Arts Education

I went to Walmart yesterday, looking for Merge Cubes . A friend had mentioned them to me as a cube that triggers virtual reality games and I was anxious to see one and try it out. According to Google tonight, Merge Cubes sell for between $5 (eBay) and $15 (Target), so imagine my delight when I found them at Walmart for $1! I scooped up four of them and headed home to try them out. I was immediately impressed by the product. The Cube is made of material a little tougher than a stress ball, so it can be dropped and tossed and will not break or break things. Each side of the black and silver cube is covered with designs that will trigger holograms in the apps that will Merge with the Cube. It comes packed in a little plastic case; it's not fancy but will store the cube nicely. If you haven't tried out augmented or virtual reality, here is how the Merge Cube works. You get an app and launch it on your mobile device. Then, inside the app, point the mobile device at the Merge Cube. ...

In my last post, what started as an endorsement of The Incredibles2 , and their recent sneak peek trailer , ended as a declaration that parents need help supporting their children with school work at home. Think about how frameworks have changed over the last ten years (but certainly since parents were in school). When parents were in school, there might have been weekly newsletters or emails indicating what happened in school this week and how parents could support students at home. Then teachers developed websites where parents could check assignments and look at support resources. In the last few years, learning management systems came onto the scene and replaced websites. Teachers can now, with a few easy clicks, easily store everything they want to in a digital classroom for students to access. Unfortunately, parents often can't access this resource. Even when Google Classroom added parent email capability, it only sort of helped.  A most basic example of this is with tracking...

It was a crummy week to be a teacher. Maybe that's why I found special happiness on Thursday to walk into my house after work to the sound of my children's laughter. They were crowded around a chromebook giggling, with my husband hovering nearby. "What's so funny?" I asked. "An Incredibles 2 trailer has been released," all three of them said at once. "You have to see it." I plopped down on the couch to watch and soon I was laughing too. If you haven't seen it, here it is: Just at the point where Bob explodes into a full-blown dad-rant that ends with "Math is math," my son exclaims, "It turns out our family is the Incredibles." That made us laugh even harder. But it turns out that everyone isn't laughing about "math is math." In fact, some teachers are irritated that Pixar seemingly took a shot at the Common Core State Standards .  I'd like to offer a different perspective. Almost every school night for ...

This week a few of my students have asked me to proofread their research papers for English. The papers have been a fun read; I have learned about several interesting topics. One thing that struck me, though, has been stale word choices. In one paper I found the word however four times in one paragraph. In the paper pictured above, the use of huge was, well, huge. After I read "huge" for the third time in seven lines, I decided to investigate how often huge was used. I clicked Command+F (on Mac; Ctrl+F on PC). When you access the "Find" command with this keyboard shortcut, a small pop-up window appears in the upper right and shows how many times a word was found. In this case, huge was used fourteen times. Next to the usage window are two arrow buttons. Click on these and each use of the word will show on the screen. This would be a great shortcut to show kids before they turn in the final version of their essays. During editing, Command/Ctrl +F could be used to c...

Unlike many chemistry teachers, I don't teach stoichiometry (the math of chemical reactions) all in one unit. I introduce the mole early in the year with atomic structure and cycle back to the mole concept in every unit I teach. Today I took my second pass at reaction math, incorporating what the students have learned about gas laws in our current unit. Some teachers will tell you that if you don't show students how to solve these problems, they won't be able to. I disagree with that and have a couple of years of differentiated lessons to back me up. When the bell rang, I asked all my students to stand up and come to one side of my classroom. Once they were there, I briefly explained the kind of problems we would solve. Then I described three approaches they could choose from:  Sit at a table with other people and talk about ways to solve the problems (or ignore everyone and forge ahead without conversation).  Sit at a table with an iPad loaded with a presentation that will...

A blog I am reading every week is Math Equals Love . Sarah Carter , math and chemistry teacher in Oklahoma, writes in exquisite detail about the things she is trying in her classroom. Every time I read it, I wish she had been one of my math teachers. Sarah loves, and often features, puzzle she is using in her classroom. I, too, love puzzles and that's probably one of the reasons I love her blog. One of the things I loved best about middle school math were those cheesy, punny puzzles when solving a math problem led to a letter that led to an answer to a question involving math. I recently had to miss three days in my classroom, right as my students needed to take a big quiz over stoichiometry (the math of chemical reactions, for non-chemistry teachers), so, inspired by Sarah and middle school math, I created a puzzle for them to do in my absence. The puzzle consists of 24 paper tiles that have a letter in the center. All the tiles also have an answer at the top of the tile. Some o...

