Gamifying a Science Topic

I have just completed teaching Breathing, Respiration, Blood and Disease, and have created a GSite to accompany my lessons. I want my students to be able to independently access the resources they need to complete their eBooks and other tasks in and out of lessons.
Each page has the spec points, learning objectives, needed resources, YouTube clips/EdPuzzle/Versal/etc, GForm Quiz, Quizlet, GDrive folder of resources, past paper questions, GDrawing with links to BBC, ABPI, Memrise and DoddleLearn.

Each Google Form Quiz is graded with Fubaroo and set to autograde, or with the new Google Quiz functionality. Another sheet is used to import the data generated by Flubaroo into a Master sheet (template attached below) of all the quizzes in the topic. From here I use a combination of filters, joins, queries and vlookups to gather the students' scores together so that I can plot graphs of their performances and award them badges for reaching 80% and 100% in their sub-topics.

In the image above, I have achieved 100% in all 14 quizzes, gaining me gold badges (made from nounproject.org) in each of the four sub-topics. By achieving 100% in all quizzes, I have unlocked the Vampire Quest easter-egg level that is only available to those that max out all of the quizzes. I don't make that difficult as I have set Flubaroo to send the correct answers to the students after their first attempt (some students try to game the game but I keep an eye on them!)

The Vampire Quest is on a permissions based page that the students must request access to. I check that they are worthy and grant them access to a page which has instructions, 3 UnLife Lines and the first of 14 or 15 puzzles. I have included content from history, maths, biology, chemistry, art, PE, and an array of searching skills and app use including QR codes, YouTube, Google Street View, GForms, etc. that are aimed at busting the mythology of vampires. (a folder of resources is linked below)

I have based some of the puzzles on BreakoutEdu.com and have utilised 2 x 5 letter word locks, a directional lock, a dial combination lock, and 2 UV torches. The quest finishes with one last form being submitted that triggers Autocrat to create a certificate with the position the student has completed the quest in. Unlike BreakOutEdu, I have left the clues and puzzles all over the school, so this is more like a virtual and real space quest / amazing race!

The interesting part of the whole site is how the students interact with it. Some are extrinsically motivated by the graphs and want to see a complete set, while some are compelled to gather the gold badges. I have not set any of the quizzes as homework because I am interested to see if the students will complete them by themselves, and whether they will do the Vampire Quest of their own volition. All I have done is have my page open at the start of lessons with all the graphs at 100%, the badges all gold, and the Vampire button visible, in order to let them see what a complete set looks like and that I have it and they don't. The completion of the quizzes by the students and their returning to the quiz to get 100% tells me about the student: are they independent and resilient in their learning? Do they want to improve themselves and have a growth mindset? Useful information particularly at parents' evening where I show the parent my teacher GSheet dashboard with all of their child's performances in all of my assessments including this!

Click here for the images etc used for the clues
Some of the clues are specific to my school and students but the idea of an open quest is what I was trying to achieve and be able to replicate as a framework.

Click here for GSheet Master Template with Vampire Quest Forms attached + sheets with the imported Flubaroo quizzes. The sheet has all of the necessary formulae and functions built in.

gClassDojo V2, Teacher Feedback and Student Reflection in GSites

I built a Google/ATG Class Dojo last year (https://sites.google.com/a/alice-smith.edu.my/googleclassdojo/home) and found a need recently to use it more seriously.

The upgrade, apart from a bit of CSS make-up ;), shows the scores each student has achieved in the dashboard I look at; these scores are graphed in the student page using a Google Apps Script. More importantly, there is a pre-filled GForm (blue button) that allows me to give feedback to the students on particularly important tasks. The form uses DocAppender to write the feedback into a GDoc that is embedded for the students (shared with Doctopus) in my teacher site (uses ATG proxy) and uses Form Notifier to email the students that I have posted something. Below the buttons in the image above, the comments I have written are presented back to me so that I can quickly scan them before making other posts; rather useful to see if repeated behaviour or progression has occurred.

The identified need was to have my comments/feedback appear in one place, and for the students be able to see the development of feedback for each piece of work that they do; my students use GDocs  and various other apps that live in the cloud and aren't necessarily in one place-certainly not in a paper file-and I mark them online in the native app. The GDoc is shared with the students with comment access so they are able to write/edit the doc and it sends me notifications as the comments are created: the conversation occurs.

The other parts of the student page show their test scores (ATG Proxy), a link to their GDrive folder that I share at the start of the course with Doctopus (ATG Proxy), a GForm for student reflections on their test performances with their submissions embedded back into the page (ATG Proxy), and the student's gClassroomDojo scores as a graph.

