Making Math Fun

The following is a link to a Ted Talk by Arthur Benjamin. This particular video is on Fibonacci numbers, but all of his talks are about making math fun!

When we have interim assessments, our school's schedule gets a little hectic. We often end up eating lunch in our rooms and I might show a Magic Schoolbus video. I think I will plan on playing this video next time! 

Back to the old ways...

I have felt very guilty recently because I haven't written any posts since I said that I would write about how the distributive property activity went... I knew that blogging would be difficult once school really got into full swing because once I get home, I have to think about the next day, which takes all of my mental capacity (and often more than I have left).

Since I last wrote, the tablet initiative has been suspended in my school district. There were multiple reasons for this, but what we know is that the company that supplied the tablets is going to be looking for a different product. They will all be replaced, and in the meantime, we are doing things the way we used to.

At first, I missed them. There were certain tools and activities that I had gotten accustomed to that I could no longer do. I grew really attached to the practices on Khan Academy because students could work at their own pace and get immediate feedback. They could even watch videos on that topic if they needed additional help. I was getting the hang of personalized learning.

My students were so happy to get rid of them, though. Technological/connectivity issues plagued them, and they were dying to just go back to paper/pencil for math. I don't blame them. We would do worksheets that had been scanned in. This required them to do work on a piece of notebook paper, but if they wanted to go back and see the original problem, they would have to open the document again.

I now have a better idea of a better way to use the tablets, and look forward to them coming back. I will not use them as an alternative to paper. Especially in math, paper and pencil cannot be replaced. I have a better understanding of activities that can be good substitutes for things that I may have done on paper, and I will definitely utilize things like Khan Academy more.

In the meantime, I'm getting acquainted with BrainHoney. I have taken a course on BrainHoney and liked the layout as an online student. I'm not sure if I'm totally sold on it for use in a 6th grade classroom.

I will also be looking more into this list of the best apps and websites for math! They are aligned to the common core, too!

HAPPY VETERAN'S DAY WEEKEND!

distributive property

I want to quickly share this resource that I just found for an introduction to the distributive property. I'll plan on using it this week and see how it goes! It's a distributive property investigation that introduces students to when, why, and how the distributive property can be used. Thanks, Brianne Langlois from TpT!

meanwhile, in tablet land...

Things haven't calmed down much! We have finally gotten to the point where *most* of our students have wifi on a consistent basis at school. There are times, however, when wifi is down for the whole district, and there are always a couple of students whose tablets are malfunctioning and are being fixed in the media center. If you've planned to use the tablets for your instruction or practice, you better have a back-up! And if you're assigning something for homework that requires the tablet, you better have a back-up for your back-up in case it worked in class and then somehow does not work when they get home... Fortunately, my students and I all use Edmodo and I can post screenshots and links to the worksheets on there.

I did assign videos as homework one night because I want to semi "flip" my classroom: introduce them to topics through a video so that when they get to class they have had some prior exposure. However, IT WAS A DISASTER. Some of the tablets had www.learnzillion.com blocked, some wouldn't connect to home wifi, and even though I had downloaded the powerpoints from the site and sent it them to the students, they didn't all work... I will definitely try again soon, but need to let some kinks get worked out.

And that is really the motto of my plans: "When it gets worked out, this is what I will do."  In the meantime, I'm scanning worksheets, having the students download them in class, and hoping that things between school and home go well.

The other day, I did get adventurous. A colleague of mine told me about www.screencast-o-matic.com and I see the potential for awesome! She is a Language Arts teacher and told me that she'll record herself analyzing a text by showing the text on her screen and talking over it; you don't have to include your face/image in the videos unless you want to. I started off by making videos (just by drawing in Paint) of a procedure for finding the GCF and for finding the prime factorization of a number. They were about two minutes each and very straightforward so I had my students watch them on their tablets when the first got to class as review from the day before. Most of my students told me that they were helpful and made things a little clearer, and they will have access to them for the rest of the year!

The next day, I got a little more ambitious. I had planned to lead my students through an activity but then decided to see how they would do if they worked in partners and had videos to refer to if they needed help. They handled it well, but I could tell that their mastery was not what it need to be... I've decided that at this point in the year, my sixth graders are not ready to be that independent. I will look to do this kind of thing again, but while there are the frequent glitches and connectivity issues, I just need to make sure that the math is my main focus and that I am always thinking about the personalization.

Happy Labor Day!

Most schools in North Carolina have only had one week of school, so it has been so nice to immediately have this long weekend. Hopefully, you have taken some time today to think about all of the work and labor that goes into making things run as smoothly as they do. Especially in schools, we always have opinions on how things are not working all that well, but there are people who are working harder than we even realize, without whom, things would just fall apart!

