Blog Entry 5: ProProfs

ProProfs is a great site for creating practice tests, surveys, polls, etc.  I use this site mainly to create practice tests for my students.  It has proven to be very beneficial.  This site keeps a report of each student who took the test and an overall anaylsis including average, and percentage of correct answers for each question.  I think this is a great site and very user friendly.  I have attached the link below.

ProProfs

Factoring Graphic Organizer - Comic Life

My students in Math 1 are just beginning the unit that covers polynomials and factoring.  Factoring is a tough concept for many of my students to grasp.  I used the Comic Life software to create a graphic organizer that is easy to follow and appealing to the eye.  You can see this graphic organizer at the right.

Comic Life Reflection

I found using Comic Life to be fun.  It was almost like drawing or painting.  I use graphic organizers on a regular basis in my class, but have always used Word to create these.  There are many things you can do with Word, however, Comic Life is much more appealing to the eye, which is exactly what I want out of a graphic organizer.  This software is also very easy to use and navigate.  It did not take much to figure out how it worked.  Overall, I have found Comic Life to be a great tool for creating graphic organizers and worksheets for my students.  I would also think that Comic Life would be a great tool that students could use to summarize their learning.

Blog Entry 4: Emerging Technology that Supports Communication and Collaboration

Technology is a great way to communicate and collaborate.  I use technology on a daily basis to email other teachers, administrators, parents, etc.  I send out weekly emails to my parents to keep them up to date on what is going on in class.  I also use email to communicate with parents if their child is struggling or I have concerns.  It is a very convienient and quick way to keep in touch.  Schoolnotes is also a great tool for communicating with parents and students.  I post important class information, lesson plans, practice tests, surveys and other useful resources for my parents and students.
At my school we have a private wiki which the administrators make posts to on a daily basis so that they do not have to use the intercom or mass emails.  They have also created seperate wikis for each department, sports, etc.  I use the Math 1 Wiki to post notes, worksheets, tests, etc, so that all of the Math 1 teachers have direct and easy access.  It has proven to be a great communication and collaborative tool. 
I have also created a blog for my Math 1 Support students to use at home.  I have created it so that my students can communicate with each other from home if they have questions about that days content or homework.  Unfortunately, the students nor I can access it from the school since anything with the word blog is blocked.  So far, the Math 1 Support blog has not been a success. 
There are so many different technology tools and resources available that are great for communicating and collaborating.  However, many of these resources are unknown to most teachers.  It is imperative that teachers are made aware of these tools.  Once more teachers are more aware of these, these tools will become even more effective and begin to serve their original purpose.

School Notes - Blog 3

At my school, teachers are required to post their weekly lesson plans on schoolnotes.com.  I used this site for lesson plans only last year.  However, now that there is a new version, new.schoolnotes.com, I have been using this site for lesson plans, surveys, practice quizzes, linking helpful sites and attaching documents.  This site has really worked well so far this year.  I have embedded a survey for my parents to fill out that goes directly into a spreadsheet at googledocs.  This way I have current contact information and I do not have to worry about entering all of it myself.  I have also embedded a student inventory survey, monthly polls, and practice tests.  Last year I was unable to add links and attach documents, however, with the new updates on the site this feature has been great for my students and parents to find helpful resources and documents that they may have been out for.  I feel that I have much more contact with my parents and the parents feel more comfortable with what is going on in class.  Using the internet is a great tool for keeping parents involved and informed.

Here is the link to this page:  Mrs. Rhinehart's School Notes Page

Unit 1 Practice Test

I created a Practice Test for my students to take if they like.  I attached it to my Schoolnotes page and Math 1 Support Blog so that my students can access it from home and use it as a resource to help them prepare for their Unit Test this coming Friday.

http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=unit-1-practice-test

Voice Thread - Parent Functions

Parent Functions Voicethread

In my Math 1 class, my students have been learning about six types of functions.  Linear, Absolute Value, Quadratic, Square Root, Cubic and Rational.  The students need to know the parent function for each family, the name of the function and the shape the function makes when graphed.  This Voice Thread provides a picture of each type and a student comments on the shape and the function for each picture.

Voice Thread Reflection

I found Voice Thread to be a very useful tool.  I had never even heard of Voice Thread until a few weeks ago.  At first I was not so sure about it because I felt it would only be useful in elementary school or maybe middle school.  However, when I had my students help me create this Voice Thread I saw how much they really enjoyed it and I have found that Voice Thread's are great for introducing or reviewing material.  I like it because I can post it to my Schoolnotes page and my students are more likely to watch this and hopefully learn something than they would be to read their notes.  I hope to use Voice Thread again in the future or even have each of my students create their own Voice Thread as a project.

Voice Thread Article

Anonymous, . Voice Thread. (2009, March). Principal Leadership, 9(7), 8.  Retrieved September 10, 2009, from Research Library. (Document ID: 1662489961).

http://wf2dnvr9.webfeat.org/

This article breifly describes what a Voice Thread is and discusses the benefits to using this resource.  Some of these include the fact that Voice Thread does not require any special tools.  It allows students to make comments on images or information, draw pictures or even type in information or comments they have on a given topic.

Emerging Technology that Supports Content Learning - Blog 2

Chapter two discusses the use of technology to support teaching content.  It states that technology is a great resource for student learning, however, just as with any other teaching/learning activity, when using technology, the teacher needs to make sure there is a plan and that the students understand the purpose and focus for the activity.  It is also important that the teacher feels comfortable with the technology and the students know that their teacher is confident when using the technology.

Web Tools: The Second Generation

Pascopella, A. (2008, May). Web Tools: The Second Generation. District Administration, 44(6), 54-58. Retrieved September 6, 2009, from Academic Search Complete database.

This article discusses the uses of Web 2.0 tools (blogs, podcasts, videostreaming, etc) in classrooms today.  Different schools that are going above and beyond what most schools are doing are referenced in this article.  Collaboration between teachers to incorporate technology is the key to the success of these schools.  Steps to this collaboration are detailed.

Article

Math 1 PreTest

I have embedded the Math 1 Pretest that I use with my students.  I try to use online assessments as much as possible in my class, but am not able to as much as I like because of the network issues at my school.

Math 1 Test

Math 1 Support Blog Link

Here are is the link to my Math 1 Support Blog.

http://math1support.blogspot.com/

Using a Blog in Math - Blog 1

I created a blog for my Math 1 students.  This blog is set up so that my students can ask each other questions about what is going on in class, what certian assignments are, etc.  I am hoping that if a student has questions when they are at home, they can use this resource to get the answer from another student before returning to school the next day.  I just created this a few days ago and let my students know about yesterday.  So far, I have had no posts, but I am hoping that some of my students will take advantage of this resource.  I will post later about how it is working.

Technology Integration

Technology Integration is the use of technology resources in instruction to motivate, inspire and challenge students in their pursuit of knowledge for a given lesson. It allows a teacher/instructor to differentiate instruction and encourage higher-level thinking. It allows students to use creativity and demonstrate their knowledge in various ways. Technology integration can be as simple as having students complete problems on an Interactive Whiteboard to as complicated as asking students to create and maintain a website or wiki on a given topic.

Initial Posting: Introduction

This blog is set up to demonstrate the integration of technology in a high school mathematics classroom. There are great links to mathematics sites that I use in my classroom. I will eventually post pictures and other information that demonstrates the technology I am using in my classroom.