It has been a long road and we are finally at the finish line. This post will talk about how to total everything so you can see who wins without calculating anything! We will also talk about limitations to this form and how it is not perfect. If you are new to this series please check the first 4 parts.
Now open up your worksheet and let’s get into the fun!
Make a new worksheet
We are going to make a new worksheet. To do this click the )+ button in the bottom left hand corner of your Google Sheet.
It will make a new tab and a blank worksheet. If the tab is not where you would like it to be simply click and drag it to the desired location. I am naming this worksheet totals
The first thing I will do is set up the worksheet. So there will be no functions (yet) just typing some text into some cells.
Now I left Column D empty for aesthetic reasons – no other reasons. The other columns are set up for a specific reasons which we will soon see.
Referencing the points
In column E we will be referencing the total points. You could just type them in, but I like referencing them back to their original cell. Here is how we do that.
Type in the = sign
Click to the Team 1 worksheet
Click on the link with their total points
Then hit the Enter key
Check out the video below.
Named range
Now that we have all the teams and their total points we need to name a range. I will highlight from E2 to F5. Then I will select Data from the menu bar and click on Named ranges…
I will call this data totalpts. Remember when naming data you cannot use spaces.
Large function
Now that we have that done it is time to start using some functions to rank the teams. In cell B2 we will be using the large function. This does the opposite of the small function we used in Part 2. So basically this will show us the largest value in a set of data. Here is what we type in cell B2:
=large(totalpts,1)
The totalpts is the set of data we just named
The 1 means to show the largest of the set of data
Now we will repeat this function for cell B3 and type this:
=large(totalpts,2)
And so on all the way dow to cell B5. When you’re done here is what you should have.
vlookup
We are nearly done. Now we will utilize the vlookup function again and we will be using this in column C. What this will do is to look at the number in column B and then match that number up with the team name.
In cell C2 here is what we will type: =vlookup(B2,totalpts,2,0)
B2 is the value vlookup is looking for
totalpts is the set of data where vlookup is looking
2 refers to the second column of the data, in this case column F
0 Means we want an exact match.
In cell C3 here is what I need to type:
=vlookup(B3,totalpts,2,0)
Here is what mine looks like.
Uh? Patrick? What happened to second and third place?
OK, here is the time we will talk about imperfections. Obviously ties are not handled very well with the vlookup function. I have no idea how to solve this simply (or even complexly). If you are well versed with spreadsheets please leave solutions below! 🙂
Ties are a problem with this set up that is obvious.
Another issue here is testing the form. You could build this entire spreadsheet, all the worksheets without any data. It is possible, but I prefer to add a bunch of bogus data, build the form so I can see that it is all working properly and then wipe the data out. Not ideal but you want to make sure your hardwork has been done correctly and that once real data gets in there you know it will be handled properly.
Well that is the scoreboard in all its glory. If you have ideas on where it can be improved or what can be added let me know by adding in the comments below!
Please check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 to get caught up. If you are just jumping in now and have little spreadsheet experience you may feel a little lost.
Last post we made all the worksheets for all the eventa. In this post we are going to make worksheets for each country or team. Lucky for us, there is a lot less “moving parts” here. These sheets will simply compile all the results for all the events for each team and then total those points up.
Named Ranges
Before we start making worksheets for each team or country we need to name some ranges and we will do that back in the event worksheets. So I will open up my spreadsheet and go to the Event 1 worksheet.
I am not going to add or change anything. I am simply going to highlight some data and then give it a name. So on the Event 1 worksheet I will highlight G2 to I5.
Now I will click on Data from the top menu and select Named ranges….
Now I will call these range event1fnl which stands for Event 1 final but you can call it whatever you want just remember to have no spaces.
Now I will do it again for the Event 2, Event 3 and Event 4 worksheets.
Make a new worksheet
Just like in Part 3, we will make one worksheet and then duplicate it for the other teams making the amount of work we have to do a lot less.
To make a new worksheet click on the + icon in the bottom left hand corner.
This will create a new sheet and to rename it just double click the tab.
Now we are going to simply type in a bunch of information. No functions yet. So here is how I set up my sheet.
Again, I just typed this information directly into each cell. Now we are ready for some functions. We are only going to use two today: vlookup and sum.
In cell B3 of the Team 1 worksheet we will type this function:
=vlookup(A1,event1fnl,3,0)
Here is what is happening in this function.
vlookup(A1 is looking into cell A1 (which is the team name)
event1fnl is where it will look for the team name
3 means it will look in the third column of the event1fnl data which is how many points were awarded and display that in the cell.
0 means that we want an exact match.
So now in cell B4 we will write this formula: =vlookup(A1,event2fnl,3,0)
We use event2fnl to show that we want data from Event 2
Then we go on down the list and this is what it should look like.
