Patty Papers






         Separating Prime Cuts of Educational Technology from Common “Mystery Meat”

April 16, 2008

Math & Technology in Today’s Classroom

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).


April 10, 2008

Examview Practice Quiz

Filed under: Assessment, Software, Technology — Patty O'Flynn @ 4:24 pm

I use Examview to create practice quizzes for my students. Here is Practice Test 7.1-7.4 that works with ExamView Test Player; I’ve used dynamic questions so that students get a new version of each question every time. ExamView Test Player is available as a free download so students can take practice tests at home.

Here’s the info you will need to access the practice quiz:

Password: imamathwiz

Name: Please just use your own name. If you are not one of my math students and want to take the quiz just for fun (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t?), just enter “guest”.

ID: not necessary

If you are a student in my Advanced Algebra class and wish to retake Quiz 7.1-7.4, you must take this practice quiz and score at least 80% before you can schedule your retake. You are able to take this practice quiz multiple times (it’ll change the numbers in the problems each time you open it). When you are finished, please print your results when you finish the practice quiz and bring it to me along with your original quiz corrections.

April 4, 2008

Geometer’s Sketchpad Resource

Filed under: Geometer's Sketchpad, Math, Software, Technology, Web Tools — Patty O'Flynn @ 7:01 am

At InterMath: Constructionary, users can obtain a list of constructions in Geometer’s Sketchpad. Clicking on a letter of the alphabet gives a list of constructions for that letter. When you chose a construction, clicking on the numbers shows the steps for that construction. Clicking on “Notes” at each step will give a brief description, and I do mean brief, so newbies may need additional help. This is not a stand-alone tutorial but definitely makes a great resource.

InterMath Constructionary

March 14, 2008

Two new Camtasia tutorials

Filed under: Camtasia Studio, Mathcasts, Software, TechSmith, Technology, Video, Web 2.0 — Patty O'Flynn @ 6:49 pm

I have just posted two Camtasia Studio screencast tutorials for my students.

The first shows how to add markers within a Camtasia project.

The second movie shows how to produce your Camtasia project as a Flash movie with a table of contents.

These tutorials can be found at Mathematics with Mrs. O’Flynn on our Mathcasts page under Technology.

March 2, 2008

NECC 2008

NECC logo

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 smily ) will be conducting a session at NECC entitled Mathcast Spaces: Thinking, Doing, and Sharing Mathematics Out Loud.

January 28, 2008

Software for Starving Students

Filed under: Software, Technology — Patty O'Flynn @ 6:50 pm

Software for Starving Students is a free collection of programs organized for students (but available to anyone). Softwarefor.org has gathered a list of best-in-class programs onto one CD (one disc for OS X, one for Windows), including a full-featured office suite, a cutting-edge web browser, multi-media packages, academic tools, utilities and more.  This is a great solution for students who may not currently have access to these programs on a home computer. Our tech department has offered to burn a CD for any student who doesn’t have a fast enough internet connection to download it for themselves.

January 4, 2008

Picture perfect

Filed under: Assessment, Education, Graphing calculators, Math, Software, Technology — Patty O'Flynn @ 7:22 am

After our study of composition of ordinates and harmonic analysis, my Pre Calculus students were given the task of creating a picture drawn completely with equations. Their project had to include at least one sinusoid with a variable axis and at least one with a variable amplitude, and they had to include any necessary domain restrictions. Here are some of this year’s projects:

 Headphone Pre-Cal Man, by Elliott Beach scene, by Tessa 

Rainbow, by Brittany Kiss, by Kaylie 

They used TI Connect software to download their graphs from their graphing calculators and then edited/colored them in Paint.

Another student used WinPlot software (a free download) to create his project:

Blinky & PacMan, by Ross

Here are some more projects from previous years:

Snowboarder grinding on a rail, by Justin Jellyfish, by Melissa UFO Attack!, by Zach

November 20, 2007

Math online

Filed under: Assessment, Education, Interactive Whiteboards, Mathcasts, Software, Technology, Web 2.0 — Patty O'Flynn @ 10:13 am

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:

  • I plan to create mathcasts of daily lessons using my Hitachi Starboard so that students still have the experience of seeing and hearing mathematics. Using Camtasia Studio, some of these mathcasts will have embedded assessments within them and results will collected.
  • I want a forum where students can post questions to me or other students.
  • I want students to have access to assignments and assessments online.
  • I want a way to engage in live group chat with audio and with shared access to my Hitachi Starboard.

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. :) cookie

November 19, 2007

Notes from Star Command…

Filed under: Education, Hitachi, Interactive Whiteboards, Math, Software, Technology, Web 2.0 — Patty O'Flynn @ 9:22 pm

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 parabola notesupload it to our webpage.  Here are links to some of our recent class notes for Advanced Algebra:

Get well soon, Marley!

November 8, 2007

Hot Potatoes!

Filed under: Assessment, Interactive Whiteboards, Math, Software, Technology — Patty O'Flynn @ 7:13 pm

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.

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