Slope and Intercepts Review with ThingLink and Zaption

Before the holiday break, I had taught my classes about slope and intercepts.  Twelve days later, I did not expect them to recall anything about either of these concepts, so I planned a "Slope & Intercepts" review for the first day back. 




In the beginning of the school year, I had set up a "Know Your Fractions" review using ThingLink and ThatQuiz.  It was a self-paced review where students watched a video tutorial that I had created using Explain Everything, worked on some practice problems, and then took an assessment with ThatQuiz.  I decided that since it worked so well, I would use ThingLink again for this review, but as for the assessment piece, I changed from ThatQuiz to Zaption.

For those of you not familiar with it, Zaption allow you to create interactive videos by inserting text, images, or drawings, and assessment pieces such as open response, numerical response, multiple choice, checkboxes, or draw responses into the video of your choice.  You can also restrict viewers from skipping forward, allow them to skip backwards to review, and require viewers to answer all questions.  Zaption calls the final product a "tour".  You can share your tours by providing the link to your viewers or embedding it into a website.  (While my students used their Chromebooks to view my Zaption tours, Zaption also has an iPad app.)

notes were found throughout the videos 

questions were found at the end of each video

So I reused my own tutorial videos that I had created a few years ago, added some notes throughout the videos, and then 3-4 questions at the end of each video (you can add them at any point during the video, I just chose to place them at the end).  Zaption saves the analytics from your viewers' sessions so you can see how they did later on.  I kept an eye on the analytics as my students were completing each video so I could be proactive and meet with each student to discuss their errors and prevent them from repeating their errors on the practice problems they were to complete after the videos.  I also used the analytics to compile a list of the top 4 errors that were made by all of my students.  I used these 4 problems as my 'Do Now' for the following day to address the common errors with the entire class.

overall statistics for the tour

statistics per question

I really like the way Zaption made my videos more engaging and interactive, and the fact that it collects data for me.  One of my goals this year is to use data such as this for my formative assessments in order to address student error as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Zaption made this super easy!

2 birds...1 stone

For the first few days of school this year, I tried to "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" so to speak.  First days are usually for going over classroom rules and teacher expectations, and most teachers conduct some sort of icebreaker activity for everyone to get to know each other.  This year my goal was not only to do these standard activities, but to use this opportunity to introduce and familiarize my students with some of the technology we will be using throughout the year.

Day 1 goals:  

• explain my rules and expectations
• introduce Nearpod

Day 1 activities:

My students participated in a Nearpod presentation in order to become familiar with the format of Nearpod and the various types of interactive activities that can be included in a NPP.  The first several sides displayed the same information that in the past I had presented with PowerPoint, such as my contact information, how much I LOVE math and hope they will too by the end of the year, supplies they will need, an overview of my teaching methods and classroom routines, and my favorite quote:

Created with quozio.com

Then I had a slide which instructed them to put in their earbuds and watch the following video, reminding them to pay close attention because there would be a quiz afterwards.  (I purchased a class set of cheap earbuds at the dollar store so every student will have them whenever they need them. They are all in ziplock bags labeled with each student's name and do not leave the classoom.)  They all seemed engaged in the video (which I created last year with VideoScribe).

Screenshot of the final frame of my video

When everyone was done, the quiz began!  I created a question to go along with each of the nine expectations that had just learned about.  Some of the questions were fill-in-the-blank, some were multiple choice, and others were draw-its.  My hope is that when we do our next NPP for a content topic, I won't have to go through explaining how Nearpod works because they should all already be familiar with it and this will save some class time. 

multiple choice question in Nearpod

Day 2 goals:

• icebreaker activity to get to know each other
• become familiar with Explain Everything

Day 2 activities:

For the second day of school, I had the students interview their partner and then create an Explain Everything video about their partner.  I did this same activity last year and you can read my blog post about it here for more details.  The only thing I changed this year was the order of the activities.  This year I started by showing them the video I made about my partner (my roommate Mr. Basso).  Then I had them interview each other.  When all the interviewing was complete, I had them follow along with me in Explain Everything as I demonstrated what each tool did.  I gave them a few minutes to try each tool before introducing the next one.  This allowed them to become comfortable with the app before they had to use it to create their video.  Once I felt they were ready, I explained how I wanted the final product to be organized (I had them answer 2 of the interview questions per slide, with a total of 5 slides altogether in their video).  Then they all went to work.  Most students only completed 2 of the 5 slides, so we will be completing the videos on Monday.  But the next time I ask them to use Explain Everything they will know exactly what to do, and this was a perfect way to get to know my new students!

