A thought that lead to a question.

I was reading about Amazon's new kindle match program.  If you purchased a hard back copy of a book in the past so many years, you can buy the kindle version for either $0, $1.99 or $2.99.  Some are available and some will soon be available.  One of the books I purchased for work is now being offered in kindle format.  This lead my mind to wonder if I could copy a page from the kindle book to move into either one of the apps on the iPad so my students can work on the page on the Ipad and then turn it in.  I know I can use the physical book and scan it using a copy machine or via the scanner in the library but this makes things a bit more complex in that it requires a few extra steps. 
The most obvious way is to do a screen shot and use that for the students to mark up or write answers on but I would probably first have to convert the screen shot from jpeg to a pdf. 
hmmm. This is beginning to offer so many possibilities.  To me using technology in the classroom is all about opening possibilities.

Excitement

The other day, one of my students yelled Rape in the middle of a class.  She was trying to be funny.  I commented that Rape is a plant.  Suddenly all the students are going to Safari to look up the Rape plant to find pictures and information.  They learned it is a member of the mustard family and you can make oil out of the seeds.  This lead to discussion on where mustard comes from.  It was wonderful. 
I came to a conclusion on using iPads on the next test.  I am going to let them use the iPads but they have to keep them to the side with their notes, then they can bring the answer back in their head.  This way if they decide to check the web, they are not with their papers.  I am going to treat the iPads as I would their notes. 
Finally, I have been working on arranging a distance presentation on origami and geometry.  I know my students love origami and this will help them see more geometry.  I hope to get a presentation on diving and geometry.  I think that would really capture their attention.

MIT Blossoms

I was doing a search looking for MIT App Inverntor and discovered they also produce the MIT Blossoms website filled with videos for math, various sciences and engineering.  They cover a variety of topics including using geometry to build simple machines.  That looks like a cool one to use as an introduction to Geometry and its real world uses for my class.  In addition, they have a huge list of online resources for math, the various sciences and engineering.  I think that is sooo cool
On the other hand, they have my classroom set of iPads ready and I will get them during my prep period.  So this weekend I am going to set up my lesson plans to incorporate them.  I already have one plan for the students who have to retake the state graduation test.  I am going to put the practice tests on-line so they can do them and the program will produce data to help me figure out what my students need help with.  It will also help them prepare for when they must take tests on computers.  It will take a lot more work but I think it will be good for them in the long run.

Finally

We have someone coming from Apple to teach us to use apple configuator so that I can get the iPads ready to use by next week we hope.  It was set up last year but then we had to change a password and ended up with key change issues and it never worked correctly again.  I have plans of using Subtext, Nearpod, showbie, etc to have a more integrated math classroom.  I can see some ways that it will be helpful since I know that I can use subtext with pdf files.  I can set up some pre and post tests online and have my students take the test so I know where they are at.  I want the nearpod so we can go through some presentations.  I am ready to use these and other apps.

App for teaching volume

I found a nice little app called Geometry: Volume of solids lite.  It has short videos explaining volume for rectangular prism, cylinder, sphere, pyramid and cone, the most common shapes our students are required to learn.  I downloaded it last night and plan to check it out over the weekend so I can give a more accurate review.  I watched a bit of the pyramid one and it had a 3 dimensional representation of the shape that turned around so students get a full look at all sides of it.  The introduction takes time to show how they derive the volume formulas for the shapes.  The best thing of all is that this is a free app.  I plan to explore other apps by this person.
Last day to get the book free.

Gem of a free calculator app

Last night I stumbled across a neat little calculator program that so far is great for many HS math classes.  It can also be used at the lower levels.  Most calculator apps mimic a real calculator with the buttons, clear, memory, etc but this one does not.  My Script calculator is quite different. You write the problem out with your finger and it transforms it into print and gives you an answer.  It does ln, log base something, nth roots using the exponential form of the radical.  It even recognizes pi and changes it to 3.14 for calculations of volume or area.  I discovered it does sin, cos, and tan using either degrees or rads automatically.
The only down side I have found but I am planning on checking with the company that makes the app is that it gives answers to all problems in decimal form, even fractions.  Other than that I love it and I think it is faster for the students to use as they are not hunting for various keys.
I showed it to the sped dept and the lady in charge loved it.
Has anyone used this particular app? How do you like it?

