New Tech Tools

I have found two new tech tools that I am really happy with. The first is the whole reason I wanted the iPad from school - a great app called Educreations. Educreations is a screencasting app. It lets me import image files (which I can create from my SMART Notebook files) straight from Dropbox very easily and I can create screencasts for my students. It uploads to their website (here's my profile page) and as long as I leave the screencast as viewable to the public, I can link to it from my website at school. Students can go view them at their leisure. About the only down side to it at the moment is there is no eraser, but the support staff has been very responsive and I hope they incorporate it in the next update. I do like this app a lot.

The second is a great, free website called Quizlet. Quizlet lets you create flashcards in many languages (including math!) and students can review them like normal flashcards, be quizzed on them by the computer, create their own quizzes (they can be printed to take offline or can be taken online) , or play a couple of games that are provided. In addition, students can import flashcard sets to one of several mobile apps (more information here). I stumbled on this because A+ Flashcards Pro is free (it went free right after Christmas) and it said you could import flashcards from Quizlet. I have created several sets - mainly centered around factoring because that's where we are right now. Here's my user page.

I also recently learned about linking to pages in SMART Notebook. I was recently at our SMART Bugs (SMART Board Users Group) and the facilitator (Bret Gensburg) showed us a file he had helped someone set up that was a game. I took the ideas he used in the game and created my own factoring game. The link goes to my Dropbox and you are welcome to adapt it as you would like. It is a SMART Notebook file, so if you don't have SMART Notebook, it isn't going to work. **Updated the file on January 26th - there was one bad link and I increased font size on the game pages.**

**Update: I did the factoring game in my Algebra 2 classes today. Two of my three classes it went well in. Students were engaged and enjoyed it. One class I had four students who pretty much ruined it. They weren't taking it seriously and would copy answers when it was their turn. I instituted the rule that I could ask you to explain where your answer came from for your team to get the point. Not quite totally sure how to work with this. On the one hand, I do like that students are talking to each other about the math as they are comparing answers. On the other hand, I don't like that they copy the answer without really understanding it. So at the moment, the best work around I have is to not only give the answer, but they have to explain it. I am thinking of making each question worth two points - one for the correct answer and one for the correct explanation. If the person has the correct answer but cannot explain it, their team will get the point for the answer and the other team can steal the point for the explanation. Thoughts?**

I hope you found something you can use. I'd love to hear of other useful tech stuff you're using.

Tech in My Classroom

As I mentioned earlier, I am one of two teachers in my building (and 7 in my district) who received an iPad for classroom use. I have spent most of break downloading apps, some for school and some for fun (especially since I also got an iPod Touch for Christmas - double yay me!), playing said apps, and fighting off  trying to regulate my children's use of the iPad, especially my 8 year old daughter.

As I was talking with my friend who is using a class set of iPads in her classroom, she suggested that I should have a usage policy for the iPad in my class. That way, if a student strays from the designated activity, I could take the privilege away from them and it would state that I would do that. Hopefully that will keep students from straying while using the iPad. I added the iPod Touch because I already have an activity in mind that uses an app that works on both. That way I could allow students to use my iPod Touch and I could get twice as many students using it over the course of the period.  We do already have an Internet Usage agreement that students signed at the beginning of the year. Here is what I came up with:



Also, I want to have an idea of what my students have access to technology wise. My district now has just over 50% of our students on free or reduced lunch. Given that, we do have some students who have access to quite a bit of things. Since I don't have an honest idea of what they do have, I am giving them a survey on our first day back as a bellringer so I can get a better idea of what they do have. Here's the survey:



Both are on box.net in both pdf form (as shown above) and docx form and you are welcome to download them and adjust as needed.

When we get to factoring binomials, the app I am planning on using with my students is DiaMath. Thanks to @crstn85 for the suggestion. By setting it on hard and the minimum number as -10 (or -12) and the maximum as 10 (or 12), it should help students with the skills they need to be able to factor successfully. When we get to the ax^2 + bx + c forms, I use the x-form that DiaMath has as the beginning of the problem, similar to what MissCalcul8 does in her post here.

Next up for me is some screencasting. I haven't totally decided whether I am going to work with ShowMe (app and internet) or Educreations (app and internet). ShowMe has been around for a while. Educreations just came out before Christmas. I will probably try both and see what I am more comfortable with. I would love to hear from people who have used both and to hear opinions as to which one is better.

2012 will be another year of changes and improvements (I hope!) to my teaching. Watch this space as I continue to learn new tricks.

Early Merry Christmas to me

Last week, our principal offered a day of training along with a (school) i-Pad to two of our staff members. We had to submit how we would use the i-Pad in our classroom. Here's what I submitted:

If I were to receive the training and I-Pad, the first way I would use it would be to put together screencasts to upload to the internet for my students. A screencast is when you write on the screen and audio is recorded along with whatever you are writing so that it would be similar to being in the classroom (although they wouldn't see my smiling face). My intent would be to have screencasts for each concept and to use some examples that we went over in class and possibly additional examples as well. Students would be able to view these outside of class to help their understanding of the material. Although there are programs to do this with a computer and our SMARTBoards, it is very difficult to do between having a microphone close enough as you are writing on the board as well as getting the software to work with it. I have read several accounts of teachers doing screencasts and have noted which apps they have used to do it. My understanding is that it is much easier process to record the screencasts on the I-Pad since the microphone is built-in to the I-Pad.

There are also a couple of apps that will allow the I-Pad to control the mouse. It would allow me to write on the SMARTBoard while walking around with the I-Pad, similar to an airliner.

With only having one I-Pad in the classroom, I think for Math it would be challenging to use some of the math apps that are available for students in the classroom. There is a VGA to I-Pad cable available that would hook the I-Pad to the projector and would allow students to see what is happening on the I-Pad screen. I have a couple of thoughts of how this could be used in the classroom. There is an app called Wolfram Alpha that does a lot of mathematics. Although it is available on the internet, having the I-Pad in a student's hand manipulating the mathematics while others are seeing it could be one use of it. Also, in Algebra 2 we study the graphing of parabolas and bringing in Angry Birds could be interesting. When the birds are launched, they have a parabolic path and the path is left up on the screen. Students could find the equation of the parabola and use that to determine what to do next. I know of a teacher who has spoken with the developers of Angry Birds and he indicated that it is to scale, so students could find the equation accurately and go from there. This application does intrigue me a little, but I'd have to do a lot more research before launching it in the classroom (pun intended).

Those are the main thoughts going through my head at the moment. If I am one of the recipients, I would continue to research other viable options to try in the classroom.  Thanks for giving us the opportunity!

I found out today that I am one of the two lucky recipients! Yay me! Now for the somewhat scary part.... 

I know I have seen on Twitter that some of you have done screencasts on i-Pads and I did find some blogs that discussed this (Screencasting Apps for the i-Pad from langwitches.org, ScreenChomp from Teaching Math with Technology are the two I tagged in Diigo), but I'd love to hear from math teachers who have done this and what works well (or doesn't work well).

Does anyone else have any other suggestions of what I could with the i-Pad? I only have one for my classroom and I teach Algebra 2 and Math 1 (think Algebra 1 at a slower pace). Thanks for the help in advance!

Meanwhile, I'm trying to patiently wait until December 20th...