LAIT2 Assignment2 - Mash up Task

This is a task for student to learn about Mash Up as part of their Mathematics task.  Student will use document as the task is given, video to learn a new skills, using Spread Sheet to manipulate data and finally use Power point to present their findings.

Year 11 General Mathematics – Data Analysis

(Duration: 2 * 70 minutes periods)

The goal of this project is to use a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to analyse data about rainfall in Melbourne over the past month. This data can be retrieved from the Melbourne Water website and then analysed. After analysis, you must present your findings using Microsoft Powerpoint.
Rainfall data for the past month can be found on this Melbourne Water web page:
http://www.melbournewater.com.au/content/water_storages/water_report/rainfall_data.asp
This web page lists the monthly rainfall amounts for each area of Melbourne. Here is a video to help show you how to import the data into an Excel spreadsheet:

Excel has many built-in functions for doing data analysis. After you've imported the data for the past month, investigate these functions and find out how to to calculate the following from the data:

• Melbourne's highest rainfall for the month
• Melbourne’s lowest rainfall for the month
• The total rainfall for the month
• The mean, median and the mode for the overall rainfall
• The inter-quartile range

You can learn more about Excel functions using the online help files, and by searching on the Internet.

Make a PowerPoint presentation containing your findings.  While the PowerPoint presentation will show the results, you also need to give a five minute talk on the methods you used to find, analyse and present the information.

Extension:

• Download rainfall data for the whole year.
• Calculate the total rainfall in Melbourne for each month.
• Calculate the total rainfall for each area over a year.
• Plot a graph showing the month-by-month rainfall for Victoria over a year.  Describe the rainfall pattern from the graph.  Which area has the highest monthly rainfall?

Learning outcome:

Students learn to import and use data from the web.  This skill allows student to manipulate data they find on the web.  Students in Mathematics class can learn basic concepts and terms of statistics.  In this task, students apply the knowledge they’ve learned from Mathematics and IT in a real life situation.  The size of the data means that it cannot easily be calculated using pen and paper.  Hence, students have to find a way to make Excel do it for them.  This involves past experience with the Excel program and, also some research skills. For example, students need to do some research to be able to find the inter-quartile range because it is not a standard Excel function.
Student needs to present the data in Powerpoint.  This means they have to find a way to show the Excel data in Powerpoint.

ICT resources

Resource	Type	Year Levels	Audience	comment
"Sams teach yourself Adobe Flash CS4 professional in 24 hours"	Flash	Yr 9	Teacher	This is a resource for teachers. It is a comprehensive book, including basic introduction to action script and web applications.
Learn Flash CS 5 Tutorial	Flash	Yr 9	Teacher	This is a simple resource. Student can work through this easily. However, there are some that are fairly simple chapter that can be skip through. I particularly like the section on "The Flash Tools panel" because it is a good reference for students to find the meaning of tools quickly.
"Creating a Hello World iPhone Application Using Flash CS5"	Flash	Yr 9	Teacher	This is a simple application. Only display "Hello World" on iPhone. The most important part is that you need to get developer certificate to put this application on the iPhone. This is a good tutorial to get it all set up. Best to use this when student already know how to write application in Flash.
Derivative Plotter	Mathematics, Calculus	VCE	Students	This is a flash applet that student can explore the meaning of derivative. Student can use the example they gave. Or student can add their own example. As student progress through the years, they can try out different functions. It also allows students to change the domain and range of the graph.
Integer Additions using Geogebra	Mathematics,Number	Yr 7	Students	This is a nice application to helps students to understand adding negative numbers together. In my placements, I found students have difficulties understanding the meaning of adding a negative number. This give students a visual support.
GeoGebra Wiki	Mathematics	All	Teachers, Students	This wiki contain lots of resources to help students to understand different mathematical concept. They are not stand alone for student to use. It is hard for student to find what they need here. However, when teacher find the appropriate resource, student are able to explore the idea with these files.
"Khan Academy"	Mathematics, Science, and Humanity	All	Teachers	This website has a wide range of video in teacher science, humanity and mathematics. The convention of Mathematics notation could be a little different to what we use in Australia However, as long as student are aware of the differences, they are great video tutorial. And their mathematics exercises are excellent. It is interactive. If students have problem, they can ask for help and hints. The only disappointment was that they don't have the science and humanity exercises or resources for teachers.
"Game Learning"	Games	Yr 8	Teachers	You need to click on the resource page to get the resources. It contain a few different Game Maker project. It also contain resources for other game platform such as StageCast Creator 2 and Blitz Basic. Unfortunately, the lesson plan is not available. However, teacher can give the game for student to play and as them if they can duplicate or improve the game. Or teacher can use this idea and write his/her own lesson depending on how much scaffolding student might need. This could also lead to the idea of open source software and the advantage of the open source community.
"Schoolgamemaker"	Games	All	Teachers	This is an amazing website. I don't have time to explore all the resource there. It contain research paper for when you need to convince you school that's the path you want to go down. It contain different programming language such as Python, different game platforms, lesson plan and teacher forums. Some of the link require password or login. But some of it is free.
"XNA development"	Games	Yr 10 and VCE	Teachers	Game programming became very popular in the last couple of years. In my placement school, students as young as Yr 9 started learning to write program C# and XNA. They have lunch time programming game club once a week. This website help set up XNA environment and tutorial on how to write program for games. This is more complex then the GameMaker or Scratch environments. However, students can use what they learn to help with their VCE unit 3 and 4.

GameMaker

Over the school holiday, I was exploring GameMaker with my son.  It was part of the task I was doing for Learning Area IT 2.

Tim is in Year 6 at school.  And he is 12.

We spend a bit more then an hour on this introductory tutorial for the game maker called Fruit Clicks.  The game is the player trying to click on the fruit.  For the one that move quickly, the score is higher.  And the one that move slowly, the score is lower.

The instruction is clear.  Tim is able to read by himself and follow instruction.  He really enjoy testing it.  In the process, we talked about saving files during work.  We talked about why things don't work.  The program simplify the difficulty of programming and allows students to focus on the design of the game rather.  It is an excellent program.  The problem is that Tim can't get enough and he is asking to spend more time on it!

 FruitClick.exe
FruitClick.gm8