There is a push for my students to do more reading and writing so they do better on the standardized testing.  I've been thinking about how to include in my classrooms.
1.  Word problems - Use the KWC  after underlining the important sections.  Perhaps even have a short video or illustration included so my students can see what it is.  My students tend to be so remote that they have little or no prior knowledge of some of the situations.  For instance driving the car from Philly to NYC.  We don't have cars and they have no idea of the distance involved.  So I  end up rewriting the problems to use boats, snow machines or ATV's.  If I included a map, perphaps a google trip using google world so they could see the actual routing that might build some prior knowledge.  They could fill out a short pdf form for the KWC and then on the bottom write in an explanation for how they came up with their answer.  This would add reading and writing into my math class.
2.  NASA math problems.  I've tried these but the students do not do well with them.  Again, if we had a pdf form to help them organize information, pictures or videos on the topic so they can "see" what is being talked about and perhaps have them create a video to record how they came up with the answer, it might help them improve their mathematical vocabulary.
3.  Finding real life problems such as telling how long a body has been dead using logs and temps.  Include a web page with the information so students can find the equation used to determine the time since death.  Provide them with a scenario where they are the corenor and they have a body.  They discovered that the body temp is such and such and they make a report on how long the person is dead. 
These are just three ideas I came up with to incorporate more reading, writing, and technology into my lesson plans for next year.  I did not mention iPad apps because there are several that could be used.

Three apps

I have three apps I just downloaded from the apps store and I will be working with them to decided if I can use them in my classes and if I can plan ahead by making presentations, etc to use with them.  I am mostly thinking of the best way to use them.
The nearpad application which allows the teacher to share a presentation, quiz, etc with the students and actually be synchronized with student iPads so you swipe and it changes the page on their iPad.  One concern is giving a quiz during the time.  I think I would place that towards the end so each student has the chance to work at their own pace.  What impressed me simply is that you can try nearpad using your pc or mac instead of another iPad or iPod.  It worked quite well.
The ask3 app states that you can turn the ipad into an interactive white board with sound recording etc.  When I investigated it, it appears I can only set it up for one class and cannot carry the material over to the next semester.  The company stated they are working on that feature.
Subtext is a lovely app that allows you to pull in a worksheet, reading or book, add questions, notes, etc so that it becomes an interactive experience and helps the student improve their reading.  I can see using it for word problems and for material out of the book.  At this point in time, it does not do pdfs but they hope to have the app use pdfs come fall.  You have to convert the pdf to epubs first.
Now that I know about these apps, I can figure out how to incorporate them into my lesson plans but first I have to convince the tech dept that I need my iPad on the wireless system so I can use them. 

Correction, observation and announcment.

I've have been increasing the amount of time I have the students on the iPads this week.  After the warmup, I send the students to a website to do something such as read or do practice problems.  They are much quieter than when I try to officially teach a lesson and they are more focused.  I feel they get even more work done.  I also show a video or two during the week instead of lecturing and they seem to pay more attention to the video than a lecture.  I still assign the study notes worksheet so they read the section but I first assign four reading for meaning statements so they preread the section.  I do not actually assign the study notes until mid week when they have had a chance to build a foundation.
The correction is that at cool math, not all lessons show up on the iPad, only some of them. It turns out the lesson on the sieve of Eratosthenes works on coolmath.com but the one on algebraic fractions does not.  So I need to check ahead of time.
The announcement is I published a short e-book on Amazon titled "Teaching math using the iPad".  It has general suggestions or types of programs, specific recommendations for how to use those apps and recommendations or suggestions for apps themselves. I give reasons for many of the recommendations.
 I will be choosing one day to offer it for free in the very near future.  I will post the date here so you all may take advantage of it being free as a thank you for reading my blog.