If you're like me, just because we have a day off does not mean that I'm taking a day off of thinking and planning! There is always more to be done, especially at the beginning of a new year that we want to make better than last year.

I haven't worked too hard today: I've just done some general things that will enable me to use technology more efficiently this year.

• I typed in all of my students into classes at www.learnzillion.com Learnzillion has common core-aligned videos that you can assign to your students. There is also guided practice, slide notes, and other resources for the teacher or for the students to practice further. The setup is the hardest part because each student has to be typed in individually. You then get a code for each one that they have to enter. You can print out a page of the codes and give each student their own slip... we'll see if it is that easy!
• I created an Edmodo group for the sixth grade math teachers at my school. On there, we can create folders of resources that we can each access and edit. The reason we're doing it this way is because Google docs currently don't work that well on our computers, and emailing everything gets messy. We thought about livebinder and other sources, but we all use Edmodo so regularly that this sounded easy! 

I'm sure I'll do more planning later... it's been hard to think too far ahead when we've had to spend a lot of daily time and energy planning for how we can use our tablets and working out the kinks that we currently have. I've only had about two days of instruction, and that was on divisibility rules- not even in our curriculum! When we get back tomorrow, I intend to have all of my students create Edmodo and Learnzillion accounts, review divisibility, and then get ready for GCF by assigning a couple of videos for homework as preview.

OK! My labor is done!

I'll leave you with the other work that I did today...

Working hard on the water of Smith Mountain Lake, VA!

Obligatory "First Day" post

I wasn't even nervous!

OH MY GOODNESS is second year so much easier! I just got up this morning and rolled on out of bed, ready to be back in the swing of things! I knew I had things planned out for the day and also knew that if things went awry, IT WOULD BE OK. And they did, and it was.

I got to school and found out that my homeroom of 28 was now a homeroom of 30 and simply thought "well, I'm glad I have extra desks and copies!" No freaking out? No panic? No sir! I went and put my emergency #29 and #30 post-its on my desks, rearranged a few, and was ready for the day!

So I have 87 students (as of now) and I think that they are going to be so fun. I think that they have a ton of neat personalities and that we're going to be able to do some pretty cool things with our tablets. We didn't have time for the getting to know you activities that I wanted to do, so I'll plan on doing them tomorrow. Hopefully I can find time tomorrow to include some things here about what I have for the first few days; I've gotten some neat things from co-workers that I think are worth looking at!

Worst part of the day? My heels. Blisters GALORE.

Voki

Voki.com is a site where anyone can create an avatar who speaks! You design the avatar to look how you want (there are some designs that are only for the pro version) and then have options for what you want it to say. You can type text that it will read phonetically, record your own voice, upload a recording, or record by phone. It is a cool way for students to share information, especially those who are nervous about talking in front of people. I have made one to show the students on the first day of school; it's quick and simple, but it gives them a quick preview of a tool that they may use this year!

I meet my kids tomorrow!

And... I can't say that I'm entirely ready. Ignore the fact that I'm not ready for summer to end (I'm trying to). Even with four days of work days, I just don't think that I could ever feel ready enough! My head is currently so jumbled, and you'll be able to tell by reading this post!

cute, right?

At my school, we have an open house where parents and students can come in and meet their team teachers. While there, we get their email addresses, give them their schedules, and get to know as many families before school starts. As a middle school teacher, I have a lot of students, and the few minutes that I get to talk to each family could never be enough, but it's a good way to start the year.

So I have my stations set up for open house. I have my powerpoint made to show them what we will be learning in math this year. I have my wish list posted on my door (yeaaaahhhh). But I still don't feel ready! Probably because I have no idea what lessons are going to look like this year...

I have met with the other math teachers in my grade about our game plan for this year. Since we've gotten tablets for this year, we have a lot of questions, like how much of what we normally do can we replace with the tablet? What are the limitations of the tablet? (Pretty hard to answer) What are all of the possibilities we have now? (That's even harder to answer)  I had been thinking about doing an interactive notebook, but then thought that there may be an option for using the tablet with that, but now I'm back to thinking I'll use the INB idea. We'll probably just do it on notebook paper so that students can fold in the notes that they take on the videos that we assign for homework.

