Separating Prime Cuts of Educational Technology from Common “Mystery Meat”
Presenting at EduComm this year was a great experience but didn’t really allow time in my schedule to attend any sessions. Well, here is a page of 2007 EduComm Post-Event Conference Material with links to handouts and videos of sessions so now I can watch them. And so can you. 
If you currently use blogs or are thinking of implementing them this year, here’s a great overview of blogging in the classroom at Remote Access.
http://www.explorelearning.com features interactive Gizmos which look like great tools for modeling math concepts on the interactive whiteboard. Gizmos are available for Grades 6 – 12 as well as College Algebra and Pre Calculus. The calculus teacher in me loved the Riemann Sum Gizmo although I was disappointed to see a lack of other calculus gizmos available.
I liked the Modeling and Solving Two-Step Equations Gizmo because it requires students to create a model of the problem and then actively work to solve it. The gizmo also paused at key steps which provides the opportunity for students to hypothesize and discuss the mathematics before the gizmo continues and shows the answer. I didn’t care for this Adding and Subtracting Integers Gizmo as much because it seemed to spit out answer the answer before the student had the chance to think about it; I preferred the Adding and Subtracting Integers with Chips Gizmo that was more interactive and required students to actively model the problem and provide the answer themselves.
Gizmos can be used for 5 minutes at a time for free; longer sessions require a subscription. I did find it annoying that no price list is available online 
but they do supply a phone number and contact form.
I spent last week at the AP Calculus Summer Institute in Vancouver, WA. I took the AP Calculus AB (experienced) session with instructor Sharon Cade. I was glad to have her as an instructor again; I took a week-long workshop from her a few years ago at PLU and learned so much. I gained a lot of insight during this session into the reading and scoring of the AP exam which will definitely help me better prepare my students next year. Besides the calculus, I also love her team-building activities and definitely plan to use them this year. I think they get kids in the right frame of mind, and they are fun. I know I learn more if I’m having a little fun. :) The experienced session was also great because I got great ideas for lessons and incorporating technology from the other teachers in my session.
Here are a few math and tech highlights from the week:
skrbl is a free web-based whiteboard. All you have to do is start skrbl and give out your URL ( here’s one of mine: http://www.skrbl.com/49043427) in order to instantly begin sharing your board online. What a great collaboration tool!
If students purchased a Wacom tablet for home use (a 4×5 is under $100), I could see real possibilities next school year for homework collaboration and online study sessions online. My students use an electronic whiteboard or graphics tablet in class to create their own mathcasts, so they already know how to use this technology.
Kathy Schrock posted a link to a great video that explains wikis in plain English.
Hot Potatoes is a great assessment tool that allows you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the web as well as electronic web-based flashcards. Here is a Hot Potatoes drag & drop exercise I created for my Algebra 2 class last year. We used this during class with our electronic whiteboard as an interactive whole-class activity, and students could access the exercise from a home or school computer for further review or study.
Hot Potatoes isn’t freeware but it is free of charge for those working for publicly-funded non-profit-making educational institutions as long as they make their pages available on the web.
I’ve just completed Year Two of this project and when I think back to how I taught two years ago compared to now, I barely recognize that teacher. I’ve been involved in several technology grants through the years but this one by far has done more to change the way I teach than any other project.
Kash VanCleef and I made a joint presentation at the year-end Sustainable Classroom Project Celebration on June 27th. We shared our experiences using technology in our classes, described our mathcast project, and shared our plans for our 2007 Qwest Foundation Learning Technology Grant. Our presentation wasn’t recorded live, but I hope to have a Camtasia recording of our presentation to share soon.
After our presentation, we were presented with some new toys – brand new Hitachi BT-2G Bluetooth tablets! I’d like to give a special thanks to Nicole Rausch of Hitachi America and to Bob Berry of Troxell Communications for our new toys. 
Hosted by Edublogs.