2nd website and mindmapping

The second website I use is www.aaamath.com.  I often use it for my Algebra I or Pre-Algebra level students who need to practice various topics.  Today I'll be sending my students here to read and practice prime factorization.  This website has a topic, information on doing it, practice and often offers games.  My 9th graders tend to be much more focused in class when they have an iPad assigment.
I gave some thought to mindmapping last night and came up with a couple ideas of how to use it in my math classes.  So far the ideas are for geometry but its a start.
Mindmapping ideas
1.  Use it for classification of triangles.  The center topic of triangles has three arms.  One for angles, one for sides and one for both.  There are more arms off of each of those topics to list the type such as right, acute, scalene or right scalene.  Add more arms for the characteristics such as acute would have three acute angles, or right scalene might list must have a 90 degree angle with three different length sides.  A 30-60-90 degree triangle would be an example.
2.  Classification of quadrilaterals.  This would work the same way as the triangles one.
3.  Altitudes, bisectors, and medians.
This could easily be done on a mindmapping app on the iPad.  I use Simple Mind.  It is free and it allows you to use a different color for each branch of the map.  Students often remember color better than something in black and white.
I'll give some more ideas for mindmapping in a day or two.

Nice web site for use with the iPad

I use several math sites in my classroom but over the next few days I will focus on three of them.  Two of these can be used with the iPad and the third required the use of Rover the last time my students used it.  I'll talk about each of the websites over the next three days.
The first website is www.mathisfun.com  After I've introduced a topic such as prime factorization, I will often use a QR code to send my students to read the material on the website.  Most of the topics have a small quiz at the end of the reading section which I have the students do.  I do not grade them on how many they got correct, only that they did it.  Its a second way to expose them to the information.
I was reading on a website that it is good to provide both written and verbal instructions so that when students are not listening to verbal directions and they ask "What am I supposed to do?  you can point them to the written instructions.  I have put the written instructions into a QR code and had the students use the iPad to read it. It actually worked quite well. 
The same website suggested giving students choices in the classroom including choices of writing prompts.  I am going to try the writing choices out with the Journalize or the Notes program.  I am having fun trying to find ways to increase writing in the Math classroom. 
Tomorrow will be www.aaamath.com

Infographics

I've been reading about infographics and I think it is something worth trying.  Since my college prep is in the middle of a project, I think on Monday I will give them a choice of actually writing the short report or preparing an infographic on logs and natural logs and their use.  I think they might have more fun doing the infographic rather than a report since it is a bit more creative.  From what I've read about infographics, these would be great for the probability unit as students can see the real life applications of probability.  Bingo is a huge business out here and parents will often go play to 3 or 4 in the morning.  Maybe an infographic on the probability of Bingo would be a good place to start the unit. 
I am hoping to discuss a couple math apps I discovered on iTunes that will help students with the distributive property and with the special binomials such as (x^2 - 4).  I even have ideas of how to do a graphical representation on Geoboard but I want to do more research on other apps that might help me with the graphical representations.
If anyone knows of one, let me know.

Good websites for math

Due to the cultural celebration beginning at school tomorrow, today is really the last day this week I will be teaching, so I made the majority of work, iPad based. 
In period 1 we've been studying scientific notation.  The students went to http://janus.astro.umd.edu/astro/scinote/  It allows the student to do practice problems before taking the quiz.  I had the students do 10 practice conversion problems before they took the quiz.  On Monday, they will do practice multiplication and division problems using scientific notation before they take the quiz.
In period 2 we've been simplifying, multiplying and dividing rational numbers.  We used this website: http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/math/algtrig/ATO2/indexATO2.htm to practice these types of problems.  The lessons and practice sections do work on the iPad.  I enjoyed it because the students could do the problems and then check their work.  If they got stuck they could go to the solution and check out how the problem was done step by step.  It gave them some guidance and allowed them to be independent.  I did not see any students go to the solutions and just copy down the answers.
For periods 4 and 5 They will be going to  http://www.mathguide.com/lessons/SurfaceArea.html
to learn more about Surface area.  It comes with a lovely explanation and practice problems afterwards. 
I printed QR codes on paper, put directions under the codes and had the students use the iPads to read the codes so they knew what to do and the code sent them directly to the website.  I did not spend time trying to have them type it in.
I am using these activities to engage them and to monitor their understanding of the materials.  I am glad to find sites that work on the iPad. 
Tomorrow I'll be writing on three math apps I downloaded that I plan to try tonight.  I'll let you know how they work.