Believe it or not we are almost done with this post!
sum
No we want to add all those points up. We only have 4 teams and 4 events but imagine you have 7 teams and 14 events! Calculating the totals can take a lot of time. So we will let Google Sheets do the heavy lifting.
In cell E1 I am going to write this formula – it’s very simple. =sum(B3+B4+B5+B6)
Now there is another, shorter way to type this formula which is: =sum(B3:B6)
It does the exact same thing. Some people like the longer way that way they can see exactly what it looks like, but it is totally up to you.
Guess what my friendly reader, we are done with this worksheet!
Duplicate
Now we just need to duplicate for each team and then change data in one cell per worksheet. To do this go down to the Team 1 tab at the bottom of the worksheet. Right click the Team 1 tab and then select Duplicate.
Now rename that worksheet to Team 2.
Now you have to make one change, just one and it is easy. In cell A1 on the Team 2 worksheet is the name of the team. Change it from Team 1 to Team 2. That’s it! That’s all that needs to happen and the rest of the worksheet should update.
Now go ahead and duplicate that sheet for teams 3 and 4 and make that one change and you’re done!
In Part 5 we will work with the Totals Worksheet where it will collect the total points for each team and rank them.
*NOTE: I ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED THIS ON MAY3 BUT THERE WAS A MISTAKE WITH BASIC ORGANIZATION OF THE WORKSHEET/ I HAVE CORRECTED THIS AND SINCE UPDATED IT TO WORK AS PLANNED.
The journey continues and this marks the hump point of this series. Just a quick recap. In Part 1 I wrote about how I was using Google Forms and Sheets to create an auto calculating scorebook and the services and skills I used. In Part 2 I talked about how I created the Google Form and got it to do what I needed it to do. We also had Google set up a spreadsheet with our data from the form as well.
Here we are in Part 3. Here we are going to set up specific worksheets for each event. Before we start adding functions to a worksheet let’s take a look at the data we have. I went ahead and filled out the form. I have 4 teams and 4 events.
That may be a little small so click this link to get a view only peak at the data. Again, this was all organized by Google automatically. The data is nice, it is organized and it makes perfect sense. What we are going to do now is create additional worksheets in this file to help us filter the data and allow us to organize it for each specific event.
Just a note. If you get stuck and frustrated don’t worry – especially if you have never done any work in a spreadsheet. Stick with it, be patient with yourself and reach out if you need any assistance. Learning something new isn’t always easy.
OK, now we’re ready.
Naming that data
From the Form Responses 1 worksheet we are going to name all this data. This makes it easier to reference it back when using functions in other worksheets. To do this click the empty box below the fx symbol near the top left hand side of the screen. This will select all the data.
Now we need to name it. To do this select Data from the top most menu bar. Then select Named ranges…
Now give it a very simple name with no spaces. Spaces apparently will break it. I also like to keep it lower case. I don’t know why, maybe it is just me but I always make my named ranges lower case.
I called this data olympic. It is simple, easy to remember and hard to misspell.
Create a new worksheet
This might sound like we are going to create a whole new file but no. Spreadsheets have the ability to add different worksheets. Not being a spreadsheet master I feel this is a way to reference other data from other worksheets while at the same time filtering or showing specific data in a particular context.
Doing this is super easy. Open up your spreadsheet. You can get to it through the Google Form Responses page by clicking on the Google Sheets icon (see Part 2 of this series for a screenshot). Then click on the plus button down in the bottom left hand corner of your screen.
If all goes well you should see this! You can rename any sheet by double clicking on its name in the tab. I am calling mine Event 1.
Now to go to that sheet (if it didn’t do it automatically) by clicking on the tab, like a browser tab. You will see a blank worksheet but that will change shortly. You will notice that the columns are labeled as letters and the rows are all labeled as numbers. This is used so we can reference specific cells known as cell reference.
We will start our journey in cell B1. Here we will add a Query function.
Query
The Query function will allow you to pull specific data from the From Responses 1 worksheet. There is a reason we are putting it in cell B1 and not A1 but that will become clear later on. So we only want the Event 1 data in this worksheet.
Here is what you will need to type in cell B1:
=query(olympic,"SELECT B,C,D,E WHERE B='Event 1'",0)
Let’s break down this formula so you can understand what is happening.
The = sign is what is needed to start all functions. This lets the spreadsheet know that it is performing an action and not just holding data.
The word olympic refers back to all the data on the Form Responses 1 sheet.
The comma breaks the function into a different part.
Select B,C,D,E tells us that we are only going to display the data in these columns.
WHERE B=’Event 1 tells us that column B must have those exact words and based on that will show the information in those rows corresponding to columns B,C,D,E
When all is done here are the results!
