June 16, 2011
The 2011 Northwest Mathematics Interaction Summer Program will take place on the University of Washington Seattle Campus from August 8-12.
Three courses will be offered for Secondary Math Teachers:
- The 17th NWMI Summer Geometry Institute (Aug 8-12)
- Mathematics of Origami (Aug 8-9)
- Mathematics and Games (Aug 10-11)
Housing on campus is available at additional cost. All details on the NWMI website: http://www.math.washington.edu/nwmi
I have attended the Summer Geometry Institute workshop twice in the past and loved it both times. It’s a worthwhile program and I hope you will consider it. 
May 10, 2011
I always enjoy seeing the creativity of other teachers in action. This article highlights five winners of the STEMposium 2011 where education innovators showcased their STEM teaching innovations for bringing science, technology, engineering and math to life. These videos are full of ideas from hosting a STEM Slam at your school to connecting your students with engineers and scientists.
Visit http://www.edutopia.org/blog/stemposium-successful-stem-projects to view a video of each of this year’s winning projects.
For more information on entering STEMposium 2012, visit STEMposium’s site.
December 8, 2010
Baldeagleization: This YouTuber just cracks me up. The videos are hilarious, although I can thankfully say that my previous administrator bears absolutely no resemblance.
These videos were created using free software from xtranormal.com . This software basically lets you choose a setting and characters, then you type their script and it turns it into a movie. Pretty easy, although you could spend a lot of time learning all the bells and whistles. You can create movies through the site online or download software to your computer if your school blocks websites like this one. I think this may be a great tool for some of your creative kids who want a new way to show their learning. Hopefully they aren’t learning the same lessons that baldeagleization is.
October 15, 2010
An article, Ushering iPad into the Classroom, discusses the pluses of iPads in education.
October 1, 2010
It’s been a while since I’ve been here and a lot has happened.
- I retired from teaching after 16 years.
- I got married.
- I moved.
- I took a new position as High School Mathematics Assessment Specialist.
So, new city, new guy and new gig. And now that I have had a chance to settle in to all of it, I’ll be getting back to the business at hand. Stay tuned…
December 17, 2009
I have been selected to join the Educational Technology Assessment Development Group!
I am very excited about this tremendous opportunity to be work and engage with a dynamic group of educators from across Washington State who are deeply committed to integrating technology with standards-based curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The purpose of this group is to develop assessments for the Washington State Educational Technology Standards that went into effect December 2008. Representatives from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) will lead this work.
December 2, 2009
I’m a big fan of the blog FREE TECHNOLOGY FOR TEACHERS because after all, free is the right price. Two of
their posts share some interesting YouTube alternatives.
One reason you may want a YouTube alternative is that many districts have blocked access to YouTube. Within my own district, access is blocked to everyone during school hours because of bandwidth issues but it opens to staff before and after school hours. Nice, but doesn’t help me during class although the tech department will download YouTube vids during off hours for use the next day. If you also have access issues, here is a great post that gives 30+ alternatives to YouTube that may work for you.
Another post gives another YouTube alternative called Vidque, a new service that aims to help users curate their own collections of the best videos available on the Internet. Vidque allows users to grab videos fromvarious sources such as YouTube, Blip.tv, TED, and Vimeo and put them into collections that they can share and it even uses the videos you grab to help you locate more videos.
November 20, 2009
It was a long process last year (and what felt like an even longer wait) but I found out this morning that I have successfully earned my National Board Certification in AYA Math. I felt pretty confident but since I had done this process entirely on my own, I didn’t want to kid myself either. But the results are in and I passed with flying colors!
There’s gonna be some celebrating this weekend in the O’Flynn household.
August 28, 2009
I’m getting ready for the new school year that begins next Tuesday and as usual, I have several projects in the works this year:
- I’m installing Geogebra as I type. I haven’t used this software much yet and am looking forward to digging in.
- Our school has a site license for Apex Learning math courses. This should be a great resource and supplement for my face-to-face classes.
- Of course, I’ll be focusing on getting more teachers in our district to begin using Moodle!
More to come, stay tuned…
July 22, 2009
I had the opportunity this morning to talk with attendees at the 2009 MUG-NW Summer Bootcamp.
The Moodle User Group Northwest in partnership with NCCE holds a summer Moodle Bootcamp for both system administrators and instructors. This multi-strand event will allows participants to focus on either installing and administrating a Moodle environment or teaching and learning using one of the hottest online content management systems available.
If you’d like to see my course, just click the pic above. If you are interested in any of the activities you see, just let me know.