Logs and Lns and reading the textbook.

We have a short teaching week so I am going to have my college prep class do some research.  They will find out how logs and lns are used in real life, prepare a report on it using any app on the iPads. They have to find one for logs and one for natural logs, include the specific situation, a graph and write an explanation of who is using the function and why.  This may help them make the real world connection they miss in the book.
 The textbook we use has real world examples but the students try hard to avoid reading the textbook.  I've started using a reading for meaning exercise where I make a table with three columns and four rows.  In the center column, I write four things out of the chapter.  The left column is for agree and the right most column is for disagree.  The student reads the chapter and decides if the statement is true or false and writes the sentence out of the book that proves the statement is true or false.  They have to include the page number with the information. 
I find students read much more carefully, especially if I tell them that I will  not help them.  The may help each other.  The next time I do this exercise which will be next Monday, I am going to try it using the iPad.  I just have to decide what will be the best app to use to share the form.
I do this type of exercise because most of my students are classified ELL (English Language Learners) and they hate to read.  So this helps them read the material and get a chance to understand it.  They help each other.

Virtual manipulatives in the classroom.

Currently I use two different ones in my math classes.  One is Geoboard for the iPad.  It is just like the real life geoboards we have in our classrooms except this app comes with two different boards and lots of colored rubber bands but no chance of loosing either the board or the rubber bands.  I've used it for students to create various types of triangles such as those classified by sides, or angles, finding the number of triangles in a polynomial as a starting point to find the equation telling the interior measurements of the angles, tessellations, transformations, etc.  If you use a geoboard in real life, you can use this app to do the same thing.
The second app I've used in geometry is Geometry pad.  It allows students to use a coordinate plane for geometry.  It allows students to make all sorts of quadrilaterals and polygons, triangles, circles with radius, arcs, chords, etc.  There is an option for points, angles, lines, rays, segments, perpendicular bisectors, medians, altitudes and angle bisectors.  you can draw, type, use a ruler, and do certain functions.  I've used this one when the book has a coordinate plane problem, transformations, midpoints, diagonals, etc.  If I have to resort to worksheets for certain activities, I will have my students use this app to help them complete the worksheet. 
Due to iPads not having java, I am unable to use many of the virtual manipulative websites on the internet.  I found another app that has great ratings and I hope to down load it tonight to play with.  Its virtual manipulatives and focuses on decimals, percents and fractions.  Although it is rated for middle school, many of my lower performing high school students are weak in that area.  I think this could be used in that class to help them learn how decimals, percents and fractions relate to each other.  I hope to give more information on this app on Monday or so.

Idea for the last week of school and today's exploration.

I am about 4 to 5 weeks out from the end of school where I am.  The last week of school, we don't do much so I am thinking of running a project that will be cross curricular and should be fun. I was reading the back of a VHS tape and there was a project listed called The Math Trail. The students are to use concepts from the math curriculum and create books of problems based on objects and events in their community.  For instance, students might create problems concerning how much heating oil is held in their tank and then write a problem on how much it would cost to fill.  Students would be using math and either ibooks author or some other book making publication. They could take pictures of the items, add arrows, etc. They possibly could add a voice over.  I am going to spend the next few days working up the parameters on it.
Today I had my 9th graders use their iPads to research how scientific notation is used in real life. They found two real life examples and posted them on the board (smart board).  They came up with some really good examples.  Some were the speed of light, government debt, size of a virus, size of the space inside a computer chip, a mole etc.  The kids needed experience searching for information and they also needed to discover how scientific notation is used in real life.