Chromebook Training Week

Photo via us.acer.com

If you've read any of my recent blog posts, you'll know my district will have 1:1 Chromebooks (Acer C720P's) for grades 7 through 11 this coming school year.  To prepare the teachers for this new adventure, we were given the opportunity to participate in four days of Chromebook training, with teachers from our district leading the sessions.  Whenever I attend a workshop or conference, I like to reflect on what I have learned, and I'm happy when I can walk away with having learned one new valuable idea.  The purpose of this post is to do just that, and share my favorites with you, my readers.


All attendees met in a large group for each day's opening session, then we broke out into individual sessions based on experience and interest.  After our lunch break, we met with our content area colleagues to discuss how we can apply our new technology to our curriculum.  We ended the day back in the large group to answer any questions from the day.  Here's the overview of each of the days' sessions I attended and what I feel was the best thing I learned on each day.


Day 1

Photo via www.bettshow.com

The sessions I attended on day 1 included Hapara, Google Add-ons, and Best Practices for Google Docs.  I'm really intrigued by Hapara and I'm excited to be able to try it out with my new group of students in September.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Hapara, it's a Google Apps for Education add-on that consists of two components, Teacher Dashboard and Remote Control.  Teacher Dashboard allows for workflow management and monitoring of students' activity.  Remote Control gives teachers the power to remotely open or close tabs on students' Chromebooks as needed.  With the new Google Classroom being release August 11th, just in time for the new school year, it will be interesting to see if it can be a replacement for the Teacher Dashboard portion of Hapara or if they will just work well together.  I plan on comparing the capabilities of the two applications by using Classroom with one of my Pre-Algebra classes, and Teacher Dashboard with my other Pre-Algebra class.  I still plan on using Remote Control for both classes since Classroom does not have that functionality (yet).


Day 2

Photo via techsmith.com

On day 2, I attended a session on Flubaroo, another on Socrative, and one of screencasting with TechSmith's Snagit and Movenote.  I was already familiar with the first two applications, but Snagit is what caught my attention on this day.  I have been using the iPad app Explain Everything to make videos for my students (and for my students to make their own videos as well).  While I absolutely love Explain Everything, sometimes I need to do a screencast of something on the Chromebooks, so Snagit will be my go-to app for this purpose.


Day 3

My "Do Now" mini-NPP

Day 3 was all about tools for our content areas (math for me), differentiation, and sharing learning.  My math team worked with Nearpod.  Since I had experience with it, I demonstrated how to use it.  I had the other teachers take the student role so they could see how it will look to our students.  They absolutely loved the "Draw It" feature, especially since our Chromebooks are touch screen!  I shared my favorite stylus with them (TruGlide) and one of my team jumped onto Amazon right away to order one!

Photo via lynktec.com

 After I showed them how to create a quick Nearpod Presentation (NPP), we brainstormed how to use "mini-NPP"s for our "Do Now"s, homework checks, and even exit tickets (thank you to Cathy Yenca for that great idea!).  I have used Nearpod for full presentations in the past, but never for these shorter snapshots of learning.  What made us decide to use Nearpod over some of the other tools we tried was the "Draw It" feature and the fact that we can save the data from each session.  We also liked InfuseLearning, except that we couldn't use the draw feature during a pre-made quiz.


Day 4

Photo via blogger.com

On the final day, I attended sessions on backchanneling, Google Sites and Google groups, and blogging.  We played around with TodaysMeet for backchanneling, which had my wheels spinning trying to figure out how I could use this tool in my math classes.  (Any ideas? Please let me know!)  But the most exciting idea I took away from this day was having my students using Blogger for their math journaling.  I had set up a Google Sites with the announcement style pages for my students to blog and keep all their blogs connected under one site to make it easier to monitor all of them.  But during the blogging session I found out that Hapara will monitor my students' posts and comments as long as they use Blogger as their blogging tool.  This is definitely the way I will go.  Now I just have to plan a digital citizenship/how to blog lesson.  I'm excited to try this new way to improve my students' writing about math.


On the last day of training, everyone who didn't already have a Twitter account signed up for one.  Eisenhower Middle School and Roxbury High School teachers will be busy tweeting now!  All-in-all, the week of Chromebook training was terrific!  I found a new tool to experiment with during each of the four days.  As much as I am enjoying my last few weeks of summer break, I look forward to my new "Tech Adventures in a Middle School Math Class" in September!

Fraction Review with ThingLink

At the beginning of every school year, I spend several weeks reviewing basic math concepts like fractions with my students to recover from the summer slide. With so many new concepts to teach during the year, I really hate to waste so much time on fractions, a concept they have learned and reviewed for many years in a row. There's never enough time to teach my students all of the 8th grade Common Core Standards that they need to learn before state testing. 

