Well, as always, I have a LONG list of things to do around the house that just don’t seem to get done when school is in session, like clean out closets and paint our barn.  That’s the boring stuff….  The exciting stuff includes my brother and his family visiting from California.  We plan to sightsee in DC while they’re here, hike and swim at Flags Pond Park, relax at Brownie Beach, and walk around the boardwalk at North Beach (maybe I’ll see you there, too!).  My parents are also coming to visit this summer – we always love seeing them.  We’ll most certainly swim in our pool on most days and invite our friends over for cookouts – we’re even thinking about having a bonfire, but the most exciting adventure we have planned is a trip to the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.  I can’t wait to snorkel in the clear blue waters to see all of the amazing fish and sea life that lives there.

So, what do you have planned?

This summer I will be at home planning for next year’s students.  Imagine that you are helping me to plan for my classes next year (actually, you ARE helping me).  Comment below on which activities you enjoyed most in our math class and which activities helped you to LEARN the math concepts best.  Be sure to EXPLAIN why/how the activity helped you.  Below are a few examples of things we did this year:

• carousel activities (where you go around the room solving equations taped to the wall)
• popcorn activities (you selected small crumpled pieces of paper with equations on them to solve with your group)
• group work
• mastery stamps (I’d go around and stamp papers with correct solutions — and then you’d help stamp)
• homework (well, someone might have enjoyed this)
• Help Table (during seatwork, you could come back to the table for help
• dry erase boards
• independent seatwork (we didn’t do much of it, but you might have enjoyed it)
• “I Say, You Say” game to help you work with function tables
• computer lab (this activity or the times we went to work on math practice games in the lab)
• OP help
• any other activities or strategies I used to help you

To get started just click on the “Leave a Comment” link below.  I can’t wait to see what you each add to the list….

Now, yes, there have been many new technologies available to the general public but most have not been capitalized on in the classroom.  Look at the mobile phone, for example.  My students are amazed when I share with them the fact that when I was their age, we had exactly two phones – not personal phones, but family phones that were tethered to the walls.  No conversations were private and certainly none were mobile.  If you were “waiting for a call,” you were stuck at home literally waiting for the call until it came because, at that time, we did not even have an answering machine.

Fast forward now to 2009, over half of every middle school student that I teach owns a cell phone and carries it to school each day.  Using the cell phone at school, however, is banned – just as it is in most schools across America.  Here I am with four antiquated desktop computers in the back of my room that are just waiting to have the software updated from Windows 98 while many students in my class have a powerful computer right in their pockets that they are not permitted to use at school.

I’ve put together a small collection of videos and articles about the power and potential of the mobile phone in the classroom.   Perhaps it will get us thinking about a few things and rethinking those signs that hang on the front doors of our schools.

I’d like to start off with a powerful little video entitled A Vision of Students Today that is posted on YouTube.  Actually, there are many like this one out there, so I’ll get you started by sharing a few others, too.

Okay, let me preface this next video with, “I hate the Simpson’s cartoon!”  I know that many of you, like my husband, find it hysterically funny and perhaps a bit Seinfeld-ish in that it reflects back the world in which we live (God help us!).   Take a peek at this Simpson clip.  And as Steve Dembo points out, it is funny because it bears some truth.

My next little find was a video produced at a real school with a real teacher featured in the video.  Besides the insight she offers about the  power of using cell phones in the classroom, I cannot help but be struck by the irony of my own learning here that has resulted because of technology:  This video was made in Lithuania and the woman is speaking Lithuanian.  When I was in school, I wouldn’t even have been able to tell you where Lithuania is on a map and now my students are able to access an interview with a Lithuanian woman and hear authentic Lithuanian speech with a few clicks of a mouse or taps of a cell phone key.  Amazing!

How can a cell phone be used in a high school classroom to motivate students to learn about circumference and line of best fit?  Check out this site to learn how one Colorado teacher did just that.

Would you want to attend “Mobile Phone U”?  Sound strange? Or perhaps the potential sounds exciting?   See how the cell phone is being put to use at a university to motivate students, teach concepts, communicate with students, share ideas among learners, take surveys, and even guide them around the campus.

There are many videos available about the power and  potential of cell phones in the classroom.  Below are a few more if your appetite hasn’t yet been satiated.  For more, just Google “cell phones in the classroom” or “mobile phone applications in education.”

• Education and the Mobile Phone
• Mobile Technology in Education

So… you’ve seen a sampling of what is out there.  Now I’ll share my ideas with you.  I started teaching exactly 20 years ago and although there are many advances in what we know as a society, little has changed in the public school setting.  Our students need to be challenged and engaged at much higher levels.  They deserve to learn using the tools that they will be expected to use in their own lives and on the jobs that they will one day hold.  As one of the videos points out, many of the jobs that the students of today will hold do not even exist, yet.  How do we prepare students today for tomorrow’s jobs if we don’t know what those jobs will be?  Well, for starters, we need to teach our students to be thinkers.  More than learning information and memorizing facts, they need to learn how to access information and apply facts.   Let’s try a little experiment.  I’m going to ask you three questions that students are asked to memorize during their middle/high school years in history class.  You are going to use your brain power to recall the information and I will “Google” for answers (you already know who’s going to win, don’t you?).  Ready?

