evangelizing the (digital) natives

More Reflection on the Flipped Classroom

2011-09-12T08:49:00.000-05:00

Found an infographic today about the Flipped Classroom (or reverse instruction). I thought a lot through it last year in this post, and still wish I could make it a reality for my own classroom. Last year one of my problems was inequity among my students of internet access at home, which I'm perceiving is less of an issue this year. But, with three preps this year I feel like the load of online lecture creation is too heavy to really make it happen.

I have had a measure of success this year with Edmodo.com getting my kids logged on to ask me questions, share resources, and complete some assignments. The kids have gravitated to it much more than I expected. It largely replicates what I share on my class facebook page, so I thought kids would use that primarily to avoid having another website to login to, but perhaps the fact that its NOT facebook is the appeal.

Here's the infographic - check out the failure rate decreases cited toward the bottom.

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

AP Stats Teacher Advice (from a vet, not me)

2011-08-30T16:46:00.004-05:00

As a part of my can't-believe-I'm-teaching-ap-stats preparations, I signed up for the electronic discussion group via the College Board's website. Following along with the discussion via my email inbox makes me feel oh-so 2002, but there have been a few helpful nuggets of advice, discussion, or desperation that have given me better perspective and preparedness.

Doug Tyson, of Central York High School in York, PA offered up this advice today on the EDG for me and my fellow first-years.

Subject: Are you a new AP Stats teacher?

If no, then read no further.

If yes, I will break one of my long-standing rules in order

to write this message. That rule is "Never offer un-asked-for

advice." Although it has served me well over the years,

recent posts on this group have prompted me to offer 1 or 2

thoughts. You are warned that these come from my very

own mind - read with eyes wide open...

1) Don't be afraid to admit to yourself, other AP teachers,

and your students that some of the material is subtle and

that you're still learning Statistics.

2) Real data are subtle and often break rules-of-thumb. Be

wary of inviolate rules in Statistics, as they are often really

rules-of-thumb in disguise.

3) Think deeply about the ideas. Get your students to do the

same.

4) Ask questions on this EDG. It's a safe place to learn.

There are lots of really knowledgable people here - I know

some of them, and they're really nice people. And they

were all new Stats teachers at one point in their lives.

5) Read everything about Statistics you can get your hands on.

6) Develop a sense of wonder about the world around you.

Develop the same in your students. Statistics (in one view)

is about understanding the world based on measurable evidence.

The world is your laboratory and playground. Have fun!

Regards,

Doug

(former new AP Stats teacher)

The EDG isn't as handy for me as Twitter, but I can't bring myself to unsubscribe.

Browser-based Interactive Notebook Software - Desmos

2011-06-24T22:28:00.000-05:00

Have you ever...

Panicked because your interactive whiteboard's software stopped working?
Wished you could edit your whiteboard lessons from home without installing more software?
Wished you could share/email your whiteboard lesson to a parent or student with the same interactivity they would have with your file in class? (NOT a pdf, .doc, or ppt)
Wanted to embed your lesson content on your class blog or website?
Wanted an easy to use graphing calculator online?

Web start-up Desmos recently presented at TechCrunch Disrupt with a browser-based solution to interactive whiteboard software that is not dependent on any branded hardware OR software. Our district uses SMART Notebook and can port those lessons at express.smarttech.com, which I've used this summer on the laptop I'm projecting from that doesn't have the software installed. It's better than nothing, but its functionality is scaled down dramatically to basically opening files, inserting text, and drawing freehand. You can't even insert images.

The software is still in alpha testing (as of the end of May), but I've applied for an account and hopefully will be able to play before the new school year starts.

Oh, BTW, I haven't even gotten to the graphing calculator that IS already live! (Which may end up being an even bigger deal; color-coded, cartesian and polar coordinates, zooming, sharing, integration with the whiteboard app)

Here's some video:
Graphing calculator -

Desmos founder, Eli Luberoff, at TechCrunch Disrupt -

You can read the original article from TechCrunch here.

Things you might also be interested in:
Other online graphing calculators:
graph.tk - HTML 5 grapher. Color-coding, zooming, screenshots
Graph Drawer - color-coding, point and function plotting, save as .png, not as user-friendly

Other whiteboard tools:
express.smarttech.com - Create basic SMART Notebook files and open any previously saved
www.dabbleboard.com - Doodle freehand and make shapes, insert images, sharing

Open Source (everything)

2011-05-16T22:12:00.000-05:00

I found an infographic via a Twitter follow about open-source textbooks from onlineschools.org. (Graphic to follow) The people at Flatworld Knowledge offer free e-books with extra options for self-print, black and white copies, and full color copies. Much to the tune of any other open-source project, the info is reliable (if you generally believe in the reliability of open-source projects), and DRAMATICALLY cheaper. I don't imagine that any of my EdTech books for my upcoming last semester will be available, but they've got several business titles, so anyone steering toward an MBA route is going to have more options.