This year, since my students will have 1:1 Chromebooks, I'm planning on trying something new. I created this ThingLink as a way for the students to review the fraction topics at their own pace. I purchased enough pairs of earbuds from the dollar store, in case someone doesn't have their own, so they can listen to the videos I made with Explain Everything that are linked in the ThingLink.

There are 4 numbered sections for the students to move through, "Equivalent Fractions", "Fraction Operations", "Mixed Numbers", and "Fractions & Decimals". In each section is a video (or two) to watch. Then I will have some practice problems for them to work through, which I will use as a formative assessment to see if they are understanding on their own. If they are still struggling, I will be able to give them one-on-one or small group instruction to go along with the video instruction. Once they feel they have mastered the topic, they can click on the link to take a quiz which I created in ThatQuiz. (This is not the actual ThingLink I will use with my students. I have another copy of it which has different links to the ThatQuiz quizzes that my students must sign in before they can take. This one has practice quizzes only so you can try them out.)

Since this is self-paced, I anticipate a few students will finish before the rest of the class. I will have some extension activities, possibly word problems, for them to complete. Stay tuned... I'll let you know how this independent learning works out!

I updated my ThingLink on 7/26/14 for the #TLChallenge. This week's theme was "Turn It Up a Notch with Sound". Our challenge was to use Audioboo to add sound to our ThingLink and incorporate UDL (Universal Design for Learning - check out this video for more info on UDL). I used the Audioboo sound clips to read the directions in each section to my special education students who might have difficulty reading them on their own.

iPads, Start to Finish

I read a discussion somewhere fairly recently (I wish I could remember where so I could give them credit!) of using the iPads not just for one isolated part of a lesson, but for the entire lesson, start to finish. I have actually used the iPads for almost the entire class a handful of times, but never for the entire time. Most of the time, I do just use them for one part of the lesson.

Unintentionally, today I did just that. I didn't think about it until after class was over, but it actually got me excited! (I know...I'm sooo geeky!) I started out class with the students signing in to Showbie to access the Do Now. There were two versions of the Do Now in the assignment folder which they could choose from. Then after a quick review on the Smart Board, I had them open Explain Everything, not to use it as we usually do for screencasting, but just to use as a whiteboard to solve practice problems, instead of passing out the physical personal whiteboards, markers, and erasers. Then I introduced the app-smashing project they were going to do by using Reflector to project my iPad on the Smart Board. 

Our topic today was a review of exponents, but squares and cubes specifically. I wanted them to make a connection between "the little number up in the air" (translation: exponent) and the real-life applications of squares and cubes. The project involved using 3 different apps, then submitting their work to the 4th app, Showbie. With the first app, Hands-On Color Tiles, they created 3 to 4 squares and took a screenshot to save it to the camera roll. With the second app, Think 3D Free, they created 2 different cubes and shared them to the camera roll as well. In the third app, Skitch, they annotated on their photos they had just created to show the dimensions of the figures and express them with exponents, then share it to the camera roll. Then they went into Showbie and added their files to their folders to submit their work to me.

I absolutely love the idea of utilizing the iPads for the entire lesson! Besides the benefit of being paperless, it just seems to flow so much better between activities because everything the students need is right at their fingertips, literally, in the iPads. And to the students, anything you do on the iPads is fun!

Having 1-to-1 iPads would make this concept of iPads start to finish much more of a daily routine in my classroom. Our building has 3 carts of 30 iPads, not 1-to-1, but most days I am able to get one of the carts, so I am going to focus on trying to do this on a regular basis. One drawback of the shared carts and not having 1-to-1 is that when students start a project on one day and need to finish it the next day, we have to ensure that they get the exact same iPad. This is frustrating when the class that has used the iPads before us doesn't put the iPads back in their proper slots in the cart. It becomes a scavenger hunt to find the right iPad for each student, which takes up valuable class time each day. Ugh!

One part of the lesson I haven't attempted on the iPads is notetaking. I would love to hear from someone that is not in a 1-to-1 situation but uses the iPads for students to take notes. Do you use Evernote, Notability, or some other app? Does each student need to have their own account? 

I would also love to hear from others who use the iPads start to finish on a daily basis. How is that working out for you? What types of problems do you encounter? What are the benefits you see from this?

