Staying Focused In the Midst of Distractions

 

 

What a wonderful day it is to be a Math teacher. The Internet is full of resources and I discover more and more resources each day. Many times I find myself overwhelmed with the decision what to learn first? Once I start learning about something before I finish  there is something else presented that interests me to learn.

 Many times I find myself both excited and indecisive.   

 

During  this  blog,  I will share with you some of the most exciting resources that I have found and the order I plan to tackle them. 

1.  www.Duolingo.com. I have always wanted to learn Spanish and this website not only enables me to learn Spanish but to make a difference in the world at the same time. Whoever thought that my learning Spanish would enable me to help translate the World Wide Web into a different language.  

 

2. iTunes University has a Calculus class that is very interesting and intriguing.  It is from Ohio State and it is a complete calculus class with powerful instructors.  Even though I am not currently teaching calculus, I would love to complete this class during the summer 

 

3. Another task that I have is to create  an updated YouTube video about www.ck12.org  I will present  at  a Region 4 conference about  this wonderful resource. They recently updated their website and there are a lot of cool new features. Next year I plan to have my students create their own interactive textbook resource. 

 

4. Next I am excited about creating a tutorial for Harris County Department of education of a lesson that I have  implemented. Of course I have not yet started creating that lesson  because of the many distractions. 

 

5. I would like to also check out more resources concerning classroom management. Many times I struggle in that area however I will promise myself not to focus on my weaknesses but to be empowered by my strengths. 

 

6. I recently found a brand-new app that is just  fun!  It is called chirp. What is neat about the app is that it sends information to your phone by the use of sound. I am not sure how or if I will use it in the classroom and I welcome any ideas of how I can use it to inspire and motivate students. 

 

That is all I have for today. I will commit to remain focused and complete all these tasks; However it will be quite difficult with the Google search staring  me in the face.  

Planning For a New Year

The past year has been quite exciting and I look forward with excitement to another year. I feel overwhelmed with all the resources so readily at my finger tips so I decided to make a list of only 10 new resources that I will use during the upcoming year. That, in itself, will be quite difficult because there is always something new and interesting online. I will make an attempt to use only 10 and try and use them to the best of my ability. I will focus on my strengths this year. I want my classes to be technology rich, active, and full of positive energy.  The first hardware resource I will add for next year is the E-instruction mobi that was donated through a project I wrote on www.donorschoose.org/gladys.scott . I would recommend that if you need any additions to your classes, check out this resource. I will have 2 mobis and one teacher mobi and my students will be able to interact real-time on the data projector. Will be great to use for competitions, projects, etc. I have just written through donors choose for an Ipad 2 for my students to create a video library of content covered during class. I will also be incorporating some of the many apps available to me through the I Pad 2.

As for as the web resources I will use, they are as follows:
1. Will investigate http://www.explorelearning.com -I did use this last year but not sure if the district is going to purchase it this year.
2. Very excited about using https://www.edmodo.com/ this year. I  will be attending training for this in Aug.
3. Will be using http://www.discoveryeducation.com/ for lesson planning, videos, and to create a class within the site. Lots of features here
4. http://www.ck12.org/student/  just keeps getting better!! now you can us it in different languages. I may have my students create an online portfolio through this site
5. http://braingenie.ck12.org is a great resource for students to practice and compete with other students to get badges
6. http://www.sophia.org/home-teacher Now this is a brand new resource. You can get teacher training, there are videos and lessons within the site. Very excited about it.
7. I do want to focus on STEM activities and this resource will help-http://edtechreview.in/index.php/news/news/e-learning/200-free-21st-century-learning-sites
8. I will use a test generator to create test. Test Gen usually comes with textbooks but I have never really investigated it. This resource will enable me to create several versions of test to make the assessment creditable.

I will leave myself 2 more to add when I post again.
I am networking with many great Math teachers through https://www.bigmarker.com/communities/GlobalMathDept/bulletin They have online webinars a bulletin board where math teachers can network with each other.  Post a comment if you use any of these resources and let me know how it goes.