Category: Math

HAPPY FISH Year! 🎊 🐟 🎊 🐟 🎊 🐟

efisher713 / / Assessment, Great Tech Sites, Math

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Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is having a great start to 2018! My resolution is to see more of you and your students in 2018! So far so good, we’ve started Digital Portfolios in a number of classrooms from grades 2-11, tech trainings are starting at the JRSRHS after school next week as well as a pilot of teacher devices, and PLCs continue at both GWMMS and Central. Wow – it is GREAT to be a Viking! Let’s try something new this year with technology! How about using some video inside Google Classroom?! Let’s make that happen! Book me to come in by clicking here.

Let’s look at some FISH FOOD below:

Quick Key – Give the same assessment digital OR paper! 🔑 

This site/app is pretty cool! You can give an assessment digitally or on paper and it will score it for you. Simply, scan the paper bubble sheet with your phone! This would work well if you wanted to give students a choice in how they take a multiple-choice assessment.  The paper grade and digital grade are both released to students digitally. The only downfall is the free version is limited in how many paper scans you get per month.  Click Here to check out Quick Key!

Desmos 🔢 

This great resource has been mentioned in the past, but it’s worth a second mention (as are many tech sites)!  Why, you ask? The answer is because John Orr, a math teacher, has put together a Google Sheet of resources for grades 7-12 full of Desmos Activities for grades 7-12! Desmos is a great online graphing calculator. There is so much you can do with this FREE site!

https://teacher.desmos.com/

30 Free Desmos Activities

Cool Templates for Slides 📺

Do you like to have students create Google Slide Decks for projects or class activities? Do you like to create them yourself for your classes?  If you’re looking for some different backgrounds to use on Slides, you can find FREE Instagram and Time Magazine templates to use in Google Slides. There are other (paid) templates as well, but I really enjoyed the free ones!

http://creativeedtech.weebly.com/templates.html

Library Extension 📚  📚

This is really cool! This extension allows you to see books and e-books that are available at your local library. You simply set all of the libraries you access, and when you’re in GoodReads or Amazon the Library Extension will show you if your libraries of choice have the book. See my search below:

 

Read more about this great tool here:  https://www.libraryextension.com/

MAPS  🌎    🌎

From Richard Bryne’s blog: Outline Maps

Outline Maps is a simple set of games that you could use in an elementary school or middle school setting to help students learn the names and locations of countries and states. The site is a little short on decorative graphics that you will find on other game sites, but I kind of like the minimalist style of Outline Maps.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2017/11/outline-maps-simple-geography-games-for.html#.WhwJpVVKuM8

I hope to see you soon!

oFISHally yours,

Erin Fisher 🐟 🐟 🐟

Jinglefish, Jinglefish…. 🎅🏻 🎄 🐟

efisher713 / / Email, Great Tech Sites, Math, Phone Tech

December 1st is here, and with it comes the craziness of the month ahead!  I wish you well this time of year, and I hope you have some peace during a chaotic month. Please remember, I am here to help you.  If you’d like a little breather, book me to come in! I LOVE teaching, and I can prepare a lesson that just shows off some tech, or I can connect it to your content. I’m happy to help and I love being with you and the kids!  Click my calendar here to book me – I filled up quickly last December, so get on there early!

Let’s take a look at some top tech of the week:

 

 

Holiday Tech ❄️  ☃️

Click here for my Google Doc (which I will update as I find new activities) for Holiday Technology Activities. Here you can find activities involving the stock market, how much the 12 days of Christmas would cost today, Elves singing, make your own digital snowman and even just Christmas Fonts for Google Docs.

