Paper.li - Keeping up with the internet

There is just so much "out there" in the interwebs. 
Articles, tweets, ideas, pins, blog posts...

I use Bloglovin to keep up with the blog posts, but I only read through every couple of days. Which means some things fall through the cracks. Not to mention, it's only grabbing content from blogs I've already found. 

So I stumbled upon Paper.Li. 
I think someone must have tweeted it out with a #MTBoS hashtag, because I can't think of another way that I would have actually paid attention to it. But ever since, I keep finding new public paper.lis to follow! 

Basically, paper.li lets you build a newsletter out of tweets, articles, or basically anything out on the internet. It's really just a content collector. But I really like it because other people have built paper.lis that align with my interests. (I could build my own, but I feel like the ones I've found online are already so great that I don't need to.)

I keep the links on my bookmark bar, and when I get a free moment, I browse through a couple. I've found some new blogs to follow, and plenty of great ideas. Here's the list from my bookmarks bar:

The Math Education Daily

Math Daily

#Mathchat Daily

Teaching Science and Math Daily

Desmos Daily

Educational Technology Daily (Fridays only)

ELL Daily 

If you know of a great one I didn't list, please let me know! I really love finding new ideas, and this format just works for me. It kind of reminds me of Flipboard, but I never really found it useful because I didn't take the time to fill in all of my interests/fav blogs/etc. I like that with paper.li, I can just flip through everyone else's pages!

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!

Cool Thing of the Day

I promise this post isn't spam...I just really like this tech tool!!
I got a gift for Christmas that I have been using like CRAZY ever since I got it.

It's an eWriter called Boogie Board Sync. Super cool!

There are $20 versions that act just like scratch paper, but don't use paper. It's basically a magna-doodle for adults. I have one of those (and have for a while) but I mostly just use it to replace a billion post it notes & to do lists on my desk.

The one I got for Christmas is a bit more (around $70-80), but you can save your drawings/writings/etc. using bluetooth. Which means I can hand-write solutions, and save them to post for students! We all know there are times that creating a geometric drawing or some math mumbo-jumbo that just isn't convenient to create electronically.

This thing lets me sketch out what I want, & save it as an image. I can edit it later, highlight, etc. once it's saved on my iPad. Then I can use the images in tests, worksheets, or just to project when going over answers.

Just thought I'd share! :)

Thoughts for other uses:

• Differentiation during small group time. It would be so easy to write out 1-2 problems, click save, and export to classroom, or drive, for students to work on. 
• Use live mode with students & smartboard - this can function just like an airliner
• Student observation notes. Maybe connected to evernote, and saved in some sort of classroom file? I'm always writing myself notes about what I need to work with a student a bit more on, or misconceptions I'm seeing. 

Review Fun: How to Play the Dice Game

This great, low-prep, EASY review game was shared with me by my classroom neighbor. He heard about it from a friend at his last school. Who knows where this game has its roots?!

SETUP:

• Game template file (Download it here) on SmartBoard
• Medium Tech: Don't have SmartNotebook software? Go to express.smarttech.com
• No/Low Tech: Use real dice and display the 1-6 choices & score on the board. 
• Change #1-4 to be 4 topic "groups" that you want to review. Have questions to read aloud or display (task cards are great for this).
• Students need to be in teams and have scrap paper/dry erase boards for their work.

GAMEPLAY:

One student from the 1st team comes up to the board and hits the dice to roll them. Their team may CHOOSE which number they want. (So if they roll a 1 and a 3, they can choose which category to answer a question from. The only time 6 is chosen is if they roll a double 6.) Teams continue to roll until they answer a question. I also make a double 5 the "special roll" where they can erase 2 points. 

I don't allow negative points, so there's no use for them to choose a 5 until another team has points.

Each correct answer earns their team 1 point. They work together to answer, and may only answer one time. If they are incorrect, I allow any other team to "steal" the point. 

WINNER:

The team with the most points wins. I keep score in the boxes at the bottom of the page. We usually play until a pre-determined time, so that the game doesn't take over an entire class period. 
WHAT I LOVE: 
Basically no prep. Works with any content.