Feedback and Reflection using Google Sites, Sheets, Apps Script and Awesome Table Gadget

I previously posted my presentation at the KL GAFE Summit on how the Alice Smith School uses Google Sites and the Awesome Table Gadget to recreate the functionality of a VLE/LMS. I have continued to refine the presentation of data from our GSheet markbooks back to our students via GSites using the Awesome Table Gadget (ATG) and Google Apps Script (GAS).

The image above shows my test data when I visit the Biology Department's Investigative Biology GSite and look at my data for the Core Practicals we assess our students against. The graphs are generated from GAS; the pull data from the GSheet and present it in this interactive bar graph. The 3 tables of data are generated using the ATG and Proxy Script -- pulls the logged in user's data only -- which are looking at the same GSheet markbook as the GAS that builds the graphs.

A recent addition to the presentation of data in our markbooks has been the use of Sparklines; these are the small graphs that can be inserted into cells in a GSheet. Getting them to appear in the GSite via ATG is thanks to the work of James Pearson (https://sites.google.com/a/nihr.ac.uk/external-demo-site/sparkline-awesome-table).

On the right hand side of the GSites page I have used ATG to return the students' reflective comments on their work so that they can see the progression of their attitudes to their work. I gather this info using a GForm with Autocrat added on to generate a GDoc version of the students' responses. The ATG template is bringing back the students' responses and the blue buttons are links to the Autocrat GDocs. In the future I intend to correlate the students' numerical attitudinal responses to their write-up assessment scores to identify any trends that are affecting their performances.

I will create some YouTube videos to demonstrate how I have put this GSite together in future posts.

GAFE Summit KL - Awesome Table Gadget and Google Sites

Reporting assessment data back to students is made possible with Google Sheets, Sites and the Awesome Table Gadget. This is the presentation I used at the GAFE Summit in KL that has the necessary links to the the ATG website and the proxy script needed to identify the logged in user. I will demonstrate how it is all done in a later post!

Correlating practise with results

The IALs, or international A Levels, by Edexcel have 6 units; 1, 2 and 3 make up the AS level in Year 12,  and 4, 5 and 6 complete the A2 level in year 13. The qualification does not have a practical assessment in the typical sense like the CIE A Level, but relies on written assessments to examine the skills of the students i.e. units 3 and 6.

I hold the belief that providing students with opportunities to demonstrate their skills in an appropriate practical context is the best way for them to hone their skills of analysis, and to be able to draw conclusions and support those conclusions with theory and published data. These skills transcend the unit 3 and 6 papers and are important in all of the units; students need to have these skills and be able to apply them everywhere, not just be good at answering the practical papers.

I have been considering the correlation between my Y12 students' performances in their unit 3 mock, core practical write-ups, research write-up, and the actual unit 3, and overall AS performances in the summer 2015 period. (Correlation coefficients whose magnitude are between 0.9 and 1.0 indicate variables which can be considered very highly correlated. Correlation coefficients whose magnitude are between 0.7 and 0.9 indicate variables which can be considered highly correlated. Correlation coefficients whose magnitude are between 0.5 and 0.7 indicate variables which can be considered moderately correlated.Correlation coefficients whose magnitude are between 0.3 and 0.5 indicate variables which have a low correlation. Correlation coefficients whose magnitude are less than 0.3 have little if any (linear) correlation.)

Unit 3 mock vs AS Unit 3 actual: R = 0.3209; 

Core write-up max score vs AS Unit 3 actual: R = 0.3121; 

Core write-up max score + Research vs AS Unit 3 actual: R = 0.4285;

The data above indicate that the activities during the course--Unit 3 mock, the core write-ups, and the research--have low correlations with the students' AS Unit 3 exam performance. What is of note is the comparison between those students who performed the Research tasks throughout the year and those that did not; the Research scores improved the correlation with the AS Unit 3 actual performances by these students.



In comparing the mock exams with the AS performances, the correlations become much more visable:

Unit 1,2+3 mock vs AS Actual: R = 0.7287; (not enough data for Unit 2) 

Unit 1 mock vs AS Actual: R = 0.7828; 

Unit 3 mock vs AS actual: R = 0.3656;

The Unit 1 mock exam taken by the students halfway through the course is highly correlated with their final AS performance making this a useful tool for guiding students in improving themselves. The Unit 3 mock paper has a low correlation with the final AS performance; considering the students do so well in this mock it may provide a false sense of security and introduce a degree of complacency in our students.