iphoto

On Monday I am going to assign my seniors a two day project where they will use iPhoto and the camera to create a short 1 to 2 min project on where and how logs and ln are ussed in the real world.  We have doodle buddy they can draw things on, notepad to type and a couple other programs to use.  I believe they can use iPhoto to create a slide show of sorts and that will be awesome.  I have to figure out the parameters of the project and write the rubric for Monday.  I will tell them they can use what ever apps are on the iPad and make sure they know how to do screen shots so they can use those to help make the presentation.
I am looking forward to the results and I will be sure to share them.  I found an app to animate things but it has limited uses unless you register at the website.  So I need to investigate that.  I know their attention is much better when they do things on the iPad, I just need to make sure they are learning the material rather than using it as a toy.
I think I might have found an animation app that is free.  I am going to download it tonight and hopefully try it out.  I will report back on it.

More on yesterday's QR experiment

I was able to export the results of the 10 question protest I gave my students on scientific notation.  The information provided includes all 10 questions, student names, their answers and their score for the quiz.  Now I can take the information, analyze it , and have a place to start teaching rather than just teaching by the shotgun effect.
I plan to use this with other classes and I am going to make it a regular part of my arsenal for next year. The site again for building your own test is testmoz.com  
I love finding places like this that I can use with the iPads.

Quizzes and such

I spoke to the school board president this morning about math and the students and ways to help the students who are not college bound prepare for life after school.  Since I am piloting the iPad program for our school,  I told the president that it is a process of my learning how to use the iPad effectively during instruction while helping the kids learn to use it as a tool so that when they leave school, they can work in a technologically heavy world.  He understands that to really integrate the iPads it will take more than one year because I am learning as I go. 
Tomorrow I"ll show him some apps on my iPad for both elementary and high school so he has an idea of what can be accomplished especially with free apps for the  iPads and mini iPads.  The elementary school will be getting mini iPads and I will be overseeing that program. 
I think for the younger elementary I'll be recommending Doodle Buddy for math and reading, the math app from SAS which has a variety of units that are great for K to about 3.  I think the Doodle Buddy will be good for students learning letters, numbers, writing words, and sentences. 
For the high school, I found a test making site  with fewer bells and whistles to use on the ipads.  I can design my own questions, decide the type (multiple choice, fill in the blank, true or false) and then get information on how the students did.  I am trying a short 10 question true or false quiz for my 9th grade Algebra class as a way to see what they already know about scientific notation.  Once done, they will go to a website to read up on the topic and take another short quiz that will give them instant feedback.  I am going to try a fill in the blank exercise from the book with the questions spread around the room (perhaps done with QR codes) and they have to find the answer in the book. 
I'll let everyone know how that goes. 
The reason for the last activity is that my students do not want to read and they need to learn to read for comprehension. 

Which is first, the lesson plan or the technology in planning?

I just read an article on edtechreview.in about technology and pedagogy in which they discussed teaching and technology.  Do you choose the technology and then write the lesson plan or do you write the lesson plan and choose the technology?  Personally, I don't think it is either.
From my perspective of teaching math, it is more important to choose the concept first, decide how you want the concept to be understood by the students and then look at where in the process the technology is best used.  Technology is a tool to help students learn the material.
One item taught during transformations is tessellations.  I introduced this section by showing pictures of tesselations on my smartboard. I asked questions about what they saw and how they think these were made.  We reviewed types of transformations and discussed  how they were used to produce certain pictures.  This was followed by a video on tessellations and I asked them to design their own tessellation on the geoboard app on the iPad.  Once they had their tessellation created, they transferred the design onto graph paper and colored it in.  This took about two 55 min periods to complete.  The students stayed engaged and we used technology to further the lesson.