ISSUES/THINGS TO CHANGE:
Sometimes they'll avoid a certain category. If that happens, I replace an "overused" topic with the topic they're avoiding (for example, #1 might start out as absolute value, and end up half way through the game as direct/inverse variation). I've also been known to have a "random" category on one of the numbers to fill in what I think they need. 

I also want to make students individually accountable for their answers - in the future, I can see myself using Nearpod for them to send in their responses with work, like I do with BINGO. Sometimes the tech isn't always available on the fly, so I'd love any ideas for a low-tech way to collect their work without having to grade a bunch of messy papers. 

Summer PD, and WBWO

Happy Summer!

This week, the Pinnacle team is meeting for our Summer PD sessions. On today's agenda: Google Classroom, personalized learning, and so much more. My brain is full.

Our summary assignment for today: 3-2-1. So here we go!

3 Things I Found Out:

• Canva.com (or the Canva app) is free, and pretty amazing. The graphics on this post came from Canva, and it only took about 5 minutes to create both. I can see this in my classroom for our presentations, and maybe to create some classroom displays. Most of the fonts I love are already added. 
• Our neighboring school district has committed to having every school use personalized learning for their students by 2018. We talked a lot about what that means for us, and if we could start implementing some of these techniques in our classrooms (perhaps one unit at a time)
• (This one was by accident, but still awesome) IFTTT connects with the Amazon Echo! I was one of the lucky people that snagged one of these on Prime Day (they sold out in seconds). If This Then That is a great website for streaming your life, but I might also find a couple of ways to use this in planning. We'll see. 

2 Interesting Things:

• Kagan Talking Chips actually works - we used paperclips today, and I was surprised to see that after a few minutes, it really helped keep the conversation going. There was a slight pressure to use all of your chips, and it forced me to speak up. 
• CopyDown as an add-on is also pretty useful. It lets you use formulas for Google Form responses, even before all of the responses have been completed. 

1 Question I Have:

• Can personalized learning be implemented in a HS Math classroom without SBG? There wasn't ANY talk of SBG this morning (mostly because we're a K-12 group focused on technology). My concern is students that move at their own pace/on their own pathway won't all "end up" at standard proficiency. Is that ok? I don't know. Does a kid that "meets" his goal of a below-grade achievement get a 70, AND a kid that "meets" her goal of a above-grade achievement also get a 70? Does SAME GROWTH=SAME GRADE? 

Since I don't have the answer, let's move on. I promised before to explain some of my review games, and this one's an easy one that I use A LOT. 

SETUP: 

Students need dry erase boards and markers, or a device with a doodling app. 

Teacher needs questions, answer key, and a space on the board. 

Each kid needs to write their name on the board with 3 X's underneath their name. (I used to make a template for each class with this done, but it takes only 2-3 mins. to have them write their name, and it lets them get their supplies as well.)

GAME PLAY:

The game works just like Grudgeball - but students compete as individuals. I got the idea from this blog post about exponents from Nathan Kraft. 

I read/show/display a question, and EVERY student works it out on their own board. I walk around, and when they get it right, I tell them to line up at the board. Each right answer means they get to erase someone's X. I pause every few minutes to "supervise" the erasing, so that we don't have a division of people standing/sitting that got the question right/wrong. 

WINNER: 

It's an easy way to do a skill drill that doesn't make them want to whine. Winner is the kid with the last X! (It's always a quiet kid that doesn't do anything to draw attention to themselves.)

My favorite thing about this game: the smart kid doesn't win. The kid(s) that gets the most right has the most CONTROL over who wins, but can't usually win (Since typically, the other kids will erase the X's from the "smart" group right away). 

Skitch Connect Four/Tic Tac Toe with Circle Terms

Hi everyone!

I thought it'd be best to start the first of May off with a blog post left over from April.

We've been starting some geometry lately, and my Math 3 kids really needed a few days to get their brains wrapped around the vocabulary.

I found a neat Circles Tic Tac Toe activity and this blog post including paper folding notes, which helped me plan my instruction for my kiddos.

I've really been trying to put my 10 class iPads to use with partner activities, and this fit the bill perfectly. My class is one of the pilot BYOD rooms in the school, but there's still many of my students that don't have a device to bring. Often, lessons where they can work in pairs instead 1:1 with the tech are much more doable. Here's what we did.