Total seconds
I am sure there is a function that will sort based on two columns but I do not know it. However, I do know how to sort values in one column. So what we are going to do is convert the minutes and seconds to seconds in Column A.
To do this I typed in this function in A1:
=D6*60+E6
What this does it take the value in cell D6 (the number of minutes) and multiplies it to 60 (converting minutes to seconds) and then adds the value in E6 (the number of seconds) to that total.
Now copy that formula for the other teams. Be sure to change D6 and E6 to D7 and E7 and so on and so on.
Here is what you should have now.
Ranking with the small function
Now we need to rank them or put them in order from fastest to slowest. I am sure there is a way to do this more efficiently but as I have mentioned earlier, I just don’t know how and so I am working with what I know and what I can do.
First I want to highlight the total seconds column and name that range, I don’t want all the data in this worksheet just the total seconds in Column A so that is all I highlight. I called this data event1sec.
Then in Column G (I want to leave column F alone just for aesthetics) I will type this formula:
I’ve made a mistake – we need to put this in column H1 not G1. I’ve updated the post and pictures to reflect this change. Everything up to this point is correct.
=small(event1sec,1)
The small function returns the smallest value in a set of data.
event1sec is the data it is looking a.
1 this means I want the smallest set of data
So for the next row down here is what you would type: =small(event1sec,2)
The 2 means it wants the second smallest number in that data set.
So this is what your spreadsheet should look like now.
vlookup
We are nearly done!
In column I, I will simply add the scores. I just type in the numbers into the cell manually. There is a way to write an if statement to get this automatically but this seems a little simpler for me. H1 = 4 H2 = 3 H3 = 2 H4 = 1
Now that we have the numbers ranked you could look back and match up the numbers mentally but it would be best if the country is next to its score. We will be using the vlookup function here and we will be putting that function in cell G1.
Before we add the vlookup we need to name another range. Here I will be highlighting A1 to C4.
I will name this range event1pts. The process is the same as before.
Now let’s add the vlookup function in cell G1 (as I mentioned before).
=vlookup(H1,event1pts,3,0)
Now here is what is happening with this formula.
H1 is the number it is looking up.
event1pts is the data that vlookup is looking at.
3 is looking at the third column (so in this case column C of that data set) and that is what is will be shown depending on the value in G1
0 means that it wants an exact match
Here is what that should look like.
Now for the next row (G2) you will want to type this function:
=vlookup(H2,event1pts,3,0)
Then use G3 and finally G4.
Now I went ahead and inserted a row at the top and here is the final worksheet.
Duplicate and update
This is the last step and it is pretty easy. We can duplicate this worksheet and only change one function to make it all work for the different events!
Here we go, in the worksheet tab at the very bottom left hand corner of your screen right click the tab for Event 1.
You should see a menu appear. From here select Duplicate.
A new tab will appear and it will contain exactly the same data as the Event 1 worksheet.
From here I will rename the Copy of Event 1 tab to Event 2.
Now I will go to the Event 2 worksheet and find my Query function. It should be in cell B2.
In this function I will change B,C,D,E to B,G,H,I. B stays the same because that column holds the which event it is in the Form Responses 1 worksheet.
Then I will change WHERE B=’Event 1’ to WHERE B=’Event 2’.
Here is an image of the new formula.
=query(olympics,"SELECT B,F,G,H WHERE B='Event 2'",0)
And magically the data should update! Awesome.
Now let’s do it for Event 3 and 4.
Duplicate Event 2
Rename it to Event 3
Change the query function to this: =query(olympics,"SELECT B,I,J,K WHERE B='Event 3'",0)
Duplicate Event 3
Rename it to Event 4
Change the query function to this: =query(olympics,"SELECT B,L,M,N WHERE B='Event 4'",0)
Parting notes
If you’ve been able to follow along and all of your sheets look great well done. If not keep at it. This is a lot to take in and again, if you’ve never dabbled into spreadsheets this could take a while to wrap your head around. I’ve tried to write this post in a way that I feel most people can follow but again, it is almost 2000 words and there are a lot of steps. If there is something you don’t quite get please email me at: patrickcauley@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to help.
Part 4 – Setting up the team worksheets coming soon!
In Part 1 we talked about the broad strokes of creating a scoring system for my school’s Olympics games. We talked about the services to utilize, how it was basically set up and what skills I used to make everything talk together to accomplish our goal.
This post is all about Google Forms. This is the easiest part of the whole shebang. We willl make a form that lets you pick an event and based on that choice will take you to the event to enter their score or time.
You just need to think about who needs access to the form, how easy will it be for them to fill it out and all that good stuff. When I talked to the organizer of the event he said that he was going to be the only one using the form. This makes a lot of sense for a couple of reasons.
