Flex Mex

This video was also shared by the LNS, just before lunch time.  Needless to say, we did not have anyone attempt their own Flex Mex with their meal.  If you want to spend an afternoon, fascinated by math concepts this Bread and Cheese weekend, check out the rest of Vi Hart's videos on her blog.

Mathematically Correct Breakfast

The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat shared this video with school boards across the province last month at the face to face sessions as part of their creativity in math discussions.

To have a more linear explanation in pictures and words that doesn't move quite as fast as the video, check out George Hart's site called "Mathematically Correct Breakfast".
 

Formative Assessment

Check out John Scammell's blog post series on Formative Assessment.  Once you are there, start clicking around to read some of his other posts on things like Exit Cards.

Thanks to Cam MacDonald for alerting this with us. 

Financial Literacy Structured Learning Series

Here are the links looked at in today's Financial Literacy Structured Learning Series:

Follow Your Money  Annick Press

Kevin Sylvester books  Author's website

Get Smarter About Money  Investor Education Fund

Inspire Financial Learning Lesson Plans

Financial Literacy GAINS EduGAINS Ministry of Education resources

It Pays to Know Financial Consumer Agency of Canada

The City Online learning experience for students

TVO Kids  Financial Literacy Videos for Primary

Financial Education Curriculum  Citi Financial 

Infographic: The Value of Financial Literacy  Edutopia

Cent$ible Students Parent Group offering workshops

A Conversation with Sir Ken Robinson

Check out this video of Sir Ken Robinson speaking for Teachers Appreciation Week on the future of education.  Originally from Discovery Education.

OAME 2013 Day Two

Another string of twitter feeds, this time from Day 2 at OAME.  Unfortunately, the links aren't live, but the thoughts were definitely in the moment.

OAME 2013 Day One

Before the Twitterverse gives way to new tweets, I wanted to capture the tweets from OAME 2013 and place them here.  The links won't be active but the thoughts won't be lost either.  And, just like Twitter, they will appear from latest to earliest...

Creating the Conditions for Learning Mathematics

Check out this link for a webcast from the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat on Creating the Conditions for Learning Mathematics.

Here is the description from the LNS RSS feed:

Creating the Conditions for Learning Mathematics, an In-depth Co-Learning Experience for Students and Educators. Through the lens of Dr. Alex Lawson, classroom teacher Margaret Allen and her students, viewers can consider various aspects of student learning of mathematics along with clips from Doug Clements and Lucy West. The Viewer's Guide for this resource includes samples of written student work.

Dan Meyer at OAME 2013

Last Thursday, Dan Meyer was a featured speaker at OAME 2013 and gave an inspired talk on the need to make math more like video games as opposed to making video games more like math.  He shared this website with us.  I believe I've shared this before but if you want to hear more Mr. Meyer, here is his TED talk.

BrainPOP's Spotlight This Month is Practical Math

Spotlight: Practical MathCount On Us

Thanks to our May Spotlight: Practical Math, your days of searching for engaging math resources are numbered! Practical Math includes topics like Comparing Prices, Customary Units, Division, Estimating, Graphs, Interest, Metric Units, Percents, Scale Drawing, Rounding, and Statistics. K-3 teachers can turn to BrainPOP Jr.'s Inches and Feet, Basic Subtraction, Basic Addition, Dollars and Cents, and more. BrainPOP ESL's movie A High Probability (Level 3, Unit 4, Lesson 3) teaches infinitives as Moby uses probability to rack up orange gumballs. On GameUp, related titles include Battleship Numberline (PlayPower Labs), Flower Power (Mangahigh), A Tangled Web (Mangahigh), Pyramid Panic (Mangahigh), Lure of the Labyrinth: Employee Lounge (Maryland Public Television/MIT Education Arcade), Pearl Diver (New Mexico State University), and Monster School Bus (New Mexico State University). Practical Math lesson plans are another great resource.

