Some Like it Hot!

Another great infographic!  I found this Infographic about the Sun on the Daily Infographic site. 

Infographics are a fantastic way to get over the "Worksheet Blues".  Most teachers and students get bored with Worksheets.  These days, we have so many more options for making math interesting and relevant.  With so many forms of Multimedia at our finger tips, we can easily find sources of current and relevant information to use for practice of math skills and concepts. We don't have to feel tied to worksheets anymore! 

Using forms of multimedia like images, videos, and Infographics also help you Differentiate Instruction.  They give you the ability to provide content and information which appeals to the interests of your students.  For example, students who like Science would love the opportunity to use something like this infographic to practice math skills.  Just remember to keep mixing up the topics of the Multimedia you choose so you're appealing to the interests of various students.

There are many possibilities for creating math problems from this Infographic. Think about using it to create and practice Scientific Notation and Proportion problems. 

How would you use this infographic to teach or practice math concepts?  Leave a comment.

via dailyinfographic.com

It's Never Been Easier to Make Math Relevant for Students

How often do you hear “I’m bored!”?  For many math teachers it’s way too often!  Fortunately for teachers and students, math doesn’t have to be boring anymore!

One of the best ways to boost engagement and motivation is to make content interesting and relevant to students.  Multimedia makes it extremely easy to accomplish these goals!   We now have unlimited access to images and videos that can enhance math instruction and give some relevance to the math concepts we teach.  We also have the ability to easily create our own images and videos for learning.  Best of all it doesn’t have to take much time and effort on the part of the teacher to make this happen!

Recently infographics have become very popular.  This is great news for math teachers because infographics are just one more form of multimedia that we can use to make math interesting and relevant.   Infographics are filled with statistics that can be used to start mathematical discussions.  Infographics can also be used to replace worksheets.   Rather than giving students a worksheet with proportions to solve, give them and infographic and have them solve proportions based on the true statistics.  In addition to presenting “real” statistics and information, infographics are often based on topics that many students would find interesting.

Some infographics that I’ve recently come across:

·      The First 48 Hours of Mozilla (Firefox browser)                                                     http://loledservices.blogspot.com/2011/03/infographic-first-48-hours-of-mozilla.html

·      Statistics About Japan (Statistics from the Japan Disaster)                                       http://loledservices.blogspot.com/2011/03/infographic-statistics-about-japan.html

 ·     The History of Apple’s iPod                                                                                    http://www.digitalsurgeons.com/ipod-timeline-infographic/

 

·      The Business of Facebook                                                                                         http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/154/numerology-the-business-of-facebook.html

This infographic was created by Fast Company.  Their blog post about the infographic points out some of the highlights of the data represented in the infographic.  

o   Facebook has 610,736,920 MEMBER PROFILES. That's once for every ELEVEN people on the planet.

o   Analysts estimate that Facebook pulled in $1.86 BILLION in advertising in 2010. That’s expected to grow 118% this year, to $4 billion.

o   EVERY 60 SECONDS ON FACEBOOK, USERS send 230,000 messages, update 95,000 statuses, write 80,000 wall posts, tag 65,000 photos, share 50,000 links—and affirm or disparage them all with half a million comments.

With this data students can solve proportions, make graphs, calculate percentages, and make predictions.  You could also take surveys of the class and compare the class data with the data from the infographic.  

When using infographics with students, it’s important to discuss the fact that the data may change.  In the case of the Japan Disaster Infographic some of the data may change, but some will not.  In the case of the Mozilla and Facebook infographics the data may have changed before you even have a chance to use it with your students.  These discussions may provide additional problems to solve.  Just ask some “What if” questions and have students make predictions about how the data is likely to change.  You can even follow-up a week or two later by having students look up some of the same statistics to see if their predictions about the rate of change were close.

Podcasting to Increase Student Achievement in Math

Think about something you’ve learned recently.  Did you talk to anyone about what you were learning?  If you had would it have helped you learn the material better or faster?  Most of us would answer yes to these questions.  Now, think about your students.  Do you think they would learn more if they had additional opportunities to talk about what they were learning?

When we talk about what we’re learning, we deepen our understanding. Our brains need time for processing new information.   Talking about new ideas/concepts helps us bring to light and flesh out misconceptions we have about the topic.  We have so many standards to cover in math, that we are always pressed for time.  As a result we often neglect to give our students sufficient processing time.  The catch is that our student’s would gain more understanding and retain more information if we allowed time for processing new information. 