All the events are outside and our campus does not have outdoor WiFi set up. Staff may not want to use their personal data for a school event.
Since he will be the only one entering the form, this is smart as it will cut down on mistakes or duplicate entries.
Some of our events deal with water and some staff may feel a little uncomfortable using their smartphone where there is a chance it could get doused.
So he and the IT team will be the only people with access to the form and the spreadsheet. Again, the fewer people who have access the better. Less chance of any screw ups or unwanted changes to the form or accidental deletion of formulas.
Making the Form
Obviously having a Google account is necessary here. Your school does not need to be a G Suite school but it does help when it comes to sharing it with other staff members.
To start a new form head on over to https://forms.google.com and sign in. Once there click on the plus symbol in the bottom right hand corner to create a new Google Form.
Once you get in, you will find it is pretty straightforward.
I suggest making all your questions either multiple choice or from a dropdown menu.
DO NOT LET THEM TYPE IN THE EVENT OR COUNTRY
Allowing people to do this will break your form GUARANTEED! People will accidentally misspell the country, abbreviate it or not type the whole name. All of these variations will make tracking the data impossible.
By making all questions multiple choices you eliminate this nightmare situation. They must select a choice provided. This will make all the Google Sheet work possible.
Sections
Rather than have all the questions on one page I decided to make a section for each event. A section is probably what you would imagine. It is a separate section that holds only certain questions. That way the organizer doesn’t have to scroll and scroll and scroll to find the event he needs to enter.
Instead, he clicks on the event (which is question 1) then the form goes to that section for that question. This is known as branching.
So here is what my form looks like right now.
Now I want to make a new section. This is very easy. Just click the new section icon on the toolbar next to the question editor.
Now that the section has been created here is what it will look like.
Response validation
Now I want the person entering the form to enter a number for the event. I want that to be an integer (not words) and I want some limitations. I don’t want someone to enter in a negative number or say 3 minutes and 62 seconds. 😦 That just doesn’t work for me.
Luckily Google Forms has something called Response Validation. This can let you put some restrictions on what is inputted into the fields.
Google Forms is pretty smart. For me it automatically knew I wanted a number and went ahead and added the data validation, but if it doesn’t here is how you enable it. Click the three buttons icon in the bottom right hand corner of the question.
Then select Response validation.
A new area will be added to the bottom of your question.
Now that it is there I can set some restrictions. For minutes I will make it a number between 1–30 (I know that is the limit for each event).
Where it says Number and Between – those are drop down menus and can be changed.
Now I will add another question to ask for how many seconds it took.
OK that section is done. If you have only races (most of our events are races) then you can just duplicate each the section to how many events you have. Doing this is very easy just go to the top of that particular section, click the three dots and select Duplicate section option
Branching
This is very easy. Now that the sections have been duplicated it is time to do the branching. Basically in section one, depending on what event the person filling out the form answers, we want them to go to that section and skip all the other sections. It sounds complicated but is super simple.
Let’s go to the very top in section 1. Now to enable this feature click the three dots in bottom right hand corner of that section. Then select Go to section based on answer.
Now the multiple choice question will change a little. It will add drop down next to each question. This is a drop down menu and you simply select the section you want it to go to.
Now go to each section and at the very bottom change it to Submit form. This will make sure that the form submits after that section is complete and you can start the process over again.
Make a spreadsheet
Last step. Click on Responses tab at the very top of the Google Form. Then click on the Google Sheet icon. This will create a Google Sheet where all the data is stored.
That’s it. It seems like a lot of work but it is really not too difficult especially if you have experience with Google Forms.
Next post will be Part 3 – Google Sheets – Setting up the event
OK and just a fair warning this series is going to get a little technical with formulas and linking multiple worksheets together to get a scoreboard of sorts for an “Olympic” event our school is putting on. I’ll do my best to break this down and try to help you connect the dots but if you need some help reach out to me and I will be happy to assist
This first post is just the background info and some basics that you should know or need to learn about Google Forms & Sheets before going forward. so let’s dig in.
Olympics
A lot of schools do this and call it different names. I’ve heard it called field day, activity day, royal rumble and so on. Basically it is a day where the school breaks into teams and performs events, either head to head or individually and then at the end of the day a winner is awarded based on their performance.
So this part in itself is busy enough and has a lot of moving pieces and it takes a certain person with good organizational and leadership skills to pull this off. My hat is off to those people.
At the beginning of the year those people came to the IT department and asked for a way to automatically calculate points for each event. What was happening was that calculating and organizing the results was taking too long at the end of the day, and, well, when you have an event like this, 30 minutes of downtime can spiral out of control real quick, so they needed a better solution and we have created that.
