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Feb 17 2015

Popping Bubble Wrap

What might a sheet of bubble wrap have to do with learning math?

So, in my last blog post I referenced former math teacher Dan Meyer’s online curriculum–offered for free as slides in PDF, Keynote, and PPT formats–that he used with real, live students. His latest thinking about math instruction took him to a different type of online curriculum, using problems he creates, to be presented to students in three acts. You can even see a list of all of the ones he has created, and if that number of examples is not enough to be used with your students, they should provide enough context for creating one of your own.

I wanted specifically to look at the bubble wrap one because bubble wrap isn’t really that important. It’s just a prop. But it’s what I might call a sticky prop, one that is simple sure, but it offers just a little bit of engaging interest to us (or to our students). Popping bubbles is something people like to do, either to relieve stress, because they’re bored, or who knows why. It feels good/interesting/curious to pop bubbles. And your students have likely popped some bubble wrap in the past. And that’s what I mean by a sticky prop: bubble wrap is interesting enough to hook us into the problem.

The cool thing about Dan’s 3-act problem with bubble wrap is, once we’ve figured out how to answer his questions (which often start with us making guesses, then refining our guesses with data points), we can apply it to different situations. If someone a year from now were to ask us “How much do you want for painting the inside of my house?” you might reference a 3-act learning experience. Personally, I’d ask how many rooms, estimate an hourly wage, then guestimate how many hours it would take me to paint those rooms. Most math problems might attack the situation is a very analytical way with how many square feet there are in the house… By design, Dan’s 3-acts are tied to situations that are more real and more every day, and if they all are not practical, they at least are sticky enough to command some interest.

I also like that so many of Dan’s problems involve video as a medium. Short videos demand our focused attention, and we can play them back multiple times, if we missed what we were supposed to see. It’s up to us as educators, I think, to make use of the millions of hours of free video available to us now to think creatively about the potential math, unsolved problems, and curious questions that lurk in short clips.

If you’re interested in 3-act math, I might suggest a few next steps:

  • Read through at least 5 of the examples linked above to get a flavor of a 3-act math problem.
  • Find one that relates to your own content standards, and try it with students.
  • Create your own 3-act, by including images and/or video in the problem. You can create your own, or borrow something with sticky interest from YouTube.
  • Reward yourself with some bubble wrap.

By John Hendron • Learning for Teachers • • Tags: 3-act, inquiry, math, meyer, video

Jul 28 2014

Logging into Schoology

This year we’ve adopted a new learning management system called Schoology. This is primarily for grades 3-8 however all teachers are permitted to login if your principal elects to use it for professional development.

  1. Visit google.com to ensure that you are logged into Google. If not, use the link in the upper-right hand corner to sign into your Google account.
  2. Go to goochland.schoology.com or click on the “S” logo on our homepage.
  3. You should be automagically brought into Schoology. If you receive an error message, please let us know.

We are using Google Apps as the sign-on mechanism for Schoology. Veteran teachers will have the option to use a Schoology blog in lieu of a WordPress blog. This is a smart option if you plan to integrate Schoology into your lessons this year.

I have posted an introductory video on the layout of Schoology and how to access and set-up your Schoology blog.

By John Hendron • Learning for Teachers • • Tags: schoology, video

Oct 1 2013

Protected: Discovery Streaming

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

By John Hendron • Learning for Teachers • • Tags: streaming, video

Dec 6 2012

TED Talks for Educators

I’m sharing a spreadsheet of TED Talks. This summarizes them for you, with the speaker, and a brief synopsis of what’s covered, in case you’d like to use one in your class.

via @russeltarr

By John Hendron • Resource of Interest • • Tags: video

Nov 28 2012

Help me make a video!

I’d like for the Goochland teaching community to make a video for students on thinking before posting to digital media. I was inspired by a billboard Jennifer Bocrie photographed yesterday in another school, which reminded students to THINK.

A digital dossier is a concept of your collection of everything about you – your digital trail – online. You can help me make a video in just a few minutes!

  1. Watch my video below. It’s probably the longest part of this endeavor (it’s just 4 minutes long).
  2. Visit the spreadsheet.
  3. Pick a line (or more).
  4. Boot up Photo Booth and put it into video mode.
  5. Record.
  6. Drag the video and send it to me.
  7. Mark your line as “complete” on the spreadsheet.

I hope to release the video next week by editing these 49 short little videos together. Thank you for your support!

Bonus: like this idea? If you want to try this with students at your school, let me know–I’d love to help. We can use the same script, or have them come up with one in a spreadsheet too!

Podcast Video [ 3:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By John Hendron • General News, Learning for Teachers • • Tags: citizenship.social media, video

Aug 30 2012

Discovery Streaming Basics

All five schools this year have access to Discovery Streaming Video service.

Login at: streaming.discoveryeducation.com

By John Hendron • Learning for Teachers • • Tags: streaming, video

May 14 2012

Me? Backup?

Great little video of a true story from Pixar.

Only because the technical director made an extra backup of the movie files did Toy Story 2 survive. Lesson to learn? Always backup!

By John Hendron • Learning for Teachers • • Tags: backup, video

Nov 11 2011

Keynote for the iPad

Keynote can be used to present Keynote presentations without a laptop: add a video dongle to an iPad, and you can present to an audience.

But did you know you can use the Keynote app to create decks of slides without a computer? Watch the video below and John shows you how!

By John Hendron • Learning for Teachers, Resource of Interest • • Tags: iOS, ipad, Keynote, video

Oct 11 2011

Video in the Classroom

Last evening I led a class on “You Tube for Teachers,” which covered more than the big YT. We looked at different ways video can be used in the classroom, without necessarily creating your own from scratch. We embraced the re-mix mentality, but also just examined the gamut of both free and paid video sources.

youtube_icon

My handout for the session is available via our Wiki.

What surprised me is that several folks had never really looked at YouTube in detail before. Because we’re a Google Apps for Education district, teachers can authenticate to YouTube using their Goochland Google ID. I think there are misconceptions about it, I am not sure. This is what I suspect. Teachers don’t want to access YouTube because:

  1. It’s blocked by default and they figure it’s a bad website to visit.
  2. It’s got amateur videos that are of little use in education.
  3. It’s video and is bandwidth hogging.
  4. It requires and account and it’s probably complicated to use.

Hopefully some of these possible myths were dispelled. We saw that it’s pretty easy to use; it’s easy to sign-in with your Google ID, and there is valuable content to be found. It’s different for sure than Discovery Streaming, and you won’t necessarily find the same type of videos. It’s true, video can take up a lot of bandwidth. But if it’s for educational purposes, use the bandwidth! And yes, there are inappropriate videos on YouTube. That’s another reason for keeping it filtered. But we hope you use the variety of services and websites linked to the wiki to use video in the classroom. Just remember – short chunks are best – and it really comes alive for challenging kids with critical thinking.

By John Hendron • Learning for Teachers, Resource of Interest • • Tags: pd, video, youtube

Aug 24 2011

Your Kids Should See This!

This is a new website of videos and photos (e.g. multimedia) that probably was created for adults, but is suitable for a much younger audience. Much of it inspires wonder and and curiosity about our world.

By John Hendron • Resource of Interest • • Tags: first, kindergarten, preschool, resource, video

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About this blog…

This is the blog of John Hendron, Ed.D., director of innovation & strategy for Goochland County Public Schools. Through this blog I share information for teachers, administrators and families dealing with learning and teaching with technology.

You can contact me via e-mail! I look forward to hearing from you.

John Hendron Goochland Schools

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