Teaching PEMDAS

Many readers may be saying, "What in the world is PEMDAS?" Simply put, it is an acronym for the mathematical order of operations. I work one-on-one with a middle school student and we spend fifth period each day in a sixth grade learning resource center math class. Many of these students struggle with math. They find multiplication mind boggling, division daunting, and fractions frightening. How could I expect these students to understand exponents, much less the order of operations. One day, in the middle of class, I suddenly had an idea; what if I turned the kids into the math problem? I used post-it notes and a very simple problem to test my idea. Order of operations was now very visual. A few days later I presented a full scale lesson based on this idea. The students were actively engaged, and one student even came up with a creative way to understand exponents. I was able to incorporate his idea into the lesson on the fly. Everyone enjoyed the lesson, and the students learned about both exponents and order of operations.



If you have difficulty viewing this video, it can be found at www.vimeo.com/kellysipe/pemdas

The video was taped using a simple Kodak digital camera in movie mode. The file was then converted to a MP4 file using I-Movie, and finally uploaded at vimeo.com. Vimeo is a free service, similar to You-Tube, that allows users to upload files up to 500MB in size. The web site was very easy to use and I will use often to post videos of my classroom.

Analyzing Student Data

Spreadsheets have been used in business for centuries. Beginning with early ledgers, hand written and calculated documents, to today's high tech spreadsheet programs, such as Excel or Google Sheets. Spreadsheets can be extremely effective in a classroom. First, spreadsheets provide an "at a glance" method of determining which students have missing assignments. Additionally, spreadsheets can be used to make calculations of grades quickly. In this assignment, the spreadsheet provided the averages of individual student scores, as well as the class average in seconds. This saves a great deal of time when one is preparing report cards.

However, more importantly, teachers can quickly sort data and identify which students are falling below the class average.

Additionally, spreadsheets simplify the graphing of individual student progress. This reduces the chances of a teacher overlooking the fact that a specific student is falling further behind his/her peers in a certain area of study.

Using spreadsheets and charts not only make it easy for a teacher to identify students that are missing assignments, it also makes it easy to see how students are progressing. A quick look at the chart above indicates that students test scores are improving, and a what rate they are improving. A teacher can know if his/her teaching methods are reaching individual students. By tracking what methods are used to teach each unit, teachers can identify learning styles of individual students and provide individualized instruction within that learning style.

Another benefit of spreadsheet charting is the choice of graph types, or changing them. I prefer a bar chart as above, but what if my building administrator prefers to view data in a line chart? Working in a spreadsheet, this is an easy conversion. Therefore in moments, I have a chart in the format my boss prefers.

Multimedia Project - Voice Thread

Wow! Voice Thread is easy to use. Simply upload a Power Point presentation, click record, and you have full narration to your presentation. It was so easy, I only had to record once, and for me....that is saying something.

As a classroom teacher I will use Power Point type presentations often. What happens when a student is absent? How could this technology help him/her catch up? All a teacher needs to do is upload the power point, then press record, possibly even while giving the presentation. Then students who missed the presentation, or need extra help, could review the presentation. Additionally, if a teacher knows there will be a sub, this is a great way to ensure the material is covered in the manner the teacher had planned.

My Favorite Web 2.0 Tools

What is Web 2.0?

It is the interactive internet of today. In the early days of internet, web sites were an electronic to read information on a given topic. Web sites were not interactive, did not have video, and could not be modified by the user. Essentially, early web sites were little more than an electronic form of a book or magazine.

Today, however, web sites are interactive. Users can modify pages such as Wikis to share information with others who share one’s interests. Additionally, many web sites include video and audio to bring the information to life. Furthermore, many (if not most) web sites have an area in which readers, consumers, or customers can ask questions, leave feedback, or request a response from the owner of the site.

However, Web 2.0 is not limited to obtaining information. It includes a completely new way of being productive in one’s personal life, or business. The accessibility of the internet, using computer workstations, laptops, tablets, PDAs, and smart phones, has created an environment in which business is conducted “in the cloud,” or on-line. Documents can no longer reside on a single computer, and carrying disks or flash drives has become antiquated. In today’s world, Web 2.0 tools and applications allow for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and much more to be created without being bound to a single computer, or even purchasing software. Some of these applications and tools are Google Docs, Team Viewer, Delicious, Tiny URL and much more.