Our set up is pretty simple. We have 15 countries (teams) and 15 events. That means that each team will do each event individually. So we need to be able to capture those results and have a real time calculation of these events. The team that performs best at an event is awarded 15 points. Likewise the team that performs the worst is awarded 1 point.
Google Forms
The solution is Google Forms. I’ve made a very simple Google Form. The first page asks what event is being scored.
Then the second page asks for the country (team) name and how they performed.
We will get into making the form itself on the next post but even if you have never used Google Forms before then you should have no problem figuring this out. It is pretty simple.
For those who do not know, the results of a Google Form can be saved onto a Google Sheet. Google Sheets is a spreadsheet program (like Excel). Here is my example I worked on to give you an idea of what a spreadsheet looks like.
Google Sheets
This is where the real magic happens. To put it simply all the results from the Google Form are saved on a Google Sheet. All the heavy lifting is done here through a variety of different Google Sheets functions.
So I have four different types of worksheets. A worksheet is a different spreadsheet within the same file. So in the picture below you can see seven of the worksheets in this file.
Here are the four different worksheet types I use.
1. Responses – This one worksheet is where all the form submissions are saved. They are sorted by time but really you will not be touching this data much at all.
2. Event types – I made a worksheet for each event. This data is fed from the Responses worksheet. So in total I made 15 total events but really it is a lot of copying so not a bunch of work. Each event will house all the results for each country in that event
3. Country totals – I made a worksheet for each team. This will house (you probably guessed it) all the results for that particular country. Again, I made 15 worksheets of this type but again, it was a lot of duplication so not a bunch of work
4. Totals – This last type is just one sheet. It shows all the point totals for each team and then ranks them.
Skills
When researching this I saw a number of examples but many had people inputting their own scores directly into a spreadsheet which helps a little but was not enough of a time saver for us. I saw others that wrote their script for Google Sheets. This is a bit beyond me at the moment so I decided to try and build my own (which I did) and here are the skills I used to build it.
Google Forms
How to create a form that “branches.” This is very basic and took very little time to learn (15 minutes)
Google Sheets Functions – Functions are commands that tell the sheet to do various tasks like add a column of numbers, look up other cells and report them back into another cell and so on.
Named ranges – This is very simple. You select a range of cells and then you can name that range. So when you want the data from cell A1 to cell D30, you can highlight all that data and name it. Then you no longer need to type out that range over and over again. This is especially helpful when working with multiple sheets (15–30 minutes)
Query – This pulls and filters data from the Responses worksheet onto a new worksheet. It is one function per sheet and updates automatically when a form is submitted. This is a little tricky but definitely learnable to someone with little spreadsheet experience (1–2 hours).
Vlookup – I learned Vlookup when teaching Excel. It basically looks for a reference number in one column and then reports back a value in a different cell. Confused – so was I. This takes a good a little while to learn if you’ve never done it before (1–1.5 hours)
Small and Large – These functions lets you “order” by smallest or the largest. It is very easy to learn (30 minutes).
Sum – Super duper simple. This will add the numbers up in a variety of cells automatically. It is usually one of the easiest and first functions most people learn.
Now take these times with a grain of salt. You may be pretty good with Sheets and these times may be 0 minutes for you. Also understand I am not an expert here. I had some basic knowledge, a goal and determination and I was able to learn how to create this. I am sure there are more efficient and better ways to do this and I look forward to learning those.
Part 2 of this post will be setting up the Google Form. It’ll be out tomorrow or Wednesday. So look out for that.
Here is another extension that I like a lot in Chrome. Now Chrome can view PDF’s and I have never really like the way they handle it. Check out the picture below to see what I mean.
The image is not quite large enough for me to easily read and there is no way to highlight, add text, you know mark it up. Also there are no thumbnails to quickly navigate or quickly scan what is going on in that document.
I get it, Chrome is making it a service and I can download it to my computer and open it up with Preview and do all that good stuff. Then I think No! This is 2018 and there should be a way to do this within my browser of choice. So off to searching I went and have found Kami.
Now Kami the good news here is that Kami does work with other browsers. It will work with Chrome (of course), Firefox, Edge and Safari. This is very good so if you are not a Chrome user you can still take advantage of all that Kami has to offer.
Installation and Use
Installation is as easy as any other browser extension. To use Kami it is dead simple. You may need to sign in or create account. Since it uses the Google API signing through Google makes it very easy.
Now Find a PDF file online and click the link to open it. Kami should automatically open it up in your browser. Here is what it looks like.
As you can see there is a lot more going on. The big scene steeler is the toolbar on the far left hand side. This thing will let you highlight, strike through, leave a comment and a textbox, shape and a few more neat little tools. Heck you can even use text to speech (though that is a paid feature). I’ve taken a quick screenshot of all the tools expanded.
