My Math For Elementary Teachers classes finished their first set of projects last week. I got permission to post some of their work on my blog. I think you will be as excited about their work as I am. One of the projects was to write a 30 minute classroom activity, based on one of the lessons from class. They were to use the free online program called Glogster:
Here is the link to the Glog
Here is a link to this Glog
I am having a great time grading these!
A student in one of my Algebra classes emailed me a screenshot of her online homework question:
The question, as you can see, is written horizontally, but she told me in her email that she thinks she would understand it better if she could see it worked out vertically. So, I pulled out my Livescribe Pulse smartpen (which is never too far away) and quickly worked out the problem for her vertically and sent her a link to the pencast on the Livescribe community page.
Here is the solution I sent her:
I was asked recently to write an article for Livescribe about the Math Foundations workshops that were created by the team I was a part of this summer at Mesa Community College. To read about the transformation of Mesa Community College’s Arithmetic course, the article I wrote is posted on the Livescribe Education Blog
The article contains a link to the new Math Foundations website that houses links to all the Livescribe pencasts, Flash animations and workshop handouts created by the team this past summer. Check it out and let me know what you think!
Well, it is a good thing I love most animals! Yesterday morning when I went to check my email I noticed water all over my home office desk, where my Macbook and my Bamboo tablet were sitting. I had mistakenly left a full glass of water on my desk and the cat knocked it over during the night.
I quickly cleaned up the mess as best I could, found out the Macbook is fine (yay!!!!!), but the Bamboo tablet is still sitting in a pan of dry rice trying to revive it. I absolutely cannot live without a pen tablet, so I started researching between a few Wacom tablets (a name I already trusted with my Bamboo).
I was thinking about purchasing a larger tablet this time so I would have a bigger active area to write on. At the same time, I was also considering going for a more sensitive tablet that would pick up angles of the pen, since I mostly use my pen for my hybrid math courses and I have issues writing naturally while trying to hold the pen vertical.
I narrowed my choices down quickly to look at the Bamboo Fun (for the larger area) against the higher end Intuos4 (small) because they both would cost the same price:
After looking at these figures and then going to the store and seeing that the footprint for the Bamboo fun was far more room that I had available on my desk, I decided to purchase the Intuos4 (small). An added bonus I found out was that the small Intuos4 still has a larger active area than my original Bamboo tablet (about 2.5 sq inches more!).
I got my new toy (uh, I mean tool) home, and it was incredibly easy to set up. I noticed a HUGE difference immediately in pressure sensitivity and how well it picked up everything I was writing (it even made my handwriting look better than writing on pen and paper!!). The feel of the tip against the new pad was far more realistic as well, it felt just like writing on paper – only better! I am SO glad I decided to upgrade to the Intuos4! What an amazing difference it made; I can’t wait to make my next mathcast with it!!
So, I guess I should thank the cat for frying my Bamboo tablet, or I would not have needed to replace it for a very long time. It had served me well for many years, and I am sure it would have lasted many more, if the cat hadn’t gotten involved!
I have been spending the past few weeks trying to think of better ways to get my future teachers to be more engaged in their learning. I have decided to model several ideas after a great friend of mine who writes the amazing Teaching College Math blog, Maria Andersen.
Not only am I going to use hands on manipulatives and technology (like I have been) to teach with, but to help my students organize their thoughts and the material for the course, I am going to have them create a Prezi, a Wiki, a Blog and a Mindmap. One fourth of the class will be doing each of these for every test. Each student will rotate through the 4 types of online tools for every test (but not in the same order as the rest of their group). All students will also create a google website to house links to all of their creations and any notes or other information they want to add, along with their service learning journal. The website will be private and they will only share viewing privileges with me. The other 4 online components will be public and shared with the rest of the class.
I am hoping that not only will they have a better feel for the material in each quarter of the course, but it will be theirs to keep online and reuse the ideas and links when they become teachers. It will be helpful for them to study for each test because all 4 types of models will be created by the class for each test, and they will be able to use one another’s to help them study.
I decided I would model some of the types for the students, by creating my syllabus as a Prezi, and also in a mindmap format. (I will write a new blog entry when I finish my mindmapped syllabus).
I thought it would not be as helpful to show them the syllabus in Blog format (they can see this blog for ideas), and my syllabus is already on a website (just not a free google one). I am still contemplating whether to show an example of my syllabus as a wiki.
Here is the first pass at my syllabus as a Prezi:
Math156syllabus on Prezi *the Prezi is now having issues viewing…try THIS LINK
I think I have narrowed it down to have them use the following free online tools:
Prezi (for a free online presentation style of tool)
MindMeister (for a free online mindmapping tool)
Glogster (for a free online fun poster tool))
Wordpress or Blogger (for a free online blog)
Google website for their free online website
I hope they are as excited as I am to learn these great tools and put them into “action”!
Over the past few weeks I have used my Lumens HD 265 Ladibug document camera several times to show hands on materials (manipulatives) and activities online!
Here are a couple of examples of how I used it online:
Ex 1) I taught an online session on how I teach with technology in my classroom. One of the examples I used was to have all my students using fraction pieces while I taught with them from the front of the room.
