Teaching with Technology

As 10th Graders, the ACT or SAT may seem like a far-off, yet nevertheless daunting, task, and as educators at my placement school, we are expected to help prepare students for such important standardized tests. As a math teacher, I would like to practice ACT/SAT type questions, but have trouble fitting this material into the normal content of the course. Luckily, we are currently covering properties of triangles, which are tested in the Geometry section of both math portions. After having begun an ACT/SAT Wednesday Do Now procedure, I noticed that students were very interested in practicing to improve their scores, and would like to incorporate the triangle questions into the regular course instruction.

After having students read through the thinking process behind answering various ACT/SAT questions, I plan on having a review activity, after students learn about how to answer triangle problems and how they can use the properties they have learned to their advantage on such tests. For this review, plan on having students play a game to energize and motivate students to attempt to answer these questions and practice their Geometry content for the ACT/SAT, as well as for our class!

Before this occurs, because it is a new placement classroom for me, I will need to survey the students to determine which students have access to a smartphone, computer, or tablet in the classroom, and which have internet access on their devices. I will group them taking into consideration who the students will work well with, as well as making sure that each group has access to at least one smart phone that can access a mobile web browser. These smartphones will be used to play a quiz show-like game called Kahoot.it (Click here to go to the teacher's site where you can create a quiz!).

In group of 4 or 5, students will be presented practice questions from the ACT or SAT that will look like:

Using Kahoot.it, I can upload an image or link a YouTube video to ask the question I would like to, and as you can see above, I uploaded an image to ask the question, rather than typing out the question. Students will then be able to choose one of the shapes/colors on their smartphones to answer the question, and Kahoot.it will tally up the points based on the number of questions correct in what amount of time. 

This will be perfect practice for taking a timed test such as the SAT or ACT, and because I already know the students are motivated to prepare for these tests, I think this will be fun and energizing for them as well.

In Response to an Edublogger

Although I am really not a huge fan of blogs, searching for various edubloggers was interesting, because many of them offer interesting and engaging ideas for teaching your subject, or relevant and useful resources for the same thing. The two edublogs I ended up commenting on were based around mathematics instruction. The first discussed a possible solution to the question, "When will we use this in our real lives?" a very real and regular concern of students in mathematics, which we cannot always respond to with an answer that is deemed "good enough" for students or parents. In this blog, the author suggests changing up the way we teach mathematics, even hinting that the Common Core State Standards consider such a revision to their official document.

What the recommended change was was adding coding to regular mathematics curriculum. This was argued, because coding requires the same type of problem solving that we often stress in a mathematics classroom, and no matter what the topic, this skill is what we are attempting to teach our students. I realize sometimes it seems like it, but our goal is not to bore our students with memorization of useless equations, and I think the first blog I read expressed this well. The author made sure to emphasize that this did not necessarily mean teaching a coding language, such as Python or C++, but rather considering things like programming a calculator to automatically perform the quadratic equation, ridding of the burden on students to perform such procedural knowledge. The author provided other examples of how to apply coding in mathematics curriculum, even suggesting that this topic be introduced to students in elementary school!

What I particularly appreciated about this blog post was that the author said all this knowing that not all math teachers necessarily have strong backgrounds in computer science or coding, but suggested that it was something we could easily be trained in to teach. Perhaps this could mean that some computer science course should be required of those who want to obtain a teaching major in mathematics. I asked the author their opinion on this topic.
Coding in Mathematics Education Blog Post

The second edublogger I read and commented on provided this really simple, but useful quiz/game tool to use in the classroom called Kahoot!(https://getkahoot.com/). She briefly explained how the tool worked, and how she used it in her mathematics classes. She also made sure to describe some limitations of the tool, which I found particularly interesting and helpful in her blog post. She talked about how the quiz tool allows you to download the data of your students responses to the quiz questions which acts as a great formative assessment. Another positive aspect of this tool is that students can participate on any apple or android device, or any computer with internet access. I thought this might play well for a situation of BYOT.

