Week Eight Reflection

Trackstar
Web Evaluation
Test
Rubric
Puzzle

This was a fun exercise. The testmaker was my first adventure into the wilds of producing a test in something besides Microsoft Word (MW). I liked the way it worked, but I think it was a little difficult to get the formatting correct for my taste. I have more flexibility in MW, but it is more time consuming. I am not sure whether I will use it or just go MW once I get a job. I did like the way it spit out an answer key to go with the test. I really liked the puzzle maker. These are the types of things that can make learning fun. I only wish that the puzzle could be made bigger. I have worked with rubistar once before in adifferent class. I like how easy it is to produce a rubric. However, I look at everything from a math perspective, and as such, I still question what value it has on a math test. I could certainly understand it's use on say a project or something along those lines, but on a test, the question is either right or wrong. The only inbetween is a calculation error. So while I understand the need for the exercise, I will wait and see what my fellow math teachers say. Ther is not much to say about the web evaluation - it was pretty much straight forward. I picked a web site that I found during an exercise in my very first graduate class. I still think this is one of the best math help sites available. No to trackstar. I previously took a class for special needs children, where we did an assignment similar to this in that the object was to develop a reference list. I will say that the use of trackstar make accessing the sites much easier than using a sheet of paper that has been filed away.
I was able to get all of the assignments to open in the post, although my web evaluation takes forever to open - I keep thinking it has locked up, and then poof - it opens. It took me a number of attempts to get trackstar to work - i assume it was because I was trying to save it as a complete webpage. Once I tried a .mnt file, it worked right away. Now if I can just get them through blackboard.