We also make stronger memories when we use multiple modalities for learning.  So, talking about what we’re learning can have significant impact on what we understand and what we retain.

Podcasting is easier than you think!

There are many technology tools available for making podcasts.  I'll highlight several of these in future posts.  Today, I'd like to share one podcasting tool that you can start using immediately. 

Podcasting (phonecasting) with Ipadio

What is Ipadio?

Ipadio is the easiest podcasting on the planet!  Well, it's at least one of the easiest podcasting tools on the planet!  Ipadio allows you to create podcasts from your phone.  After you sign up for Ipadio, you register the phones that you’ll use to make your phone casts.  You can use landlines and/or mobile phones for podcasting.  Ipadio gives you an ID number that you’ll use every time you call in.  You also get your own channel for hosting your phone casts.  If your students use this, they’ll get their own channel.  If you have your students use Ipadio, you may want to use LiveBinders, or Net Vibes to help you keep all of their channels in one location.  This will give you easy access when you review their podcasts. 

 

The great thing about Ipadio is that it provides an easy platform for allowing students to process and consolidate their learning.  You can use Ipadio in and out of class, so you can assign Podcasts for homework.  This way, you don’t always have to use class time for making student podcasts.

Here are a few benefits that podcasting can have:

•   deepen understanding of concepts by talking about them
•  strengthen memories by using more than one modality for learning
•  engage students with content
• motivate students by using a tool they enjoy learn about student’s misconceptions
• differentiate by appealing to auditory learners and those who may be interested in entertainment

Using Ipadio to Support Learning in Math

A few ideas for using Ipadio to support learning:

Teacher Podcasts:

•  Make podcasts of your lessons.

• Make podcasts to reinforce your lessons.  For example, if you are teaching a lesson on Pythagorean Theorem, you can make a podcast describing specific uses for the Pythagorean Theorem.   If you're teaching fraction operations, you can make podcasts that describe the steps for solving each type of fraction problem.

• Make podcasts of key vocabulary words for a lesson or unit.  You can also incorporate these podcasts into other applications so you can include visuals and the words. Any application that supports links would work for this. --- Wallwisher would be a good application for creating these multimedia Word Walls. 

Student Podcasts:

•  Have students make a short podcast about what they learned each day or each week.  This has many benefits.  Students are keeping a record of their learning and their growth.  They can create a Live Binder and organize it by Units, Topics, or Math Standards.  Teachers can use Live Binders or Net Vibes to keep student podcasts organized.

•  Have students pretend to be a math topic, concept, symbol, or vocabulary word.  Their podcasts would reflect the perspective of whatever word, symbol, or concept their pretending to be.  For example, if a student is pretending to be an improper fraction, they could describe themselves as being top heavy or a heavy weight.

•  Have students conduct math interviews.  They can interview each other about math concepts.  Or, they can interview other teachers, students, administrators, parents, etc.  These interviews can be very quick with just one or two questions about a topic, or they can be more involved.  If you decide have students conduct interviews regularly, you may want to have them create 'Glogs' that contain their interviews.  Glogster is an interactive poster maker.  It's very easy to use and does require much time to make posters. 

 

How would you use podcasts with students?  Leave a comment and share your ideas.

 

What Does THAT Have to Do with Teaching Math?

José Picardo:

Web applications are fun for both teachers and students, but often both teachers and students can become too preoccupied with the tool itself and forget what its purpose ought to be: to support teaching and learning. Here’s a little guide to using three fantastic web applications successfully and effectively.

via boxoftricks.net

José Picardo's blog post, Three Essential Tools for the Teacher of Languages, is geared towards teaching languages. However, these tips and tools can also be applied to the math classroom. If you have ELL students, these tools can lessen the pressure of speaking publicly. The truth is these tools are great platforms for anyone who is reluctant to speak in class.

Often times, students who do not speak English very well don't want to participate in class discussions. Forums such as the one's mentioned here by José allow students to take time and process what they want to say. Without being put on the spot, they may be more comfortable speaking. These platforms can also give student's anonymity. If they are speaking through a Voki, they don't have to worry about how they sound. Or, they can create a Glog without everyone knowing who created it. Voice Thread is another excellent web tool that can give students a Voice Thread with less pressure.

I definitely agree with José about teachers and students getting caught w/the tool as apposed to the learning. So when using these tools with students, make sure that they keep focused on communicating mathematical ideas.

If you haven't tried these teaching tools yet, give them a shot. If nothing else, you just might ignite student engagement in your math class!

Please leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Have you used these? If so, how? If you try them for the first time, let us know how it went.