Equatio now FREE for teachers   🔢

The extension, Equatio, by Texthelp is now free for teachers! This is great because previously they charged for this extension. This would help one use math language in a Google Form or Doc. You can even write (digitally) or dictate an equation and it will convert it into math language for you. Check it out below:

Sign up for your free account here: https://www.texthelp.com/en-us/products/free-for-teachers/

Send personalized emails with a Google Sheet ✉️ 

Do you regularly send parent emails?  Would you like a spreadsheet that houses student names, parent emails and a cell where you could write a personal note that automatically sends when you want it too? Even attach a file that shows something important? This is pretty cool! You could get this sheet already exported from Schoolbrains, add the mail merge add-on called Mail Merge and BOOM start sending personalized email to each and every parent or student. Keep this handy-dandy spreadsheet all year long and change the notes as you please. In a matter of minutes you can send 50 emails, all looking personalized! Send 50 more the next day – you can schedule them!

 

SCREENCAST FROM YOUR iPHONE! 📲 

With the newest IOS update you can now screencast your phone!  “When would I need this?”  Well, if you want to show students how to do something on their phones, this is useful. It is also useful to add video to Google Classroom from you! It’s much easier that screencasting from one’s computer and sending to YouTube to add to Classroom. Not only can you add the screencasting tool to your quick access screen, but you can add other tools that you’d like as well.  See below for the steps and an example video of me screencasting from my phone. Note – to get audio when screencasting your phone you need to long press the screen recording app and turn the mic on. 

This week I read a great blog post by George Couros author of The Innovator’s Mindset and the blog The Principal of Change. If you haven’t read George Couros book or blog, I highly recommend it.  George is a former Principal, and he has a great philosophy that I admire. He believes that it is important that we always work to get to “what is best for kids.” He had a great post this week about connecting with kids titled So Much More Than Letters and Numbers. I included an excerpt below:

If the technology takes away our human connection that is crucial for the development of our students, it is not worth it. Using tools like this can help to add to a conversation, but it cannot be the conversation on its own.  We cannot reduce our students to becoming letters and numbers. George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset

Technology integration is a passion of mine, and I love it, but I love connections with kids even more! Have me come in, I’d love to connect with you!

oFISHally yours,

Erin Fisher 🐟 🐟 🐟

 

Fishgiving 🐟 🦃

efisher713 / / Assessment, Great Tech Sites, Math, Teacher Shout Out!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I am so very thankful to work with you, thankful to work in a great town with great kids, thankful for great bosses, thankful for all of the technology we have here, and thankful for all the support that’s given to me by you!  Thank you. I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend! It will be a crazy few weeks when we come back especially with all of the December holidays approaching!  Be on the lookout for Holiday Tech as I find it! I will compile it into a great list for you, separate from the Blog (but still featured here). Until then….I had some AWESOME appointments this week, here is some of the tech that came out of them! Thank you to the teachers and staff that had me come in. Special Shout Out to Melanie Lanni who booked me for document merge award certificates – I had so much fun with that!

Digital Assessment Made Easy  💻

I was booked this week for a great appointment to go over Go Formative! Go Formative is a digital assessment tool and can be used, similar to Pear Deck, in a live format or for online assessments (similar to Forms). This program now integrates with Google Classroom, making easier than ever to send out a digital assessment.  Every grade, aside from grade 10, will take an online MCAS this year. Formative has similar question styles to MCAS such as Multiple Select, Multiple Choice, Show your work (MATH!), and Short Answer.  Drum Roll….the best part….YOU CAN UPLOAD YOUR ALREADY EXISTING TEST AND JUST INSERT AN ANSWER KEY! No retyping or copying and pasting, and Formative generates great data and item analysis too!  This is a Super Tool for all types of assessments, including just daily check-ins! Check it out today!

 

Document Merge  📎

Thank you, Melanie, for booking me for this task this week! Document Merges are AWESOME! Picture creating hundreds of personalized documents, letters, or certificates for students with a single spreadsheet and template.  Check out the video below if interested!