In November 2014, I presented my use of GAFE tools to assess and report my students' performances in their write-ups and research activities. It is this assessment strategy and data I have led my colleagues to bring together to identify the correlations below:

Core write-up max score vs AS actual: R = 0.6281; 

Core write-up max score + Research vs AS actual: R = 0.7204; 

Unit 1 mock + Core write-up max score vs AS Actual: R = 0.7642; 

Unit 1 mock + Core write-up max score + Research vs AS Actual: R = 0.8949;

The scoring of a research write-up was carried out with 13 students with the other 18 students only completing the core practicals. 

The Core Write-up Max scores by the students are moderately correlated to their actual AS performance. The addition of the Research performances increases the correlation to moderately correlated, and with the addition of the Unit 1 Mock, the correlation is climbing towards 'highly correlated'. 


I believe that by targeting the students' Core Write-up and Research performances throughout the year, we can improve our students' AS performances. This will require a shift in attitude by our students towards the activities as they seem to be under the impression that the Unit 3 paper is where their practical analysis skills are assessed, and one which they are good at! 

On analysing the Unit 1 and 2 papers of students who have under-performed, the questions they struggle with are those relating to graph and data analysis, validity, reliability, accuracy and precision, which are addressed directly in the Core Practical Writeups. 

Our instruction needs to consider KASI (Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills, Interpersonal skills). In context of the discussion above, Attitude and Skills needs to be addressed. The skills of analysis and the attitude of value in the write-up process need to targeted. 

The use of a write-up rubric should be adhered to with a Triple Impact Marking (T.I.M. linked with D.I.R.T.) strategy used for self,  peer and finally assessment using the comments within the GDoc writeup. The feedback (Hattie, needs citation!) students receive from themselves from grading their work against the rubric, with reasons for the grade awarded should identify where improvement is needed; the student must act on the assessment and improve their work (different colour?!) Peer assessment brings the student more feedback for improvement as the peer assesses the self-assessment and offers guidance for improvement; this advice needs to be acted upon (another different colour.) The peer also comes into more contact with the rubric causing them to assimilate the requirements for a complete write-up more. Finally, the teacher assesses the final write-up, the self and peer assessments and the action taken by the student to enhance their performance.

T.I.M. and D.I.R.T. require careful time management but the collaborative nature of GDocs and the commenting features make it easy for students to interact with each other. Students must aim to be better the next time they do a write-up; reflecting on their performance is important. Adding this reflection to the GDoc after the teacher assessment would be a straight forward strategy. A more powerful process may be to use DocAppender for GDocs which used a GForm to add the reflection to the GDoc. Since the reflection is first stored in the GForm's Sheet, the Sheet can be used to express the targets back to the student at a later date wthrough Gmail or even a GSites page.

Finally, getting the students to create a Gallery of their write-ups for public scrutiny will enhance the motivation of the students to do a better job as the authenticity of the work will be lifted. This is a standard Project Based Learning tactic to increase motivation. A gallery walk will also bring the weaker performing students into contact with the better write-ups and allow those highly skilled students to support their peers.

GClassroom Share Button in GSites

Google recently released the Classroom API. Part of the API allows for the embedding of a share to classroom button for any 3rd party site. Google has published the code needed to make the buttons appear in web pages on the API pages linked above.

I use Google Sites with my students and have embedded resources, forms, docs etc. that I link to from Classroom so I wanted to embed one of these Share buttons. Adding script to GSites pages is a little tricky but with a little bit of Apps Script it can work!

In the image above, I have added the share button beside the page title; this is done by creating and inserting an Apps Script that has been published as a web app.

I used the HTML Service and the templated Scriptlets to build the HTML I wanted to embed and used the scriptlet to acquire the javascript form Google:

I want to be able to copy a page with the script already in it and have it automagically pull the correct URL from the Site without hard coding the URL each time. The scriptlet code above allows this by using SitesApp.getActivePage().getUrl();

Publish the project as a Web App and insert it into your page:

When pressed, the button opens a window to Classroom and lets you select the class you want to post an announcement or assignment to. Nice :)

Daily Notices with Awesome Table Gadget

Teachers need a simple method of creating a message to be delivered to a particular audience in the school. The message needs to be available for a range of days and disappear when those dates have passed. The format of the messages needs to be uniformly attractive and readable so I needed a way to apply my design aesthetic to the teachers' messages automatically after they have been submitted.

My solution has been to use a Google Form to capture the message to a GSheet, and use the Awesome Table Gadget to present the notices to the school on a Google Sites page.