When reading this blog, I found that I became very interested in this tool, especially because it was a mathematics teacher discussing how she uses the tool. Before I even finished reading the blog post, I had to check out the tool for myself. And my response to her blog post was basically just my excitement about the tool and appreciation for her description of the tool, because it made it easy to navigate the tool and implement very useful aspects of the technology tool.
Kahoot! in the Classroom Blog

Technology in my Placement

In the Secondary MAC program at the University of Michigan, we were asked to survey our school placements for the use of technology throughout the building. The school I am currently at is considered a high needs school, and is also a charter school, funded by various organizations. Although it is not a public school, the access to technology is fairly limited, which I will explain below. Before actually discussing the availability of technology, I would like to discuss my research process. I would say this began during the professional development at my placement school, when I learned more about the mathematics curriculum, which used computers in the implementation. When the teachers were being trained on implementing the curriculum, we were provided the opportunity to try computer work in one of the high school's two computer labs. There were about 25-30 Apple desktops, which were slow using the internet, and at least 3-4 were not working. Another aspect of my research began even earlier than this.

Before I had actually started my observation at my placement school, I had researched some to try and better understand the environment I was about to enter into for the entire year. I learned that it was a school that valued art, and had heard that there was a particular stress on graphic design, which I thought would require the use of technology. When the school year had started, I found that the two art teachers on my floor (there is one art teacher for each grade level in the high school and middle school), taught mostly with a 2-D medium, such as pencil on paper drawing.I have yet to see students having access to anything other than an Apple computer, usually for research purposes. Perhaps my understanding of graphic design is lacking, but I have only heard rumor of access to tablets for the art classes. Thus, although the school is supposedly known for graphic design, being closely connected to a college specialized in graphic design, the technology available to students is limited.

When I was actually observing in my placement school, there were some other aspects of technology that I noticed as well, such as the spotty internet, and the very restricted WiFi for the school itself. My mentor teacher informed me that although the school had its own internet signal, the free guest signal from the building above the school actually worked better, and that is what I use when I need internet at my placement school. On top of the limited access to technology though, I also had the privilege of being around while a new tech person was hired for the school. Trying to talk to this individual was extremely difficult, because they were constantly running around trying to fix a printer on the second floor, or a projector on the fourth. He was attempting to share his knowledge of technology, while learning about the building he was working in, which is not an easy task.

Although technology is limited, in terms of what is available to students, I was surprised how much the teachers are provided. I guess I am unsure of what is considered normal for secondary education, but each teacher at my placement school received a Mac Pro laptop, as well as an iPhone, that was meant solely for school calls. On top of this, each classroom has its own projector and screen, as well as a classroom telephone for contacting teachers during class. This was interesting to me, because the way the school was built, there was no speaker or P.A. system set up for the classrooms, so individual phone calls is the only way to contact people around the building.

One thing I found particularly interesting was how the mathematics curriculum chosen for the high school relied heavily on the use of computers, as well as having reliable internet access. Technically, the curriculum calls for 60% of the classroom time spent in the classroom, in lecture, while the other 40% is meant for using the online modules to practice skills and deepen their understanding of concepts. I have not been provided the chance to watch students work on the computers, but I know the program is fairly straightforward, and I had heard students were not a fan of the computer work this previous year.

Tech Tools in Use

Last week, we learned about the tech tool VoiceThread. This was an interesting tool, which allowed one person to post images, or a Powerpoint online, and once posted, collaborators could post various forms of comments on the uploaded material, which would then play like a video with the original material playing, while the comments play through. This tech tool was very simple to use, and I thought it was pretty self-explanatory, which the presenters must have recognized as well, since they did not spend a lot of time explaining how to use their tool. The simplicity of this online tool is great for a classroom, because it means as a teacher, you can spend less time explaining how to use the tool and more time having students actually engage with the program. Also, because I would not need to spend as much time on instructing the students how to use the tool, I think the students may remember more about using the tool, since it is something they could figure out on their, almost like inquiry-based learning...but not really.

When first being introduced to it, I found this to be an interesting tool, but was skeptical about how relevant it would be across the disciplines. The presentation definitely made me think about how this tool could be used, especially since the presenters planned a group activity where we had to create a VoiceThread for our content area. After the presentation, I thought that VoiceThread may be good for recording a teacher's voice over Powerpoint slides, and have students comment on the presentation if they have any questions about specific material being presented. This could be useful in any subject area, with this specific use in mind.