Something COOL for your phone!   📲

This tech is for you (not really the kids)!  Recently, I upgraded my iPhone and now I get those super cool LIVE photos. I was a little behind with phone upgrades as you can see.  I had a bunch of Live photos and I really wanted to combine all of them into a mini-movie and have the photos run. Insert the AMAZING Google and the app Motion Stills which you can download to your iPhone. It’s very user-friendly and allows you to combine Live Photos into  GIFS or Mini-Movies.  Below is an example I made from my phone:

Video (Warning – it’s a bit annoying since the kids say “cheese” a million times)

#CHOOSEKIND Web Extension  😁

This is cute! The movie Wonder recently came out and it is based on one of the best children’s chapter books I’ve ever read! To promote the movie, the movie company released an extension. It will turn hate on social media to kind words. Take a look at the very brief video below to see!

MATH – PreK-12  🔢

This post (click here) from Richard Byrne includes a great rundown of resources to use in the classroom with Math. It has apps, youtube suggestions, lessons and more! It encompasses math from PreK to grade 12.

 That’s all I’m throwing out there for you! Enjoy!

oFISHally,

Erin Fisher 🐟 🐟 🐟

OktoberFISH 🐟 🎃 🍂

efisher713 / / Great Tech Sites, Math, Teacher Shout Out!, Tech Gurus

Happy October Everyone!

Wow! Is it a busy time at school or what?! We are officially in the full swing of things.  The transition month has passed, and with it, the crazy that is “going back to school.”  The days are cooling off and the routines are set.  A teacher asked me a great question last week: “With so much tech out there to choose from, how do we know we’re using the right tool?” For instance, with math alone, you could use Prodigy, Moby Max, Front Row, IXL, XtraMath, Kahn Academy and the list goes ON AND ON! There are so many great ed-tech tools out there, but I think Alice Keeler said it best, last week, on Twitter: “There isn’t enough tech training in the world for whatever the tool is. The right tool is the one you’re excited to invest time in.” 

So, I’m here – to hopefully help EXCITE you! I LOVE THIS STUFF! So….here we go:

Catch of the day: Class Dojo Toolkit App  Image result for class dojo 

This catch of the day is a shout out to 3rd-grade teacher Kim Wolohojian, and her 3rd-grade team, for using Dojo App that contains the new, updated, amazing Toolkit!  If you open the toolkit on a phone it will project to your computer for display. Toolkit is only an option on the phone app and can’t be opened by the computer itself (but they are working on it). There’s a new feature in the toolkit called “group maker” that lets you pair and group students at random similar to Flippity. However, unlike Flippity, Dojo has a do not pair together option! That means if you have two students or groups of students that don’t work well together, it will not pair them together when you randomize! How AWESOME is that??!!

If you are not familiar with Class Dojo, click here for a preview. It is similar to the app Remind which I’ve seen widely used throughout the district.  With DOJO, in addition to a family communication piece, where you can send text-updates and photos in a safe environment, you can also have a classroom management piece.  Students have avatars and you, as the teacher, can award points. You can also take away points. The parents can see the management piece if you choose or it can be turned off to parents and only the texting option can be seen.  I have this as a parent for my own sons, and I LOVE it.

If you would like to see a great comparison of parent-communication apps, including Remind, Dojo and much more click here.

 

Halloween Google Slide Activity 🎃 👻 🕸 🎃 👻 🕸 🎃 👻 🕸

OMG, this is so cute (click here)! From Eric Curts (one of my favorite techies) – make a jack o lantern in Google Slides! The template is already created for you and students can use all of the images to create a digital Jack-O-Lantern. There’s even a writing component to the activity. You can alter the master anyway you would like, and then use Google Classroom to push it out to students.
You could go one step further and have each student make a Jack-O-Lantern that reflects his or her personality, submit it to you and you could put them all in a master slide deck and have kids try to guess who’s is who’s.

Halloween Hyper Doc 📎 💻 🌏 📰 🎃 📎 💻 🌏 📰

This is an AWESOME(click here) Hyperdoc full of all sorts of (free) Halloween activities. It is geared towards middle school, but check it out and you may find some activities you can use in your classroom. It has many interactive, appropriate, Halloween tech games, videos on the history of jack-o-lanterns and other traditions, an option to “Trollify” yourself (from Trolls the movie), a Halloween light show, and much much more!  Please preview any items on the Hyperdoc before showing students.