Setting up an ISN page that's got several pieces can seriously EAT class time. So I replaced their usual warmup activity with some simple instructions. I had the first 3 people in the room pass out the strips of paper, which were 1/3 each of a colorful letter sized paper.

We worked together to fill out the index cards, talking about what they knew, and the importance of certain distinctions (line vs. line segment, etc).

We also separated their cards into three groups (the idea I got from the post linked above). 

We practiced using some task cards and a game of Scoot. 

Then students were sorted into pairs, and each pair needed 1 device. 

I posted the picture file in Google Classroom, and they opened it using Skitch. 

(If you don't have devices, you can also print & copy one per pair, or laminate and reuse with dry erase markers.) The Slides file with the instructions and complete list of vocab is here. 

The picture file that my students used looked like this:

They used the Skitch app to draw their X's and O's on the board. 

Below is what the board looked like after one pair finished a game. 

The tech allowed us to save some paper, play multiple times, save the results, and have a bit of fun!

My students enjoyed the activity, and I appreciated the 5 minutes that it took to create this activity. I'll definitely be using Skitch for ed games again soon!

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!

Reflecting on SAMR, Blooom's, & App-Smashing

I've been in PD sessions ever since school ended last Friday - for a technology team for my district.
I'm loving all of the possibilities for my classroom, and the potential for how it will change the way I teach.

This morning, we worked tirelessly on app-smashing across all grade levels and subjects.
Here's a glipse at the apps I've been using most:

• Popplet (paid for by the district)
• Explain Everything (my favorite so far) (paid for by the district)
• Evernote
• Skitch
• Tons of math manipulatives (Constructor, Geoboard, Number line, etc)
• Quizlet
• iBooks Creator
• MathPad
• Educreations
• iMovie
• Pic Collage
• TopNotes
• Tellagami - deleted because now they're requiring money for everything. BOOOOO. 

Basically, you use these amazing "core" apps to create the most amazing, engaging presentations that can include just about anything - all students created. 

Part of our assignment was to read and reflect on this article:

App Smash: The Ben Bloom Fist in the SAMR Glove

Great read. The big points for me:

• You don't need a billion apps. Pick 10 or so really functional ones. 
• Start with the end game in mind. "I want students to make a video" is not what you really want. You want students to explore a topic or teach a topic to their peers, and share it with the world. 
• Let your students be creative, and they'll get more out of the experience. Reflect using SAMR.

I'm so excited to start using some of this information for my specific content. Right now I'm just trying to process all of the possibilities swimming through my brain. 

And just because I know you could use a laugh, here's some of the random stuff we worked on this morning to become more familiar with the apps. (Keep in mind this is just rambling - so we could play around with the features while recording.)

Let me know if you've done any math app-smashing before - I'd love to hear as many ideas as possible! 

Flubaroo - Testing and Grading with Google Forms

Hi!

I had a conversation a while ago with a friend at work (an inclusion teacher), and she mentioned that one of the English teachers in our building was using Flubaroo with great success. I had heard about it, but hadn't really looked into it.

Now, I'm hooked.
I HATE copying test papers. It's so wasteful. I don't like either using all of my allotted copies to have them collated and stapled, but I also don't like spending the time to do it myself after using the less fancy copier without a code.

I've tried lots of ways of getting around paper testing and paper wasting. I've tried class sets, but I like to change tests every semester (typically because I want to protect the test questions, or I want to improve the assessment).

Here's what I've tried:

• Just copying one for everyone. Feel free to write on it, kids!
• Class sets - and don't you dare mess it up! (Inevitably followed by "Can we write on this?" at least 10 times, then "Dylan! I JUST TOLD YOU NOT TO WRITE ON IT! That better not be pen!"
• Posting a PDF of the test on the class website, kids write answers on notebook paper
• Posting a PDF, kids answer using infuse learning/socrative
• Typing questions into infuse learning/socrative
• (the problem with these - the infuse and socrative servers can be unreliable and slow)

My fear with posting a PDF is that they will email the file, or view it in a previous class period if they know it's test day. I also struggle with letting them test online - I don't want them to be tempted to google a question. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven the day I found out about Guided Access on Ipads - no more googling! Guided Access locks an Ipad into one screen/website/app until a teacher unlocks it with a code.

So on to the discovery. 

Flubaroo is a script that you install with a Google Form. 