Solving Equations with Explain Everything

Click on the image above for the PDF

I love Explain Everything and the students did really well with it when we did our ice breaker activity ("All About My Partner" App-tivity) at the beginning of the year. I thought it would be the perfect way to assess their ability to solve multi-step equations because I could have them explain their thinking process as they are solving the equations. I wanted them to not only explain what they were doing, but why. This is great for the Common Core Math Practices! I gave each student the assignment shown. It looked a little overwhelming at first, but when they realized they only had to solve 7 equations, they calmed down. Each student had to pick one equation from each column to solve. I had them circle the problems they picked, and used this sheet as a place to record their grade. I graded them on how they explained it, how they showed their work, and the final answer. Overall, they did a super job!

"All About My Partner" App-tivity

One of my usual first few days activities is to have the students complete an interest inventory, which, to say the least, is not very interesting to them. This year since we have iPads, I decided to step it up a little and make it more engaging for the students. The app-tivity I created for them is called "All About My Partner". Besides getting them to use technology, I also wanted to incorporate some communication skills, since the common core is all about communicating about math. 

So, day 1, I showed the students an app called Explain Everything

(love it!!). I had them try out each tool one by one in order to get familiar with this app, since we will be using it quite a bit this year. I heard many students comment about how the app was really cool! By the end of our first day, I felt everyone was comfortable enough with it to start actually using it the second day.

Day 2, I handed out their interview sheet with the questions I wanted them to ask their partner. When they had completed the interviews of each other, I gave them each an iPad to begin creating. They were to answer two questions per slide in their presentations, for a total of five slides. They had learned on the first day how to bring a photo from the camera roll into their presentation, so I wanted to see a photo to go along with each question (they could also simply draw with the pencil tool if they preferred). Once they had their five slides done, they recorded their own voices introducing their partner to the rest of the class and emailed their mp4 movie to me.

The students were highly engaged in this activity! The final products came out great, and the app-tivity accomplished what I had set out to do - learn how to use Explain Everything and communicate with each other.

My First Year with iPads

Our middle school got our first cart of 30 iPads in the fall. I was sooo excited to finally get to use them with my students in October! I had spent most of the previous summer researching and investigating how I could integrate them into my lesson plans. I knew they would be very engaging to my students, but I wanted to use them in a way that would increase their learning, not just because they were "cool".

The first few times I let my students use the iPads, it was just to "play around". I wanted them to explore and get comfortable with them before I attempted to use them in a lesson. Some students had already worked with one, but there were some who had never held one before and needed a little help to get started.

Stupid as I am, one of the first lessons I used the iPads for was during one of my observations with my assistant principal. Fortunately, I teach three sections of the same Pre-Algebra class, so my first class was a trial run. There were a few glitches, so I tweaked it a little for my second class. I spoke to my assistant principal after the second trial and told her all about the small fine tuning I had done to the lesson since I had sent her a copy of the original lesson plan. She observed me during my third run-through. There were still some minor issues, but overall she was very impressed that, for one, I had even tried to use such a new piece of technology for my observation, two, that I had made revisions as needed, and three, that all the students were highly engaged in the lesson. This gave me the courage to move forward and try to incorporate the iPads in more of my lessons!

Here are some of the other "apptivities" I have tried out with the iPads:

• QR code scavenger hunts 
• Bingo
• ThatQuiz
• annotating PDFs with neu.Annotate+ PDF
• Nearpod presentations
• Educreations
• Explain Everything
• iBooks

Oringinally, I thought I had to find "math apps" to use, but I have found that finding good creation apps is much better! Math apps have a very limited use, whereas a creation app such as Nearpod can be used for just about every concept in the curriculum. More bang for your buck (even if they are free)!

I should add that my experience this first year was not limited to using just the cart of 30 iPads that my school purchased. We also initiated a BYOT policy this year, so the students have been able to use their own smart phones or personal iPads in the classroom as well. Some days when I could not reserve the iPads, the students would use their own devices and they would share with a partner who did not have one. This worked out well, especially for QR code scavenger hunts (see photo). In the case of bingo, I had paper bingo boards for those who did not have their own device.

One thing I have learned is that iPads cannot replace the paper and pencil. Some students just prefer to do their math work on paper, which is fine. If I have a lesson planned where students will be annotating on a PDF, I always bring along several paper copies just in case someone would prefer that method. I also found that paper and pencil works much better for assessments. I tried an assessment using a QR code scavenger hunt with students solving equations by annotating on a PDF, and it just led to frustration for many of the students. (I retested on paper the next day and used that as a learning experience for me and practice for the test for them).

I have had so much fun planning lessons with iPads this year, and can't wait for next year! I am also planning on teaching a profession development class on incorporating iPads into the content areas in the fall to share my experiences and knowledge with my colleagues.