I'm interested to see where these go. (Only one math title to choose from for now.)

Via: Online Schools

The Day 2nd Hour Functions "Got" It.

2011-03-02T18:48:00.000-06:00

Contrary to some teachers worst fears (and, I suspect, most "old-timers"), I long for the day when students and their parents figure out that I don't have all of the math knowledge they could ever need in their lives. I try to promote this by encouraging my students to search YouTube.com, BrightStorm.com, or khanacademy.org when they're at home and need additional tutoring, and by also encouraging them to help each other. I even introduced a new standard in my gradebook this semester that aligns to peer-communication and presentations. (Although I have yet to make good on my promise to use it).

Tuesday was one of those days where the "sage on the stage" was behaving quite un-sage-like. I wasn't very well prepared for the lesson because I had needed to have a conversation with our precalc teacher before school about the necessity of one of the lessons I was thinking of doing this week in terms of preparing my students that will be going on to him.

After probably 10 minutes of word-stumbling and some ineffective instruction, one of the kids said, "Hey, why don't we just get a YouTube video?" Ding! "Great idea!" I said, as a ran over to the computer to search the channels of some of our favorites. The rest of the period went much, much better as we watched a few videos and I served as expert tutor/guide instead of guest lecturer mathematician.

Thinking back to those "old-timers"... ...maybe they would just say that I need to have my lessons more prepared and that this was proof of the ultimate teacher #FAIL, but I see it as evidence of learning. When the sage on the stage paradigm fails, my learners are finally free to explore and trust their intuition.

Flipping the Classroom (Week 1)

2011-01-24T17:12:00.000-06:00

(or, to YouTube, or not to YouTube... That is the question.)

The first thing I learned this week is that that is probably a correlation between the quality and clarity of the materials I create/share online for my students and their likelihood of having those materials prepared when they get to class.

That brings me to the trouble of time. It seems ideal to create my own videos so I can control the content, elude to events from class, and point students to more resources, but to create a worthwhile video takes me at least an hour at this point after I am done filming/screencasting, editing, and uploading. Creating my own content also makes burning to DVDs or CDs much easier, which is important for making a flipped classroom feasible for my students without web access. This almost seems manageable for one course, but getting it done for two courses at the same time, right now, seems daunting. My first solution is to compile playlists of the best videos, which is mostly what I did for last week. When chosen thoughtfully, I think a playlist of others' videos is almost as good, and kind of has me feeling like I have a co-teacher.

But here's the dilemma. Many students that don't have web access at home make the wise choice to use their lunch or other free time in the building to go to a lab and view course materials and check their online grades when they can. My students could have viewed their notes from last week this way IF YouTube was not blocked for student accounts. The advantage of YouTube is critical mass of content. When a student views one of my videos or one I share, if he wants to see a different video, the largest library of related content is on YouTube. There is related content on unblocked sites like Vimeo or TeacherTube, but just not as much. Something I need to work out.

Assessment of Week 1:
We were off Monday for MLK Day as mentioned in the last post, and then had snow days on Thursday and Friday, so there's really not even enough experience to grade. Informal early reports suggest that my older students were more likely to have accessed the content from home.
Things to Change for Week 2:
Not a whole lot to adjust yet because half of my content/lesson plan from last week is still on the table. I did not call/email parents to let them know notes/videos were available, which I know should be one element of success, but that was partially because I was not totally pleased with what I was offering last week. I already had an email attachment debacle a couple weeks ago during a snow day, so I did not want to lose some parents by pushing crap out to the masses. However, I will...

email/call parents
focus on ONE of my courses to improve quality of content
put some videos on Vimeo (can those uploads be linked to YouTube?)

Flipping My Classroom (Initial Thoughts)

2011-01-18T01:48:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow's the big day! Sort of.

As with when I jumped into trying to implement standards-based grading with little more than a day's preparation last January, tomorrow I begin my week-long pilot of flipping, reverse, backwards classroom. I really like the idea of it, and watching videos here and here, and following @drezac was pretty motivating and they seem to make it work, but I know that I am going to run into some difficulties. If I could, BRIEFLY, go through the ADDIE model to digest what lay before me, I will.

Analyze
What initially turned me on to the idea of "flipping" my classroom is that I felt like I was spending a lot of time covering examples and giving notes that my kids needed, but was severely lacking in helping my kids and coaching them along. I built a "co-teacher" standard into my evaluations this semester to encourage the spirit some kids will inevitably foster of helping their peers and doubling my efforts, but I want to do more. "The Rage" as we like to call it at North most often comes out toward me when the kids are just frustrated. I hope to increase my one-on-one time with students and small groups of students.