Math Tech Tools for Busy Teachers

Thanks to Robin Kay for sharing this wikispace of Math Tech Tools for Busy Teachers at OAME 2013.

New Games on BrainPOP's GameUp

New GameUp Partner: New Mexico State UniversityMonster School Bus & Pearl Diver Also joining us as a new partner this month is New Mexico State University. Their titles Monster School Bus and Pearl Diver - part of their Math Snacks series - help you add a new dimension to your math lessons. In Monster School Bus, players take on the role of bus driver and must figure out how to make as few trips as possible while picking up and transporting "little monsters" to school with limited seating. Pearl Diver sets shipwrecks and sunken ruins on a numberline, then asks players to use math skills to navigate while avoiding the electric eel.

Upcoming BrainPOP Webinars

If you haven't checked out any of the BrainPOP webinars, I highly recommend that you do.  You can view them live in order to ask questions and be part of the conversation, OR you can view them in the archives at your convenience.  There look to be a couple of good ones coming up in May.  And unlike many other education type webinars, I feel with BrainPOP they aren't trying to sell their product, but just let you know more about cool educational ideas, that may or may not connect with the BrainPOP resource directly.
Log On and Learn: Join Us Every Week for a Free Webinar

Our free webinars - held every week on a rage of relevant topics - make professional development easy! Log on and learn with us; we'll happily provide certificates of participation afterwards. Note that this month, we're using a new webinar hosting service. Pre-register for our May events using the links and passwords below. Wednesday, May 1 3:30 pm ET BrainPOP: Beyond the Movies We're stepping up our monthly overview webinar and exploring resources beyond our movies. We'll cover GameUp® in the classroom as well as the Mixer™, which gives you the ability to customize assessment by creating and remixing your own BrainPOP®-style quizzes. Plus, get a tour of all the recent updates we've made to BrainPOP Educators. Pre-Register • Password: moby Wednesday, May 8 6pm ET Lisa Parisi: Helping Students Stand on Their Own In the final installment of her three-part series, POPstar Lisa Parisi shares strategies for developing student autonomy. From global collaborative projects to effective technology integration, Lisa tells you the ways she supports students as they find their voices and build confidence. Pre-Register • Password: moby Wednesday, May 15 3:30 pm ET Text Demands and Best Practices for Leveling Books Language arts teachers know that leveling books is both art and science. In this webinar, Kathy Burdick, president of Mobile Learning Services and developer of TextDemands.com, discusses various approaches. She'll explore different leveling systems, quantitative and qualitative text attributes, and the dangers that arise when using an incomplete diagnostic system. Pre-Register • Password: moby Wednesday, May 22 3:30 pm ET 1-to-1 and Blended Learning: The Essentials Join our friends at Common Sense Media for a look at tools to help make 1-to-1 and blended learning realities in your classroom. Hear about Common Sense's 1-to-1 Essentials, a comprehensive roadmap for schools integrating a tablet program. It covers everything, from engaging parents to digital citizenship to the best learning apps. We'll also look at best practices for using BrainPOP's apps in 1-to-1 and blended learning environments.  Pre-Register • Password: moby Wednesday, May 29 3:30 pm ET Martin Esterman: Games, Math Fluency, and Award-Winning Ways Martin Esterman, the National STEM Video Game Challenge winner, joins us for a webinar on fluency and the Common Core State Standards for Math practice. Martin tells us why he's decided to use games for instruction and touches on the importance of fluency in math development. You'll see some of the games he uses, including Addition Blocks, the one he designed for the Challenge - and which is featured on GameUp. Pre-Register • Password: moby Can't make it? We archive our webinars so you can access them at any time. They're usually available within a day or two of the original event. Questions or ideas about our webinar series? Get in touch.

Screen Free Week (Do Playoffs Count???)