Are you seeing this pop-up on your Google Calendar? Have you noticed the blue Use New Calendar button in the upper right hand corner? This week I made a screencast to highlight some of the changes in calendar: The new version of calendar has more white space, so it's easier on the eyes. The dates - the part that we are looking for on a calendar - are larger, more prominent. It has a fresh look. When you look at events on the calendar, you can see how you have RSVP'ed. Solid color event = I am attending! Solid color event with diagonal lines = Maybe I am attending. Outlined event = I have not responded to the invite.  Outlined and struck through text on event = I am not attending. When you add an event or edit an event, you can see more information right away. Of course, you can still see date and time, but now you can also see location, guest list, what calendar the event is on, and if you are attending. You can also email the guests from the event pop-out! Click MORE OPTIONS ...

As is often the case at this time of year, the winter weather is breaking up my lessons. I introduced stoichiometry, or what I call reaction math, on December 13 but some snow days and semester exams put it on the shelf almost immediately. Now that we are back to school, I needed a way to help students review what they began almost one month ago.  I am often inspired by the tweets and blogging of Sarah Carter . I haven't met Sarah, but I know she teaches math and chemistry in Oklahoma. I read her detailed blog posts where she generously shares many great ideas with great interest. Sarah has written about a favorite strategy called Add 'Em Up and her posts were the inspiration for this lesson. In Add 'Em Up, a sheet is created with four math problems. When the answers are added, they should equal a sum that is provided. If the answers do not equal the sum, students know they need to look for, and correct, their errors. With my teaching partner, I created an Add 'Em Up a...

Every since I read this post by the amazing Sara Vanderwerf , I have been kicking around the idea of a game table. Honestly, when I first read it, I thought that math teachers are so lucky that there are so many cool math games you could put at a play table. Then I read this post from A Mighty Girl blog. There is a game mentioned called Compounded that caught by eye. So I searched for it on amazon; the search lead to a lot of chemistry games. It turns out that chemistry teachers are also lucky that there are cool games for a play table. One I recently bought is called Science Ninjas Valence . Science Ninjas Valence is a card game that plays quickly. Each player gets six cards from the shuffled deck. The rest of the deck goes face down and the top card is turned up. Players look at the element cards in their hands and try to make compounds - acids, bases, salts, water, carbon dioxide, etc. When you can make one, you discard your cards and pick up the compound card that you made. Eac...

image from texthelp.com Yesterday g(Math), a popular add-on to Google apps for inserting math, was officially retired. This means it can no longer be downloaded and added on, and it doesn't appear in my list of add-ons any more. If you loved using g(Math), you will find much of what you used in the Chrome extension EquatIO which was developed from g(Math) by John McGowan with support from TextHelp. If you have never used g(Math), or EquatIO, read on for some details. Install EquatIO from the Chrome store . If you're a teacher, apply for a free premium account after you install it . You must be signed in to Chrome to use the extension. This is one drawback for teachers who teach in many rooms with shared computers, but I don't think it's a deal breaker. Once you install it, you will find its icon at the top of your browser window, to the right of the address bar. The premium account of EquatIO, free for teachers (thanks, TextHelp! ), will allow you to add math to Google...

Did you see this tweet on New Year's Eve? I did, and just as my wheels started turning about how fun it could be, the tweet was quickly ratioed . The Math-Twitter-Blog-o-Sphere almost universally hated the idea. Math teacher Jamie Garner postulated that the idea could work and posted this good read to her blog. Other than Jamie, most comments read like Alice Keeler's opinions on homework . I don't watch a ton of TV, but a few reality shows have captured my interest over the years. I jumped on the American Idol bandwagon after season 1, but was with Project Runway right from the start. This summer the viral Mandy Harvey video got me hooked on America's Got Talent. My unlikeliest love is Top Chef. Who wants to watch a show where you see food being prepared but don't get to eat it? It turns out, I do! Here are my takeaways from my reality show viewing: You will have to step out of your comfort zone to create something spectacular. But it's important to edit. Don...

