Feedback from first 2 weeks

The last couple of days I have been getting some feedback on the videos I am creating for math classes.  One parent walked up to me after school and said, "Thank you for doing the videos.  I am sure it takes a lot more time but I watch my young person stop, rewind, and rewatch the videos on a cell phone and he seems to be less frustrated since what my student needs to know is available when it is needed."  Another parent, "I really like the videos.  I am sure it takes a serious time commitment but I think it helps my young person figure things out."

I also had a note written by a student on a homework assignment.  I think I need to help several of students with this concern - "Don't the teachers talk to each other about the amount of homework they give.  This math assignment has taken me way to long.  I just want to go to bed." I think there are several of my students that leave their math assignments for the very end of the night because it is their tough subject, then it takes them even longer to figure out what is going on because they are tired from other homework they have.

I also talked with my principal yesterday about the quiz that took exceeding long for some students.  In our discussion, we reflected on the fact that with all change students need to adjust to the pace and way of learning.  I also need to overestimate the length of time I think a student will need to complete an assessment.  Timed tests are a way of life, and helping a student develop the skills to complete a timed test well is necessary.

So far so good.

Interruptions of #flipclass videos

Well it is Sunday afternoon.  I spent the last 3 hours recording videos - well after many starts and stops - so today the background noises were the biggest things.  Neighbors are redoing their roof with a power nail gun to attach their shingles - brrrrr, brrrrr, brrrr, goes the nail gun.  Then the saw to cut boards to fix their soffits and fascia - grrrrr, grrrrr, grrrrr goes the saw.  Then since their house is only maybe 8 feet away from mine - the man who is directing all the fixing comes out and is giving loud directions to the men on the roof.  Yeah, don't need yelling in the background of my videos either.  Rerecord.

Then the smoke detector in my house started beeping with its low battery beep.  That one I just recorded right through.

One more section of Algebra 2 completed, even though there were disruptions and the internet upload speed of my computer seems compromised for some reason.  The uploading was so slow today.

Fair Isn't Always Equal - Grading Practices

http://www.stenhouse.com/html/fiae-videos.htm

Great ideas about grading practices - needs to consider how I grade and what it means.

Annotated Bibliography Tool - Diigo

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/07/grading-made-easy-with-diigo-jing.html

I like the idea of the diigo bookmarlet that this teacher used to helps students create an annotated bibliography.

Reflections on 5 steps to building a social media presence from scratch

I really liked this article 5 steps to building social media presence from scratch

that said "Today’s teachers need to be able to support their students in knowing how to effectively connect, communicate, collaborate, cooperate, and create." This is such a true statement and one of my goals for this year.

Then the author said this as well "The resume is a 20th century relic. Sure, you can have that one dimensional representation of who you are, but what will set you apart from the rest is the online persona you actively create and the connections you make in your network." This I think is very important as I work with students to prepare for success in their life post high school. Who they are online is more important today than it ever was for students and teachers alike.

BYOT series

http://byotnetwork.com/2012/07/29/intro-to-the-first-week-of-byot/
http://byotnetwork.com/2012/07/30/day-1-of-byot/
http://byotnetwork.com/2012/07/31/day-2-of-byot-2/
http://byotnetwork.com/2012/08/01/day-3-of-byot/
http://byotnetwork.com/2012/08/02/day-4-of-byot/
http://byotnetwork.com/2012/08/03/day-5-of-byot/

Activities to get students and parents prepared

Handwrite search app for Google?

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/07/draw-on-your-phone-or-tablet-to-search.html

Well so far, I have tried to activate it on my Android phone, but I haven't been successful.  I will have to give it a try another day.

Web 2.0 Tools to use with Technology

http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2012/07/10-byot-byod-back-to-school-basics.html

A great list of tools to do all the things that a student or teacher would want to do this school year.

Evernote - web clipper, "educational pinterest"?

http://askatechteacher.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/book-review-my-evernote/

I downloaded Evernote, but haven't figured it out yet.  Maybe I should by this book to get myself to use evernote.

Reflecting on Favorite Things of Mrs. Kirch

After reading http://flippingwithkirch.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-favorite-things-from-6-months-of.html, I had the following response for Mrs. Kirch.

I like the idea of the task board.  What items do you put on that task board to help kids focus?

