Ced0540: Week Two Reflection

This week's material took a slight diversion from the mathematical end of statistics to software that makes it easier for individuals and companies to create surveys and compile data. At St. Ann's we have created a few surveys, for a variety of reasons. We have surveyed families to analyze their use of our website and how we might make it better. Ironically, we accomplished this through Surveymonkey with only a fraction of our families responding. We have also questioned families' interest in creating a dresscode and uniform policy. Currently, there are also several families interested in getting St. Ann's to consider extending their curriculum through 8th grade. One parent has asked about creating a survey for this as well. In each case, however, there hasn't been a huge need for a complicated software program with all the bells and whistles. The types of surveys we conduct I think are pretty straight forward and wouldn't require real in-depth analysis. This is why, although I found it interesting to examine all the different statistical software available, I didn't see a huge application to my professional life. For me, Surveymonkey is about as in-depth as I want to get with any kind of software and is the application I will teach my 5th and 6th graders when we talk about data collecting. I would like to see my students practice gathering and interpretting data themselves. As mentioned elsewhere, on their standardized tests taken this fall, data analysis was one of the weaker areas. I think Surveymonkey could help with this. I also really need to explore Inspirdata further as well. I vaguely remember examining this software when our school first purchased it four years ago, and now I'm sure that not only does it create surveys, but it also has some interesting ways of displaying the results - visuals that are designed for grades 7-12.

Overall, I think the work we did this week emphasizes, again, that with a little investigation, many easy to use and excellent web-based applications are available for free, and that although they may not contain all the glitz and glam of paid software, most of what schools need can be accomplished through the freebies.