Focusing on math, I figured it might be a great presentation tool for a more visual topic, like geometry or trigonometry. When I was working with the math group, we decided  to make a VoiceThread based on teaching students about polygons. This VoiceThread began with introducing some shapes that would be considered regular polygons. It then progresses through a variety of pictures, asking students to leave comments, in whatever format they choose, commenting on any polygons (no matter how abstract) that they identified in the images. Some images were patterns, or signs, and the final image that we had was one of a tiny piglet, which required students to be a little more creative with finding polygons.

One major problem with this tool is that you would need to pay for a subscription if you want to save anymore than 5 presentations, which would definitely be a problem for me if I were using this as a teacher. I would want to have these presentations available to my students throughout the year, for their midterms and finals, as well as for myself just to have a record for reflection on my students' past work.

Another problem that I am still wondering about is how easy it is to moderate the comments on the presentation. Does the person who created the VoiceThread have the ability to delete any comments, or block certain people from commenting on the presentation? When working with technology, I would readily worry about students abusing the tool, but I do not want this fear holding me back from using technology with my future students when it is appropriate.

Another limitation of this tool, as is the same with many of the other tools we have been introduced to this semester, is that it is dependent on having access to computers, as well as a connection to internet. At my current placement school, I know that students do not have the best access to computers. There are two computers labs for the entire high school, and only around 15-20 of the computers in each lab actually works. On top of this, WiFi in the school is very spotty, so  a student's ability to connect to VoiceThread would be uncertain. Thus, in order to use the tool, students would probably require that students work at home, which would require the assumption that students have computer and internet access at home, which I am uncomfortable with.

Although I think VoiceThread is an interesting and easy to use application, my use of the tool would be very much supplementary to my instruction. I may be willing to use it for student projects perhaps, or for introducing a lesson, just to introduce students to various tech tools, and to keep their instruction interesting and hopefully more engaging. It is still not something I plan on using regularly, but of course I am open to changing my mind about it with more teaching experience.

Exploring Creative Mathematics Lessons Online

On October 16th, 2014, Tom Ward, a Secondary MAC graduate and current high school math teacher at Greenhills in Ann Arbor, visited our classroom to share some of his ideas and strategies for creating engaging lessons. As a future high school math educator, I found this presentation to be the most interesting, because it had been so math focused. Actually, the first example he presented was to help students learn about quadratic equations, which is the next chapter my placement classroom will be covering! This lesson involved watching a video of a basketball practice, where fellow peers were shooting baskets. I thought it was such a great example, where students can see the parabolic shape of the position of the basketball as it is being shot, and with the right video tools, students could spend various lessons trying to calculate the trajectory of the ball, and whether it would go into the hoop.

Although Mr. Ward shared plenty of lesson examples, such as the basketball trajectory, a Mario Jump example, and a Vine example (not directly related to mathematics), what I appreciated most, was that he didn't just present ideas, but he shared how we could find creative ideas for lessons ourselves. He shared some of his favorite teaching blogs, such as Dan Meyer, Sam Shah, Fawn Nguyen, and Kate Nowak, and also provided us with websites (now linked on CTools), which were some more resources for us to check out. I thought this information was much more useful than just giving us three bloggers to follow.

I really enjoyed this presentation, and although Mr. Ward may not have been as enthusiastic as our first guest speaker, it was really interesting seeing a Secondary MAC alum, and hear about his success as a teacher. I also appreciated that he had taught in different states and different types of schools as well, which suggested to me that he would have various perspectives on teaching. Another aspect of Mr. Ward's presentation that not all of our other guest speakers did was that he provided his information so that we could contact him, as well as a list of his favorite resources.

For me, this presentation was very encouraging. I have worried about my ability to be creative, and make each of my lessons interesting and engaging for students. It is nice to know and be reminded how great of a resource the internet can be, and how it can act as an inspiration for many lesson ideas. I thought that Mr. Ward's presentation supplemented this Teaching with Technology class very well, and it will only help us as novice teachers discover all sorts of interesting and engaging lesson ideas!

Connections Across The Disciplines: Understanding the Historical Context of the Odyssey

When first approaching this lesson plan, I did not know what to expect, because I knew that the content areas of the authors was varied between English and Social Studies. I thought that their topic, which included a combination of the literary piece The Odyssey and the history and culture surrounding the piece, was appropriate for their subject areas, and thought it provided an interesting and engaging way for students to form connections with the text. Reading through their lesson plan, I thought the objective was clearly stated, and that the final assessment was well aligned with their objective. I also found that the progression of the lesson was logical and seemed to flow well from activity to activity.