Design/Develop
On Friday I gave all of my classes the heads up on my intentions for this week and informally polled the class on who did not have internet or a smartphone to potentially watch videos and only ran into a few that (admitted) to having a problem with those capabilities. I actually expected for more of those situations from my experience last year, so I'd been racking my brain, colleagues, and PLN trying to come up with alternatives to online videos. I KNOW that most everyone has a DVD player at home, so ideally for those students without internet I would burn DVDs for, and secondarily would put the files on a CD/DVD-ROM for kids to open the files on an offline computer.

Last week we had a snow day and I emailed all my parents and students about a video I had posted and I got at least 1/4 participation, so I'm optimistic about levels of participation at home and support from parents.

Implement
I started making my own videos for my two courses today. The advantage to making my own is that I can make for certain that everything on there is concise and tailored to where I'm going, and also makes the content easily transferable to DVD. The disadvantage, obviously, is that it takes a LOT more time than using someone else's video. Another limitation for me at home is that in order to get clean audio, I need to either be away from my 1 yr old or she needs to be sleeping. That was not an option for me today, so uploading my own to YouTube was awash.

The new challenge, for me then, is how will I get notes and instruction to my offline kids without having my own content to push to them? For those that are online, I ended up making two playlists on YouTube for their respective subjects for the week and embedded the playlists on Edline, our district website server.

Evaluate
I'm a little disappointed about not exactly coming out on top of things on the preparation side, but that's more acceptable when adopting innovations for one class versus an entire organization. There are fewer consequences to adoption on smaller scales. I was pleased with coaching my students last week, and am pleased with my lesson plan for tomorrow to get things rolling.

I wonder what the other math teachers will think... I DID get an endorsement from @aunthattie on my DVD burning idea.

Web Publishing Requires Some Humility...

2010-11-15T17:03:00.002-06:00

I taught myself another lesson, today. I've been warning the Functions students for almost a week now that they were going to have a project coming up instead of another quiz over material from chapter 3, about transforming functions. I also told them that they were going to do most of their work online, and submit their project to me via the class facebook wall, or via email to be posted by myself.

Some students seemed interested with the prospect, but I had a couple of students who were very resistant to putting their work out there for everyone to see.

"But Mr. Baker, I don't want to everyone to see my grade."
"What if I don't do very well? Everyone will know!"

My response to them was one that I adhere to myself before posting things on here or sharing things on Twitter of facebook.

If you're worried about what other people will think about the work you've done, then make sure that you submit work that you know you are proud of. There's nothing to be ashamed of if there's nothing in your work to carry shame about.

With that in mind, I shared a recent group project from my "Learning with the Internet" class last night on the Twitter hashtag #edtech, and even had someone retweet it to pass our wiki on. I felt pretty good. The first bookmark is our work. While checking the class discussion board this morning, I found out that another group had also done their project on Diigo.com! The second bookmark is the other group's work.

islt9440 - Group 7: Diigo for Education - About diigo.com
My group for my grad class, "Learning with the Internet" created this wiki about using and implementing Diigo in the classroom.
tags: diigo collaboration bookmarking lesson plans educator
Student Learning with Diigo
One of the groups in my grad class, "Learning with the Internet" created this apge.
tags: diigo collaboration bookmarking lesson plans educator

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

So, what's the lesson, here? Well, first of all, there was a nice lesson in humility. :) But moreso, I'd say that the same thing I told my students about their future project holds true for myself. I felt confident turning in that wiki for our group work. I knew I had created a well thought out sample lesson, was proud of the way I had initiated our group's norms for communication on the wiki, and thought we had a good amount of knowledge on the site for a curious teacher to happen upon.

At first I was just stricken with panic over how much more professional in appearance group 8's Google site was. After the fear subsided, however, I was able to appreciate how well thought-out the page was and was able to escape envy and shame. I congratulated the group on a job well done.

Changing "Authorship" in the 21st Century

2010-10-19T20:12:00.000-05:00

In my Learning with Internet course, we were challenged to watch this video and post a response on our discussion board. My emphasis was on the end of the video, but is thoughtful throughout. My response is after the vid.

Digital, hyper, dynamic text is forcing us to re-evaluate our understanding of what is copyright worthy, what is "authorship", and plagarism.

When anyone can be an author using WYSIWYG web-editing platforms (of which I am also writing right now), and text from anywhere else can be copy and pasted into those platforms, I think plagarism and copyrighted material get a little hairier to find. Sure, someone who has not also established credibility on a topic is not able to pass someone else's ideas off as their own (for instance, if I were to suddenly have a swath of knowledge about raising thoroughbreds), but someone already known in the field could more easily accomplish the task.

To quote Dash from The Incredibles, "When everyone is special, no one is." Can we apply it to 21st century authorship? "When everyone can be a "credible" author, then no one can?"

