Assessment.

I have known for a while that I need to do more assessment. Today as my students used a couple apps, I realized I could use the data from the apps to determine how they are doing or use the results as the assessment. 
For my geometry class, I sent the students to IXL and had them take 5 questions for three topics dealing with triangles.  The results are an assessment and I can uses the results as a quiz grade because they are answering questions.  IXL is nice because you can access up to 20 questions per day per iPad without having to sign up for the service.  I can have 2 different classes do 10 questions on a certain topic and use the results as the quiz score.  I feel kind of stupid because I've used IXL before but never considered using it as the assessment.  <grins>  I think we all go through that.
I had my Algebra 1 classes do card clutter today.  Its a game where students get certain numbers they have to put in order.  If they do not accomplish it within a certain period of time, the app shows them the correct answer and asks them if they want to retry.  I noticed that many of my kids would just hit the move on button so they could brag that they completed level whatever without really paying attention to the information.  The assessment value I gathered from watching the students is that most are pretty good at ordering integers but they are not as good when they run into fractions, decimals or mixed.  I can use this information when I write their homework assignment up.  I can put problems that require them to order numbers so they can practice this skill.  I can also put one or two problems on the warm-up.  I like being able to scaffold by sliding in problems in both the warm-up and the homework.

Card clutter app

The card clutter app has 14 levels of increasing difficulty.  The basic Idea is that students rearrange the cards into increasing order.  If you tap the cards in the correct order, the card flies off the table.

The first level is all positive numbers and quite easy but by level 8, the numbers are in mixed form and much harder.  

Just for the fun of it, I just started tapping cards in any order to see what the app would do and it throws up a screen telling you time is up and shows the correct answer so students cannot just do anything.

Although the premise seems quite simple, it is working student number sense and would work over a number of grades. I see using this with my high school students to improve their number sense as many still have not developed their number spence to the extent it should be.

Card clutter and other things.

I found a math app called card clutter which has students order numbers from smallest to largest.  There are 14 levels going from natural numbers to square root.  Each level is timed and if you choose a number that is not the correct one, the card will not slide away and a certain amount of time is penalized.  I have high school students who have difficulty ordering numbers once they move to negative numbers, decimals and fractions.  I am impressed with this.

I completed my first day at an iBook hack and it was awesome.  One of the most important things I came away with is a search engine to search for images, music, etc that can be used in presentations without violating copyright.  The site is at search.creativecommons.org and I will be sharing this information with others at the school I teach at.