How Can We Use This In Education?

Google Docs allows students to use word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations without the expense of purchasing software. Furthermore, with web based files, students can work collaboratively on any project without compatibility issues of different versions of software, i.e. MS Office 2003, 2007, or 2010. Moreover, students need not be in the same physical location, or even be working at the same time, to work together on group projects. What is more, teachers can view and comment on students work in progress. Finally, students will not forget to bring their homework to class, as they have their documents available at anytime, anywhere that has internet access.

One Cool Tool ~ Tiny URL!

The internet has a lot of great information for teachers to share with students, however web addresses are long and complicated. For example, in a class studying asteroids, a teacher might want to share a news article from the NASA web site with her students. The web address she wishes to share is http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110926.html. This is a difficult address for her students to remember, or even type in correctly. One choice the teacher has is to use Tiny URL to simplify the address. The teacher visits www.tinyurl.com and pastes the long web address into the correct field. Then he/she types a simple description to use instead, for example NASAasteroid. Now, the students can access www.tinyurl.com/NASAasteroid which is easier to remember and to type.

Google Docs Group Project - Google Presentation

Google presentation is a cloud based slide show program similar to Microsoft Power Point. It is an amazing tool that will improve my personal productivity, as well as being beneficial in the classroom.

Personally, my family uses MS Power Point every week for a slide show giving the lyrics for the hymns in our Sunday worship service. I would hate to thing of how many times we have left our flash drive at home and I have had to quickly drive back to get it before services begin. This will not happen again, as we will be using Google Presentation and the internet access at the church building.

In the classroom, I will use Google Presentation as a visual aid in many presentations. At times I will still use Power Point to have access to animations such as fade, spin, or bounce. I work with elementary school children with special needs and at times, these animations help the students remember the information. I remember preparing a Power Point to present information for a physical fitness test. By matching the animation to action, such as bouncing to represent a heart beat, students had a a better recall of the information.

For this project, Andrew, Tom, Rachel and I all worked on the same presentation, yet never were actually together or on the same computer. It was exciting to see the project develop. As I was familiar with Power Point, I had high expectations for this program, yet I had never used Google Presentations so I had a lot to learn.

Andrew got the project going by setting up the background, getting our picture loaded, and beginning the bullet points. I added to the bullet points and figured out how to have each bullet point appear with a click of the mouse (after all, if you see all of the points, there is no need to listen to the presenter). The next time I checked back, Tom had added to the presentation and Rachel had joined us and added her part as well.

Check out the presentation, you might not want to pay for Power Point after all.



If you have difficulty viewing the presentation, click here

OTEN 2011

OTEN 2011 was a fantastic conference. The morning started with the keynote speaker who demonstrated the power of placing technology in the hands every student. Next, our own Barry Jahn stunned the class with a remote presentation on the benefits of cloud computing. Finally, in session 2, a demonstration of pod-casting in an elementary classroom was presented. Take a moment to view the YODIO review of the conference.

Google Docs Group Project Task

In this project Aimee, Zach, and I identified several benefits of using Google Docs over the use of other word processing programs in an educational setting. We found that Google Docs has many benefits that do not exist in other word processing programs and would therefore recommend the use of Google Docs in the classroom. For detailed information, please view our collaborated document. Assignment: Ed Tech - Google Docs

My personal experience with this product is limited. I was first introduced to Google Docs in Ed Tech last week, so my learning curve is very steep. I have learned a lot this week but realize I have only scratched the surface of what this application can do. Being a beginner, I asked my group to allow me to set up the document and invite them to join me. I wanted to know that I could successfully accomplish this task and was surprised at the ease of doing so. After that I entered several bullet points for each category, inserted my photo and included a link to this blog. After allowing my fellow team members time to work on the project, I returned to the page. I was pleasantly surprised to find Aimee, one of my teammates, working on the project at the same time. As she added bullet points, we were able to chat at the side of the document and discuss font, wording of features, etc. I believe this is what Mary Poppins would call a fortuicious opportunity. While we had not planned to meet at a certain time, it was good to work together.

I look forward to learning more about the many new technologies that I can use to enhance my current life as a student, as well as my classroom in the future.