On another plagarism thought, I was astounded to find out last spring that I had seniors in my math class who thought they had not "plagarized" because they had not copy and pasted, but rather hand typed the text into a project. "I wrote it myself," he said. I think the biggest influence on authorship from video and multimedia on the web is that the mash-up or remix is viewed as a "new" project by many. Personally, I think this is a Reader's Digest approach to creativity.

"Your Rational Expressions Quiz Will Be Online Today..."

2010-05-17T11:20:00.002-05:00

or, "Lessons in Network Management", or, "The Day I Learned NOT to Over-Embed"

These were my words today after spending 5+ hours last night and this morning perfecting my Google Form and handwriting in the rational expressions using my tablet. With grand plans of going to our math computer lab and having the students enter their answers on my form with different quiz versions on the right-hand side of the page on ppt slides, I anxiously waited for the kids to log on.

And we waited. And waited. Then kids were logged in and we waited for the page to load. And then, we were waiting...

...for this.

After 10 minutes with some kids still waiting for the embedded docs to load, I had to make the mad dash upstairs to photocopy hard copies of the slides (shame on me for not having a back-up plan, I guess :/ ). During my prep, I thought I got the issues ironed out. I hesitantly returned with my students to the lab with a prelude of, "It WILL take a long time, just be patient." This class has more students, so of course, the network was jammed even worse.

My 4th hour was smaller today, so more were able to navigate the page, but I would still rule it a failure. Thankfully, I'm on lunch now with another pseudo-prep to follow, so I can regroup and re-evaluate my strategies. Did I embed to much on the page in the spirit of trying to ease navigation? Is it worth trying to redesign the page? Does someone around here WANT me to use up the A/V paper supply before the year runs up?

My 3rd hour co-teacher said today, "Man, you'd be in business if you had a school with good, new technology... ...but then you'd probably go!" I don't know if that's totally true - I usually like the challenge of trying to make things work here, and I know I'm needed here (and my loans get repaid after 5 years), but I can't say it isn't tempting.

Things I wonder:
If I create a separate page for each doc, would it load faster?
Am I fighting a losing battle?
Can I at least try and use this again next year?

Lessening My Lesson Load

2010-03-15T10:00:00.003-05:00

This photo was taken from my camera phone right after 1st hour was over. I read pieces of a book over Christmas Break called Never Work Harder Than Your Students, and those few pages did a lot to free my time and rethink the priorities of my time in the classroom. I think it has improved my instruction because I've had to be more creative in order to present my lessons with "less" work.

One factor that significantly contributes to my workload is rewriting notes and homework assignments on a different board when I move between the 3 different classrooms I travel to. Using the SMARTboard for notes and interactive tools alleviates some of this hourly repetition, but if the computer is down or the server is slow, then I end up having to use the whiteboard and rewriting notes in subsequent classrooms.

The kids give me some trouble over having my cellphone out, but I think it models good mobile device use, which is a good thing.

8 YEAR REPLACEMENT CYCLE?!

2010-03-11T17:20:00.000-06:00

I heard today from someone "in the know" at my school that given the EXTREME budget shortfall we are experiencing, the 4 yr PC replacement cycle plan we had been on (and my school would have reached next year) has been extended to an EIGHT YEAR cycle.

Really? That has to be a joke, right? I mean the computer I bought in 2002 for college still gets a little use in the basement, but I've upgraded the RAM since then and paid some more then so I could get some extended use out of it. Our school machines, most surely, went to the lowest bidder, and are beginning to die a painful death. (Although I'm not sure if the death is more painful for the machines, or for the teachers' whose lesson plans are thwarted whenever one goes down.)

My only assumption is that admin across the parking lot is really just holding out for some sweet grant that magically wishes us new machines. I'm quite understanding that attempting to extend the lives of our current machines is probably a good idea fiscally (and I would even probably end up trying to snag a few of our current machines for in-class use if they WERE to be replace "on time."). It's just hard to shrug off my envy frustrations when I read about lesson plans using iPod touches and the bubbling excitement over the possibilities of integrating iPads when I'm looking toward a future relationship with an 8-year-old PC.

Finally, while I'm at it, anyone with money to share want to upgrade the computers in the McCluer North math department? Doesn't hurt to send out a call, right?

Personalizing the Ed Experience

2010-03-11T07:29:00.005-06:00

Lu found her feet this morning.

You try to share some of your personal life with your students, but my life lives in social media, not on celluloid. So, instead of being able to share a facebook picture with my classes, I have to jump through hoops and email/save/upload. More difficult than it needs to be!

Battling the Tech Learning Curve

2010-02-10T15:03:00.000-06:00

Is it poorly designed tech that sometimes has a steep learning curve, or does it just depend on the skill?