I have made use of the edit message script supplied by Romain Vialard and his team, along with their new template functionality. The template has allowed me to use CSS to style the messages and make them look uniform, but staff with a basic understanding of embedding and tags can make their messages more interesting if desired by embedding images or GSlides set to loop or static for a poster.

The CSS below is used to build the messages shown above from the "Form responses 1" sheet created from the Form submission. The tags in bold are the column headings from the Form submissions.

Notice

<div style="margin:10px"> <span style="font-size:2em;font-weight: bold;color:#008d4f;">${"Title of Notice"}</span><br> <span style="font-size:1.2em;font-weight: normal;color:#008d4f;">A message for <span style="font-weight: bold;">${"Notice for the attention of..."}</span> from </span><span style="font-size:1.2em;font-weight: normal; color:red;">${"Teacher Name"}</span> </div> <div style="margin:10px"> <span style="font-size:1.5em;font-weight: normal;">${"Notice Information"}</span><br><br> </div>

Awesome Table Gadget shows all the rows within the set range i.e. it lists every row in the sheet and therefore, eevry notice. For the daily notices to work, I needed the messages that were out of date to be removed. Awesome Table doesn't show the rows that are hidden so I used the script below, triggered nightly, to hide the out-of-date messages; I chose not to delete them in case of any issues with the system.

function hideNotice() {
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
var sheet = ss.getSheetByName("Form responses 1");
var datarange = sheet.getDataRange();
var lastrow = datarange.getLastRow();
var values = datarange.getValues();// get all data in a 2D array
var dNow = new Date();
var curDate = new Date(dNow.getFullYear(), dNow.getMonth(), dNow.getDate(), 0, 0, 0, 0);
for (i=lastrow;i>=2;i--) {
var enddate = values[i-1][7];// arrays are 0 indexed so row1 = values[0] and col3 = [2]
if(enddate < curDate)
{
  sheet.hideRows(i);
}
}
}

The GSite shows teachers the tabs they need in order to create notices and edit their previously posted, and still visible, messages. The GSite also has another tab for students that uses Awesome Table to present the same message but without the column with the edit button. This is achieved by using 2 instances of Awesome Table Gadget: one for the teachers with the edit button column visible, and one for the students without the edit button column. By using the Page Level Permissions, I can show the teachers the tabs they need to create a message, while showing the students only the messages. 

Google Sites as an LMS/VLE

I have seen various uses of Google Sites as a resource repository, but have yet to see it work as a true LMS where data is fed into a database and retrieved from a database the way most VLEs like Moodle, Firefly, and Schoology do. I decided that Sites needed more attnetion in regard to data management and have set myself the goal of replicating VLE behaviour using Sites, Sheets and whatever gadgets and coding is required. 

My first foray into using Gsheets as a database was with Andrew Stillman's Reportlet apps script (I had to request the code for Reportlet directly from Andrew). Reportlet does a nice job of representing info from a sheet and charting data, however it can take some 30 seconds to load. After communicating with Andrew with the hope that New Visions would invest effort into tuning the script, it seems that Reportlet is not part of their development program.

Over my next posts on this topic, I will demonstrate how I have used Awesome Table Gadget to pull data from Gsheets to present specific data to the logged in user. I will show how Apps Sheet can be used to build apps for users to log into the same data on Android, IOS and through a web app. Finally, I will demonstrate how to post data to a GSheet using a simple form (based on the work of Martin Hawksey.)

In order for Sites and Sheets to work like an LMS, the data in the GSheet for each student must be as up-to-date as possible; most VLEs do an extraction nightly so that data stored that day is available for the next morning. For this to work, my Student IMS will need to run a scheduled report each evening that exports as a spreadsheet or html file, so that the import functions in Gsheets can refresh each night automatically. The export and import of data from the IMS is the final phase of feasibility testing and should work in theory!

Social Networking

This resource looks at the use of Google Plus/Hangouts as a means for communication between students to share links to resources online. It also considers the application of Padlet to share ideas and links between them, along with resources. Google Drive is used as a means to share collaborative construction of learning objects as a part of the outcomes for the lesson.

https://sites.google.com/a/alice-smith.edu.my/class-collaboration-2/home

Final Instructional Design Project: ePortfolio and Target Setting Google Site

In the ePortfolio site below, the instruction materials for the ID project are built and presented in the Help page. The other pages in the site are for the students to use for their evidence and it is the instructional materials in the help page that provide them with the info they need to edit a Google Site.

Videos were built in alignment with Multimedia Design Principles (Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2008)), and the pace of the YouTube demos are appropriate and uses an appropriately “conversational” style.

View the full site here.