Using Kami is pretty intuitive and straight forward. Now if you want to save the PDF (which if you want your annotations to stick) you have quite a few choices.
I believe it automatically saves all changes in Kami’s own servers. As you can see you are also able to save it directly to Google Drive which works pretty well.
Now there are times when saving just isn’t enough. There are times that you need to export (download) it to your computer. I was very happy to find that rather than just download it gives you some options. Check out the image below to see what you can do.
I really, really like that you can download an unmarked up copy. A lot of services and programs have it that when up a PDF that is it. If you want an original you have to go download it again from its original source. I think this is great for planning. You can show an original and then show the concept or the marked up version. Great feature!
There is a sharing feature but you have to upload it to Kami’s servers first. This isn’t a real feature that I or my school would use too often since we would be handling all the sharing through Google Drive. It is nice to know that if a school does not use G Suite they have do have options to easily
Kami even has thumbnail view! Oh man this is so nice. Just click this little icon and bam! Thumbnails.
Options
I won’t go into all of them because I honestly didn’t have that much time trying it out but check out all those options!
The most important options that do stand out to me is the ability to split and merge PDF documents. Now take this with a grain of salt people. If a PDF is protected it may not be able to perform this task so keep that in mind.
When you click that option it will open a new window where you must upload your PDF to Kami and then you can split or merge multiple PDF files.
Price
When you sign up you are on the Basic plan which is free, but a teacher or you can get Kami for your entire domain.
The teacher plan comes with 150 licenses! That’s a lot for $99 a year. If you break that up it comes to 0.66¢ per student. Not bad at all and you do get a lot of good features for that price. But I am still plenty happy with the basic. The only tool I wish they would throw in is the ability to add text to a PDF.
Overall I am happy with Kami and I think if you look at PDFs in your browser I highly encourage you to try it out.
A while back I took the ISTE NETS Standards and decided to create a grade level based layout for what students should be able to do at different grade levels.
As the students continue to progress through their education, the grade level view expands gradually. The idea is that they keep repeating activities and meeting these standards.
Here is what the current design looks like:
Years 3 & 4:
Effectively use primitive data types
Effectively use, manipulate, and explain various external data types (text, images, sound, etc.), various locations (local, server, cloud), etc.
Year 5:
Effectively use primitive data types
Effectively use, manipulate, and explain various external data types (text, images, sound, etc.), various locations (local, server, cloud), etc.
Effectively use modeling and simulation to solve real-world problems
Effectively use two or more development environments
Year 6:
Effectively use primitive data types
Effectively use, manipulate, and explain various external data types (text, images, sound, etc.), various locations (local, server, cloud), etc.
Effectively use modeling and simulation to solve real-world problems
Effectively use two or more development environments
Demonstrate an understanding of operating systems and networking in a structured computer system
Year 7:
Effectively use primitive data types
Effectively use, manipulate, and explain various external data types (text, images, sound, etc.), various locations (local, server, cloud), etc.
Effectively use modeling and simulation to solve real-world problems
Effectively use two or more development environments
Demonstrate an understanding of operating systems and networking in a structured computer system
Using a modern, high-level programming language, construct correctly functioning programs involving simple and structured data types; compound boolean expressions; and sequential, conditional, and iterative control structures
Year 8:
Effectively use primitive data types
Effectively use, manipulate, and explain various external data types (text, images, sound, etc.), various locations (local, server, cloud), etc.
Effectively use modeling and simulation to solve real-world problems
Effectively use two or more development environments
Demonstrate an understanding of operating systems and networking in a structured computer system
Using a modern, high-level programming language, construct correctly functioning programs involving simple and structured data types; compound boolean expressions; and sequential, conditional, and iterative control structures
Design and test algorithms and programming solutions to problems in different contexts (textual, numeric, graphic,
etc.) using advanced data structures
Years 9 & 10:
Effectively use primitive data types
Effectively use, manipulate, and explain
various external data types (text, images, sound, etc.), various locations (local, server, cloud), etc.
Effectively use modeling and simulation to solve real-world problems
Effectively use two or more development environments
Demonstrate an understanding of operating systems and networking in a structured computer system
Using a modern, high-level programming language, construct correctly functioning programs involving simple and structured data types; compound boolean expressions; and sequential, conditional, and iterative control structures
Design and test algorithms and programming solutions to problems in different contexts (textual, numeric, graphic, etc.) using advanced data structures
Demonstrate an understanding of the operation of computer networks and mobile computing devices
Demonstrate knowledge of two or more programming paradigms
Years 11 & 12:
Effectively use primitive data types
Effectively use, manipulate, and explain
various external data types (text, images, sound, etc.), various locations (local, server, cloud), etc.
