Quick Quizzes for Practice

Posted on by
Reply

Screen Shot 2014-04-04 at 9.06.33 AM
Ever have a time where you wished you had short, quick quizzes for kids just to pre-test or even post-test at the end of a unit before moving on? Give thatquiz.org a shot. You can select concepts in math, geography, science, and foreign languages and then even drill down into details like number of questions or time allowed if you wish. Students don’t have to register. They just use the test code you give them.

Registration is free and teachers who register receive complete record-keeping of student grades. They have access to more precise test-generation tools, can create single tests with questions from different categories, can create matching and multiple choice questions, and can access a public test library.
Screen Shot 2014-04-04 at 9.16.50 AM

Anyway, it’s good to know I still have some algebra skills.
Screen Shot 2014-04-04 at 9.10.46 AM

Digital Storytelling in Math

Posted on by
Reply

Rafranz Davis is an amazing math teacher. Her passion for all kids to be successful in math is contagious, as is her passion for all math teachers to engage their students. She spends her spare time sharing great tools for use in math that will draw the kids into the lessons. Check out her video below on different tools for different devices to integrate digital storytelling into the math class. It is from this blog post. Obviously, it works in all classes, but she discusses math.

Be sure to check out her blog or follow her on Twitter, too.

Making Twitter Matter

Posted on by
Reply

There is a great post I read recently titled “3 Reasons Why the School Principal Needs to Tweet.” Honestly, it could say “teacher” in the place of “principal” because the list just makes good sense. Below is the short synopsis of the post, but be sure to click on the link above to read the entire thing. Keep in mind that you can embed your Twitter feed into the sidebar of your blog for parents and students to follow.

1. Students Need Social-Media Role Models.

…. students need a role model that shows them how social media is an incredibly powerful tool. It’s a media channel — for free. It’s the ability to get your message out there. It’s the ability to be the change you want to see in the world, regardless of how much bank you have (yes, I said that).

2. What About the Budget? No Cost Necessary

Forget the budget. Launching a Twitter and Pinterest handle, along with a Facebook page, costs zilch — nada — nothing.

3. What can you do with a Tweet, Pin, and Like?

Here’s the formula:

Step 1: Assign a school leader to write a blog post each week that tells the story of something amazing happening in the school (a.k.a. the good news). This could be a student who ran 95 yards for the touchdown or the school club that put together its first community walk to raise awareness for Lyme disease.

Step 2: Create a Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook page. Include a link to the school’s main blog to direct readers to it. Below are the benefits of each social media platform.

Twitter: Craft 3-5 daily tweets that stay on the positive. You can get really serious and include interesting facts to feed the students’ minds (i.e. Einstein quotes or “on this day…”) Or, you can crack a joke here and there and be human. Or, you can ask students and parents to wear a white ribbon to honor “insert event here”.

Facebook: Use this like a blog if you don’t run a blog on the school’s server (though you should), but disable comments. You don’t need any trolls pretending you’re not awesome. Post pictures of the school leaders and teachers smiling. Students smiling.

Step 3: Keep it up. It takes time to develop the benefits from having an online presence. However, through time, the community and your students will start seeing how to use social media wisely and will have more reason to believe in the school system.

As always, let me know if you’d like my help getting things setup. I’d be more than happy to work with you on it.

Adding Movement to Math (or any subject) with Technology

Posted on by
Reply

I thought this was a great idea worth sharing. It is similar to what Robin White does with her middle school math students. It’s easier to setup than you think. I’d be happy to help you design something similar for your students. Even if you don’t have the devices in your room, the kids have them in their pockets. Give it a try!

Paper Slide Video + Youtube Capture App

Posted on by
1

The following is a cross posting from Shelly Hugghins’s iPod blog.

I asked my Spanish I students to review content topics by creating some paper slide videos to demonstrate their ownership of content at the end of semester one.  First, and most importantly, I explained the concept of a paper slide video, then asked them their opinions on the relevance of the activity.  After careful thought, my students felt this would be a great review method. 

We identified certain topics for review, and the students promptly began to work on their slides.  We decided to use the Youtube Capture app on our iPads to film the videos.  This choice turned out to be super easy and convenient for a few reasons:

  • Students already have Gmail accounts with Youtube channels
  • Students already have eportfolios established via our student blogs
  • Youtube Capture makes pulling clips together to create a video extremely user friendly
  • Students shoot the video inside the app, finish the editing process, send the video to upload and publish to their channel seamlessly

Of course, if you are shooting paper slide videos, there is really no need to worry about clips.  But, my Spanish II students also used this app to shoot their Christmas cookie videos, which did require them to shoot in sections or clips.

In both cases, my students rated the app very highly for these reasons:

  • Ease of use
  • Students were already familiar with Youtube
  • No need to create a new account for yet another app
  • Students could edit more easily than in iMovie if they needed to edit their cookie video
  • Processing time for the videos was very short
  • Youtube Capture + Paper slide video was a great way to review and share what they had learned

Here is an example video created by one of my Spanish I students for review of expressing a few of her likes and dislikes in Spanish:

The student feedback was so positive that I will continue to offer students the opportunity to demonstrate their learning in this way going forward.  However, I won’t wait until the end of the semester for review.  I am going to add this as an assignment or testing choice as we move through our content.  Do you have students create paper slide videos?  If so, what apps or tools do you use to process and share your videos?  Have you or your students used the Youtube Capture app?  I would love to hear about your experiences.