Last year our school got our first set of student response clickers (ours are from Turning Technologies), and as a techie, I was very excited to give 'em a go. My dept. chair and I sat for at least an hour one afternoon learning how to develop interactive slides integrated into PowerPoint and practicing the actual polling process. There was certainly a learning curve, but we eventually figured it out and were hopeful at the promise of our new toy. I never ended up checking the set out last school year, but several did, and student response was postitive.

This year during one of our district professional development days several of the math teachers had a chance to go to a session about using these clickers in the classroom for formative assessments. They learned how to make slides, create session reports for easily entering students answers as graded assignments, and a few bells and whistles to boot. I was busy leading my own session that day, so I missed out on the collaboration.

After finding Poll Everywhere through an #edtech tweet, I actually decided to ditch the district clickers and hold out for the day when my kids could just use their cell phones. The reasons I liked Poll Everywhere were simple:

(with sacrificing some functionality) it's Free
The interface is pretty user friendly
No hardware to keep track of
No hardware issues to destroy my lesson
Possibilities for short-answer responses (Turning Technologies makes clickers that make this possible also, but we do not have this model.)
Students love using their cell phones anyway

But still, teachers were using those clickers, students were engaged, and I began to feel left out waiting for my day that is still a long time coming. So last week I signed up for the clickers and sat down to create PowerPoint lesson with those interactive slides. To my utter frustration, I'D FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING. I left school that day after slaving at those slides for 45 minutes with nothing to show for it and dejectedly crossed my name off the clicker list for the next day.

What does it mean, then, if a teacher comfortable with tech (who has already once learned the basics of the software or hardware) gets frustrated enough with its implementation that even they give up? Was I expecting too much to have a bicycle-type experience? Or does Turning Technologies need to make its PowerPoint plug-in more intuitive?

Are there other tech toys or software that have given you a similar experience?

Facebook in the Classroom: Should I Heed the Warnings?

2010-02-01T09:00:00.001-06:00

First off: I WISH. I think that using it as a networking tool COULD be worth exploring. I understand from a liability (and time-wasting) perspective that the risks are probably too great to open up school use. So we'll experiment with use on the other side of the firewall.

Last night I dipped my toe into the Facebook pool for use with my classes. I set up a fan page for Mr. C Baker's Math Class and plan to use it as a communication tool for both students and parents and a holding place for notes, links, and resources.

My fears are not founded upon students finding incriminating photos of past transgressions (nor present). I am not concerned with crossing any lines of professionalism in interacting with students online (because I do not believe I am). I do not fear opening my classroom or teaching to criticism from the outside (because it brings accountability and transparency with it). I have been a believer even since student teaching that if you are afraid or wary of observations and eyes in your classroom, then you probably know that there are deficiencies in some manner of your teaching (and need to be humble enough to address them).

So, then, the fear I do keep is in boundaries for myself. As it is so natural for me to interact on Facebook for my personal social networking, I worry about being sucked in with the allure of building "fans," addressing students' and parents' questions, and monitoring my discussion board to see if students are using it. What can I say; I'm a sucker for unique hits. I think this is a healthy fear, however. A fear that springs from self-awareness of my weaknesses and obsessions is a fear that keeps me in check. It's a fear for improvement.

In the end, I'd say my Facebook fan page is really just an extention of having my own class website on freewebs with discussion board, or my class twitter account. I know there are many educators (including the official NEA stance on the subject) that would criticize my decision; even some close to me. I guess all I'd have to say to them, is that I reserve all rights to act now and ask for forgiveness later. I think that has to be the nature of any educator acting as an early adopter of technologies.

We'll see how it goes!

Prezi for Math Notes

2010-01-25T21:03:00.001-06:00

Prezi is a presentation tool that allows you to create concept maps and notes on a single canvas. You can zoom in and out, create frames for emphasis, resize text, doodle, and map paths to create a slideshow. Think tag cloud on steroids as one analogy.

I'm sure that it would work great in an English, Social Studies, Science (minus chemistry equations), or other general elective class, but using it for math notes is a big chore. Writing in the presentation is easy enough, but you cannot permanently group the numbers together (as is a snap in SMART Notebook), which makes resizing written text next to impossible.

So, all told, it took me about 2 hrs to create this. To best understand a Prezi, check out mine.

It probably goes without saying, but my Prezi does not nearly capture the potential for the tool. Much better examples and ideas exist on their website.

Math use: Unless I get dramatically faster at creating these notes, Prezi's practicality is nearly nonexistent when compared to just jotting notes in my IWB software. The extra pizazz could be worth it occasionally, however. One thing I really like is the ability to embed my Prezi into this blog or an assignment on our district's class website/news service, Edline.

Other word of note: The computers at our school are going on 3 years old, so keeping up rendering the javascript was quite a task for them. It worked better at home on the laptop from this summer.

Just When I Thought I Wasn't (Comparatively) OLD.