Effectively use modeling and simulation to solve real-world problems
Effectively use two or more development environments
Demonstrate an understanding of operating systems and networking in a structured computer system
Using a modern, high-level programming language, construct correctly functioning programs involving simple and structured data types; compound boolean expressions; and sequential, conditional, and iterative control structures
Design and test algorithms and programming solutions to problems in different contexts (textual, numeric, graphic, etc.) using advanced data structures
Demonstrate an understanding of the operation of computer networks and mobile computing devices
Demonstrate knowledge of two or more programming paradigms
Analyze algorithms by considering complexity, efficiency, aesthetics, and correctness
Demonstrate an understanding of static and dynamic data structures
Over the next few weeks, I will be connecting the standards at each grade level to the types of activities and lessons that facilitate them.
I thought I would put the year on the title of this post just to give it some search relevance. I don’t know how many posts I’ve seen that are 3–4 years old and while some of the arguments are still relevant others are not. This short series will detail this school’s thinking, surveys, conversations and decisions. This is not an article that is saying one device over another … period! No, that kind of simplistic thinking usually does not benefit schools. Instead we will go through the process of how we evaluate the effectiveness of our devices and what decisions we make based on data and anecdotal observations.
Let’s start with some background information. If someone ever asks you what your school uses or what another school should use – get some information first. Fit for a device is important. The school I work for is a small private school that has around 400 students. We are preschool through grade 8 and are broken into 3 divisions.
* Early childhood (preschool, prekindergarten, kindergarten)
* Lower school (grades 1–4)
* Middle school (grades 5–8)
We currently have 1 computer lab with about thirty 21.5″ iMacs. They are older (about 5 years old) but still functioning well despite some expected slow downs. We have three MacBook Air carts for teachers in lower school and middle school to check out. We also have an iPad cart. Each cart has about 22–24 devices respectively.
Each lower school classroom has 7 iPads for student use. The classes are about 20 students each, give or take 1–2. The middle school is 1:1 iPads. Depending on the grade level determines which iPad they have. The older the student, the older the iPad. Students keep their iPads through all four years and at the end of the 8th grade we give it to them as their own personal iPad. This is subsidized by a technology fee that families pay each year. That’s the background info. If you have questions put them in the comments below.
Discussing Chromebooks
When I started this position, Chromebooks was a discussion that came up quite frequently. While clearing out an old IT closet the IT team and myself found 2 older but totally working Acer Chromebooks. We spoke with the lower school principal and asked if she thought that this would be a good addition to the third and fourth grade team. We only had two mind you but she agreed. She thought it would be a good way to allow students to try them out and to get some authentic feedback.
That was back in September of 2017. The third grade team didn’t really use it too much for whatever reason. The fourth grade team reported back that students choose the Chromebook first before an iPad. I pressed them for a reason and they had not inquired. Their thoughts was that they do a lot of work in Google Docs and the addition of a keyboard and trackpad makes working in that environment much easier than a touch screen.
Also during budget time (October-November) the lower school principal asked if we could have 20 Chromebooks for the third and fourth grade classes. When I asked why she said it gives the students choices and increase more technology opportunities for more students. If a student wants to record video, than the iPad is the clear choice. If a person wants to type a report, then the Chromebook is the clear choice. These choices give the class flexibility and having more devices can allow more opportunities for these students.
We had room in the budget and so it was added. These classrooms will not be relinquishing their iPads, the Chromebooks will be added to their classroom’s technology offerings.
Chromebooks in 1:1 environments
As I mentioned earlier, this has been a question. In fact the division head in middle school wanted to evaluate the program itself. Well myself and another teacher put together a short survey and I’ll share some of the results with you. Keep in mind we are a small school and we only have 17 total respondents for the survey.
The survey itself was broken into 4 parts:
1. The effectiveness of the 1:1 program
2. iPad Use and Management
3. Chromebooks
4. Final section with over arching questions
Here are the questions for each (I would embed the form but WordPress.com will not allow it). When the question references a scale – 1 is the worse and 4 is the best.
Section 1 – Effectiveness of the 1:1 Program
On a scale of 1–4 – Do you feel the 1:1 program is effective?
(Optional) – Can you give an example that supports your answer above?
On a scale of 1–4 – Does students having a device enhance the teaching and learning process?
(Optional) – Can you give an example that supports your answer above?
On a scale of 1–4 – Do you think the iPad is the most effective device for our middle school students?
(Optional) – Can you give an example that further explains your answer above?
Section 2 – iPad Use and Management
On a scale of 1–4 – Does the iPad do everything you need it to do?
Can you give examples that support your answer above?
How often do your students use the iPad in your class for educational purposes?
