Playing around again...trying to embed a voicethread:
OMG I did it! So this is a voicethread. It's like a movie that's part slide show, and part responses to the slide show. All you have to do is click the play button right under where it says "comment".
Had an opportunity to talk to a group of B.Ed. students at McGill today about online teaching as a career choice. It was fun, and I think, I hope, one or two might just be reading this. I hope they found it interesting, even if only the part where my daughter called me, twice, during my talk, to ask if I could take her shopping....:)
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Aha moment!
Just realized as I was in class, that if I want certain things to be discussed about a post, I need to have my own observations at the ready. Eg. Juan's post used the symbol for pi, instead of what I just typed, the word pi. Hey Juan (I should have said) how did you do that? It also had a link to a pic - did anyone notice that? No? Well then next time let's embed the picture right into the post. And how about that abbreviation for the big seventeen - B17 - applause for Juan that's a great idea!...this is what I need to do!
Monday, February 7, 2011
Transparent learning!
A revealing post
Shelley's post on the unit circle was a real eye-opener, for the simple reason that it was the first one that took place on the weekend. (It was also a very good post!) Many of the kids commented that reading her summary during the weekend (or Monday morning) helped them recall what we were doing last Friday, and therefore made it easier to get back into the swing of things on Monday. It never even occurred to me! How many cases of Monday morning math funk have gone undiagnosed all these years? During our discussion in class on Shelley's post, I asked her if she had found it helpful to have had to summarize the lesson. She made a point of saying "Yes! REALLY helpful!" Very interesting.
This must be what Darren Kuropatwa means when he says that the posts and responses can make our students' learning transparent to us. Things are being revealed in a very organic, non-contrived fashion through these posts.
Still not sure how to mine their posts and comments for the math, though. I am very hesitant to make any corrections myself to their posts. It's a pretty public thing they're doing. It seems like it could easily turn into just another thing for me to put x's and checkmarks all over, like a test, and then they will be hesitant to do it. Ideally, we want them to make the corrections to each others' work, at least that was what I understood. Fortunately, one class (interestingly, the class that Shelley was not in) did point out the few things that needed to be fixed with her post:
More and more it seems like this is less about math than it is about emotions and relationships! One student joked that math class was more like therapy these days! At least I hope he was joking...
Shelley's post on the unit circle was a real eye-opener, for the simple reason that it was the first one that took place on the weekend. (It was also a very good post!) Many of the kids commented that reading her summary during the weekend (or Monday morning) helped them recall what we were doing last Friday, and therefore made it easier to get back into the swing of things on Monday. It never even occurred to me! How many cases of Monday morning math funk have gone undiagnosed all these years? During our discussion in class on Shelley's post, I asked her if she had found it helpful to have had to summarize the lesson. She made a point of saying "Yes! REALLY helpful!" Very interesting.
This must be what Darren Kuropatwa means when he says that the posts and responses can make our students' learning transparent to us. Things are being revealed in a very organic, non-contrived fashion through these posts.
Still not sure how to mine their posts and comments for the math, though. I am very hesitant to make any corrections myself to their posts. It's a pretty public thing they're doing. It seems like it could easily turn into just another thing for me to put x's and checkmarks all over, like a test, and then they will be hesitant to do it. Ideally, we want them to make the corrections to each others' work, at least that was what I understood. Fortunately, one class (interestingly, the class that Shelley was not in) did point out the few things that needed to be fixed with her post:
- that it was missing a sample question
- there was one mistake ("-90 is coterminal to 275")
- some of the terminology and notation was not quite used properly ("a circle has a radius of 1", "an angle theta0")
More and more it seems like this is less about math than it is about emotions and relationships! One student joked that math class was more like therapy these days! At least I hope he was joking...
Friday, February 4, 2011
Update on McGoldblog
The third post was from Abby. I think hers has set the bar a bit higher. She wrote: (my italics)
Today in class, we continued our lesson on radians and degrees, and how to convert from one to another.
Today's lesson was on the unit circle. Introduction to. Here's the powerpoint for the lesson that Shelley will be blogging about this weekend (lucky girl!):
feb 4 unit circle intro
I know....97 slides! But don't worry, that's only because I show each little step.....you'll see. Enjoy!
Today in class, we continued our lesson on radians and degrees, and how to convert from one to another.
- We know that the number of degrees in a circle is 360, and the number of radians in a circle is 2(pi).
- So then, we have a proportion, 360o/2pir=thetao/thetar , which could be used to covert radian to degrees or vice-versa.
- This could also be reduced to 180 degrees/(pi)radian=thetao/thetar .
- To find how many degrees is 2 radians, we would replace thetar with 2 using the formula above and cross multiply. So theta=180*2r / (pi) , would come to approximately 114.6 degrees.
- To be exact, just multiply 180*2, leave pi as is, and we get 360/(pi).
- To find how many radians is in 30 degrees, replace 30 by theta degrees instead, which I’ll leave you to figure out – exact or approximate amount.
- If we have an angle, we get an arc or a section of the circumference. This is called the arclength.
- And the bigger the angle, the bigger the arclength. :O
- If we take 360 degrees of the circle, the arclength would then be the whole circle, or its circumference. And its formula is C=2(pi)r.
- a (arclength) = 2(pi)r when theta=360. From this, we get a proportional formula similar to the one with radians.
