My Favorite: Trello #MTBoS Blogging Initiative

Warning: This post is LONG. If you hate reading & just want my favorite thing, go here and explore. Or scroll ALL the way down. Have fun. 

Time to circle back to prompt #2 from the MTBoS Blogging Initiative. 

Here's the prompt: Our week two blogging challenge is to simply blog about one of your favorite things.  Called a “My Favorite,” it can be something that makes teaching a specific math topic work really well.  It does not have to be a lesson, but can be anything in teaching that you love!  It can also be something that you have blogged or tweeted about before.  Some ideas of favorites that have been shared are:

• A lesson (or part of one) that went great
• A game your students love to play
• A fun and/or effective way to practice facts
• A website or app you love to use in class
• An organizational trick or tip that has been life changing
• A product that you use in your classroom that you can’t live without!

My favorite thing lately is Trello, and it fits #2, 3, 4, & 5 on the list above!

Trello will change your life if you let it, I promise. ;)

I'll walk you through what it is, & the amazing education potential, and then I'll share the ways I like to use it. 

What is it?

From the Trello site:

Trello is the free, flexible, and visual way to organize anything with anyone. Drop the lengthy email threads, out-of-date spreadsheets, no-longer-so-sticky notes, and clunky software for managing your projects. Trello lets you see everything about your project in a single glance.

Trello is really the ultimate organization tool. You can very visually organize projects, lesson plans, ideas, or even use it like Pinterest. It's easy to collect and organize and reorder ideas, attachments, and links. It's incredibly easy to use on any device. Sharing is easy. Updating your progress on items is easy. And it connects with IFTTT. (Can you tell I love it yet?!? haha)

Trello has 3 parts: 

1. Boards (think like a Pinterest board - these are general topics, like Unit 1) 
2. Lists (columns, or sub-boards, such as topics within a unit)
3. Cards (individual pieces of information, like activities for a specific topic)

I should mention that cards can include labels, color coding, due dates, attachments, links, comments, pictures, and can be assigned to certain people. 

Trello is free as long as you're ok with solid colors for backgrounds instead of custom pictures. Here's the link to the welcome board shown so the hands on peeps can understand what I'm saying. 

Ok, so what? Why should I care?

Trello has infinite potential! 

In my personal life, I have boards for grocery lists, organizing quilt projects in different stages, keeping track of what's in the freezer (we do OAMC in my house), keeping track of chores & other good habits, gift ideas for family, and so much more. My husband is shared on several of these, so he can add/edit as needed. I'm a list girl, and Trello helps me keep all my lists electronically.

Professionally, I find new ways almost every week to use Trello. 

Here's the rundown. 

• Professional Development Approval & Progress
• My dept shares a board to discuss PD opportunities we will offer. We attach handouts, make to-do checklists, and communicate approval of funding all in one place. As each PD session moves through various levels of approval, its card progresses into new lists on the board, until it's finally sent to True North Logic, our county PD software.
• Brainstorming, & To-Do Lists
• categorized, with attachments or links as needed 
• I use this board as my "thoughtbox." 
• Future blog post ideas, activities or foldable ideas, etc. stay here until I get to them. 
• I have "Resource" Boards for various math topics
• the lists are things like "quadratics" and each card is a link or idea
• I also have a list of places I like to look for questions, activities, etc.
• Sorting, ordering, etc activities. 
• Example: Exponential Equations Warmup
• Students drag & drop matching cards together into a new list.
• I use Trello the same way I like to use the Post It Plus app (blog post for that is here). Trello has the advantage of being possible on ANY device, including Chromebooks. Post It Plus is iPad/iPhone only.
• I want to make some ordering activities too - FDP, integer ops, etc. 
• This is totally graph/picture/equation compatible - you just need a screenshot for the card image. 

I also use Trello to collect my favorite things - very much like Pinterest. Here's the link to my Review Games board. Most ideas are from other MTBoS blogs. 

Trello even has inspiration boards for you to look at, to get an idea of what it's capable of, in specifically education-related ways.  There are some really cool ones - I especially like the project board & classroom newsletter. 

Have fun exploring!

Playing SPOONS in Math Class: Ideas, Template, & a Download

I saw a tweet today that really got me thinking. It leads you to a game of SPOONS with equivalent fractions and the directions to play the game, in case you've never played the card deck version.  #TMC15 is happening, and I'm at GCS Pinnacle feeling a bit left out of the fun. So when I saw this, I knew I had to whip up a batch of cards. 