The "Ask 3, then me" concept is an excellent one. It leads toward developing independent learners.

I think this quote really gets to the crux of independent learning - value for learning something new and making it understandable to themselves.

• Our students these days need so much more than knowledge of the subject.  They have to be taught time management, goal-setting, strong work ethic, value in education, motivation, how to focus, how to ask questions and advocate for themselves...

I think I have talked about Google voice for completing some items. Having the option to do a WSQ via google form or google voice depending on the internet access at home would be great. I have a Google voice account where I was receiving text messages and voice messages of questions for the next day, and it worked out great last year.

Thanks for getting me thinking about the resources that may be available online for the Precalculus with Limits: A Graphing Approach.  I have the sixth edition and it looks like there are some great resources, including videos to go with it.

Personalized Learning Connections

http://flippingwithkirch.blogspot.com/2012/07/72312-flipclass-chat-personalizing.html

Mrs. Kirch included my websites on her list of resources on this page. There are other teachers doing things similar to me.

Teaching Generatoin Text - research on texting in education

http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2012/07/new-study-confirms-teaching-generation.html

Pillars of Flipped Classroom Expectations and first day videos

Just read Mrs. Kirch's post about her first day of school video. I liked the pillars of flipped classroom that she posted.

http://flippingwithkirch.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-flipped-class-to-students.html

http://flippingwithkirch.blogspot.com/2012/07/intro-to-flipclass-for-parents.html

Grade Contract for High School Courses

http://www.myweb4ed.com/blog/grade-contract-why-my-students-excelled-with-it/

I saw a post on twitter - https://twitter.com/MyWeb4Ed/status/228138213238272000 - about a grade contract for middle school math and and algebra. It got me thinking about developing communication with parents and students to get students to spend more time getting better grades and greater understanding. I am going to change it up to go with high school math classes.

Tools for Flipclass

5 Tools for Flipclass

Video Creation Tools - need to experiment with some of them

Need to consider what my students will use for fall.  So far Blogger and Google Docs are the main ones I want to use.  Thinking about Google voice and how students will do phone casting and vodcasting of explanations of math problems.

Implementing Cell Phone Use in Your Classroom?

I posted this question on twitter tonight. It was actually based on what I was thinking about as I was driving home today.

What appropriate training, support and structure have you used to implement cell phone technology in your classroom? #flipclass #edchat

There was actually a great blog about this topic that I found while reading through my twitter feed.  Check out the

The 60-Second Guide To Texting In The Classroom

I think I will be using PollEverywhere and Celly in my classroom this fall to get students interacting in a way that I can keep for a longer term.

Then there was the Is the Cell Phone the New Pencil? which discusses some survey results that "participants valued texting".  That is something that I have seen more and more in both students and their parents.

On July 13, I found this blog from a #pblchat that I think it useful Teaching Students to Schedule Their Time. Given the high school students I work with, I think this teaching them to schedule their time will be an important first step to help them build autonomy in my classroom.  It suggests starting out with a more defined schedule but show them that as each day passes, I will give them more autonomy in choosing the order of their learning. Some of my students really struggle with the power of choice. I need to practice helping them make these choices so they do it well on their own.

On July 13, I found this book in the blog listed above that I think I will get.  Students Taking Charge: Inside the Learner Active, Technology Infused Classroom

Reflections on SimpleK12 Webinar: What's Required for a Flipped Classroom: An Admin Point of View

SimpleK12 Webinar: What's Required for a Flipped Classroom: An Admin Point of View

Presented by: Brian Bennett

Date: Thursday, July 12, 2012

Time: 11:00- 11:30 AM Eastern Time, USA

Join now: http://tinyurl.com/sk12live 

                    ****************Don't forget to tweet with the #sk12****************                       ==================================================================

NOTES FROM WEBINAR

Notes: Flipped Classroom for administrators

bit.ly/adminflip

http://vodcasting.ning.com/

  Flipped Learning: 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3LGd88qrTAcharacteristics

  

Community and classroom learning is different in different locations/time of day

Student Centered

Personalized to students: connect with their future careers to current learning

Flexible/collaborative

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1huNoGMsvv1ZTfXsDHDUM2VWt_7pfQnW2pTRr8DsU3zM/edit

