Teacher in Cyberspace

For the next few entries, I want to focus on Math applications. I'm desperately trying to tear my students away from their textbooks. The ones we have in our class are from the mid-nineties. They still have money questions with pennies and word problems about buying DVDs. At the same time, I think that it's very important that students have the opportunity to practice the math concepts we learn together numerous times to make sure that they're able to internalize the processes.  I stumbled upon GeoGebra. It seems to be a collection of smaller programs and activities all under one large umbrella. This might be a good site to have my students explore for me. Give them all one period to try to find a worthwhile activity for the class to try. Have them categorize them into strands. I promise, having students do my research for me is more for them than it is for me. My students love to be the ones to recommend something to the class. They love the opportunity to lead the group...

Wow, I can't believe it, a video game just pulled me in and kept my attention for over 3 hours. If my wife hadn't just come home from work there is no doubt I would still be playing The Witness . The Witness is a beautiful and complex puzzle game that was both meditating and incredibly stimulating. It stands in stark contrast to the violence, gore, flash and mindlessness of a lot of modern video games. The Witness pulled me in and had my mind working, but not racing. It had my attention, but not through explosions or overly complicated storylines. Often times my students ask if they can play video games if their work is finished early, I tend to try to redirect them to different activities like chess if they are in fact completely done every task that I set in front of them. The Witness reminds me of chess. I felt smart after playing it, a very different feeling then what I get from playing Grand Theft Auto. I highly recommend this game! The Witness is available on gaming...

Feeling good about my recent success with Pikochart, I thought I would try another graphic design program. This one, Easel.ly seems to be specifically geared towards making infographics. I love infographics, perhaps this could work alongside the programs like Pikochart and Canva that I'm already familiar with. Easel.ly made me crazy. I don't know if the site was having a bad day, my computer was in a mood, or the site is just poorly designed, but I found it VERY frustrating. The first thing I notice was the shaking. Every time I tried to move an element around it would shake. This made my vision blurry and I started feeling nauseous. Next, when I tried to resize things I couldn't select the correct icon. It was just frustrating. I lasted for less 10 minutes. I might give it another try, but I'm skeptical. I think Easel.ly is owned by Adobe because since signing up I've received 3 emails from Adobe and 2 from Easl.ly themselves. This may become a problem. These fre...

Last year my class and I started using CANVA , it's a great graphic design tool. It has a free feature, but you can upgrade it if you need to. As a class, we created amazing infographics about energy conservation. In an attempt to create more choice and be more constructivist in my class, I want to provide more options for my students. I also have a background in design, so whenever I can fiddle with a new design program, I'm a happy guy. A colleague suggested PIKOCHART , and so far, so great. Like CANVA it has a free and paid version. I really like the templates they have available. I used their getting to know you template and created something I really liked in less than half an hour. I need to play around with it a little more and see if the free version is worth using, but I really like what I've seen so far. You can import numbers from excel to make very slick graphs and I was able to upload my picture in a matter of seconds. I think I might use this as a first-week...

Coding has something I've heard teachers talking a lot about for the past couple of years. Should we all be teaching code? It isn't in the curriculum and it seems overly complicated. I enjoy navigating the internet, but do I really need to look behind the curtain? Is coding really as exciting as people are trying to make it out to be? I am reticent about this one. I know that many of my students would love it, but how am I going to find the time to fit it in? A student created game generated by code.org Upon visiting Code.org I'm very impressed by how altruistic is all seems. They are specifically targeting girls and underprivileged youth and everything is free, even f ace to face teacher workshops . They offer free courses to all age groups, even pre-readers. Perhaps I might get my five-year-old daughter to try it out. Time being my biggest concern, I am drawn to their one hour of coding offer, wherein you can choose from a variety of activities that only tak...

For today's program, I have chosen Classroom Bridges . It was recommended to me by a colleague in an online course. I have never met this person in real life, but the University of Toronto thinks their alright, so I think I will go for it. First off the landing page looks welcoming, it showcases a collage of a lot of different sites from around the world and it promises to make classroom connections more accessible. For the past 5 years I have had my students participate in something called the 'Great Canadian Mail Race', where they write letters to a class in another province. It always feels exciting at the beginning of the year, but out of 30 students we have only ever received about 3 or 4 responses. What starts out as an exciting initiative, ends up fizzling by October. My other issue is that only includes Canada. I would love to help to encourage empathy amongst my students by having them connect with students their own age outside of Canada. One great movie I show e...

I was easily able to find this image and just drag it into the blog. You can also upload images from your computer or use your webcam. Hello fellow teachers. Are you tired of other educators name dropping a laundry list of applications that you "have to try"? Are any of them actually worth your time? Will they help you in class? Or will they just waste your time? In my class this year we started to use Google Classroom a lot and it went really well. It allowed my grade 6 students to work on their assignments with each other seamlessly both in class and at home. It improved their collaboration and it cut down on the huge stack of marking I usually have piled on my desk. Now that I am officially a 'techie' teacher, I want to find more programs for my students to use. In the spirit of constructivism , I want to give my students options of different programs they can use in my class.