I attended the Southern NV Math and Science Conference  over the weekend. I presented part of the Advanced Algebra Applications course, but more on that in another post.

I also attended a session given by one of the major textbook publishers on 21st Century learning with their products. I was told by my boss to be quiet and let the guy speak because I was interrupting him so much. I have 3 main problems with what this publisher rep was telling / showing us about the upcoming editions of the math textbooks.

1. The rep was really excited about the 21st Century tools his books will have. I mean they will have VIDEO to teach the problems. Video featuring actual high school age learners, CREATED by actual high school learners. And avatars to explain the math. You can’t get more 21st century than that, right?
2. The problems are all going to be “relevant” to today’s learners. Really. They are going to re-write all the problems and they will be relevant and therefore more interesting. Honest.
3. Finally, the research shows that learners are not reading the explanations because the math comes first. If the words came first, then the learners read the words, and they learn more of the math. (Think 2 column explanations, where traditionally, the math is on the left and the explanations on the right.)

Those are my observations. Here are the problems I had with them.

1. The video they showed was of 2 high school age learners discussing exponential growth of sharks. Right, they made the video with no help, no script writing by adults, no props brought in by a major company. Bullcrap. It was so obviously staged, the language was directly out of a textbook, stilted and lame, and the average HS learner would spot it as a joke immediately. As to the avatar, having a 4th grader explaining exponential functions is very disconcerting. The voice was horrible, and the graphics were even more lame.
2. Is taking a problem like this:
   • “John goes into the store to buy garden hose for his cousin. John spends $85 total for 4 hoses and 1 spigot. The spigot cost $15. How much did John spend?“ and re-writing it to say:
   • “John went to a concert and spent $85. He bought 4 shirts and 1 cd. The cd cost $15, how much were the shirts?” really relevant?
   • No, seriously. He went on for 10 minutes as to how this is so much better because the kids actually go to concerts. 
   • Like the kids wouldn’t just say, “Dude look at the sign posted on the shirts! If they don’t have a sign, don’t buy them!” How incredibly lame.
3. Finally, and this one really upset me, he said the research shows the kids need to read the explanations first. Research has shown they do better when they can read the words first, then the math. And that makes TOTAL sense to me. BUT, they will only do this to the LOW LEVEL TEXTBOOKS! Yup, it is good for all learners, but they won’t do it for all  learners, just the books focused on Special education and ESL.

What total crap. I asked him why, if the research shows it is advantageous, they won’t do it for all their books. The answer was, teachers won’t buy the books because they want them to be traditional.

Yup, teachers want what is best for them, not their learners, so the textbook company caves and follows research only for the low level books. Even though the research shows it is good for all learners. I would like to see the research, but I have no reason to doubt it.

And this is a company I like. They have the better online resources out of the 3 books I use. Their software is better, and they are trying more than the other companies. That does not bode well for our ability to get change in the textbooks we use.

I like my school district, I really do. I think they try to focus on the learning of kids more than other districts (granted, I haven’t taught in other districts but my district doesn’t do some silly things I have heard from other teachers).

But, and this is giant, big but, they use some really restrictive software for their filtering. And before you think this is a rant against filtering YouTube or other sites, read on.

Our district’s filtering modifies the SSL certificates of all sites. That means every time they upgrade or update their filters, every teacher who uses Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, myYahoo, or any other site that uses SSL for the login has to re-download the SSL certificates.

No big deal right?  Unless you happen to use Firefox. Then you can not do it. Firefox doesn’t let you just re-download the certificates. You have to go to Tools, Options, Advanced button, Encryption tab, and then hit the “view certificates” button, then the Servers tab.

6 clicks to get there, and then FIND all relevant Google certificates and delete them. THEN go to the site and re-download the certificate which is clicking yes to several prompts that say things like “This site is not trusted” “It is trying to steal your data” “Are you sure you want to accept this, it will steal your babies and eat your heart!”

Well, okay, slight exaggeration.

And yet, after doing this 5 times today, Firefox still won’t let me into Gmail because the certificate is invalid. Chrome just yells at me, Explorer says it is not trusted, but goes there, but Firefox is a no-go entirely. Thank you school district for keeping me safe from … nothing? You just blocked my email, the one every one of my learners uses to communicate with me. And you did this during finals, no less.

But it gets worse. Probably the most useful and depended on piece of software I use is Dropbox, which uses SSL to send the files back and forth.  Yup, you guessed it, it is severely broken now as well. Crap.

Is it really necessary to do block sites at all? It really does make me think of Tom Johnson’s Pencil Integration site. This posting says it all. We want to teach our learners to think, but we don’t dare let them think too much. And we don’t dare let our teachers actually use judgment. Imagine the chaos!

As if I needed any more reasons to use Google Docs besides the sharing, the collaboration, the fact it is free, the folders, the sharing of folders, and the fact that it is free; Google has given me one more reason.

A big, gigantic reason, actually.