Every day
Every week
Every month
Couple of times a trimeseter
Few times throughout the year
Rarely or never
On a scale of 1–4 – Do you feel that it is easy to plan lessons that utilize the iPad?
How do you and/or your students utilize the iPad in your class?
On a scale of 1–4 – When it comes to classroom management, how easy is it to manage what students do on an iPad
What general apps do you commonly use with your students? (Tick all that apply)
Evernote
Flipgrid
Google Drive
Google Docs
Google Sheets
Google Slides
Gmail
Kahoot!
Keynote
Notability
Numbers
Prezi
What other apps do you use in your classroom that may be more specific to your subject? (Please just list them, no need for a description)
Section 3 – Chromebooks
On a scale of 1–4 – How familiar are you with Chromebooks?
On a scale of 1–4 – Do you think Chromebooks would be a more effective device than an iPad for our middle school students?
Please explain your answer above with some details.
Yes/No – Do you know of any Chromebook Apps that you and/or your students could use in your class?
(Optional question) – If you know of these apps or extensions could you please list them below? Again, no need for a description just their name.
Section 4 – Final section
Yes/No – Should we continue the 1:1 program in the middle school?
What device would be best for the 1:1 program?
iPads
Chromebooks
Windows S
We should not have a 1:1 program in middle school
(Optional question) – Is there anything else that you would like to share or have an issue or concerning the 1:1 program?
So that’s the survey and as you can see some of the questions give teachers time to write out some of their responses. I will share a few of them but I will share all the results from the quantitative questions in graph form.
Written responses
From the data it looks like Chromebooks are the clear winner here. However it is not so black and white. When going through the written responses it is quite clear that there are some specific apps and some specific ways that teachers use the iPads in their classrooms that show that they may not be so ready to jump into Chromebooks.
One teacher wrote about whether the iPad was the right device for a 1:1 program:
I was forced to choose yes or no, but without more information on the benefits and disadvantages of other options it is really difficult to make an informed answer.
Another teacher wrote about iPads:
It doesn’t type well. It’s invaluable for my Tempest unit, where I teach using the Tempest app on their i-pad. That IS the text for that unit.
There are other responses that ring similar to the ones above, so while I feel the middle school staff is leaning towards Chromebooks more conversations with the staff, parents and students as well.
I’ve been meaning to write this ever since I heard about this product. First, let’s get something out of the way. I like to game. I am not a huge gamer but I really enjoy the time I get to plop down and dive headfirst into a video game. I think the idea of Nintendo Labo is awesome! If I had a Switch I may even be tempted to go ahead and purchase this.
I am talking from a school perspective. At first blush this may seem to tick a lot of boxes.
* STEAM related? CHECK
* Hands on? CHECK
* Engaging? CHECK
* Pretty darn fun? CHECK
I can see a lot of schools and outspoken teachers clamoring to purchase this. So I hate to rain on people’s parade but get your umbrellas ready.
Cost
Here is what you need and the costs associated with them:
* Nintendo Switch – $300
* Nintendo Labo Variety Kit – $70
Now consider how many game consoles you need to purchase. Now how many kits do you need to buy? That’s the big one. I picked the Variety Kit and not the Robot kit($80) because you could probably pair students up and have them build these interactive controllers. In the Variety Kit you get 5 different projects:
* RC Cars
* Fishing Rod
* House
* Motorbike
* Piano
Use
I can see groups of two tackling these projects in a class and they’re not terribly bulky, but if you do the math (and I know you did) that gives you an engaging and varied activity for 10 students. I guess you could stretch it to three but still that’s 15 students. Certainly most classes are larger than that. Then after they’re done you get to play the games.
Well with probably only one Switch in the room that means a lot of people standing around watching others explore their games and what they can do. Even if a teacher dedicates two whole classes over two days that probably gives you anywhere from 1–2.5 hours of game play with 20+ students. Then what? Do they sit on shelves and are used when students have free time? Do students get to take them home at some point?
Re-use
Now comes the real problem. Maybe your school has the money to buy enough Switches and Kits. Maybe you have small classes and can dedicate enough time to getting kids ample playtime with these tools. Maybe you can solve these problems.
The kits (to my knowledge and if I’m wrong please let me know in the comments) cannot really be unfolded and reused. I supposed you could do that but we are talking about cardboard here. Often times taking something apart carefully can even more difficult that putting it together.
At any rate that’s why schools should pass. If you have a fairly small group of students and don’t mind buying more kits every year that perhaps consider it, but it seems a pretty costly investment for a small group of students.
That's what we are here for. We want to help teachers and educators integrate technology in the classroom in sensible and relevant ways. Just drop us a line by commenting on any of our posts and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
And don't get stressed out...crack open a cold one on us :o)
