Create a Graph
For the past three years my school has been in the process of learning to implement Response to Intervention (RtI), a systematic approach of matching classroom instruction with the instructional needs of the child. The goal is to meet the instructional needs of most children in the general education classroom. Teachers match a student’s instructional needs to a research intervention based program and collect weekly progress monitoring data. While the teachers, for the most part, have been great providing the interventions and collecting the data, they are terrible at transferring the data collected into the required graph format. This year bound and determine to not sit at my desk for hours on end transferring their data for them I set out in search of a great Web 2.0 that would be easy enough to use and satisfy even the most rigid of school psychologist. My discovery Create a Graph, http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/ The website is actually intended to teach students about graphing, but it works well for adults lacking in the skill as well. Users simply go in and follow the tabs presented to set up a their criteria, once they have set up the basic information and saved it all they have to do is enter the date they progress monitored and the score a student earns each week. Another click of the mouse onto the preview tab and like magic there is their graph. Last they simply press the save and print tab and their job is done. For those more challenged, there is even a tutorial that walks them through step by step how to set up and enter their data. My teachers will be using the Create a Graph tool to create a line graph, but the tool is even more powerful than that because it offers the user the opportunity to create line, bar, pie, XY, and area graphs.
My school is also in the process of implementing RTI, and graphs often prove to be a sticky point for teachers to complete. I think this site will be a good place to get our teachers started on graphs. I also think this will be a great site to share with my math department.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.
We are also in the process of RTI. But the funny thing is that my journalism students were working on creating "sidebars" in our class by converting data into interesting visuals and one of my kids found and used this website on their own! It is definitely something that could be used in any classroom!
ReplyDeleteJoanne:
ReplyDeleteThank you for finding Create-a-graph (located at http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx). It is as you described––a very easy to use graphing program––and for those having trouble making a graph it is extremely useful. Though graphs abound around us, most of us are called upon to make one so infrequently that it’s likely when we need to make a graph we’ll have forgotten what to do (and more likely that the program we might have graphed with before is outdated and no longer works)! Having a site like this to bridge the gap between our last graph making encounter and fighting with a new version of Excel is exceptionally useful. Students too struggle with graphing. They may know what buttons to push on their TI-83+ to get a graph, but may not know how to get a graph on paper.
One application that is provided with every Apple computer is Grapher. It is not online nor is it Web 2.0, but it is already paid for and hides in the Utilities folder of every Mac. This application can make 2D and 3D plots and can get its data either from a user typing in data points or by entering an equation. It is harder to use by far than Create-a-graph, but it also offers perspectives and features that Create-a-graph does not.
However, I would urge every school system to investigate a graphing application entitled Logger Pro http://www.vernier.com/soft/lp.html
Logger Pro is a software application that can be installed on computers running Mac, Windows, or Linux operating systems. It is a program which can make graphs from ordered pair data or from two-variable equations. There are many programs which are available for free which will allow a graph to be made from such data, so with a price tag of $189 it might seem rather confusing as to why I would be suggesting such a program. It is not because I own a part of the company that makes this product (I don’t). It is instead because:
• Logger Pro can draw data from Quicktime movies allowing the motion of an object to be analyzed graphically.
• Logger Pro can recognize USB thermometers, timers, and other sensors (such as pressure, oxygen content, and humidity).
• Logger Pro’s purchase price includes a site license for the system in which it was purchased.
• Logger Pro’s End User’s License Agreement (EULA) allows a copy of the program to be given to each student in the school system for which the program was bought. This establishes uniformity in a student body and allows students and teachers alike to focus their attentions on what graphs can offer us rather than on what graphing will require of us.
For an additional Web 2.0 tool that offers data gathering and transmission check out my Go!Tweet review blog at:
http://dkuchwloo.blogspot.com/2009/11/bp12009111repost.html
Thanks, Joanne!