Ms. Moebius's Algebra Blog

Smart Board

smoebius — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:01:44 +0000

The feature in the smartboard notebook technology that will be priceless for me in my classroom in they x-y grid background. I spend a lot of time teaching my students about graphing both linear and quadratic equations, and I often find myself struggling to draw an accurately spaced graph. This will not only save time, but it will also be much easier for the students to read and to participate as well.

Google Earth

smoebius — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:22:58 +0000

Google Earth has so many features that I was unaware of! I love that you can create a virtual tour, it would be a great “getting to know you” project where students can pushpin places they have lived and gone to school and create time line of their lives.

Print Screen

smoebius — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:21:10 +0000

I will definitely use this feature to help my tech people know exactly which error message I am getting without trying to remember and retype the message!

Thou Shalt not Dupe

smoebius — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:30:55 +0000

Reading chapter 11 in the Summercore Primer was informative and confusing at the same time. There are copyright laws that I was unaware of. The one that sticks out the most is the fact that even though I may have payed for a song and it is in my iTunes folder, I cannot put that song onto any other program over 30 seconds. I have always enjoyed making CD’s for my friends and family. I never even considered that it may be illegal since I had already payed for the song. One major point that I will hold with me is that we expect our students to be academically honest, and we must know the laws so that we can model this honesty.

Microsoft Excel

smoebius — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:14:33 +0000

I attended the “varsity session” of the Excel presentation. Some of the functions that Steve taught were tricks that will definitely save time and also have interesting applications in my classroom. One that I found particularly interesting as a math teacher was the =rand function. Generating random number for statistical experiments has many applications that I can utilize in the Algebra curriculum. Here is a copy of an excel spreadsheet I created using averages, weighed averages, and lookup.

sampegradebook

Skype and Delicious

smoebius — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:00:31 +0000

Skype and Delicious are two programs that I had heard of prior to summercore, but I had never explored either of them. After spending time on each of these two sites, I am so excited to start using them more! I will definitely use Skype to communicate with friends and family who live far away since phone bills can sometimes get a little high. Delicious is something that I see myself using on a daily basis. In the past, my bookmarks were very disorganized and it was hard to find what I was looking for. Now that it is all in one place, I will be able to access my favorite sites much more easily. Here is a link to my delicious site:

http://del.icio.us/smoebius

Blogs, Wikis, and RSS

smoebius — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:26:30 +0000

Blogs and wikis are similar but may have many different uses in the classroom. Since blogs are more easily regulated, I would be more likely to utilize this tool in my classroom for the first time. I especially like the aspect of being able to control the major topic and having the students post comments about the chosen topic. For the Algebra curriculum that I teach, I would like to pose a problem as a blog entry, have students post their solutions, and respond to one another as comments.

Reading about RSS was intereresting since I had never herd about it before. I found out that you are able to take feeds from multiple sites and add the to an aggregator which collects information from all of the sites. This program will save me quite a bit of time since there will be less clicking around and searching sites. All of the updated information will come to me instead!

Thanks for the cool sites Lynne and Steve!

smoebius — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:09:03 +0000

youtube.com/youchoose

kiddonet.com/kiddonet/anfypaint

mobile17.com

The Function Machine

smoebius — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:58:54 +0000

The following link relates the concept of a mathematical function to a machine. You put one thing in, and you get another thing back out. For every value that goes into the machine, the function produces one unique result. Check out this interactive website: http://207.207.4.198/pub/flash/9/9.html

Multiplication Tricks

smoebius — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:22:27 +0000