So the students can see what I am doing with the pieces, the Ladibug document camera can show my hands moving the pieces live during class, projected onto the screen. (These still images and the video below were all taken by the Lumens DC265 Ladibug!!)
To demonstrate this to the participants online, I was able to share my desktop in the session, and show the document camera’s live feed running on my computer screen!
I was even able to toggle back and forth between the Ladibug document camera’s view, and the other programs I was running on my computer to teach the session!
Not only can you show what you are holding and teaching with live through the camera, but the Ladibug HD 265 also records video and audio! Here is the same lesson above, but the video version, which I can now post online for students to see.
(Why won’t the blog let me embed an .mp4 file??)
Ex 2) I was creating a video for my students on how to use the graphing calculator. I no longer need to capture the screen of the calculator using special software!
I can show them which buttons to hit and the screen, all at the same time!
I can even zoom in on the screen so they can see a graph more clearly:
Or zoom in on the equation used to create the graph…
All of this can be done live during class, or I can record the calculator lesson directly from the Ladibug camera and then post the lesson to my website!
Above you can see the menu that “floats” on my desktop when I am using the document camera, making it very easy to switch to any other program or back to the document camera, also allowing me to zoom, take still images and video with the camera!
I can’t wait to teach my Math For Elementary Teacher’s class in a few weeks! No more overhead projector, no more graphing calculator overhead…just the document camera to show all the manipulatives and the calculator both as I teach, and as online lessons for outside of class!
Today I gave a 3 1/2 hour hands-on workshop on teaching with technology, in Tucson, AZ
Looking at the screenshot of my website for the workshop above, you can see the major topics were:
To see the full workshop, along with all the materials presented, you can visit my google website for the workshop. During the workshop I presented with the Mobi, and had the participants often answer questions using the CPS Pulse clickers (eInstruction). It was really a lot of fun!
If you view the workshop website, to have it make more sense, scroll down on the HOME page to see the schedule and follow the links IN ORDER that are in the schedule. When you make a google website, the side links are alphabetical, NOT in the order I presented them in!
The workshop was in a computer lab, so each participant was on a laptop. My 13 (soon to be 14) year old son was my technical helper during the entire workshop, walking around helping anyone who had questions. He also taught the part of the workshop on Animationish! He did a fantastic job and I was very grateful to have him with me! I hope he can help me during my 8 hour workshop I am giving in October! 🙂
In just a couple weeks I will be down in Tucson, AZ giving a hands-on workshop to teachers and administrators. They will have full versions of software in a computer lab to play with!
A representative from the AZ Department of Education emailed me and asked me if I would give a workshop this summer on using technology to teach math, and I jumped at the chance!
I, however, did not write up the introduction to my workshop, as you can see below:
I am actually teaching more than the Livescribe Pulse smartpen in my 3 1/2 hours. I am also going to focus on Animationish (FableVision) and Workspace (eInstruction), along with showing Jing and Google apps. I hope to have time to share a little about Hyperstudio5 as well!
Here is a link to the conference details:
Arizona Career and Technical Education Conference 2010
Hopefully I will see some of you there!
Link to the actual Hyperstudio Stack in HTML5
I had a great time at ISTE! This is the first time I have ever been to a conference and stayed in the vendor area the entire time!
I worked with several companies while I was there. Every day I spent some time in the eInstruction booth showing folks how I use the Mobi, CPS Pulse student response clickers, ExamView and Workspace in my own classes. That was very exciting! I was so busy that I didn’t get any photos of their booth!
I also presented with Jim Marggraff, CEO and founder of the Livescribe Pulse smartpen at a breakfast on Tuesday morning. It was amazing to meet the man who invented the Leap Pad and the Livescribe Pulse smartpen! I presented the next day at their poster session as well.
I spent a lot of time in the FableVision Learning booth as well, with my friends Peter and Paul Reynolds and the FableVision Learning staff! I finally got to meet Peggy Healy Sterns, who created Stationary Studio and The Graph Club (Tom Snyder Productions). She is currently working on a new project called fab@school with FableVision and Mackiev Software (and other great folks). Photos and more information about this project if you click on the photo above!
You can see some photos of my adventure on the link below: It will take you to my Hyperstudio 5 stack on the web. If you are using a Mac, you need to use Safari, and on a PC, you need to use Internet Explorer (there is a plug-in for Hyperstudio for Safari and Internet Explorer). I had fun making it! Be sure to click on the pictures! Some will take you to other websites and some open videos! Pretty neat software created by my great friend Roger Wagner (Mackiev Software sells Hyperstudio 5), who spent some time showing me the ins and outs of Hyperstudio AND a chained Bible from the 1500s! I wish I had a photo of that
I spent some time today playing with my eInstruction CPS Pulse (clickers) and the Mobi software called Workspace. I wanted to create a short “how to” video on getting immediate feedback from your students while teaching a class. One of the best features is that you don’t have to design the questions ahead of time! In this video I will show you how to ask any question during class, get immediate feedback of your class as a whole, and then be able to look at more detailed feedback from individual students at a later time. You can do this at any point during the class, even when the students are asking questions about the homework!
here is a link to the YouTube video
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