Pinnacle's topic of the day is Gamification/Gamed-Based Learning (turns out, those are 2 different things). This morning, we played Minecraft, learned about the SERIOUS educational potential there. I'm still pondering if there's something I can use for upper level Secondary Math. Comment below if you think of something. In the meantime, I'm content to see its value for other content areas, particularly in MS Social Studies/History. We ran through WWI and colonization simulations this morning, and it was powerful, even for adults. VERY COOL STUFF. 

This afternoon, our assignment was to create a game. I'm always on the lookout for new games, but I haven't created very many. So it seemed more productive for me to take this new (to me) idea, and make it useful for my grade level. 

Step 1: Create cards. Click here for my 9-card template, which creates 9 playing cards from every sheet of cardstock. Most of the time, I copy this onto cardstock, cut apart, then write on the cards. Occasionally, I'll type up a batch. You need 4 cards per player (I'm planning on groups of 4-6) with a few (4-8) extra. 

Step 2: Decide on a topic. Spoons is fast paced. It's perfect for skill-and-drill type questions, or at least topics that can be identified/classified/etc. quickly. 
Here's the list I can think of off of the top of my head (feel free to add more in the comments!) You will need 4 components/equivalent forms to match up. 

• Linear equations (matching slope/y-int/table/equation)
• Linear equations (multiple forms - words/table/equation/graph)
• Exponent Rules
• Quadratic equations (matching vertex form, vertex, graph, & ??? )
• Simplifying radicals (perhaps matching like radicands)
• Circles (matching equation, radius, graph, and center)
• Transformations (1 equation w mult. transf., other 3 cards have transf. )
• Factored form of polynomial & roots, maybe with # of real roots/# complex
• Exp. Growth & Decay (situation, equation, % rate, growth or decay)
• Parallel Lines & Transversals (match up 4 examples of alt int, etc.)
• Triangle Congruence (match up 4 examples of SSS, etc.)

I'm sure there are lots more. Typing this list, it occurred to me that ALL of these would be great post-it activities as well. (Need a reminder about that? Check out this post.) I need to do a better job this year of allowing students to get some practice in a non-worksheet way. 

My friend @sgibson and I wrote up this set for linear equations pretty quickly. 

I typed out a batch of simplifying square roots - students would simplify mentally, then match up based on the simplified radicand. An answer key/master list is included! It took me about 20 mins. from start to finish - not too bad for a new activity! Click here to download it. 

To wrap up, here's my Top 10 take-aways from #GCSPinnacle this week:

1. CANVA is amazing. I've used it 10+ times in 2 days. LOVE. 

2. Badges work. If adults love it, so can high school kids. 

3. It's hard to find teaching techniques that work for all content areas. Some just won't. And that's ok. 

4. Sitting in a desk every day is NOT any easier than teaching. It takes serious personal motivation to stay focused. 

5. There's not a gazebo in McAdenville anymore. There IS one 5 seconds from the Rader Center. 

6. People get goofy after sitting in the same room for 4 days straight. 

7. I need to be on Twitter more. #ILiketoHashtag

8. I need to share more, and worry about having "finished products" less. 

9. You can accomplish a LOT of planning when you're not focused on 1 topic (like what's happening next week, or tomorrow) but rather on an entire course.

10. Cutesy activities usually make me wince, but they really do build a sense of teams. (Shoutout to People Machines & our toaster!)

MTBoS Directory & Post-it Plus App

Hi everyone!

I just want to give a quick list of 3 awesome things:

1. MTBoS Directory!
Wow this is going to be amazing - one comprehensive list for our little math world!
Go to http://sites.google.com/site/mtbosdirectory to sign up! Click add entry, and let us know who you are. I've been having some fun today looking up teachers in my area, and finding some amazing new blogs to follow.


2. Post-it Plus App
This is random, but I read a blog post today that just ROCKED MY WORLD. I do so many sorting, matching, and ordering activities, and I've finally found a way to digitize this process. Check out the idea from Teaching High School Math here. I tried it out very briefly while my students were working on the warmup, and I'm already planning to use it tomorrow for students to practice switching between log and exponential form.


3. ScoodleJam and Nearpod App-Smash
Is it still called an App Smash if it's only smashed by the teacher? Hmm....I'll have to think about that.
ScoodleJam is a great doodling app - I downloaded it last week when it was free, and have been using it to create some cool activities. It's easy to save an image created in ScoodleJam, and I imported them into Nearpod to create some introduction puzzles based on this blog post. I used it at the beginning of my lesson for solving exponential equations without logs. You can check out the Nearpod presentation I used here. It's not too fancy, but it really made this lesson so much easier on my students, and it only took me about 10 minutes to create!