PBL, Understanding By Design, Inquiry, blended learning, lecture all pulled together to use teh best for the students we have

http://pnaugle.blogspot.com/2011/10/we-hosted-blog-commenting-party.html

wordle from classroom concerns: students! Classroom and teacher

Supporting students is the goal of the classroom - not being a lazy teacher but finding ways to support students

Allow students to find what works for them, even if the initial video or tool the teacher shares doesn't make sense to teh student - be curator of content and creator of content

Flipped responsibility back to the student

Flipped learning does not require homework - give them tools in class and some do it outside of class

Do not dictate when and where they learn; not teacher driven homework

Flipped Learning Works at All levels: elementary middle upper - flipping gives control to students

Collaborative learning is King

Physical Space: Stop facing the front of the room with blue screens in front of everyone.

Show Admin how learning space fits learning needs of students

@bennettscience: 

Time spent in school should be spent meeting your students' needs, not defining learning for them

Where is the data? Greg Green, Clintondale High School - do I continue to support failure or do I do something different? Homework is to find out about the data at CHS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3LGd88qrTA

Reba - Greg Green - Clintondale High Schoo - flipped High School - Great Videos

lhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3LGd88qrTA

flipteaching.com: more data points by Ramsey -  - Click on "Resources" for all the data he has curated.

@plnaugle (Paula): I have created an Edmodo group called Flipped Class, The code to join is t728f5. There are 100 members there currently.

@plnaugle (Paula): You might also like to join the Flipped Class Ning http://vodcasting.ning.com/.

@plnaugle (Paula): I  will be hosting several parent tech nights to help them learn about the  tech I am using in my classroom. Last year I hosted a blog commenting  party to get the parents comfortable commenting on my students blogs. 

    This seems like a great idea.

    

   @plnaugle (Paula): Here is the flyer about our blog commenting party https://docs.google.com/document/d/1huNoGMsvv1ZTfXsDHDUM2VWt_7pfQnW2pTRr8DsU3zM/edit

   

   

    @plnaugle (Paula): Here is a post I wrote about our commenting party http://pnaugle.blogspot.com/2011/10/we-hosted-blog-commenting-party.html.

    

    Mary: Http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/18/my-view-flipped-classrooms-give-every-student-a-chance-to-succeed/

    

    How to present to teachers without feeling overwhelmed?

    

    flippedlearning.org

    http://flippedlearning.org/ - this works, just typed into browser

        

    flippedclass.org

    

    flippedpd.org  - Kristin Daniels - @kadaniels is the person to contact for flipped pd

    

    How to scale it to large groups without being overwhelmed?

    

    @plnaugle (Paula): Check out this Twitter stream #flipclass https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23flipclass

    

    @cgramatges (Charlie)

    

    @carlasinpirati - Carla Belyea - Math teacher

    

    @bennettscience - Brian Bennett
You can see a snippit of my class philosophy here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E61YKwA6B28&feature=g-user-u

Plan for the rest of the summer to Prepare for 2012-2013

I was reading through Crystal Kirch's Flipping with Kirch blog about her plan for the rest of her summer.  It got me thinking about setting a prioritized list for the rest of my summer.  My first day of teaching students will be August 20. This week is week 7 of my summer vacation. Goes by so fast. I have fewer students but more distinct classes to think about.

Plan
1. Precalculus syllabus (10 students)
2. Algebra 2 syllabus (12 students)
3. Geometry syllabus (10 Students)
4. Algebra 1 syllabus (6 students)
5. Assessments/Assignments for these classes
6. First week of school plan for teaching procedures
7. See if ASSISTments will work for me (I had started looking at it late May)
8. Standards based grading

Digital Bloom's Taxonomy

I saw this great graphic about a digital bloom's taxonomy that I wish lead back to the original source.  This secondary source actually cites the original source so I am going to link to it so I can consider other ways to use web 2.0 tools to help me build my tool box for this fall. I think these tools can help my students TWIRLS each day.

Rubric Creation Software for Free

This morning I was reading an article about assessment in the flipped classroom.  This article referenced QuizStar which is a free tool for creating quizzes. At the bottom of the page, there were a list of other free tools for educators. The one that caught my attention was RubiStar which is another free tool to educators to create quality rubrics. I know that using rubrics with more problem based learning is the direction want to go this year and I am excited about this new tool to help make that happen.