Workshop #4: Midpoint Thoughts

I continue to be surprised by the elements that I didn’t learn in my undergraduate education. I don’t fault my university or professors in all cases; technology continues to spin and to develop, and every year should bring new insights under the ideal of the ‘lifelong learner’. Still, I wonder how I managed to avoid learning virtually anything about Excel. In this case, trusting a grading program to calculate standard deviation is comparable to students relying on calculator functions over mental math. The quicker way is preferred. More truly, rarely do I consider the mean, median, and mode unless I’m reflecting back to college stats class. There is a time and place for data analysis, even if my preference is to stay in my bubble of language. Our school will be visited next year for our bi-annual review. The committee will want to see data analysis, and currently I am choosing this area as one for procrastination. We also still have yet to assess the date from our fall all-school testing. We need to make it happen. But this number crunching area is not my strong suit.

The Excel reminder is one for me to realize my role as a manager in the school, not that I have to review the data myself, but I need to make sure it happens. Other tools that I can more readily use for development are in the areas of blogging, videoing, and website creation. The learning network is so important within the international school because of the many roles individuals play both in and out of their expertise. Often a question may arise and no one at the school can answer it effectively. So, we need to rely on the experience of other schools in similar places and/or situations. A globally reaching schools needs the global tools to make it effective.