Beginning rubric 6 - databases

This a continuation of the 2008 revision of the CODE77 rubrics - Basic level. An introduction is here.

VI. Database use (1995)
Level 1 I do not use a database, nor can I identify any uses or features it might have which would benefit the way I work.
Level 2 I understand the use of a database and can locate information within one that has been pre-made. I can add or delete data in a database.
Level 3 I use databases for personal applications. I can create an original database - defining fields and creating layouts. I can find, sort, and print information in layouts which are clear and useful to me.
Level 4 I can use formulas with my database to create summaries of numerical data. I can use database information to do mail merge in a word processing document. I use the database not only for my work, but have used it with students to help them improve their own data keeping and analysis skills.

VI. Database use (NETS I.A., I.B., V.C.) (2002)
Level 1 I do not use a database, nor can I identify any uses or features it might have which would benefit the way I work.
Level 2 I understand the function of a database and can locate information within one that has been pre-made. I can add or delete data in a database.
Level 3 I use databases for professional applications. I can create a simple original database that has a professional application such as an address book by defining fields and creating layouts. I can find, sort and print information that is useful to me. I can use my building’s student information system database to find information about students in my class.
Level 4 I can use formulas with my database to create summaries of numerical data. I can use database information to do mail merge in a word processing document. I use the database not only for my work, but have used it with students to help them improve their own data keeping and analysis skills.

VI. Database use (NETS ?) (2008)
Level 1 I do not use a database, nor can I identify any uses or features it might have which would benefit the way I work.
Level 2 I understand the function of a database and can locate information within one that has been pre-made. I can add or delete data in a database.
Level 3 I use databases for professional applications. I can create a simple original database that has a professional application such as an address book by defining fields and creating layouts. I can find, sort and print information that is useful to me. I can use database information to do mail merge in a word processing document. I can use my building’s student information system database to find information about students in my class.
Level 4 I can use formulas with my database to create summaries of numerical data. I can use database information to do mail merge in a word processing document. I use the database not only for my work, but have used it with students to help them improve their own data keeping and analysis skills. I can use cloud-based databases for collaborative and shared work.

Hmmm, again not many changes here. I see fewer teachers creating databases and more using already created ones. Hey, I seem to be using a database less and less myself. (I still love FileMakerPro!) Should database creation even remain a "basic" computer competency?

Other time database tasks? Next up: VII. Graphics and digital image use

21st Century Upton Sinclairs

 

There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity. -Tom Peters
 

 

Scott McLeod's post, Cell phone cameras in the K-12 classroom: Punishable offenses or student-citizen journalism? on LeaderTalk is well worth spending some time reading, viewing and contemplating. On the post he has embedded seven videos taken covertly by students in classrooms when teachers are, to put it mildly, behaving badly. Scott poses the questions:

Do we want students bringing to public attention these types of classroom incidents? Should students be punished or applauded for filming and posting these?

These are great questions. While plenty of Scott's readers felt otherwise (read the comments!), my first thought was that this just may be the 21st century equivalent of muckraking. Upton Sinclair cleaned up the meat packing industry with the publication of The Jungle in the early 20th century. Is this the classroom's version of The Jungle? Might such citizen journalism result in educational reform?

(And no, I am not so naive to think these students are consciously emulating Ida Tarbell. My guess is that they are just being little buttheads. I see any positive fallout as being more in the realm of unintended consequences.)

However, as a result of enough student-produced hard evidence of teacher incompetence, might we see:

• Anger management classes for teachers who need it?
• An increased emphasis in staff development on creating engaging classrooms and using better classroom management techniques?
  
• Alternative placements for students who are chronically disruptive or non-productive? (Let's let the cameras roll on the other students too.)
  
• More empowered principals who can remove or take steps to improve incompetent teachers?
  

My thoughts on this are colored by some very personal considerations:

1. As a student, I got more than one teacher and administrator to lose his/her cool. And thought it was pretty funny watching some old person turn red and bellow.
   
2. As a young teacher, I had classroom moments similar to what I saw in these videos when the kids got to me. (It's tough to look in the mirror at times.) I needed and should have received help in keeping this from happening. I still feel I need to offer apologies to those poor students I had in my classes early in my teaching career.
3. I do NOT want my grandsons experiencing moments in the classroom like those shown in the videos.

Yes, students have been driving teachers nuts and teachers have been losing their cool since... well, probably since there have been students and teachers. But are we now ready to actually DO something about it?

________________________ 

In terms of the issues raised about teacher privacy rights: I am guessing the meat packing plants, insane asylums and other targets of the 20th century muckrakers all shouted "This is private!" as well. I think one could argue that classrooms are public, not private spaces. (We put cameras on school buses, yes?)  I would hope students take any evidence of teacher malfeasance to their parents and principals first,  and use YouTube only as a last resort for publicizing - and ending - the problem.

That tabloid journalism

I suppose I am the only person who missed this when it was published by The Onion back in January:

Area Eccentric Reads Entire Book
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_eccentric_reads_entire_book

GREENWOOD, IN—Sitting in a quiet downtown diner, local hospital administrator Philip Meyer looks as normal and well-adjusted as can be. Yet, there's more to this 27-year-old than first meets the eye: Meyer has recently finished reading a book.

Yes, the whole thing.

"It was great," said the peculiar Indiana native, who, despite owning a television set and having an active social life, read every single page of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. "Especially the way things came together for Scout in the end. Very good."

Meyer, who never once jumped ahead to see what would happen and avoided skimming large passages of text in search of pictures, first began his oddball feat a week ago. Three days later, the eccentric Midwesterner was still at it, completing chapter after chapter, seemingly of his own free will.

"The whole thing was really engrossing," said Meyer, referring not to a movie, video game, or competitive sports match, but rather a full-length, 288-page novel filled entirely with words. "There were days when I had a hard time putting it down."

Even more bizarre, Meyer is believed to have done most of his reading during his spare time—time when the outwardly healthy and stable resident could have literally been doing anything else, be it aimlessly surfing the Internet, taking a nap, or simply just staring at his bedroom wall.

"It'd be nice to read it again at some point," Meyer continued, as if that were a perfectly natural thing to say. (Continued online at The Onion)