Young children spend an average of 32 hours per week in front of screens. The number is even higher for older children. These alarming numbers provide as good a reason as any to observe Screen Free Week, spearheaded by the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, April 29-May 5.  If you take the challenge to turn off your screens, we commend you and encourage you to visit screenfree.org for helpful resources on how to plan your week to minimize temptation and have some screen-free fun.   But even if you can't or won't power down, don't let that stop you from using Screen-Free Week to reflect your family's interactions with TV and technology. Elizabeth Marshall and Özlem Sensoy, editors of our extremely popular Rethinking Popular Culture and Media, wrote in an editorial two years ago, "Screen Free Week is also an opportunity to consider our relationship with media and the marketing activities that underlie them." They encourage us to "reconsider our relationship with our media-saturated society and to ask whether these media support or undermine the democratic values we espouse." Here are a few reading recommendations that will help you fine-tune your critical media literacy skills, as well as see critical examination of media in action:

Rethinking Popular Culture and Media, edited by Elizabeth Marshall and Özlem Sensoy, includes excellent articles by teachers, scholars, parents and activists who examine how and what popular TV programs, films, and other media "teach."   We're offering a 15% discount until May 31 with code SFWE13 when you order at our Web site.    Lesson Ideas for Screen Free Week--includes an article from Rethinking Popular Culture and Media Power Down for Screen Free Week, The Vancouver Sun By Elizabeth Marshall and Özlem Sensoy, April 2011 Schlock Proof Your Child, by Özlem Sensoy, June 2011, TheTyee.ca A Review of '42': Jackie Robinson's Bitter Pill, by Dave Zirin Rethinkin' Lincoln, by Bill Bigelow "Ball Licky-Lickly!" Pedagogical Strategies for Interrogating Pop Culture Images, by Özlem Sensoy  Rethinking "The Lorax," by Bill Bigelow Saviors and Burnouts: Rethinking Teachers in Popular Culture, by Elizabeth Marshall Children's Literature for the 99%, by Elizabeth Marshall

SAVE 15% Fine tune your critical media literacy skills. Bring the ideas and resources from Rethinking Popular Culture and Media into your family and classroom conversations. Use code SFWE13 for a 15% discount until May 31, 2013.  Offer Expires: May 31, 2013

Interview with Sir Ken Robinson

This video appeared on the Educational Leadership website with the title, Why Creativity Now?

50 Education Technology Tools Every Teacher Should Know About

Posted by Ross Crockett on March 26, 2013

“You want some great ed tech tools to use in your classroom? You got em'—50, to be exact! This article from Edudemic features an extensive list of some of the most awesome technological tools you can find for teaching and learning. There's lots to explore here, so have fun!”

via Edudemic
Technology and education are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little bit easier and more fun for all involved.
Yet as with anything related to technology, new tools are hitting the market constantly and older ones rising to prominence, broadening their scope, or just adding new features that make them better matches for education, which can make it hard to keep up with the newest and most useful tools even for the most tech-savvy teachers.
Here, we’ve compiled a list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher’s tech tool arsenal this year, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the classroom.

Social Learning

These tools use the power of social media to help students learn and teachers connect.

1. Edmodo: Teachers and students can take advantage of this great tech tool, as it offers a Facebook-like environment where classes can connect online.
2. Grockit: Get your students connected with each other in study sessions that take place on this great social site.
3. EduBlogs: EduBlogs offers a safe and secure place to set up blogs for yourself or your classroom.
4. Skype: Skype can be a great tool for keeping in touch with other educators or even attending meetings online. Even cooler, it can help teachers to connect with other classrooms, even those in other countries.
5. Wikispaces: Share lessons, media, and other materials online with your students, or let them collaborate to build their own educational wiki on Wikispaces.
6. Pinterest: You can pin just about any image you find interesting on this site, but many teachers are using it as a place to collect great lesson plans, projects, and inspirational materials.
7. Schoology: Through this social site, teachers can manage lessons, engage students, share content, and connect with other educators.
8. Quora: While Quora is used for a wide range of purposes, it can be a great tool for educators. It can be used to connect with other professionals or to engage students in discussion after class.
9. Ning: Ning allows anyone to create a personalized social network, which can be great for both teachers and students alike.
10. OpenStudy:Encourage your students to work together to learn class material by using a social study site like OpenStudy.
11. ePals: One of the coolest benefits of the Web is being able to connect with anyone, anywhere. ePals does just that, but focuses on students, helping them to learn languages and understand cultures different from their own.

