Separating Prime Cuts of Educational Technology from Common “Mystery Meat”
I will be presenting this summer at the Summer Institute in Olympia, WA. During my session, Math & Technology in Today’s Classroom, I’ll show how I use technology such as the electronic whiteboard, student response systems, software, mathcasts and video projects to promote student learning and achievement and for assessment (both formative and summative).
Here’s my Friday math joke. Yeah, it’s corny, but it made me laugh. 
For those who want to learn more about mathcasts, I’m pleased to announce that Tim Fahlberg along with a wonderful team of partners (including yours truly 
) will be conducting a session at NECC entitled Mathcast Spaces: Thinking, Doing, and Sharing Mathematics Out Loud.
Tagging, Tumbling, and Mathcasting posted by Paul Allison is a jam-packed thirty-nine minutes that explores the power of tagging, teachers using tumblogs, mathcasts, VoiceThreads in health, speech, history, math, music, technology, and EFL classes. This session includes an interview with my friend, Tim Fahlberg, on mathcasts. What’s a mathcast, you ask? Well, mathcasts are screencasts (screen movies) of writing with voice that focus on mathematics, and Tim is the pioneer in this field who got me and my students started 3 years ago.
Click here to learn more about mathcasts and to view mathcasts created by me and my students. You can also learn more about mathcasts by visiting Tim’s mathcast wiki at http://math247.pbwiki.com/.
If you’d like to begin creating mathcasts and you use a Windows PC, then FreeScreenCast can make screencasting simple for you.
Just install the screencast recorder, select the part of the screen you want to record, record it, upload your screencast, and then share it. Give it a try!
Pre Calculus students have finished their mathcasts of trigonometry involving right triangles.
Projects are now posted at Mathematics with Mrs. O’Flynn: Mathcasts under Pre Calculus, Periods 2 and 5, Ch 6 Triangle Trigonometry. Their next task is to evaluate their own movie using this checklist and feedback form and to get at least one other person (adult or student who is not a group member) to give them feedback.
My students would appreciate your feedback! Please send feedback to 
Students were randomly placed in groups using the “pick a student” feature in CPS and were then given a problem having to do with polynomials from an ExamView problem bank. Each group or pair then created a mathcast of their solution and their reasoning. Some groups still have to finish up tomorrow but several are now posted at Mathematics with Mrs. O’Flynn: Mathcasts under Periods 1 and 6, Ch 6 Polynomials. Their next task is to evaluate their own movie using this checklist and feedback form and to get at least one other person (adult or student who is not a group member) to give them feedback.
My students would appreciate your feedback! Please send feedback to
Next year I will have the opportunity to teach one section of mathematics as an online course. I’m working with one of our English teachers right now to develop our “wish list” if features that we would like to have for our online class. Here are some things I am considering:
The mathcasts, forum and assignments/assessments will be easy enough since I’m already using these with my regular classes, but I’m not sure how exactly to accomplish the chat. However, I have the privilege of working with a fantastic tech department here in Woodland School District that has worked very hard in the past to make my wish lists become reality, so I’m sure they’ll find a way to pull it off. However, I am taking over some homemade chocolate chip cookies today; never hurts to sweeten the deal. 
My Hitachi Starboard has been a real lifesaver this week. A student of mine had emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix and will be gone until after Thanksgiving break. So, at the end of class each day, I am able to save my work from the Starboard as a pdf (built-in feature of the whiteboard software) and 
upload it to our webpage. Here are links to some of our recent class notes for Advanced Algebra:
Get well soon, Marley!
I’ve been using Hot Potatoes from Half-Baked Software to create whiteboard activities for my students. We are currently learning about trigonometric properties and identities (proofs) in Pre Calculus, and students need to memorize these properties. To help with this, we practice using Hot Potatoes drag-and-drop quizzes or electronic flash cards on our Hitachi Starboard. Here are two examples:
Trig Properties Matching Activity is a great class activity for the electronic whiteboard
Trig Properties Flashcards allow students to quiz themselves on the computer
My quizzes are hosted on our school server so that students can access them from home as well as school, but you could simply run them from your harddrive. You can also upload and host 5 quizzes at a time for free directly through the Hot Potatoes software. If you’ve never used Hot Potatoes, check it out - it’s awesome and FREE.
Hosted by Edublogs.
