Patty Papers

In his blog, Tom Barrett discusses how he plans to use a Wii game system to teach and reinforce math concepts in his classroom.

I can’t wait to see the creative ways in which teachers use this technology!

Rick Broida at Cnet gives a list of dirt-cheap tech gifts for the holidays:

• 4 HP-branded 4GB USB drives for $29.99 shipped at Buy.com
• A refurbished 4GB SanDisk Sansa e260 media player for $37.99 shipped, at Buy.com
• Bluetooth headset for $9.99 at Office Depot. (Think this might make a great stocking stuffer for my boys)
• Skullcandy’s Ink’d Earbuds for $9.99 at Staples
• Joby Gorillapod GP1 flexible tripod for $21.95 at Amazon

With SMARTboard price tags around $2000, many teachers are looking for a way to get tech on the cheap. One school, LakeView Technology Academy, has found a way to create their own version of the electronic whiteboard for a fraction of the cost. For those who aren’t familiar with this technology, SMART boards are interactive white boards that basically allow the user to control a giant computer screen by touch. LakeView teachers have found a way to transform an existing set-up where laptops are projected onto regular whiteboards into modified “SMART” boards. Here’s a video and a link for more info.

Despite my long summer absence, I have been very busy preparing new technology for this upcoming school year. My most recent project is developing math courses using Moodle. Four of us (3 teachers and our tech director) attended the MUG NW Summer Moodle Bootcamp in July and two us us are currently participating in an online Moodle course, Create Powerful Online Learning with Moodle. We are also working on developing our Moodle courses for this upcoming school year; you can view my courses (they are works in progress!) at Woodland School District Courses. I would appreciate your feedback!

In the midst of all that, I spent two weeks in Maui which was fantastic – I snorkeled with a shark and a barracuda (not purposely, believe me!) and learned to surf! Click on the pics below if you’d like to see more Hawaii pics on Facebook.

Aloha!

I had no idea that there was such a day until I saw this Common Craft post in my Google Reader today. In honor of the day, here are some helpful resources:

• RSS in Plain English – by Common Craft
• RSSday.org/ – the official RSS Day site

Apparently, May 1st is RSS Awareness Day! I had no idea such a day existed, but it has it’s own site at RSSday.org . Thanks to the nice folks at dailyblogtips.com for making our RSS in Plain English video part of the site – and day for that matter.

I agree that RSS is one of those special technologies. It has the potential to positively impact virtually every Internet user at no cost. A big problem is awareness – it’s hard for people to see how it could impact them until they give it a try. Hopefully we’ve been able to turn some people on – but there are still about 94% of Internet users that haven’t seen the light. The challenge continues.

Here’s the improved version of the original video from the Common Craft Store:

Blackle is the energy-saving search engine powered by Google.

How does Blackle save energy? Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. “Image displayed is primarily a function of the user’s color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen.” Roberson et al, 2002

Check it out and consider making Blackle your homepage.

Blackle.com - Saving energy one search at a time

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).

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.

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.

Here’s my Friday math joke. Yeah, it’s corny, but it made me laugh.