GT Update

Today, I'm doing my GT update training and what's interesting is, it's about flipping the classroom which will be my training tomorrow and Thursday :-)

Ted-Ed looks very interesting also.

May and Trying New Things Out

This year I have decided to have my upper level math students create video tutorials for their semester exams.

Implicit differentiation video tutorial

I would say I'm quite impressed with the first one turned in. I'm hoping to have a collection of student made video tutorials by the end of next year. While similar to the Khan Academy video, I think it's powerful for students to hear their peers speaking and working out the problems.

AP Exams, IB Exams and EOC's

This time of year gets crazy for most of us. Getting all our students to do well in their AP/IB exams and this year EOC's and TAKS. So it's always great to find new apps that can help students work and review independently. A new iPad app called "Gooru" was just released and so far I'm liking the way it keeps related materials as a collection.

Some of the videos seem to be blocked by the district network filters so I'm going to see how well the videos work when I get home today or this afternoon by just using my hotspot to access the videos in each collection.

The site and links are being curated by educators so that's a good thing so only relevant material is put into a collection. But being a new service the collections are by no means complete. Hopefully it will get better as time passes.

Just in time for Texas Digital Awareness Week

Quib.ly is a great site for parents who are not as tech savvy as their kids. It has a bunch of resources for parents so that they can understand what the digital age is about.

Best free calculator app

MyScript Calculator is a free calculator app available for iOS and Android. It takes handwritten input which makes it really easy to use.

PLN's ( Personal Learning Networks )

While this looks very interesting, I have not had a chance to connect to other teachers online. I think i'll set this up in summer months when  I have more time to do this. I'm currently reading and researching flipping the classroom and this would be a great way to start my PLN with teachers who are excellent in how they implement flipping their classrooms.

After today's meeting, I feel much better about developing my PLN. I do follow people and topics on twitter and through RSS feeds and all the sources on my infographic.

I'm now following 3 Tech Ninja's. Although I like the Reflection app I think I'm just going to get myself an AppleTv or just bring one of my Apple TV's from home and a Kanex HDMI to VGA converter for my classroom..

Reflection on January Article

I've used many of the web 2.0 tools I have learned as an ETrainer. There are a few I particularly like since my students love them also. Edmodo being the first on on the list since I can posts all notes, assignments and other school related stuff on it. What I may want to do next school year is give the kids 90 minutes every other night where I will be actively monitoring Edmodo and answer any of their questions during said  90 minutes.

As upper school math department chair, i also set up an Edmodo account for all the math teachers at WAIS so we can communicate and post on it without having to search our emails which gets pretty full throughout the week. Important documents are shared through Edmodo.

I use Edmodo for student reflections which also makes very easy to track students replies.

While I have tried blogging before, students are not particularly receptive with leaving comments on the blog. I find they leave more comments on Edmodo. I guess they feel more secure on Edmodo.

I'm also a Mac person so I find most tools on a Mac easier to use than PC based or web based apps. But I consider myself lucky that i can easily work with both OS with no problems.

While I've used Stupeflix, I find iMovie much easier to use but I can understand why Stupeflix is better for most students since many don't have personal iMacs or MacBooks to work with.

I wish there were more online support for my higher level math courses. Khan Academy and WolframAlpha are great but it's more video presentations which I think is great but not really geared for higher level thinking skills.

I guess we all choose what we feel comfortable with with all the tools available to us and stick to it and get really good at using it.