- 360 degrees/2(pi)r = thetao/a , or 180/(pi)r=thetao/a
- If we had r=5cm, and an angle=45 degrees, find the arclength subtending this angle. Mrs. McGoldrick also gave us a formula for arclength: a=thetar*r , but it can only be used in radians.
Hope you all have a radiant rest of the day.
- She didn't leave any content or formulas out
- She put in subtitles
- She asked not one, but two questions
- Her personality came through, especially at the end with the "radiant day"!
- The clarity of it suggested to me that it was a pretty well-done lesson (pat on the back for Audrey)
- diagrams - slides from the lesson or their own
- colour coding
- worked out examples
- math notation - how the heck do you get that into a blog post - to find out
Today's lesson was on the unit circle. Introduction to. Here's the powerpoint for the lesson that Shelley will be blogging about this weekend (lucky girl!):
feb 4 unit circle intro
I know....97 slides! But don't worry, that's only because I show each little step.....you'll see. Enjoy!
More coolness!
Found out how to embed an actual powerpoint using scribd! This is a powerpoint I made a while ago that was inspired by a post at the fabulous website http://www.betterexplained.com/.
Intro to Calculus Using Circle
You can see the slides just by clicking on the little arrow at the bottom of the window, right next to where it says 1/20. There were animations in it originally, but maybe scribd doesn't support those? Another thing to find out....
Intro to Calculus Using Circle
You can see the slides just by clicking on the little arrow at the bottom of the window, right next to where it says 1/20. There were animations in it originally, but maybe scribd doesn't support those? Another thing to find out....
Thursday, February 3, 2011
test
Just playing around here - finally figured out how to make a powerpoint slide into an image that can then be uploaded into the post - I am so happy right now it is probably a bit weird!Wednesday, February 2, 2011
The Constant Gardener
Gardening in February?
Last night I found myself excitedly checking all kinds of different sites - the McGoldblog, then the voicethread, then the discussion post, then explorelearning to see the assessment results. I felt like I do during gardening season, when I check to see what's blooming, what new weeds are sprouting, or what's just plain pretty to look at. It certainly is a lot of fun to see what the kids have said, and they are making me laugh outloud sometimes. As usual though, not everyone is participating, which is discouraging. It seems like I am still only reaching those kids that I know are always with me anyway, and don't get me wrong, it's great to be connecting with them in new ways, but I was hoping to see the invisible ones emerging from the shadows. Only the first day of the classblog, so I guess it's a bit early to get discouraged!
Class procedure day after first post:
Yesterday I began my class by looking at Kristopher's post, thanking him for it, giving positive feedback on the length and amount of detail, and asking if anyone had anything to add or share about it. Then I told them there was one tiny mistake in it, and gave them a minute to try to find it. All it was was that sohcahtoa was spelled sohcahtao. Normally, I wouldn't make a big deal about spelling, but this one could lead to some pretty nasty math mistakes. No one found it, and I was wondering if perhaps no one wanted to, because they might feel it was not their place to correct a peer? Just a thought...
Post #2
Yesternight's blogger was Catherine. Her post was not quite as detailed as Kristopher's was, but I have a feeling that the lesson was a bit short on content anyway. I got hung up on showing them something that I hadn't planned to show them - where the exact values for sin, cos, and tan of 45, 30, and 60 degrees came from. I had a feeling that it would affect the posting. Maybe it was boring, too! This is kind of like getting instant feedback from the kids on the lesson. Scary.
What's next?
I'd like to be able to embed my powerpoints here so I'm trying that out with scribd. Wonder if I'm donig too much at one time? Am I the flower or the weed?
Last night I found myself excitedly checking all kinds of different sites - the McGoldblog, then the voicethread, then the discussion post, then explorelearning to see the assessment results. I felt like I do during gardening season, when I check to see what's blooming, what new weeds are sprouting, or what's just plain pretty to look at. It certainly is a lot of fun to see what the kids have said, and they are making me laugh outloud sometimes. As usual though, not everyone is participating, which is discouraging. It seems like I am still only reaching those kids that I know are always with me anyway, and don't get me wrong, it's great to be connecting with them in new ways, but I was hoping to see the invisible ones emerging from the shadows. Only the first day of the classblog, so I guess it's a bit early to get discouraged!
Class procedure day after first post:
Yesterday I began my class by looking at Kristopher's post, thanking him for it, giving positive feedback on the length and amount of detail, and asking if anyone had anything to add or share about it. Then I told them there was one tiny mistake in it, and gave them a minute to try to find it. All it was was that sohcahtoa was spelled sohcahtao. Normally, I wouldn't make a big deal about spelling, but this one could lead to some pretty nasty math mistakes. No one found it, and I was wondering if perhaps no one wanted to, because they might feel it was not their place to correct a peer? Just a thought...
Post #2
Yesternight's blogger was Catherine. Her post was not quite as detailed as Kristopher's was, but I have a feeling that the lesson was a bit short on content anyway. I got hung up on showing them something that I hadn't planned to show them - where the exact values for sin, cos, and tan of 45, 30, and 60 degrees came from. I had a feeling that it would affect the posting. Maybe it was boring, too! This is kind of like getting instant feedback from the kids on the lesson. Scary.
What's next?
I'd like to be able to embed my powerpoints here so I'm trying that out with scribd. Wonder if I'm donig too much at one time? Am I the flower or the weed?
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