question. The poll can then be added to a blog or other website.

These are just the few examples I came across in my search. Have you found something that works effectively to meet your survey needs? Please feel free to comment below.

Friday Fun - 27/2/09

Fun This Week
This week we had minimal interruptions to normal teaching time. It was nice to have things running to schedule, but was by no means boring!

Alligator in the Classroom!
We have been encouraging students to take charge of their learning, exercise their brains and share their knowledge. One student was a great example of that this week. On the weekend she purchased a cracking egg toy with an 'alligator' inside. When put into water the alligator starts to grow and begins cracking out of its shell. She brought it into school to share the experience with us. Everyone is very excited to check it out in the morning to see how much it has grown.

Maths
We looked at different strategies for working out the five times tables. We talked about how it's easy to count by fives to work out the lower tables eg. 3 x 5. For the bigger numbers we tried multiplying by 10 and then halving the answer. For example: 8 x 5 becomes 8 x 10 (80) halved (40). I found that this is a good strategy in theory, but students need to be confident with doubling and halving larger numbers first.
We also worked with data collection and graphing this week. We explored different types of surveys and the types of information they are able to gather. We looked at how Venn diagrams can be used to collect and sort information. This first diagram shows student preferences when asked "Do you like going on the internet and/or playing computer games?"

This second diagram shows student preferences when asked "Do you like chocolate, strawberry, and/or plain milk?" Readers' Theatre
While some of our students were doing Fife and Drum lessons, the others did Readers' Theatre. Students read and performed "Spider Woman and the Gift of the Loom" from a resource book full of Readers' Theatre plays. We will be doing one each week in the hopes of improving student reading fluency and expression. I would like to see students performing radio plays at some stage, and would also like for students to write some scripts of their own.

Respect
We focused on 'respect' this week in our FRIENDS values program. We looked at examples of respect/disrespect in both a comic and a picture book ("Zen Ties" by John M. Muth). Students thought about why respect is important and wrote about how they show respect to others. We also performed roleplays where students responded to scenarios assertively, but not agressively.
SuperClubsPlus
We have been busy registering our students for SuperClubsPlus and some have been able to get on already and have a play. It's amazing to see how much they've been able to do at home without teacher instruction. They seem to be loving it so far and one student commented that it brings students together who wouldn't ordinarily talk at school.
On Friday we had a session with SCP in the computer lab. One of the year 5 students who really knows her way around SuperClubs came to talk to the group about what she's learned with it. She really inspired them and was a great support to them as they got started.

House Meetings
Our Swimming Carnival is only a couple of weeks away so students met in their house teams to elect house captains. The air was buzzing with excitement. It's always great to see how things like this bring students together and build school spirit.

Rowan of Rin
I will write a separate post about "Rowan of Rin" over the weekend.

Let's Get Graphing

These lessons were follow-up to the graphing lessons last week.

As I felt that we'd ended on a negative note with our graphing (and I'd had opportunity to reflect as I wrote my blog post) I decided to revisit graphing again this week. One of the boys from my class asked to have a circle time lesson so I taught the Maths this way instead of a traditional lesson. (If you are new to circle time, you can check out the other circle time explanations by typing circle time in the blog search in the top left-hand-side of this page.)

Check In: My name is ... and I feel ... about data collection and graphing.

Mixer: Change places if... (you have a brother, you ate cereal for breakfast, you have Foxtel etc) The student in the center of the circle calls out the requirement and then has to try to find a place when students change places. The last one to find a place becomes the new caller.

Activity: Explain the difference between 'favourites' graphs (those that ask about favourite foods, colours etc) and other surveys (such as hair colour, eye colour, pets owned etc). Students pair off and select a non-favourite style survey to investigate.

Debrief: In preparation for the next day, show students how to enter data into Microsoft Excel and create a graph.

Energiser: Human Graphs. Students form lines according to criteria (eg. amount of teeth lost) and teacher takes photo. Upload images to the interactive whiteboard and discuss the graphs straight away.

Check Out: Any questions about graphing with Excel the following day.

This lesson went REALLY well, except for a couple of the survey topics. One pair chose 'type of car your parents drive' which was a bit tricky for some students to respond to. Another pair chose 'how many letters you have in your letter folder' which proved difficult since the room was set up for circle time and students had limited access to their desk trays where their folders were stored.

The human graph part was hectic, but lots of fun. I was amazed by the differences in amounts of teeth lost. Some still hadn't lost any, while one had already lost nine!

Today we created the graphs with Excel. I did another quick demonstration to review the lengthier explanation from the previous day and set students to work. (The reason I did the two explanations was because we only get 30 minutes in the lab and I knew a 5 minute explanation wouldn't be enough for a new skill, but as a review would work well.) I was impressed by how quickly and capably students worked with this task. They were very proud of their work and I encouraged them to try making their own graph with excel at home.

NOW we're ready to move on from graphs as they have been left with a positive, successful experience.

Data Collection and Graphing

This week I worked some more with my students on collecting data and presenting findings in graph format. For the first couple of graphs I offered lots of support with the data collection and some guidance with drawing up the graph. For the final graph, I encouraged the students to work in small groups to carry out their own investigations. My goal with these sessions was to demonstrate that graphing is fun and can be easily done at home with minimal resources.

Here is an outline of the sessions:

Our Favourite Ice-creams

1. As a class we chose 8 options for favourite flavoured ice-creams.
2. I provided each student with a class list.
3. Students asked each other what they're favourite flavour was and wrote the flavour (or code for the flavour) next to that person's name. They continued until they had interviewed everyone.
4. I provided each student with a blank 2cm square grid.
5. Together we wrote the title for the grid, wrote the flavours along the bottom of the grid, and wrote numbers 1-10 up the left side of the grid.
6. Students used their data collection on the class list to colour in the columns on the grid.
7. We discussed which flavour was most popular, least popular, and other information students could find out from the graph.

Cars in the School Carpark

1. We formed a list of colours we expected that cars in the carpark might be (including 'other' as a possible option).
2. We wrote this list on a piece of paper.
3. We went into the school carpark and walked along the rows adding tally marks for each car we passed.
4. Back in the classroom we wrote a numerical value for each set of tally marks.
5. I provided each student with a blank 2cm square grid.
6. Together we wrote the title for the grid, wrote the colours along the bottom of the grid, and wrote numbers 1-10 up the left side of the grid.
7. Students used their data collection to colour in the columns on the grid.
8. We discussed which car colour was most common, least common, and other information students could find out from the graph.

Group Investigations

1. We discussed possible things that students might like to investigate.
2. In teams, students decided what they would investigate and considered possible options for people to choose from. All investigations fell into the "favourites" category.
3. Students went around and collected data by questioning students.
4. Students presented findings on 2cm grid paper with title, numbers and options.
5. I discussed the information with the students in their groups.

For further improvement, I would probably ask the groups to present their findings to the class. I forgot to copy off the class lists for the group investigations, which made the data collection a bit messier for my students. I was feeling stressed by the end of it, and the kids were sick of working with their groups. Perhaps tighter structure would have made this more successful, or perhaps it would have worked better if they were in pairs instead of fours.

It would also be fun to carry out an investigation over a number of different groups of children in different schools. Definitely something to keep in mind for next time, once I have connected with a few more schools.

Some investigations to graph at home:

• Items in the dishwasher
• Toys in the toybox
• Times the television is on during the day
• Types of books on the bookshelf
• Sport statistics

Please feel free to leave your own suggestions of fun things to graph in the comments box.