2010-01-23T21:05:00.002-06:00

There's much to write (and has been written) about how the exponential growth and expansion of technologies (and the internet) is creating micro-generations and expanding generation gaps between those. As someone who my peers acknowledge as tech "being my thing," I've largely ignored and dismissed the idea as being applicable to myself. Yes, being 27, my age group is on the edge of "growing up on the internet," but I've always been an early adopter. Since I've grown right along with the internet, I did not fully remember the stark contrast of computing without it.

"Were there even computers before the internet?"

"Of course! Don't you know they were invented in the 40s? All kinds of computing was being done on computers before the internet. People published papers and wrote books..."

"That's what typewriters are for..."

"Yeah, but what if you need more than one copy? You'd have to type it all over again!"

"No, people would go get it Xeroxed."

Of course, I knew that business and then personal computers had revolutionized the way that people conducted business, designed, and published, but this student had already gotten me thinking. When we went to the computer lab in elementary school, there was not much offered us beyond word processing, Oregon Trail, and (for gifted program kids) LOGO programming (which we didn't really understand). How much less useful was the personal computer in the 80s? The 90s? How much money did individuals and corporations spend on software and utilities that had to be installed on individual machines that is now hosted online? Just the fact that I even knew a life before being wired(less) was so natural gives me a completely different perspective on the internet and smart devices.

Think about it - do you even touch your computer when your internet connection is down? Do we use unwired computers less because there is drastically less potential, or because we have been become dependent on web-based apps and file storage that we cannot access when unconnected? How many lesson-planning resources do you use NOT online?

No More Flashdrives?

2010-01-20T08:58:00.000-06:00

I heard from a fellow teacher in my school this week that IT is going to be banning the use of flashdrives in district computers next year for security purposes.

It makes sense - the ability to boot smaller operating systems like Linux or OS 9 from a thumbdrive, or any game (aside from any malicious file that can be introduced) poses a security risk that twarts all the firewalls and access guidelines the district can proactively employ. Even the most well-meaning, innocent user could unknowingly contract a worm on their home machine and then transfer it to the district server when opening their lesson for the day. 'Nough said; I get the reasons.

The question that came to mind when I breezily shared this with a class yesterday was this: do we even need flashdrives anymore? Certainly as an alternative to floppys, CDs, and ZIP disks the flashdrive was a welcome addition. However, with growing free space on district servers, remote access to shared space from email/IM/news clients like FirstClass, and the recently announced free space for any file in Google docs, are they even necessary?

Could you live without your flashdrive?

Using Perudo to Explore Probability

2010-01-15T09:24:00.086-06:00

After playing the dice game Perudo at a friend's house several NYE's ago, I've been trying to find a way to work the game into a classroom setting to explore and practice everyday application of simple probabilities.

Summer school is usually a good setting for these types of explorations also, but I just never got around to it in there.

Finally this year in my 6th responsibility I have a class of 9th graders with the only guidelines for the class being to provide a structure and support system for these at-risk students. In addition to enforcing organization and study skills from last semester this semester my team of core area teachers are also each taking a day a week as enrichment for our area. Here's a link to today's (and perhaps next week's) activity. Paraphrase of rules courtesy of this ehow page.

I'll report later how it goes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day One:
The intention today was to go through the rules, have the two groups play through once, and then reflect on the discussion questions. We got started a little later than I thought we would, so we only had time for both groups to play through once.

Here are my thoughts:
Preparation:

This really started out as an idea the morning of before I left my home because I wasn't feeling 100% ready to successfully begin a podcast/mathematician research project I've been gathering materials for. Because of that, my fellow core teachers in the class had no prior warning and I don't think I was able to use them as successfully as I could have.
Having the rules as a handout for the students to look at individually was very helpful as we walked through a practice round.
Having experience myself playing the game was also helpful - I'm not sure how much - but it helped me coach the students through game-play and secretly leading them to the exploration I had in mind.

Execution:

Because two students were absent, the numbers worked out that a teacher was able to play along with each using the sets of dice I had. This helped in monitoring on-task behavior, in coaching through game-play, and I'm sure in facilitating the discussion for part two.
My only regret is that because I had not met w/ my teachers before the lesson to share my intentions, the 2nd group was given an intro to the probabilities behind decision making in the game as they played along. Perhaps this was actually a better way to immerse the learning into the game, but my concern is that it will affect the true discovery moment I was envisioning.

Future planning:

Since we didn't get to the reflection questions, they are delayed until next Friday when it is math day again. Reflecting the next day would have been okay, but I'm afraid some insightful nuggets will be lost throughout the coming week.
Fred coaching the other group on probabilities could end up being to our advantage, however, because that group now has prior knowledge to contribute to the discussion once we get to that this next lesson.
When we play next time I want the kids to be very mindful of the probabilities behind the game and using them to make good decisions based on the number of dice in play, but I have two options for accomplishing that: (1) Have the students create their own probability charts to reference while playing, or (2) Distribute a chart I found online and teach them how to use it. This option would take less time, I think, but I don't know if that really matters.

