Websites

For our final, we were required to create a classroom website using Google Sites. My website, Ms. Burke's Math Classroom, contains various pages including a home page, about me, logic puzzles, technology projects, resources and a web 2.0 page.

I found this project to be rather helpful. It was interesting learning how to interact and create with another interface and I really liked it. I've found that most of Google's products are favorable to my needs and desires. I found it easy to create pages, link from one page to both another page and another website, add pictures, etc. My only complaint is that it took me a while to find the template designs. However, once I found them for the first time I found them rather easy to access subsequent times.

I think this is very useful in the classroom. Although it is not strictly math related, it will allow me to post homework assignments, in-class notes, calendar of events (both for the classroom and the school), link additional videos which students might find helpful, and various other things. I am excited to use these sites in my classroom and hope to maximize their potential.

Digital Storytelling

This week our project was to create a digital story using iMovie. iMovie is a default program installed into all Mac computer where you can create and edit videos. We had to create a storyboard, make the video, add transitions and captions, find free and copyright free music and finally publish the video to YouTube.

Overall, iMovie is a very easy program to use-that is, once you figure it out. Thanks to the instructions of our teacher, I was able to find where everything was relatively easy. However, I found that it was difficult trying to figure out how to edit the text of a caption after I had clicked away initially. I also found it hard trying to figure out how to change the duration of each slide (I finally figured out you had to take into account the time for the transition-aha!) Aside from that, I really liked the project.

I think that iMovie and digital storytelling can be very useful in the classroom. However, the use of this in a math classroom is a bit more tricky. If you are trying to create a digital story about solving a math problem then you can find one on YouTube already by Khan Academy. Otherwise, I believe it would be best to do something with more a history spin (such as the history of pi, biography of a mathematician, etc.). I believe that trying to explain mathematical concepts through a digital story is a very daunting task that can easily be overwhelming to the students.

You can check out the digital story I made below. On it you'll find a video encompassing this past year with the Boss Dance Company. Enjoy!

ActivInspire

ActivInspire is a software program that allows the user to create flipcharts (sort of like interactive PowerPoint presentations). Our assignment was to create a flipchart on a topic in our field. I chose to make a flipchart on FOILing for an 11th grade Algebra II classroom.

Overall, I really liked this program. After learning about the different interactive things you could do with it, I found the program to be very useful. In addition, the interactive parts that I used in my flipchart are just one of the many ways to add interaction. I believe that this program allows for so much creativity for educators so that it can be used in any type of classroom. I appreciated that because so often I feel as if stretching these technology programs to math is a bit much. However, this one even had an equation generator, something integral to all math teachers (hehe!)

One thing I would change about this program was that I found it difficult to do basic functions. I couldn't figure out how to delete the text for the longest time (turns out you just have to delete all of it). I also found it rather frustrating that the different text color options were slightly different depending on where you chose it from. For instance, the side toolbar had a different purple than if you went to the dropdown menu up top. They're close, yes, but different. Aside from that, all of my other complaints come from me assuming all of the tools would work the same in ActivInspire as in PowerPoint, which is my fault.

This can be used in the classroom in many ways. It can be used to teach a lesson with the pen and using the lock function you can lock down certain figures to use during the class (which would help mitigate the poor circles and shapes that so many geometry teachers can never draw). It can also be used to aid the students by having them work out problems or interact with the board. You could have different games where the students have to race to solve problems already on a slide or something. Finally, you can use the clicker quizzes to help assess the students knowledge of a learned topic. Overall, you can use ActivInspire in a myriad ways to enhance the classroom. I thoroughly enjoyed this project and learning how to use the software.

Inspiration

Inspiration is an online tool that is used to create different charts, diagrams and graphic organizers. Our project was to create a graphic organizer that could be used in our discipline based off of a text book. What went well is that the program is very user friendly. As a person who likes to just click around and explore, I found that everything I was looking for was easy to find. One thing I did not like was that after changing the background color, the tags on the connecting arrows still had a white background. I guess this could be beneficial to the students to have it stand out but I found it to be more of a distraction from the larger topics at hand. I also found it really hard to type mathematics equations because there was no math typer. This makes equations really hard to read. Aside from that, I liked the program a lot. If I were to redo this project, I would open it up so that students have freedom outside of their discipline. I feel as if mathematics isn't necessarily the best subject for a graphic organizer of this type because so many times you need to show examples or steps of how to solve a problem. I found it very difficult to be thorough without using too many words. I think Inspiration is a great tool which should be utilized in the classroom in many ways. You could use it to have students create a web about themselves in order to get to know them, use it as a creative way to display classroom rules or even have students create their own. Students could create an Inspiration project on the history of a mathematician, definitions associated with different topics or even to link practical applications with different topics (which seems to be a huge problem that many students believe exists in mathematics-no practical applications. They're wrong, however, so having them web out the applications might be very beneficial for the students). Overall, I like Inspiration and can see myself using it in the classroom.

Savenger Hunt

For this project we were required to take pictures of things around campus that fulfilled different requirements. Our project is presented in both a Picasa web album and a Google Presentation, both of which can be found below!

Picasa:

View all

Get your own

Google Presentation:



Using both Picasa Web Albums and Google Presentations were really neat. I thought Picasa was really easy to use and thoroughly enjoyed working with it. The interface was very user friendly. I thought it was great that you could switch from photo to photo and it would save your information without physically clicking "save" (which is great for people like me who tend to forget to save their work). Picasa also allows you to edit your photos by adjusting the exposure, contrast and color settings as well as adding pictures and clip art to them. This allows the user to personalize all of their photos in their slideshow. There isn't really anything I would change with Picasa.

Google Presentations was also cool to work with. Essentially, I thought it was like working with an online version of Power Point. Uploading photos was simple and they were automatically placed in the center of the slide. You could also edit the colors, text size and font, pictures, etc. to truly personalize each slide. It's also nice because the presentation is already online and the user doesn't have to worry about emailing presentations to themselves, losing formatting preferences, etc. that could create problems. Therefore, I think Google Presentation is very useful and helpful.

The only thing that was slightly confusing about both of these was how to embed them into the blog. I believe that taking a course in high school on html code has helped me not be completely overwhelmed when embedding my slideshow codes. However, I can imagine this would be difficult for someone who hasn't taken a class.

I believe both Picasa and Google Presentations are very useful in the classroom. Students can create slideshows as a visual aid for presentations, displaying material, etc. By using an online resource, students don't have to worry about formatting changes or forgetting a flashdrive or any of the other common mishaps that abound during presentation week. Teachers can also use these in the same manner when going over material, introducing themselves to the class, or other various occasions that call for slide shows.

Web 2.0 Fun

Here you will find a compilation of different Web 2.0 tools that we learned about in class!

1. Wordle

Wordle allows you to create word clouds, emphasizing the most commonly used words in a section of text.

2. Glogster

Glogster is a tool used to create online posters where you can include text, pictures, videos and hyperlinks.

3. Delicious




4. Timetoast



5. Picasa

Picasa is an online photo sharing tool through Google which is free to anyone with an account. In Picasa you can upload photos, edit photos and discover photos from other people.


6. Smilebox

Smilebox is an online scrapbooking tool that allows users to import photos into different templates and edit text to cater to the needs of the user. This is a free tool and can be shared by creating an account.

7. Audioboo



8. Animoto

Try our video maker at Animoto.

9. Storybird


10. Google Forms

This is the results table of our Google Forms artifact which the class completed. This can be used and displayed in many different ways.