All of the questions aside, everything is SO much easier the second time around. Last year was my first year teaching, and it helps so much to not have to do all of the setup that comes with walking into an empty classroom! I was able to focus more of my time on making what I have more effective, meetings, planning, meetings, organizing, and meetings! So that's good. I wasn't as nervous when I had to call all of the students in my homeroom (not that it was fun) and I'm not nearly as nervous the day before open house.  Hopefully it goes as well as I hope it does!

Good luck to everyone who is starting a new year of teaching! Remember: it's not about us, it's about them!

QR Scavenger Hunt

QR (quick response) codes are really neat resources that you can use in your classroom, especially if you have tablets, iPod touches, or smart phones. I have created and used this QR scavenger hunt for a training with our tablets so that students could learn skills like copy/paste, download, using word processing apps like Kingsoft, etc. The students who participated in this activity were up and around the room, working independently or with partners. They learned a lot about our tablets that I couldn't just tell them about; they had to experience it to really get the gist of it.

In order to do this activity, they need an electronic device with a connection to the internet, a word processing app, and a QR scanning app (QR reader, QR droid, etc.)

In this document, I have deleted the QR codes that are specific for me, but all you need to do is go to QRstuff.com, download the code you make, and the copy/paste it into this document.

Enjoy!

Click here for the activity. You can also find it at my TpT store.

LCM and GCF

One of my colleagues just shared this site with me: www.mathtrain.tv As with a lot of other things, I'm sure I'm coming into this party late, but it looks neat! youtube is blocked on our wifi server, which means that the videos aren't easily accessible on the tablets that we're getting. I'm hoping that mathtrain will be accessible, though, which can help implement a PLE.

One video that I have found is on the Ladder Method for LCM and GCF. Like a lot of topics, I can explain this fine for myself, but a video is something that students can watch on their own time for review, working ahead, or just benefiting from hearing someone else talk!

Fraction, Decimal, Percent

Something that the sixth grade math teachers at my school do is a daily Fraction/Decimal/Percent, or Daily Fraction. We take the fraction of the year that we have completed (ex: 2/180 days), simplify the fraction, convert it to a decimal by long division, and then convert the decimal to a percent. In the first week, this is very difficult for students because it is (usually) not something that they have done before. However, it gives them some familiarity with the concept, making that unit easier for them. It also teaches them to recognize benchmark fractions that can be converted quickly, as long as you have simplified the fraction first. (Ex: 90/180 = 1/2 = 50%)


I have found a neat FDP game on Pinterest called the Math Detective. I'll plan on using it during our first unit on fractions and decimals!

Edmodo

If I have one technology friend, it is Edmodo. Together, we can do anything!

But honestly, it is a very useful and user-friendly tool. If you're familiar with Facebook, it is likely that you could pick up the logistics of Edmodo very quickly.

What is Edmodo? It is a website where teachers can create classes (called "groups") that their students join. Once this is done, teachers can share posts, create polls, assign quizzes (multiple choice, T/F, short answer, fill in the blank, matching) and more. Posts can be sent immediately, or scheduled to be sent at another time (i.e. the next morning before school starts).

Everything that you post or create in Edmodo gets saved in your library so that it can be reused again. Sync it with your Google docs so that all of those gems can be accessed quickly; you can even give your students access to particular folders, if you'd like.

As you can see, I have shared some ixl.com practice as well as Learnzillion.com videos on Edmodo

To create a class, you simply "create a group." Once you have given the group a name, grade, and subject area, it will give you an access code. Students who are already on Edmodo simply have to click "join a group" and enter that code to be put in that class. Students who are not on Edmodo can use that code to create an account and join their first class. (Another option is to send the join link to everyone in an email.) Then you can start sharing! Each student is given a parent code so that parents can keep up with their assignments and grades on Edmodo. As a teacher, you can create small groups, limit students' abilities to comment, change their passwords, and more.

I have not used Edmodo extensively yet, but I intend to use it daily this year. Schools where students do not have tablets/laptops with them throughout the day can still use Edmodo for homework assignments and a sharing center during trips to the computer lab. 

For a PLE, I plan to post the day's agenda and activities in a post in Edmodo. When the activities are student-driven, they will have the freedom to go about it at their own pace, taking more time with a particular activity or assignment if they need to. Students who are grasping the information a bit more quickly can move ahead to the next assignment or assessment. Students who finish early can then peer-tutor group members that may need some assistance, or practice the topic on ixl.com, khanacademy.org, or similar sites. 

Homework Email/Keeping up with your classroom website

Using Google Docs, my teammates and I send out a homework email every day. That may sound like a chore, but it's not too hard and the parents love it. At the top are links to our websites, general announcements, and upcoming events. Then we have a table: a row for each teacher and a column for each day of the week.