Book Creator  📚 📚 📚 📚 

Shout out to School Committee member Aimee McAlpine who created this great resource (click here) on online book creators.  A few 6th-grade teams plan to use these resources to create books to then read to their third-grade friends.

For those of you who do not know Aimee, she is an Instructional Technology Specialist for the Marshfield Public Schools as well as a parent and school committee member. Thank you, Aimee!

Math Resources 🔢

Another favorite techie of mine, Richard Byrne, put out free math resources that he enjoys.  We’ve seen many of these before but I feel like I should always include posts on math tech.  These resources span all maths, so take a look! The Geoboard is one of my favorite tools!

New Add-On: Magic Rainbow Unicorn! 🌈 🦄 🌈 🦄  🌈 🦄 🌈 🦄

This add-on is as silly as it sounds, but it’s still pretty cute! Take a gander and see how to “Lisa Frank” your Google Doc! Sometimes, it’s the little things that get kids excited to learn! This could be that “little” thing!

Who to Follow 📝

If you’re wondering the best tech bloggers to follow (aside from me of course – lol) click here for the top tech bloggers according to Ed Tech Magazine. This is a great run-down and I follow many of these ed-tech leaders myself! What’s great is that many of these bloggers provide FREE RESOURCES that they create and allow all to use. They are firm believers in the Teachers-Give-Teachers movement! I suggest finding just one to follow that is similar to your own field or interests, and check in on their blog or subscribe. You won’t regret it, I promise!

 

Enjoy the Tech!

oFISHally yours,

Erin Fisher 🐟

🦈 🔢 FINtastic Math Resources 🦈 🔢

efisher713 / / Math

I. LOVE. MATH.

Of course, I love technology integration (so much!), but my first love was teaching math.  For many years, here in EB, I taught 6th-grade math and science.  I’m lucky because a few of my best pals still let me come in when I get a hankering for teaching math again.  They get some new techy math ideas, and I get to scratch an itch; win win for all.

This summer I took a course through Framingham titled “Technology in Math.” It was taught by a digital learning specialist from Medfield Public Schools who, like me, started in 6th-grade math.  Throughout the course, I was delighted to learn new resources each week that I had not worked with prior.  For your viewing, and MATH pleasure, I have included these resources below.  I also stuck in a few classic favorites of mine!

Industrial Mathematics Project for High School Students – Projects created by WPI, this has some interesting project-based math activities. Some include tech, and some do not. I thought the Super Soaker project was pretty interesting.  Although titled for High School, there are a few projects that could be modified for 6th grade and up.

DeltaMath – “DeltaMath allows teachers to create free online accounts and assign their students automatically-graded, interactive problems from a long list of modules sorted by level – from middle school Common-Core-aligned math to AP Calculus.” This is a pretty cool site.  Nothing flashy, no games, nothing to be won – just FREE, online math questions that cover a range of topics.  There is a re-teaching component and in the settings, you can set it to have it ask the student again until the problem is correct. It has some great data tracking options. It includes a graphing and statistics calculator in the program.

Seeing Math – This site is great for upper grades and High School math if you are looking for FREE graphing manipulatives. It contains a linear transformer tool, quadratic transformer, system solver and more!

3-Act-Lessons – I encourage you to look at this site if you’re a K-7 math teacher.  It’s pretty interesting. It’s a variety of lessons that contain a big idea, and three parts.  Each lesson is different. The author of the site is a math specialist and former math teacher.

Math Forum Library – Be careful with this one! It’s an ENDLESS OCEAN of resources. It is very easy to get lost on this site because there is just so much. It’s is a place to look when you just feel the need to find something new, that “great catch.”  It’s a site created by teachers and contains many puzzle-type problems.

You can check out a few of my other math favorites by clicking on my math doc found here!  Have fun!

What’s your favorite math tech tool? Comment below!

oFISHally yours,

Erin Fisher