Learning

These educational tools can help you to make lessons fun, interesting, and more effective.

12. Khan Academy: Many teachers use this excellent collection of math, science, and finance lectures and quizzes to supplement their classroom materials.
13. MangaHigh: MangaHigh offers teachers a wealth of resources for game-based learning in mathematics.
14. FunBrain: If you’re looking for a great collection of educational games, look no further than FunBrain. On it, teachers can take advantage of fun tools for math and reading.
15. Educreations: Educreations is an amazing online tool for the iPad that lets teachers (or students) create videos that teach a given topic. Perfect for studying or getting students to show off their knowledge.
16. Animoto: Animoto makes it simple to create video-based lessons or presentations for the classroom and to share them with students or anyone else.
17. Socrative: Available for computers, mobile devices, and tablets, this student response system engages students through games and exercises on any device they have on hand. Even better, teachers can easily assess student progress and track grades.
18. Knewton: Adaptive learning has been a hot topic in recent months, and with Knewton it’s something that any teacher can access and use. The site personalizes online learning content for each student according to his or her needs.
19. Kerpoof: On Kerpoof, students can get creative with their learning with games, interactive activities, drawing tools, and more that are both fun and educational.
20. StudySync: With a digital library, weekly writing practice, online writing and peer reviews, Common Core assignments, and multimedia lessons available, this site is a fully-featured tool for teaching and learning that can be a big help in the classroom.
21. CarrotSticks: On this site, teachers can take advantage of a wide range of math learning games, giving students practice while they have fun.

Lesson Planning and Tools

Use these tech tools to pull together great lessons and design amazing and memorable student projects.

22. Teachers Pay Teachers: Have great lessons to share? Looking for something to add to your classes? On this site you can do both, selling your own class materials and buying high-quality resources from other teachers.
23. Planboard: Make sure your lessons are organized and that your day runs smoothly with the help of this amazing online tool designed just for teachers.
24. Timetoast: Timetoast is a pretty cool for student projects, allowing them to build sleek, interactive timelines in minutes.
25. Capzles: There are so many different ways that Capzles can be used in the classroom, there’s bound to be an application that fits your needs. What does it do? Capzles makes it simple to gather media like photos, videos, documents, and even blog posts into one place, making it perfect for teaching, learning, or online projects.
26. Prezi: Want to build presentations that will wow your students? Make use of this online tool that makes it simple to do all kinds of cool things with your lessons, even allowing collaboration between teachers.
27. Wordle: Create stunning word clouds using Wordle, a great complement to language lessons of any kind.
28. QR Codes: QR codes (or quick response codes) are showing up with greater frequency in education. If you’d like to get in on the trend, you’ll need a tool to create and manage the codes like Delivr and one to read codes, like any of those listed on this site.
29. Quizlet: Quizlet makes it easy for teachers to create study tools for students, especially flashcards that can make memorizing important information a snap.
30. MasteryConnect: How are your students performing with regard to state and common core standards? MasterConnect makes it simple to track and analyze both, as well as other elements of student performance.
31. Google Docs: Through Google Docs, teachers can create and share documents, presentations, or spreadsheets with students and colleagues as well as give feedback on student-created projects.
32. YouTube: Not all schools allow YouTube, but they are missing out as the site contains a wealth of great learning materials for the classroom. There’s even a special education-focused channel just for teachers and students.
33. TED-Ed: TED isn’t just a great place to find inspiration anymore, the site also contains numerous videos that are organized by subject and can help you to teach everything from how pain relievers work to Shakespearean insults.
34. Glogster:Glogster is a social site that lets users mash up music, photos, videos, and pretty much anything else you’d like. It’s a great way to create learning materials and a handy tool for creative student projects.
35. Creaza: Want to bring your student projects into the 21st century? Creaza can make that possible, offering tools to brainstorm, create cartoons, and edit audio and video.
36. Mentor Mob: On Mentor Mob, you or your students can create a learning playlist, which is essentially a collection of high-quality materials that can be used to study a specific concept.

