Knockoff Project: The Aftermath
October 15, 2010, 12:00 amThe first project that we did in Applied math was called the Knockoff Project. This was a brand new project meant to utilize the 21st century classroom and the Project Based Learning initiative that this class is now based on. The drive behind the project was to design a “knockoff” phone that im...
Spot the error.
October 4, 2010, 12:00 amHe is a birthday present from my sister in law. Awesome gift, I’m going to put it over the clock in my room (there would be rioting, but the kids can’t read an analogue clock anyway).
But can you spot the error?
Data Density
September 30, 2010, 12:00 amFollowing question driven by seeing a box of floppy discs in tech room.
Question: How large would the floppy disk have to be to hold a hard drive of content?
Facts:
- A floppy disk holds 1.44 MB
- The largest consumer hard drive is 2 TB
Size of a desk? room? building? field? town?
E...
Cake:Frosting (A look into a proper ratio of real math:cool tech)
September 29, 2010, 12:00 amWith all the new technology in the classroom (see this post), I’ve been interested in trying out the new toys. One of those toys is the 25 laptops (dell inspiron 11z, small and cheap) which are loaded up with some great software.
For the Intro to Geometry unit, we go through the definitions, sy...
Big Bad Wolf (a SBG tale)
September 23, 2010, 12:00 amI am the Big Bad Wolf.
The students are some mix of the three little pigs. 
They don’t know yet that I am the Big Bad Wolf, and they are building away at their houses. However this story is a bit different because I’m going to tell them which set of houses that I’m going to attempt t...
SMART Response (Clickers)
September 15, 2010, 12:00 amThese worked great. They integrate with the SMART notebook software, so they require a bit of tweaking when entering an assessment. SMART notebook, even with math tools, requires entering any equations again… even if they were imported from Word or a google Document.
Blah blah blah blah blah
September 14, 2010, 12:00 amFacts:
· Humans average 2 words per second when speaking.
· Humans average 60 minutes per day speaking.
How many words will you speak in your (average) life of 75 years?
(hint: break it down to smaller questions)
This is the question that the Applied Math guys worked on yes...
Track(ing) the tips
September 12, 2010, 12:00 amFor the past two summers, I’ve worked at the oldest horsetrack in the country, Saratoga Racetrack. I work as a mutuel teller and my job has me selling and cashing bets. It’s an okay job, the pay is not high, but it’s quite flexible and it’s totally different from teaching and so the break is nice....
My New Classroom
September 7, 2010, 12:00 amSo I’ve talked about it before, but I was selected to be a guinea pig for a new 21st century classroom. I’ll be teaching two classes in this classroom: Geometry Regents, and Applied Math (second half of year is called Consumer Math). The Applied/Consumer math will consist of mostly PBL (project ba...
SBG – Question #1
August 26, 2010, 12:00 amIn mentally preparing for this upcoming year, my brain (clearly a separate entity from myself, ala pilkington) keeps returning to a couple of sticking points regarding a transition to Standards Based Grading.
Grades Go Down?
Two issues: should they be able to go down? and how do you put t...