Data Analysis is the process of making sense of raw data and is an essential skill for the 21st century learner.  Spreadsheets are a tool that is used when dealing with Data Analysis. Spreadsheets can be used in a variety of subjects and can be used to manipulate, calculate, and represent columns and rows of numbers.  Microsoft Excel is probably the most widely used spreadsheet program, some of the other programs available are: Apple Numbers and Google Forms.  These programs can make the process of creating spreadsheets and graphs easy and efficient.  Other Data Analysis tools that are available are Graph Club, Inspire Data, TInker Plots, and Statistics Canada.  These programs make incorporating Data Analysis  into the classroom and easy proceess and allow children to learn the purpose of spreadsheets, graphing, and data analysis.

    Digital Citizenship is based off of three unspoken rules about social interaction in the digital world.  These are: respect yourself, respect intelectual property, and respect others.  I think that in todays technological world it its very easy for people to forget these rules.  People are so wrapped up in thier own life, they do not think about how their actions may be affecting others.  Part of the problem is that technology is changing so rapidly that as adults, parents, and teachers we forget to educate our youth about the rules of digital citizenship.  As a parent with pre-teens and teeagers I know how much their life is wrapped around social media.  The era of talking on the phone is over my teenager will sit for hours on his ipod or ipad texting his friends, girlfriend and going on facebook.  If I don't make an effort to connect with him he can sit in his room all night disconnected from our family.  Do I as a parent know what he is doing or saying during that time, no.  All I can do is try to be the best infuence I can and make sure he knows to respect himself, others, and the intelectual property involved.  As teachers we have no control of what happens after they leave our classrooms so I beleive that we need to do the best we can to teach them proper proceedures and etiquete when using technology.  We may be the only influence that these children get and hopefully we can make a difference.

Concept Mapping is a proceedure that is used in the classroom to help individuals or groups describe ideas in topic or pictoral form.  There are several different forms of concept mapping such as mental mapping, mind mapping, or concept webbing.  The use of concept mapping in the classroom can be used in all subjects and in a variety of forms.  I think that using concept mapping or graphic organizers is a great way of involving the class as a whole in the learning process. A creative way of using concept mapping is on the Smartboard.  Students can be put into groups and create their own concept map and then the class can share ideas when finished.  Two web tools for concept mapping is "Inspiration" and "Bubbl.us."  Bubbl.us is a free website that is accessable without signing up.  If the user wants to save their concept map signing up to Bubbl.us is required (but it is free!).  Concept Mapping is also a way that students can tap into thier creative side.  Concept mapping may cause problems for students that do not learn best this way and can be confusing for some students.  In my opinion Concept mapping is a great way of introducing technology into the classroom while acheiving learning goals.  I think it will create more  independant thinking students and also allow students to be more creative during the learning process.

When creating a document it is important that you follow proper proceedures.  Backing up files or documents is essential today because you never know when your computer is going to crash.  There are many ways in which you can back up your documents.  One way is buring your files to CD's or DVD's.  This works well because most computers can read CD's or DVD's.  Another way is to move your files from computer to home by attaching them to an e-mail.  The downfall of this is usually e-mail's have limitations on the attachment size.  USB Memory Stick are another great option for backing up your files.  Your files can be easily transported, and as long as you are carrying the memory stick they are accessable wherever you go. Another great option is cloud computing.  This is when services on the internet provide disk space available to users.  The main idea is that as long as you are connected to the internet you have access to your files and it doesn't matter what computer you are using, files are available where-ever you go. Google Drive and Dropbox are two cloud options available for backing up and sharing files.  You can never be too safe when it comes to backing up your documents.