Students are expected to write down their assignments in their planners, but as sixth graders, they mess that up sometimes. This email serves as backup for them, and lets the parents know what their kids are/should be working on. Something else that this provides us is an opportunity to link directly to assignments. For example, if homework was to watch a Khan Academy video, I can link directly to the video so all they have to do is open up the email and click. If homework was a worksheet, I can attach a copy of it to the email so absent students (or forgetful ones) aren't left behind.

To link to a worksheet, though, it needs to be online somewhere. That's where my classroom website comes into play: I have a tab on my site labeled "Documents Manager" where I (try to) keep documents sorted by their unit of study. Once I have uploaded the document to my classroom site, I can copy its link to the Google document.

To attach copies of worksheets that are not digital versions:
CamScanner: take pictures of documents that you have printed out and convert them to PDFs. What I like
about apps like this one is that they will combine all of the pictures from that session into one file, so you're not uploading lots of separate files for both fronts and backs. What is neat is that it will guide you in grabbing the corners of the document so that the final product is only the piece of paper you want (no random backgrounds or anything) and you can choose a filter that makes it look exactly like a printed piece of paper (bright white with black writing).

As far as I can tell from my experience, this app does not limit the number of pictures you include in one file. Other apps like Handy Scanner will limit the number of pictures you can use.

If you're interested in checking out my classroom website, feel free. It's not stellar, but it's functional! If you have any advice for it, please let me know!

Thanks for reading!

PLE Sites

Personalized Learning Environment... I'm nervous but very excited about it. It is going to be so much easier to do since we are going to have tablets in the hands of every student at our school, but that doesn't mean it's going to be totally simple! Here is a list of sites that can be used by students individually to learn, practice, and move at their own pace. They can be used as part of a lesson or as individual work that may be worked into a lesson.

• powermylearning.org : (FREE) games that students can play that are aligned with the Common Core! 
  
  
  
  
• StudyIsland.com : (NOT FREE) rigorous (but multiple choice) questions that are aligned with the Common Core. This site is not free, but many schools choose to purchase a license for a grade or for the whole school. Teachers can pick individual topics to assign to their students. There is a game mode that can be used for more entertaining question answering. One neat thing about the site is that there is a pre-test for the courses, so students can take them at the beginning of the year to get a taste of what they are going to be seeing. 

• KhanAcademy.org (FREE) Students can watch videos on so many different topics, some of which come with accompanying practice. As teachers, we can build classes of our students and see which videos they have watched. If you have a flipped classroom, you can assign them as homework and then confirm that they watched them this way. Hint: when making your classes, DO NOT think that you have to enter all of their email addresses individually! 

• ixl.com (FREE) This site has tons of topics that students can practice. A license can be purchased, or students can pay for an account, for unlimited access to this site. For free, however, everyone can practice a limited number (20) of questions per day.

The next thing that I need to check on is whether or not they are all accessible on a tablet... That's not always a given!

8 Mathematical Practices

I currently do not have any displays of the 8 mathematical practices in my room, and am trying to think of a good way to make them visible without taking up too much wall space. While I was looking for some display resources for Math 6 Common Core "I can" statements, Teach Inspire Prepare on TpT had these free mathematical practices cards. Check them out as well as the "I can" statement cards that I intend to purchase!

Ask 3 before me

Something that I would like to get better at is giving students time to think, research, and struggle. That last part may sound harsh, but it is good for them to recognize that not everything is going to come easy to them and that they have the tools to overcome confusion and get help from someone other than "the person with all of the answers", because honestly, I don't! Something that I plan to display in my classroom is an "Ask 3 before me" poster. I got the font from Hello Fonts on TpT (Hello Box Stitch) and created it really quickly. You're welcome to use mine or create your own!

Fonts

Make fun posters!

Using this resource from teacherspayteachers.com, you can download tons of fonts that will help you spice up your handouts, announcements, posters, etc! Just download the zip file, look through the fonts individually (which isn't super convenient) and if you want to use one, just "install" it. It should then show up in your processing programs (Word, Powerpoint, etc.) under Hello _____. I have found that they don't always show up very legibly if they are too small, but if you make them large, they look so fun! 

Divisibility

Even though divisibility rules are not mentioned in our unit plans, sixth grade math teachers have been teaching divisibility rules for a while. Here is a resource for teaching those divisibility rules that I found (of course) on teacherspayteachers.com

When I get my head wrapped around it, I fully intend on making some of my own to put on there! Promise!