I can now upload ANY type of file to Google Docs. I am no longer limited to only Word, Excel, PDF’s and PowerPoint docs like before!  Any type of document can be uploaded and stored on Google Docs, as long as the file is smaller than 250 megs.

That means most video files can be stored there. Images, RAW files, anything! But, Google only gives us 1 gig for free for files not converted to Google Docs format (and 10 gigs for files that are) . Aw shucks. Only 10 gigs . I just checked the folder size on my Algebra 3-4, AP Stats, and Advanced Algebra Applications courses. All three folders, with all the support docs peaked at 7 gigs. The 10 gigs would be plenty for a significant time in the future.

But, when I run out of space, Google will sell me space (they are a business after all) for the exorbitant cost of 25 cents per year per gig.

Let me put that in perspective. I just purchased a 4 gig flash drive over Christmas break. I got it on sale for $9.99.  If I purchased that same 4 gigs from Google, it would cost me $1.00 per year. In 10 years I would spend the same amount.

The only difference is, with Google Docs, I would have access to my files 24/7, anywhere in the world, and I would never need to worry about losing the flash drive.

There is a reason why Google is so powerful, they are giving away awesome tools for free.

“Tom Johnson” has a blog about the introduction of some nasty piece of technology into the schools in our country. It is horrible, disruptive technology that is changing the learning and teaching that is taking place in schools in a dramatic manner.

This tech is that horrible and dreaded No. 2 pencil. Yikes!  Can you imagine how disruptive it was? Imagine all those teachers who had entire curriculums built around slates and chalk. They had to ditch all that work and adapt to pencils. Oh, the horror!

Yes, this is entirely in sarcasm, but the blog is real.  Head towards http://pencilintegration.blogspot.com/ right now and subscribe.

Now.

Do it. You won’t regret it. It is so sad, funny and true that you will laugh and cry at the same time. And then find teachers you know in the descriptions (which will make you cry again!)

Welcome to my renewed blog! My old blog is at http://mrwaddell.edublogs.org. I switched from edublogs to my own domain name for one reason. I was running out of space quickly on edublogs, and realized that in order to do what I wanted to do, I would have to pay.

No big deal, I don’t mind paying for a good service, and edublogs is a great service. But for slightly more, I could get my own webpage (http://mrwaddell.net) and this blog. For a flat, $6.00 per month charge, I can have unlimited bandwidth and storage.

That beats edublogs by a mile. Now I have space for class storage, space for speech and debate, and anything else I need. I could not get that with paying for edublogs.

And now I begin the new year with a new blog and a new website.

An accident happened to me while teaching Algebra 2 this year. A very good accident. I was teaching solving equations, and I always tell my learners that solving equations is about looking for 1′s and 0′s. I stress this fact, and point out the 0′s and the 1 every time we solve something.

And of course, before we can do equations, inequalities, or absolute value equations, we do expressions. And EVERY single person in the class can rattle off “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally For Looking Too Rough” (did you forget the “from left to right too?).

I taught the lesson, I had SADMEP written on the board, and as I looked at it, I realized that if I wrote the 0 and the 1 down in the right places, it would help. Then I taught Inverse and Identity, and I realized that I had the Inverse and Identity right there!

But then I had an IEP learner in my room later, and he asked me to explain it again. He was confused on when to use SADMEP and when to use PEMDAS. He has been told since elementary school that PEMDAS was how to do problems, and in high school it was all different. He really struggled in Alg 1(I had him then also), and his struggles have not abated. So, I wrote down something else on his paper. It looked like this:

Link: http://www.box.net/shared/2msix7air5

And the learner looked at this and said “AHA!  I understand now! We are doing different things.”

The whole issue of Expressions and Equations became clear to him, and I realized I had just written down something that made sense. It have him a HOOK to attach his learning.  PEMDAS was a hook as well, but it no longer works for solving, and putting them side by side made sense to him.

When the learner looks at it, she can see that if you have addition, you need a subtraction. If you have division, you need a multiplication. The Identity is written right there, and the inverse is the opposite! They groupings GIVE the learner a HOOK to LADDER what they know to solving equations.

My learners tell me it makes sense to them. I realize it is a ladder that allows them to practice what they know in a new situation and it gives them the same structure that PEMDAS did for expressions. It does not give them answers, it gives them KNOWLEDGE about how to solve equations.

I like it.

Okay, these are two totally different thoughts on tech and presenting. One is from Laura Bergells from her blog “Maniactive” or “More than Powerpoint” entitled “How do you earn attention when presenting.” 

Laura tells a tale of a presentation she went to where the presenter was rude, arrogant and all together a jerk about tech. The presenter told the audience to pay attention only to him and turn off all electronics.  hmm, my that sounds familiar to these teacher ears.

In the end, Laura asks, “How do you EARN attention when presenting to a modern, tech-savvy audience?“  Right. How do we, as teachers EARN our learners attention. I “present” 3 times a day, for an hour and a half, to three different groups. How do I EARN their attention? Are they required to give me their attention?  I think this is the main question of the modern teacher.