1. Who was Lewis and Clark’s guides?  Name both the Canadian fur-trader and his “wife.”
2. In what year was the Louisiana Purchase acquired?
3. What events mark the beginning and end of World War I?

Okay, it wasn’t a fair race because I had the power of technology and billions of brains to help me and you had to rely on the recall of one brain – yours.  What?  You thought I would provide you with the answers here?  I found all three AND lots of additional information, too.  Google it.  You have the power of the internet or your cell phone right at your fingertips right now.  Use the power and unlock the potential now and in your own classrooms.

I leave you with this parting cartoon created by datruss and posted to toondoo on 7/20/2009.

• mean – memory hook:  this one’s “mean” because you have to do a lot of work to find the value
  

• median – memory hook:  “middle”
  

• mode – memory hook:  “most”
  

A histogram is used to summarize and display a data set in a graphic manner.  Take a peek at this example to get a better idea — you might not know it’s name, but you’ll definitely recognize what a histogram looks like –

Posted on October 2009 by griffinshockey

I am an advocate, and regular user, of sampling in my classroom.  Literally, hundreds of papers cross my desk each day as I review the homework of my 120 students.  It would be nearly impossible and certainly foolish of me to spend the MANY hours that would be required to grade every item on every paper.  I incorporate a sampling systems that has proven to be quite effective for serving the purpose of finding out if my students have an understanding of the topic at hand.  On each homework paper, I have randomly selected 3-5 equations to grade.  These sample items are selected prior to collecting papers and generally include items from the beginning, middle, and end of the task.  Here’s how it generally works:  Let’s say I am grading 3 items on a homework paper of 10 equations.  If the student misses 1, he earns a B.  Miss two?  Earn a C.  A grade of D is given if the student completed the work but missed all three of the sample equations.  The first year I did this, I graded the sample and then graded the entire paper — the grades were VERY similar and the few discrepancies in points made very little difference in the overall grade in the gradebook.

In our text, we read about sampling and surveys.  As we discovered, this method can work beautifully if we take precautions to ensure that the sample reflects the greater population.  In the telephone survey, for example, folks who had an unlisted number were not represented at all.

Then we saw an effective example of sampling with the Railroad Company.  The difference between the amount calculated through sampling was a mere $83 which was a bargain compared to the extra $4,000 they had to pay to have someone review every freight bill.  Just as the railroad would have made better use of their employees’ time by using the sampling method, I am able to make better use of my time by using sampling when grading homework for 120 students.  The time not lost on grading is spent on analyzing the information and planning for the needs of my students.

When considering the paperless classroom, there are many points to ponder:

• How would a paperless class change your role as a teacher?
  In some classrooms, I imagine that there would be dramatic changes, in others, the changes would be minor.  For some, the changes would be exciting and welcomed and still in others these changes would be stressful and foreign.  A paperless classroom creates an opportunity for the teacher to take on a greater role as facilitator.  Much of what the students would need to study and discuss could be accessed almost instantly via the internet.  I teach mathematics and I can easily envision my students visiting various instructional sites to watch online lessons, practice and learn from interactive math sites, and then holding face-to-face conversations about the topics with me and fellow classmates.  I can not totally envision a room with no hand-written practice of equations and algorithms and use of manipulatives, but this can all be accomplished with a dry erase clipboard or an electronic tablet that works like a notepad and is displayed on the computer as the students write on the electronic pad.

• How would paperless classes change learning?
  The way that I am envisioning learning in a paperless classroom, I believe students would before more engaged since they would need to actively seek solutions and could pursue a line of questions with instant answers that continue to fuel their learning fires.

• How would you measure learning in a paperless class?
  Really no differently, in concept, as I do now.  I would want my students to demonstrate a mastery of the topic.  It is that demonstration of mastery that would take on a new and exciting form.  Instead of sitting before a piece of white paper in a quiet classroom, students would be engaged in their demonstration of mastery through blogs, wikis, discussion boards, and what I perceive to be a world of possibilities beyond my imagining.

• Would a paperless space make it easier or harder to build a learning network? Why?
  It would more difficult for some to transition — especially teachers who are comfortable in their current practices — but, I believe it could one day make building a learning network much easier — not to mention a network that has both greater depth and breadth.

1. Know “Where” Learning — Richardson points out that it is less important for students to memorize facts and formulas and more important that they know where to find the information.  Our students have very powerful computers right on their desks and in the their pockets (cell phone internet) and can access just about any piece of information that they want IF they know how to access it.  In that light, it is my responsibility to teach my students HOW to access information.  Do they really need to know the formula for converting Fahrenheit degrees to Celsius or do they just know how to push a button or two and find the formula or, better yet, use an app to calculate the conversion.
2. I really could not decide on which to discuss next (many, many discussions to consider)…. but finally decided on “The Web as Notebook”.  I chose this one because I have recently been inspired to try having my students (8th graders) create Weblogs this year instead of keeping a paper writing journal.  Publishing their writing to a global audience will not only give them an opportunity to write for a real audience, but I think it will inspire them to write with greater thought and precision.  I’m working out the details in my mind this week and would love any insight into the process…. please share any links that you know of that are student produced blogs and any information that might help me to create a meaningful experience for my 8th graders.