Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Thing # 8

I set up my RSS feed, but will work on it some more, especially when college football kicks into high gear. Vaughn, I wondered how you knew when anyone posted a blog, and now I know because we are on your RSS feed. That is cool!!

Thing #7

Google is amazing!! I had no idea, it is like one stop shopping for all of your needs. The two items that I really explored were Google Advanced Search and Google search page More button.
With Advanced Search, I typed in Algebra II on youtube and found some really fun videos about math that would appeal to my classes - these include math tricks which students always love. These would make for a fun moment in what can be an intense class for some. I will definitely be using these in my class this next year. This is one good use of the Activboard. Speaking of Activboards, in looking at different places in Google, it seems that one could create the same type of "flipcharts" easier than how we currently have to create "flipcharts". It also appears that there are actual directions on the google sites, unlike any for Activboard, which is frustrating -- sorry, I digress. My other wow factor in google was using the more button and discovering the books section, how cool is that??!! This would be for my own pleasure, however, I did see a mathematics section that had a book on how students learn math, and another book on how the brain learns math -- maybe I will browse those on this site.
Google was fun!

Friday, June 26, 2009

Thing #6

I have often wondered where to look for sites that could publish personalized calendars, etc. This was a helpful site. As I said in post thing #5, I see now that I can use Fliker to find photos that represent math in real world situations. I continually get asked by my students "where will I ever use this". Photos truly bring the real world to math students.

Thing # 5


Wow! Unlimited fotos of whatever you want to see. I looked up my hometown, Baton Rouge, and there was actually a group for it, and some of the photos really captured the area. I used the group feature to find mathematical shapes in the "real world" and have included a bridge with a parabolic shape in this blog.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Thing # 4

I hope I have signed on correctly and my name will show up on the list soon...............

Thing # 2

I think that reflecting on the 7 1/2 habits is difficult for me, because I have never, never been good at this type of activity. I am always evaluating myself, reflecting on what I have or have not "done", and what I need to do. So......these are my thoughts. I enjoy learning new things, always have, and I like to learn them in different ways, depending on what it is. I am a "leisure" learner in everyday life, I find something I am interested in and "leisurely" learn about it. I have a very difficult time with technology, so I would say that is my weakness. I tend to "buck" at technology because of the fear of not being able to do it. It always happens that when I do learn something new about technology, it turns out to be much easier than I feared.
This is blogging, because I feel like I am going on and on and on...........

Thing # 1

I had read the directions to 23 things back in May (about three or four times), "interviewed" some of my friends who have completed the 23 things, read the 23 things again at the end of school, and started on this last week. Can't think of a better activity when it is hot, hot, hot outside.

Thing # 3

I just created a blog! Pretty cool, and extraordinarily simple. It must get harder from here...............I forgot to put in the avatar, so I went back and had fun looking at all of the options!! This is where it got hard --- I followed the instructions but it would not paste to my blog, so I noticed that it was commented to save as a jpeg, so I called my husband and he helped me out - he has a blog himself (blind pig productions). One challenge is, I keep getting my windows mixed up, closing the wrong ones, then finding myself having closed all of the windows.