Useful Tools

These tools can help you to stay connected, organized, and increase the ease of building multimedia lessons and learning tools.

37. Evernote: Capture great ideas, photos, recordings, or just about anything else on your Evernote account, access it anywhere, and keep it organized. A must-have tool for lesson planning.
38. Twitter: There are so many ways Twitter can be used in education. Teachers can connect with other educators, take part in chats, share their ideas, or even use it in the classroom to reach out to students.
39. Google Education: Google offers a number of great edtech resources for teachers, including email and collaborative apps, videos, lesson plan search, professional development, and even educational grants.
40. Dropbox: Easily store, share, and access any kind of data from anywhere with the easy-to-use and free Dropbox service.
41. Diigo: Diigo lets you treat the web like paper-based reading material, making it simple to highlight, bookmark, take notes, or even add sticky notes.
42. Apple iPad: One of the most widely used, though expensive, tech tools being used in today’s classroom is the Apple iPad. With a host of educational apps being developed for the device, it’s become a favorite of teachers and students alike across the nation.
43. Aviary: Aviary is a suite of tools that make it easy to edit images, effects, swatches, music, and audio or to create and modify screen captures.
44. Jing: If you’re teaching kids about tech or just about anything else, a great screenshot program is essential. Jing is one great option that allows teachers to take screenshots as images, record up to five minutes or videos then edit and share the results.
45. Popplet: You and your students can use Popplet to brainstorm ideas, create mindmaps, share, and collaborate.
46. Google Earth: From geography projects to learning about geological processes, Google Earth can be an amazing and fast way to show students anywhere in the world.
47. DonorsChoose: Need funding for a classroom project? You can get it through this site that hooks up needy teachers with willing donors.
48. SlideShare: With SlideShare, you can upload your presentations, documents, and videos and share them with students and colleagues. Even better, you can take advantage of materials that other have uploaded as well.
49. LiveBinders: Like a real-life three ring binder, this tech tool allows you to collect and organize resources. Much better than a binder, however, the site also comes with tools to connect and collaborate and a virtual whiteboard.
50. AudioBoo: Through this tool, you can record and share audio for your students or anyone else.

Another Great Learnist Board on Great Math Sites

What's a guy gotta do to get included on a list like this??  C'mon, I'm trying my best here!!!

Changing the Conversation: Youth and Social Media

Here's an interesting approach that Thunder Bay area schools did to "change the conversation" on social media, youth and schools.

Middle-schoolers Use Video Game to Reimagine Hamilton's West Harbour

Check out this CBC article on how one Hamilton school is harnessing the video game Minecraft to tackle urban planning in the city.

Rolling to Lose One More Year

Well, it appears as though the red cups are gone and another session of Roll Up the Rim is over.  Let's see how my own coffee purchases stacked up to the odds advertised.

I bought 5 smalls, with no winners, 6 mediums, with no winners, 10 large with 2 winners, and 4 extra large with 1 winner.  That is a total of 25 purchases with 3 winners, for a winning percentage of 12% or roughly 1 in 8.  Tim Horton's advertises winning odds of 1 in 6.  DO they lie?  Am I unlucky?  Both? 

Well, probability is much more than these numbers can attest to, as I have outlined in previous posts.  All I know is that it looks suspiciously apparent that Tim Horton's rewards its higher spending patrons based on the results I got this time around.