DAY ONE Conclusion:

Overall, I was very pleased with how my admittedly under-planned lesson turned out. The kids really enjoyed the game and were engaged the whole period; even once they had lost all of their dice. I think this was a great intro to probabilities. My only foreseeable problem for future math days is this: How do I follow this up with the next game exploration?

New Link Added

2009-03-31T13:24:00.002-05:00

We have been using a website in Geometry class to help practice with simplifying radicals. The link to the site and F.O.I.L, times table, and factoring practice is in the "links and resources" tab.

And here.

This site is good for Algebra 1 through Calculus!

QUIZZES ON MONDAY, 2/9/09

2009-02-06T15:43:00.002-06:00

The Geometry Quiz will cover lessons 8.4 and 8.5, Area of a Regular Polygon and Area of a Circle. Students will be able to use the formulas note organizer we made in class today on the colored paper.

Algebra 1's quiz is over Elimination by Addition and Subtraction and Elimination by Multiplication (5.3 and 5.4). Students will be able to use their Solving Systems note organizer we have been working on all chapter.

If you have any last minute questions this weekend, shoot Mr. Baker an email or post it to the forums! Good luck!

Obama Effect - EXTRA CREDIT

2009-02-02T17:16:00.002-06:00

New extra credit posted on the forums! Please email or bring in your completed work to Mr. Baker instead of posting your answers to the forum. This extra credit is available until FEBRUARY 13TH.

The Effects of Snow Days

2009-01-29T15:10:00.002-06:00

Thanks to our snow days, quizzes that were scheduled for Tuesday have been postponed to Friday. Congrats!

The Geometry quiz is covering area of rectangles, parallelograms, triangles, trapezoids, and kites. You will have your formula book available to you during the quiz, so if yours is up-to-date, then you will have a valuable resource!

The Algebra I quiz will require you to:

look at a system of graphs and determine if there are one, zero, or infinite solutions.
graph a system and determine the solution
solve a system using the substitution method
write equations for a system from a word problem

There is also an extra credit using substitution.

MLK - Inauguration EXTRA CREDIT

2009-01-24T11:46:00.002-06:00

One week remains to snag your 5 points extra credit by posting to the forums. Don't miss out! While Kyle the Magnificent's post was magnificent, please remember that your post does not need to be that long. You only need to respond to one of the bullets on the list. I look forward to hearing from you!

Want to make sure you always get updated class news? Subscribe to the class blog using the link at the end of the post or the orange icon in the address bar of your browser.

Bored?

2009-01-24T11:45:00.001-06:00

I'm sure, 15 years later, that she said it in passing, but her single sentence has overtime become one of the paramount principles in crafting my character and personality today.

We were smack dab in the middle of the 6th grade class Spelling Bee, whose top finishers would go on to represent the two classes in the school-wide Spelling Bee later that week. Class sizes had not yet been legislated smaller, so when we were all instructed to line up our chairs in a row, there were close to fifty of us. Mrs. Steinmann went down the row, one at a time, giving us a word to spell while the others waited; some in restless anticipation, others in restless boredom and disinterest. As you can guess, I belonged to the former, but we'll focus on a member of the later.

"I'm bored," Jim Bennett said while kicking his legs underneath his plastic blue seat. "This is taking for-ev-er."
"Only boring people get bored," Mrs. Steinmann replied to him, and went about her business of letters.

Again, I'm sure it was a phrase she had perhaps heard from someone in her life a multitude of times in her childhood, but it was the one and only time I've seen it used. Only boring people get bored. It started in sixth grade as a matter of marketability. Boring people are not cool, I reasoned, and I want to be cool, therefore, I should not be boring. It's formulaic nature appealed to my deepest core. It didn't go well those first few years, however, because (1) this moment was bookended by junior high, and (2) my approach to the principle was erred from the onset. I sought to be "exciting" by trying to reflect "cool," which as you'll remember in 1996 was ridiculously baggy pants, plaid shirts or giant t-shirts, and long hair parted down the middle. And I did far less than excel at reflecting. But my failures in posing were moot. (ed. note: I didn't find out until today when perusing freerice.com, but who knew in 8th grade that when a girl called me a poseur, which I would have spelled as "poser," that she was using such an impressive word?)

Not being boring, is of course, not about copying the un-boring, but in finding a passion within that drives you to action. It's about finding a niche in your life to be extraordinary. Discovering an obsession in your life to thirst for may give you heartache, but it will never leave you with nothing to do.

Go be extraordinary, because only boring people get bored.

"I Have a Dream Because..."

2009-01-19T15:23:00.002-06:00

I cannot bear the thought of self-righteous contentment.

