Booting Up

As a newbie to the Blogger world, I've had trouble deciding how and what to write about, especially considering my mathematic's aptitude. However, I've discovered that I have two ultimate passions - mathematics and technology. Throughout this blog, I've received some strong advice from a friend (who is a more prolific writer than myself) - to create series of blogs!

First Series (and pun): Mathematics (with a technological dash)

This previous year, I was humbled to be named a State Finalist for the PAEMST award. After filling out the application, I realized how much I enjoyed utilizing technology in my classroom to enhance my students' learning, which I suppose leads to my current job as an Instructional Technology Specialist for my district home of 6 years. As a specialist, the hardest part can be aligning a felicitous technology tool with content, in particular mathematics. Therefore, why not include some sample lesson ideas, reflections, and when I picked a massive bouquet of whoopsie-daises?

Sample student work

For my highlighted lesson, I utilized GoFormative to help my students participate. Each pair of students shared a laptop and would take pictures of their work. It was a wonderful way for them to show their work and also display their work in an anonymous fashion (whilst having some "graffiti" fun on their lackluster desks. Kids with EXPO markers, who knew?!).

While technology is important, it's what we do with it that truly matters. Muhammad Yunus 

I realized that their participation could improve as long as I provided an outlet where students felt safe to share. I loved saving their responses and ultimately improving the lesson the following day.

I was fortunate to work with a group of students who not only were fascinated by the new tools but also their willingness to let me use them as my technology guinea pigs. Luckily, 90% of them passed their AP Statistics exam so I had some piggies who didn't waste too much time rolling around in the technology mud.

Interested in my statistical materials? Check out the lesson outline below!
Lesson Outline:
Objective: Students will be able to utilize a chi-squared significance test to determine if using your "gut" is more advantageous in a game of rock-paper-scissors.

Materials: The student materials will allow you to "Force Copy" what I created so that you have your own version.

• Student Handout: CLICK ME!
• Student Spreadsheet: CLICK ME!
• Rock-Paper-Scissors Website (uses "non-Marvel" Flash...iPad-ers, beware!)
• Technology Tool: GoFormative, Google Sheets, Google Docs
• Google Classroom (preferred)
• One device per 2 students