One aspect of their lesson plan that I found particularly interesting was how much they were able to integrate technology throughout their entire lesson. They also made sure to mention BYOD, and how this would work well in areas with fewer resources available to their students. The material appeared accessible to students on laptops, tablets, as well as smart phones, which could be brought to class without too much trouble. I was also impressed with their planning to use technology in the classroom in various ways. They had videos for the first half of the period for students to watch and discuss periodically, followed by a map activity, where students make connections between travel in the epic poem to current day locations on a map. I thought both activities allow for sufficient interaction and engagement of the students. By breaking up the video into segments, I think this would better allow for students to comment and connect with the material being shared.

I was also impressed with how precise timings were marked out in this lesson plan, but wonder about the details of the discussions following each of the videos. Although I am sure the individuals who wrote the lesson have discussion questions in mind for each of the video segments, I am interested in knowing what these questions were, and what they wanted their students to obtain from each of the segments. Another aspect that I was interested in was who this lesson was aimed towards. I noticed that the students were expected to have recently read The Odyssey in their lesson planning process, but it was not quite clear what level the students would be at when being given this lesson.

Another thing that could make the goals of this lesson plan more clear would be to include the purpose of each activity. They provided plenty of time for discussion throughout the video portion of their lesson, but it is unclear whether there will be time provided to discuss the map activity. I thought this was an interesting and engaging activity for students to work together on, but I think by having a more explicit discussion session on what the students gained from the activity, students will have a better understanding of why they are participating in such activities and what your goals are as their teacher.

After having read through each section of their lesson plan, as well as their discussion of BYOD and their lesson planning process, I am now thinking about all the possibilities after this lesson plan. I wish I could find activities and assignments where students could go from making connections between the text and the historical context, to somehow bringing in a part of themselves to the discussion, so that they are looking for connections between them, the text, and the historical context. Unfortunately, I have not read the texts discussed in this lesson, but I think there are plenty of branches to build on from this lesson. That being said, I found this lesson to be interesting and its incorporation of various school subjects made it so. It seems that students would be able to gain a lot from this lesson, and I think the time for discussion will especially encourage this growth of knowledge for the students.

An Experience with Evernote

For our final summer class, we were each required to research a certain program that helps organize your life, the assignment being called "Organizing Your Online Life". I was assigned the program Evernote. I had heard great things about this program before beginning this assignment, but never had any hands on experience with it. I was a little unprepared to look at it from a teaching perspective, because I had only ever seen it used as a note-taking program, which is more closely associated with the student role.

My experience with researching was pretty basic. For learning to use any technological program, I find it easiest to find a YouTube video explaining in detail with visuals. I was actually able to find a 40 minute video going through all of the basics and all of the possibilities with just a basic Google search. (Video at: Evernote 2014 Tutorial --If you're at all interested) I was able to learn very quickly some of the tricks people had found with using this program, as well as the basic functions that most people use it for.

After having done the research, I found that Evernote seemed to be more of an organizational tool, rather than a hands on classroom tool for students. One major drawback I noticed with Evernote in comparison to Google Drive, was that there is no function for collaborative work, unless you buy a Premium subscription, which has a monthly or an annual fee attached to it. I think if Evernote itself could offer all of the perks of the Premium membership, I would be fully on board to use it in my classroom. You can share all different forms of documents with students, like webpages with and without images/ads, documents, lists, presentations, images, edited images, sound clips,...it's amazing. But the application seems much more geared towards individual organization rather than collaborative work, which I really enjoy about google docs.

Not to say that the basic application does not come with its perks! You can get a browser add-on which allows you, like I mentioned before, to clip web pages with and without pictures or ads, so it's easy to save any web pages of interest in one, organized place, separated into folders and neatly stored. Also, because Evernote is an online program and is compatible with basically any device, you can access your saved documents on any device you may have!

I really would watch the tutorial video, to see how Evernote could help you organize your own personal life, but as far as use in the classroom goes, I think it may just create more work for you as a teacher, and as Kaitlynn had mentioned, it becomes exhausting trying to spread yourself out across so many different online applications. When do the use of programs like this become counterproductive??