Catch of the Day - MathTV - 8/11/2010

 

MathTV offers free tutorial videos covering topics in basic math, algebra, geometry, trig, and calculus.

Solutions to each example exercise are demonstrated in two or more short videos by different instructors. In each video, the instructor explains and demonstrates the procedure used to solve the problem. Many  of the exercises include solutions demonstrated by Spanish-speaking teachers.

MathTV is also piloting a series of online eTextbooks. Presently there are texts for Introductory Mathematics, Introductory Algebra, and Intermediate Algebra.

In the MathTV Bookstore, textbooks used in one-semester college courses in mathematics are available for purchase. Most of the examples in each of these books are presented in MathTV videos.

Check out the MathTV Channel on YouTube

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

 

The Networked Student (Video)

The Networked Student depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler's high school students. I hope that this short video will help you, your students, and their parents understand how networked learning is supposed to work in the 21st century.

I was pointed to this video by Dianne Krause from the Wissahickon School District.

Google Earth: Small World, Your World, Our World

You are always looking for new ways to make learning fun, authentic, and exciting while battling hectic schedules and limited time.

This Apple Learning Interchange guide will show you how to integrate this amazing resource into daily lessons in everything from geography to math.

Google Earth: Small World, Your World, Our World

Create Your Own Front Page

You can create your own newspaper article with the Newspaper Clipping Generator. I learned about this from an April 18th Techlearning article.

Think about how you can use this with your students:

• You can use this as a way to motivate or engage your students about a new project or assignment.
• Have your students create a clipping for a writing assignment.
• Have students create a clipping as part of their history assignment from the time period they are studying.

Create an article of your own:

1. Go to Newspaper Clipping Generator
2. Fill in the fields for...
• Name of your newspaper
  
• Date of your article
  
• Headline for your article
  
• Your own news story
  
3. Click the Generate button at the bottom of the page.
   

How to use your clipping:

1. Click the Click here to save your newspaper. This saves your clipping as a .jpg file.
2. You can either insert your image into a PowerPoint presentation, Word document, Video, Website, or blog.

There are a number of other things you can do on this site, too.

Caught on Video

More than twenty ideas for effective ways to use video cameras in the classroom ...

Techlearning >> Caught on Video > April 22, 2008

Opening New Classroom Doors in Wisconsin

When students from her 10th-grade honors class returned from summer break, Arrowhead High School teacher Kathy Nelson organized an online open-house activity to discuss three novels they had read during their time off.
After six hours, the English teacher at the Hartland school had a 178-page transcript of her students' dialogue and a new appreciation of the power the remote technology of the Internet can lend to the sometimes intensely interpersonal field of teaching.
The approach makes sense not only pedagogically - based on the idea that students learn best from each other through sharing ideas - but also as preparation for higher education, in which combining online learning with lectures is fast becoming the norm, said Myragene Pettit, a librarian and technology director for Arrowhead.

Read more from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...
JS Online: Web opening new classroom doors

Teachers Embrace Facebook

Language arts teacher Phil Overeem and social studies teacher Jami Thornsberry, both longtime educators and club sponsors, say the site Facebook provides a faster and more effective way to communicate with students than other methods. Students don’t pay attention to morning announcements, they said, and teens rarely check their school e-mail accounts.

"What it boils down to is that students think it’s the corniest and squarest thing in the world to use their student e-mail," Overeem said. "They just won’t. They will not regularly check their student e-mail, and that causes problems, especially for extracurricular sponsors who do a ton of stuff."

Read the entire article from the Columbia (Missouri) Daily Tribune ...
Warnings aside, teachers embrace Facebook

iPods in the Classroom

Excerpt from the Dallas Morning News ...

iPods in the classroom became trendy several years ago when Duke University began giving them to incoming freshmen.

Now, they're spreading to school districts around the country. Advocates say they help engage students in learning and keep them tech savvy.

The devices have also been popular on college campuses where professors record lectures on iTunes.

"This is tech generation. So, when we think of instructing students, we have to think of different ways of teaching," said Whitt's principal, Alisha Crumley. "To get their attention in class, we have to keep up."

Read full story

Podcasts Help Engage Maryland Students

Podcasts help engage students

... educators across Frederick County (MD) Public Schools, have discovered the potential of podcasts. They use them to enhance classes, engage students and translate classic subjects into the digital age.

‘‘You can use podcasts in any subject area,” Amy Boehman, a technology curriculum specialist for Frederick County Public Schools said. ‘‘You can do interviews, or record student research ... Any content that a child learns can be turned into a podcast.”

Texas School Uses Technology to Reach Students

The San Felipe Del Rio schools in Texas are successfully integrating technology to reach today's students.

Imagine a room full of middle school students arguing to stand at the head of the class and answer a question. No, it’s not some alternate universe of overly zealous 13 year olds – it’s Jessica Voss’ eighth grade language arts class at Del Rio Middle School.

Voss is one of more than 250 teachers in the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District who gave of their own time to obtain a technological foothold in their classrooms.

“Students today are surrounded by technology … get them into a regular classroom without it and they’re bored,” said district technology director Donnie Weaver.

Getting that technology into classrooms, however, proved to be a challenge, said Weaver.

In the past, the district purchased classroom computer equipment that sat almost entirely untouched because teachers weren’t properly trained on how to use it.

Del Rio News Herald