I spent a terrific day today learning about Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) . This topic has been on my to-learn list for a while, so I was anxious to participate. It was a great hands-on day and while I don't feel like an expert, I am looking for a time when I can implement this technique in my classroom. Here's my rundown. Argument-driven inquiry is an instructional model for science teachers to use with labs. Through an 8-stage process, students develop an argument and then read, write, speak, and listen their way to supporting it. In the workshop today we tried each of the stages. They include: Stage 1: Identification of the Task & Guiding Question Introduce the idea or concept and the guiding question for the task. At the workshop today, we were asked to consider how we could use a lever maximize the jump height of a figure. Stage 2: Design a Method & Collect Data Using a planning form, students develop a testable hypothesis and experiments. Then the experiments are ...

It's no secret that I am a big fan of Quizizz . In fact, I have blogged about t his awesome formative assessment tool seven times, the last time almost exactly a year ago. My most popular post is a comparison of Quizizz, Kahoot, and Socrative. In October and November each year I ask my students to memorize some chemistry content. I begin each class with Quizizz to try to encourage them to work on chunks of this content little by little.  My students always seem to enjoy playing this quiz game. They quickly become accustomed to going wight to join.quizizz.com at the beginning of each period. Our results weren't terrific as we neared the test this year, so I used Quizizz  to create one last game as an optional homework assignment. I didn't even say too much about it in class. I told the students it would be there if they wanted to use it to prepare. I provided the link and PIN on our LMS. It's worth mentioning that I also provided a link to a Quizlet deck and a couple...

Earlier this fall, I wrote this post about EquatIO, a Chrome extension that makes it easy to put mathematical symbols or equations into Google (and other) apps. EquatIO was built to take the place of the Google add-on g(Math) that has recently retired.  There are free and premium versions of EquatIO. Today, texthelp announced free premium subscriptions of EquatIO for teachers! In short, with the premium version, teacher get free access to integration in Google drawings, forms, sheets, and slides; math and chemistry formula prediction, unlimited handwriting recognition. Plus, as new features, like the recent addition of the interactive MathSpace , become available, teachers will have free access to those, too. In order to take advantage of this tremendous offer, install EquatIO . Then fill out this form to request free teacher premium subscription. Be sure to use the same email address to install the extension and to request free access. Thanks, texthelp , for your commitment to ...

I was sitting in my study hall duty with a friend and we were both grading papers. He was muttering as he worked about how it would be impossible for him to make the class any easier. Intrigued by this, I asked him to elaborate. He explained that his tests were worth 40% of the students' grades and that if they just paid close attention to the study guide when preparing, they were sure to pass the test. I knew his comments were about the study guide and the test, but I was curious about the other 60% of the grade, so I asked. The other 60% was a notebook check. Upon further probing, I learned that this meant that students needed to have all the papers from the class in a notebook, maybe in a particular order. I remember asking him, " if you keep all the completed papers in the correct order in the notebook, you could just opt out of the tests and still pass the class? " His response: I have never really thought about it like that. At the school where I teach, we have just...

Sometimes people ask me what do I do to entice reluctant adopters to try something with technology in their classrooms. My answer is based on my own experience: start by remaking the worst lesson. Some technology integration is likely to make the worst lesson less awful. A little success will breed enthusiasm and a willingness to try again. For a long time, my own worst lesson was a lesson about the atomic models. I had a video I showed with excellent content, but the trouble with the video was that it was a video of a filmstrip. Literally, it was a moving picture where the pictures did not move. I used it for years, justifying this by saying that the great content outweighed the disengaging still images. When I first started using iPads in my classroom, this was the first lesson I remade. I asked my students to read about the models for homework. The next day they made comic strips to illustrate atomic history. I have used the iPads for this for years, but now that my school is a 1:1 ...

Some of my post popular posts have been those in which I compare two or three similar tools to help others decide which one to use. My conclusion is almost always the same: all tools offer a great variety of features and which one someone chooses ultimately is probably determined by which feature is most important. I have been using both EDpuzzle and PlayPosit (fka EduCanon) for several years. My school purchased a school license for PlayPosit this year and I have been developing some professional development materials for our staff. This renewed work in PlayPosit has catalyzed one of these comparison posts. If you have never used either tool, EDpuzzle and PlayPosit are both tools that allow users to embed interactive components into videos. In both tools, students will be faced with questions that they must answer in order to continue with the video. Videos can be watched individually or as a class. Teachers can create classes and assign videos. Then they can monitor student pro...