Math projects and the ipad.

I keep looking for ideas to use the ipads in my Math class and I found one on the edutopia website.  Its actually for a trig class but I think with some adjustments I might be able to utilize the idea in other classes. 
This is a project for trig in which students create a video on certain apps showing how they solved a certain problem in detail.  This one requires students to use right triangle trig to calculate height of an object or the speed of an object.  The goal is to write-up their work so that it can be duplicated by other people.  In addition, students has certain questions they had to answer within their presentation.  The logic for this is that many times people have to create presentations for their job where they convey specific information.
I could easily do this same assignment in my College Prep class or with a bit of adjustment I could easily use it in geometry.  Students need to see the connection between real life and the math that we teach.

Big issue with shared iPads.

I gave my students some time this week to work on their projects that are due Friday.  Apparently, students from one period are deleting work from other periods, some seems to be completely disappearing and the big one which is students do not remember which iPad they were using. They yell their work disappeared and it turns out they grabbed the wrong iPad.  I think we also lost some work when we had to redo the iPads because folks deleted apps, downloaded the latest upgrade, etc. 
I think the next time I assign projects, I am going to have more apps and assign one app to each class. This way students have no reason to mess with someone else's work.  I know for notes, I've had to assign a different notetaking app to each class to make things easier. 
I already know I am going to look up various presentation type apps so when I do this again, each student will have one app to work on and one notetaking app.  I hope to add apps to allow them to create podcasts, etc. It is all one step at a time.  I learn as I go.

Next week.

Next week, I plan to pass out a list of projects/activities that students can choose from.  I think the list will have 6 choices and they will select 4 to complete and turn in by a certain date.  I've decided that they can create a book, prepare a podcast, prepare a white board presentation using showme, create a math lesson using google earth and make a short video presentation.  By choosing these general activities all my classes can do something. I need to set up the parameters for each activity so they are doing the higher level of Blooms technological taxonomy and it expands their knowledge.  It will also require they actually create a detailed product which I like.
This is a big step for my students and I hope it works.  I will have to schedule time for them to work on the projects but I think it will work.
On the other hand, I've been asking questions that have been opening up mathematical dialogue to develop their language skills.  I work with quite a few students who are classified ELL. Today, I asked can you take two concave shapes to make one convex shape.  This question produced a good conversation among my students as they talked about it.  Warmup questions are good for introducing material, reviewing or working on vocabulary.  

Project based vs menu driven learning?

I was looking at a link to project based learning ideas and realized for as long as I've been teaching and as long as I've heard of project based learning, I still am rather unclear about it.  This is even though I worked in a district with levels, end of level tests and the idea of moving towards project based learning.  From my understanding, you assign a project, have the students work through each part of the project and at the end, they turn in the final project and in the process, they have learned several to apply several math standards.  In menu driven learning, students are taught the material, given the menu to create several small projects based on learning styles to turn in for points. 
Where my thoughts are going with this is are they mutually exclusive.  Can you create the over all project and break the parts down into a menu so each student or groups of students will be able to create the final project using different smaller parts that works best for them.  I realize each project will have to broken down into steps so students are not overwhelmed but could each step have three different choices on how to accomplish it?  Since so many of my students are ESL, I have to do a break down so each student knows the steps they have to follow but not necessarily how to do each step.  For instance, when I assign the "Design your dream bedroom" I have them draw 6 scale drawings to show the 4 walls, floor and ceiling so I know where all the windows, doors, lights, and how the room itself looks.  I then have them create an estimate for the finishing cost of the room including flooring, paint, wall paper, ceiling tiles, etc.  I need to look at being able to combine both projects and menus to give students a better choice and increase their learning.

Back to learning menus

I've been giving a lot of thought to learning menus and writing.  I've worked hard this year to increase their verbal communications by asking why, how did you come up with that answer, and other questions. I have been projecting warm-up and standardized test questions on the smart board.
Unfortunately, they are not as strong on the written, so I am toying with the idea of having students create pamphlets or jingles/raps or create some sort of digital presentation on showme, iphoto, or make a pod cast. 
In the past when I've had students create digital presentations, they've struggled with the creativity.  Many of these students have grown up in an oral culture and have little if any printed material in their homes.  So if I ask them to create a printed ad, I'll have to show them an ad and discuss the parts.  The nice thing is that I can bring a few magazines along to give them ideas and they can take photos to keep a record for themselves so they have a guide. 
This is something I'm going to be working on over the summer so I set it up properly and introduce it slowly over the year.  Maybe start with a choice of two digital projects and increase the number of choices over the school year.
If anyone has suggestions on setting up and using digital learning menus, I would love to hear from you.

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.

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.