For the beginning of the year

We will not be getting our tablets until, earliest, day 5 of school. Bummer! So all of the get-to-know-you things that I was planning on doing the first few days of school are out the window. I'm now looking for other materials to use because what I did last year was not nearly fun enough.

• Fraction getting to know you: "Students use their knowledge of fractions to complete this getting-to-know-you activity"- on teacherspayteachers.com
• Beginning of the year student letter: Students fill in names of current best friends, things that they are nervous about (great for 6th graders just entering middle school), things they are looking forward to, and something that they hope to learn by the end of the year. The teacherspayteachers.com author likes to file them away and have students pull them out at the end of the year!
• Name Glyph: Directions for coloring name that are specific to each student based on their siblings, where they live, etc. I think that this could put many students at ease on the first day of school, especially sixth graders, because it is easy and should be relaxing. It also provides student work that can be displayed early on! 
• Beginning of the year scavenger hunt: This would be specific to each classroom, based on the materials that are available to the students. Mine might consist of the location the trash cans, tissues, stapler, hole punch, class library, coloring materials, off-limits locations (my desk), where they turn in their homework, etc. It can be a review on Day 2 of what is discussed on Day 1. 
• Make a teacher binder: I love keeping things organized (you wouldn't know that, walking into my room) and fun dividers and headers can make that so enjoyable! Check out this teacher binder on TpT, made by Project Second Grade.

My classroom... last year

These are a couple of pictures that I took when I set up my classroom for the first time last year. It stayed this way for a while, but I got tired of it. Once I started switching things up, I kept changing it, never finding what I really liked. The main problem is the desks: because the chairs are connected to the desks, it is difficult to put them side-by-side and still provide enough room for students to squeeze in between them. Fortunately, I teach 6th grade and most students can climb in or move the desks back and forth.

Our school has sky lighting (the arch on the left) that provides natural lighting in the room! The walls are pretty bare because I don't have a lot of resources that are big enough to be useful.

The desks were arranged in groups of 5.

The way that the desks ended the year in my room was in two arcs. One of my classes had a hard time focusing and communicating well with each other, so I asked them for ideas on how to arrange that classroom that might promote a more positive environment. The arc idea was a suggestion from a student, and when we tried it, most seemed to like it.

While reading Following my Heart to First Grade, I saw a picture of how she has her classroom set up. I may try this desk structure, but would still face the issue of students being able to get in.

I do want to have students sitting in groups, or at least pairs, because being able to work with other people is so important!

Our Tablet

Our school district received a large grant for tablets to implement a PLE for our students, and it decided to purchase the Asus Amplify tablet. If your school is in the market for tablets or new technology, I would check it out! It is geared specifically towards education through a specific component; I don't know what else to call it other than Amplify (that may very well be its name) but it is a class feed that gives teachers a lot of control over their students' tablets.

The picture here shows some of the controls that teachers have:

• eyes on teacher: the students' tablets freeze and display the text "eyes on teacher". What is expected of them is obvious :) 
• app control: teachers can lock/unlock specific apps to help students stay on track and use their resources appropriately
• timer: displays a timer on all student tablets
• quick poll: 2-4 answer choices to get a quick response from students
• short answer
• spot check (displayed on right): takes place of "thumbs up/down"
• call on: chooses a random student to call on and takes out the "you never pick me!" problem
• count off: randomly assigns students a number instead of having to walk around room counting off
• reasearch

The way that the tablet knows which students to target is that your class schedule is programmed into your tablet, as is theirs. When they get to your class, they "check in," which provides your connection. Students who are at home sick can also check in and stay on top of things. 

Teachers create playlists (much like your lists of songs in iTunes) for their resources that they send to students. Once they are shared with the students, the students can download them and access them at home, whether or not they have internet. 

Check out the website for the tablets here. 

Summer, 2013

As it is July between my first and second years of teaching, I can say that I have spent the summer trying not to think about next year while also trying to plan and improve on what I have for next year, and it has been confusing!

My school is one of 11 middle schools in our district that is getting tablets next year. It is an Asus tablet, called Amplify. I have had an Asus tablet for over a year now, so I have had an easier time learning the tablet's functions than people who have worked with iPads or no tablets at all. However, we are all learning how to integrate the tablets into the classroom, and that is hopefully going to be the main focus of my blog: how to use tablets and personal technology in the classroom to implement a Personalized Learning Environment (PLE). I have been doing research all summer (when I'm not avoiding doing research...) and am not quite sure how it will look!

I hope this helps some people and that it can be yet another forum for sharing ideas. Please contact me if you would like to contribute/share something, and let me know if you have any questions!

Thank you for reading!

Ann