Which brings me to the second idea from Dangerously Irrelevant. How many teachers have I heard say both of the phrase, “I am not good at math,” and “I am not very good at computers.”

I can not count that high. I try to be polite, and helpful when presented with these individuals, but I really have to struggle. These teachers think their audience is just going to give them their attention, and they have to do nothing to earn it. What really gets me is the wave of the hand that says, “it doesn’t matter”. Really?  It doesn’t matter that you are defective?

Don’t you think your learners have figured out you are defective? Does that impact the attention they give you? Personally, I have to say yes. I think I must EARN my learners attention. Every day. 3 times a day. For an hour and half each time.

No wonder I am tired at the end of the day. No wonder I look forward to going to school the next day so much!

I was frustrated last school year because it was a pain to use my projector.  I had an S-Video cable wired for my TV, 2 Video cables, one for the school’s computer and one shared between my elmo and laptop, and a fourth cable for my iPod.

It was the shared cable between my laptop and elmo that was the frustrating thing. A ppt was running on my laptop, but to show student work, or the book or anything else, I would have to unplug the cable from the laptop, and then plug into the elmo, and then back again.

ARG!

So at the end of the year, I was thinking how I could fix this. How could I get all my tech wired into the projector, but not have to swap cables. I can’t physically run more more cables, because all the connections on the projector are full.  And then it hit me!  A KVM switch!

All a projector is is a Video Monitor. The KVM switch (the last time I used one of these was 20 years ago) allows you to have multiple computers hooked up to one (k)eyboards, (v)ideo, and (m)ouse.  Since the KVM switch doesn’t know or care what kind of video it is using, it “should” work.

Well, it does.  Today I went into my classroom and got it all wired up. I still have the school’s computer cabled  directly to the LCD, but all of my tech will go through the KVM switch. I can have 4 different machines physically wired to the projector, and then with the push of one button on the switch, jump to any of the other machines.

I ended up purchasing one of these Belkin Omniview SOHO 4 port switches. I bought mine from ebay. I purchased a 4 port KVM so I could have room to expand in the future. I only need 2 ports right now.  Another reason I purchased this switch is the hard buttons. Using an elmo means you can not switch using the keyboard. I needed a physical button to switch devices.

I have had other teachers complain about the fact they could only use their LCD with their elmo, or their computer, but now, with a cheap 2 port KVM switch, they can do both!

I am in cadre that was given MacBook Pros to do podcasting and vodcasting this Summer and upcoming school year. Not too shabby, I downloaded Handbrake already in order to convert video from one format into another.  This was made essential because my Flip video camera only records in .AVI format, something the mac hates.  Downloaded Handbrake, change the .m4v extension to .mp4 and I am all set.

But today I am scanning blogs on Reader, and I discover this video on on one of the blogs.

Do me a favor though. Before you watch it, turn the volume DOWN to zero.  Don’t listen to it, just watch it. It is 6:02 minutes long.

Then watch it again but turn up the music and listen to the music along with the visuals.

Do you hate the music as much as I do?

Someone has spent enormous amounts of time getting the facts, the visuals, and then the orange / black/ white color scheme just right. It is an amazing video that is ruined by the cheap GarageBand audio tacked onto the video.

I think Dan said it best.   Don’t Let Your Students Use Music In Their Video Projects. Really.  Don’t do it. This video is every reason why not to allow music.

If the authors had spent one quarter of the time on audio as they did on the video, they would have an amazing video. Instead, they get something significantly less than they wanted.

When we were doing our training on Garageband, I spoke up and asked why we were being encouraged to spend 4 hours on a video and 5 minutes on slapping a cheap sounding soundtrack to our podcast.   The answer from the Mac trainer was dismissive and pointless. “The kids really get into finding something they like.”

Big deal.

The authors of the video above “really got into finding something they liked” and because they did that instead of finding something that fit with the story, the visuals, and the emotional impact of the pictures, they weakened their video.

Don’t do it. Don’t let yourself or your learners use music in their, or your, videos.

This post from Free Technology for Teachers made me think about the videos I use in my classroom.  In it, they go through over 30 different ways to get video for the classroom.  Some are better than others, but they annotate the sources to the quality and content.

From these sources, I use TED and YouTube and Vimeo the most.  Neither TED or Vimeo is blocked by my school district, so they are easy to use, but YouTube requires some … er … massaging to get the videos.  To get the videos from YouTube I have been using KeepVid. It works well for me, allowing me to save the videos in MP4 format and drop them into iTunes and play them on my iPod I have connected to my projector.

It has worked well, allowing me to have around 70 videos by the end of the year ready to go. This summer I am working on identifying another 70 or so and building my collection to use.

This is one of them. The Sixth Sense project. If you haven’t seen it. Do so. Now.  Don’t wait. It is short, and worth every second.

Free Technology for Teachers has a lot of links that I never knew about, so it will be fun to explore them and find more good math videos to use.

Here is one that will make your math class groan. I love it!