When I started school at Townsend Elementary in the Hazelwood School District, every year to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr Day our teachers would have us write an essay with this title, presumably to enter into some regional or national contest. I hope there were different grade levels, because when a 1st grader tries to sit down writing about the dream of MLK, one of two things was bound to happen: (1) said 1st grader would probably write about the dream he had last week while snug in his bed about monsters, lollipops, dinosaurs, sports, or racecars, or (2) said 1st grader would go about plagerizing a report about Martin Luther King lifted primarily from the first encyclopedia he found at the library.

By the time I was in 4th grade, now at Commons Lane in Ferg-Flor, the MLK essays were gone, and instead our class did extensive (for 4th graders) poster board projects during February for Black History Month. Although our class was doing projects on a wide range of historical black figures, from politicians to athletes, to doctors and soldiers, I wound up with another project on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Beyond the photocopy of a picture the office secretary made for my poster, the only thing I really remember about my project is that my father made a point to note that I was doing "another Martin Luther King project." As a nine year old, my impression of "another MLK project" was that it was a perfectly natural thing to study yearly - the same way grade school students study the pilgrims every year. Looking back now as an adult, I still don't completely know what to make of my father's words.

Did they mean nothing?
Were they similar in rhetoric to the crowd that questions why there is not a "White History Month?"
Did he wish I could study a different black historical figure?

I guess I've spent fifteen years questioning my father's racial prejudices (or lack thereof). I noticed when we stopped going to some restaurants because "they weren't as clean anymore." I heard my mother say that a certain place was too "dark." On the other hand, I saw him build a new house in Florissant several years ago when it would have been easier to flee to O'Fallon or St. Peters like so many others this decade. Even the fact that we settled in North County in 1987 when we moved here instead of whiter, south county could account for something.

However, a man's questioning of his father and his youth is not what's really important today - its much too insignificant and of much too small a scale. Tomorrow morning at 11am Central Time, Barack Obama will be sworn in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building, looking back in the direction directly opposite where King gave his "I Have a Dream..." speech in 1963. I hope that the historical poetry of that is not lost on him tomorrow. But how did we get here, and why was this day so long in coming?

"We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Many people have evaluated the 2008 election and judged that Obama getting more than 90% of the black vote was his key to success. That is a true statement. Kind of. The significance, however, is not in what percentage of the votes he obtained, but in the number of votes he created. Democratic candidates have historically gotten about that percentage of the black vote in elections, so that is nothing new. The difference, I believe, is in the words from King's speech. The Voting Rights Act of 1964 guaranteed that "Negro in Mississippi" federal protection to vote, but perhaps that "Negro in New York" did not believe he had anything to vote for until 2008.

It's important, also, to not confuse the increase in voting from black communities with the mere presence of a black candidate. If merely inserting a black candidate onto the ballot were the answer, then the Rev. Jesse Jackson's efforts in the 1980s would have been more successful. I think the difference was Obama's ability to inspire. President-elect Obama was able to inspire the public's belief in vision and dreams similar to the way Dr. King inspired in the 50s and 60s. It's also worth noting that Obama and Dr. King both have also been criticized as radicals and socialists. The lessons of history also show that it is never the moderate who changes thoughts and actions, but the revolutionary, or the radical.

My final hope for President Obama is the same that King had for the civil rights movement. For so many buying into the hope that Obama represents, 2008 is not the end, but rather, the beginning.

Textbooks issued!

2009-01-08T11:28:00.001-06:00

Textbooks have been given out to most everyone by now, so you can all do your homework!

Homework is listed on the calendars on the website under each class.
Remember, you can also view your Algebra 1 or Geometry textbook online so you can leave your book at school. If you need to know the password for your book, email Mr. Baker.

ccbaker@fergflor.k12.mo.us

CD-rom copies of the textbook can also be issued to Algebra 1 students if you are interested. Ask Mr. Baker.

Mr. Baker will be out on Monday, Jan. 12th

2009-01-06T13:44:00.001-06:00

Dr. Hopper has chosen me and a few other teachers to attend a professional development seminar at UM-St. Louis on this day called Nonviolent Crisis Intervention Training.

All I can really assume is that I'll learn some good techniques for diffusing conflict in the class when personalities rub the wrong way or the peace and respect in our class breaks down. Hopefully we'll be getting Mr. Mueller as our sub, so he'll make sure we're still able to get something done.

Best of luck!

Welcome to the New Semester!

2009-01-05T15:39:00.000-06:00

Welcome back (or for the first time) to Mr. C Baker's math class. This semester in Geometry we're going to be covering topics from chapters 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.

Of course, your ol' friend the conjecture will be making a return, as well as investigations and even a little bit of constructing. Don't forget everything you learned about triangles, quadrilaterals, and other polygons!

As always, remember one of the hallmarks of Geometry study - how do you know what what see is true?