Thing # 5 RPC

At our meeting on December 12 we looked at the research calculator. Although I have not planned a lesson and directed its use in my classroom I do have a better understanding of it as a powerful tool. Highland Science teacher extrodiniar did an excellent job of showing us how to incorporate this into a project. What a great guiding quest...alternative fuel sources. I want to be like John. I am considering a Geometry Research project where students investigate one aspect of geometry. I could easily work this in for mid Tri2 or Tri 3. The calculator may be more useful from the teachers aspect particularly for shorter projects. Karen and Leslie did a great job of leading us through this extensive tool.
The other item we talked about was the rubistar to generate rubrics. This was cool since I had just created one for a project in my algebra class. Its again one of those sites that one has to use many times before it would become quick and easy.

Thing #

I was able to show my advisory a cool dvd on possiblities in life. I once again a had my projector and computer ready for class discussion and display. We also watched an intertaining YouTube puppet show with Harry Potter. We continued our research and keep the students informed of the research engines on connect St. Paul. In my advisory we looked into trusses since we were studying triangles. We looked at the Star-Tribune pictures and history of the 35w bridge. We even were able to look at the new plans for the bridge. This created a healthy discussion in my Geometry class. In Algebra we took a look at YouTube Ma and Pa kettle do Math. Students found it very entertaining since we had just finished studying percents and proportions. I still have an adjustment to set-up and take down each day. It is good to use the video chunks to enhance the class discussion.

Thing #

I am happy to say that I have done one power point presentation in my class. I did not however write the power point. It was provided with the HOLT materials for the mathematics curriculum. I will create my own slide show soon. I must say it was easy to run with the remote and clicker for the slides. My students appreciated the change and it allowed for a deeper discussion of the functions we were studying. A couple of my colleagues noticed the set up. I have finally got the projector on a cart so that it is easier to see the projection on the screen. They were interested and a little skeptical as to whether it was worth all the set up and tear down time. Like anything, the more you pracitce the less scary it becomes to teach a lesson in this manner.

Thing 13

I had the good fortune on the early release day in early October to have Karen come in to present to Highland staff the research calculator. We went to http://www.metrolibraries.net/pro/dribbling.html. There are so many steps for this research that could help students get organized. As a group of teachers we have discussed the usefulness of this calculator. Some of the parts of it were also demonstrated by Leslie Yoder in one of our session. I guess my personal feeling is that I would utilize some parts of the calculator if I was having my students do a longer research paper. In math class if I assign research it is usually happening simultaneously with the other parts of the class. This can be overwhelming to students. I have found that they can not organize their time and thoughts. The research calculator can help students work with a deadline by helping them to create their own deadlines with dates of thesis statement, beginning the research, brainstorming and focusing their ideas to less broad topics. This site had some information literacy lessons that could be done in the class to emphisize the steps used in any research.

Thing 10

I did a little search or googling for some math items. The one site that I looked at was Dr. Math and I found some good reference information for my students with history of percent. I also found some good questions and answers to why we do constructions in geometry. These will be excellent reference material in my classes. I also went ot utube and found the very funny video of Ma andPa Kettle doing math. One must understand the concept to appreciate the humor. My students will love it. I plan to get the students attention by using at least one of these on test review day in my algebra class before finals.

Thing 14

What a great class we had today. We worked in groups in a jigsaw manner. We each looked at one online resource found in the www.connect.spps.org. My group looked at united streaming and where we could look at a tutorial to learn more on its use. We discovered that in the Atomic Learning their is a tutorial that explains all the A,B, C's for streaming. It looks like the home page has a title of Discovering streaming. This is an easy access for many different subjects. In mathematics I saw a nice video on functions that I could use in my class. It was stated that there are a number of other databases that link to united streaming. Students will enjoy the videos. There are teacher planning tools as well as quizes at the end of a video. There were some great suggestions to prepare for presenting the video in class. One was to download to the desktop for easy access. Another was to burn it on to a DVD. To enlarge the screen it was suggested to use the remote control and zoom for a clearer picture. It was also suggested that we use speakers since the computer speaker is not able to give the volume for the class.
Along with this database we were exposed to a number of other reliable resources. Gale had the student Edition, Informe, and Discovery, EBSCO, SIRS Discover for grades 4-9 and Researcher for grades 9-12. So many resources. It was a very good class for we students to dig in. Thank you Metronet and friends.

Thing 15

On November 8 I was able to help my advisory students connect to the online resouces available to them at connect.spps.org in our Mac Lab at Highland. Thanks to our media specialist who initiated this 9th grade introduction to all of our students. She designed a nice 8-10 questionairre that had all students look for some key locations. I am sure these students will be able to use this in the future to find reliable resources for all their classes.