Interactive notebooks part two

I and my students are finding out more about the individual notebook programs we are using.  For instance, Goodnotes allows my students to take both pictures and screen shots and import them into their writings so they can add annotations with their finger or with a text book.  Unfortunately SAS Notebook requires the students to use a scratch paper to bring in photos or other type of picture.  They can hand write annotations, comments, etc but we are still working on adding typing.  They cannot import the scratch paper material into the text page so students will require two pages.  For inkflow the students were helping each other figure out how to create examples using the geometry pad or geoboard apps, take and crop those pictures and import them to the page.  Every single student was on task in all three classes and it was fun watching students who are not normally engaged doing the assignment.  I have one period left and that is my 9th grade math class.  We are starting with popplet and they will do one or two rectangles/cards a day
The QR codes for warm-ups are going well and a couple students asked me why I was not doing the practice standardized test questions via QR code.  I told them I"d try it for next week and the kids are buying into the technological integration.

First full day of iPad integration.

Overall, it went quite well.  I had the students come in and scan a QR code after getting their iPads.  They actually sat down and did the warm-up nicely.  Once we'd gotten over the beginning part of class,  I took time to let the students explore the apps, Gloss and my script calculator.  This took about 10 min out of the period but it was worth it because we then worked on doing one word problem.  We started by listing what we know, what do we have to find and what do we have to think about to answer this question.  It was awesome the way the students worked when I said they had to work in pairs and use one or the other or both apps to solve it.  I saw some really awesome discussion.  I have one period that went to a site to take a test I created and then they read up on-line about square roots.  Tomorrow, all students will be watching a video on the material they are learning.  I see some great things happening with the iPads in my classroom. I did have one student who thought the iPad was a wonderful toy because he took 135 photos during class and he'll discover he'll have a problem tomorrow when we use the iPads......LOL

computation or mathematics

I started reading a book and I'm only in chapter one but three things popped out at me.
1.  Mathematics is patterns
2.  Mathematicians work in collaboration with each other rather than in isolation.
3.  Computation begins with the question and finds the answer.  Mathematics begins with the answer and finds the question.
This last one I found quite interesting because as part of the warm-up this past year I posed some answers and had the students work towards the question.  My warm-ups are on the smartboard, ready and waiting till the students arrive and class starts.  They do the warm-up while I take roll, etc. 
Often I have said something like you have three different numbers and two operations to get -35.  I let the students write the problem.  The more advanced might do -6 x 5 + -5  while the less advanced might to -40 + 5 x 1.  I find this type of warm-up gets them thinking and helps them practice their order of operations in a fun way.  I've had students tell others they messed up on the order of their math.
Most of my students prefer to work together.  This coming year, I am going to request that they have to ask at least three other people before they ask me for help when they are working together.  They have a culture where you must do it correctly the first time so they don't like working independently.