Databases

Overall I'm glad I got some familiarity with databases. I was a little shaky still when I was asked to create them. I'd like to continue working with them to get more familiarity with them. To be honest I'm not sure yet of their application in my particular classroom. I have a feeling that this would be an extension activity for a small handful of kids that are up for the challenge. I think that some of them would be able to follow an existing one that was pre-made by me and get some benefit from it as far as analysis. Others would benefit from exposure to the concept but would not yet be ready to handle it.

spreadsheets and their use in the classroom

This is a great website for an activity on spreadsheets in the classroom. It involves an existing spreadsheet that can be used to extrapolate data and use that for higher level thinking skills. It's also a great motivator for students around the forth grade as they seem to have an innate interest in trivial facts about the presidents.
http://library.thinkquest.org/J0110054/Presidents.html

The next one is a consumer economic spreadsheet that also works on math skills. It involves a budget of imaginary money and a shopping spree. Columns are used for the items purchased, the cost and the quantity. There are two options for either an existing spreadsheet or one that the students create.

http://www.ncwiseowl.org/kscope/techknowpark/FreeFall/ShoppingSpree.html

I've discovered a great spreadsheet for tabulating and synthesizing the data on weather patterns. Then there's graphing options also in connection with it

http://standards.nctm.org/document/eexamples/chap5/5.5/index.html

All these spreadsheets can be used in the classroom with the right implementation. Clearly spreadsheets can be an outstanding teaching and learning tool.

Google Doc Writing Activity

The Google document that I created from the second session of CEDU 510 was meaningful generally. A little background: I consider myself to have somewhere between a basic and a proficient understanding of Google documents. As far as general word processing I would rank myself somewhat higher. Therefore, the value for me personally came from the fact that practice is always a benefit for someone of my skill level. Obviously, practice reenforces the skills that I already know and others that are new were also made clearer through the assignment.

There is a great value of Word processing in an academic setting.  Word processing can be applied to a multitude of activities in virtually any area of academics. First off, its potentially the "backbone" of a any writing curriculum. All the steps to the writing processing flow so well into a relationship with word processing that it's extremely beneficial in this arena. However, it is truly not limited to writing as a subject by itself.  Across the content area it has a benefit.