• You create a Google Form with your questions
• How to make a Google Form
• How to use PICTURES as questions in a Google Form (this is what I recommend - just take and save screenshots of a scanned paper copy test or an existing digital file)
• How to send a Google Form to your students
• Once your students take the test, install Flubaroo and have it grade your tests. 
• How to install the script and grade with Flubaroo
• Send your students their grades automatically!
• How to send grades and view results with Flubaroo

I'll be using this on my next test, with Guided Access, so that my tests are graded for me, students receive quick feedback, and I can make sure they aren't cheating using Google. I spent this afternoon making sure all the features work well together, and I'm confident this will be a method I can continue to use reliably with my students. 

Just thought I'd share this awesome piece of technology goodness! Have a great weekend, everyone. 

Update: The English teacher from my school that uses this enlightened me that now with the new Add-Ons, it makes this process more efficient. Update your Google Spreadsheet to the new Google Sheets in Settings, then under Add-Ons click Get Add-Ons and install Flubaroo. That's it! 

Sharing your ISN with Parents

So the past few weeks, I've been dealing with a parent. You know the type. She emails you within 30 seconds of your response. He checks online grades 4 times daily to see if anything has changed. She wants a detailed explanation of at least 3 sentences beside each grade. He organizes Junior's notebook for him every night at home because "he's just not great with organizational skills." 

Honestly, these types of parents don't usually get to me. Until last week. I finally just gave in and decided to post my ISN pages - yes, every single last one of them, online. Because otherwise, I was never going to hear the end of it. And quite honestly, I think it will help my students keep track of everything. I'm envisioning a student that was absent pulling out their phone or any other internet-connected device, and updating their notebook at home based on what's online. Last summer when I worked with a middle school teacher to present on interactive notebooking for our district, I was inspired by the fact that each day, she posted not only their topic, homework, and a link to a video daily, but also pics of her ISN for each prep. 

(I said inspired - that's definitely teacher-code for saying WOW she must be awesome, and then I did nothing to improve my own system. SMH.) 

But talking with this parent finally motivated me to get it done. I've seen lots of teachers with ISNs use Slideshare with pictures, I've seen them take doc cam screenshots (which in my opinion, is probably easiest), and I've even seen some walk downstairs and scan each page every day to post it. 

My doc cam is barely good enough to use for notes - so that wasn't an option. Not to mention, I knew for sure that if the method I chose took ANY work at all, it wasn't going to happen. 

So I chose Evernote. I'd already been using it a little (I have the free version) for organizing some online resources. But I'm fairly new to it. But in about 5 seconds (literally) per prep per day, I post my pages for the day. 

I downloaded the free Evernote app onto my cell phone. I added the "widget" to my home screen. I set 2 notebooks up called Algebra 1 ISN and Algebra 2 ISN (one for each prep). I copied the link to each notebook onto my class website so students can access the notebook as public. That's it!

This is the widget on my home screen. When I want to post new pages, I click the camera button, which opens a new "photo page," and automatically starts the camera.

This is the camera started - you take as many photos as you need (I do 1 per page)
by hitting the green button.

Once you've taken pictures, it shows the number you've taken in the bottom right corner. 

Select the check once you've gotten that day's pages.

Hitting the check brings you to the "note" that contains all the pictures. 

All that's left to do is label the note with a title and place it in the correct notebook.

In green, it lists the notebook - this note is set to go into Algebra 1 ISN.

Below is the space for the title.

 I use the page numbers as the title (here, I put 65 for page 65.) 

Then hit the check, and it saves automatically. It syncs as soon as you
connect to wifi or turn on data. 

So you can see what students/parents see, click the link below - it will take you to the Algebra 1 or Algebra 2 ISN online notebook.
 (Keep in mind I JUST started doing this - there aren't many pages up yet. We started our 2nd 6 weeks notebook on Pi Day.)

https://www.evernote.com/pub/mrs_spencer_schs/algebra1isn

https://www.evernote.com/pub/mrs_spencer_schs/algebra2isn

I know if you're unfamiliar with Evernote, this process can seem like a lot. But once you get started, the daily upkeep takes only a few seconds (which is what makes it worth it for me). Email me through my profile if you want/need more info to get started, or post questions in the comment section.