Students Searching For Triangles

In order to place a real feel on this, students took iPads outside to discover triangles in their world.  Students found real triangles which they applied the Pythagorean Theorem to find a third side.  We also used estimated measuring tools (hands and shoes) to find the lengths of the legs.

After we found the measurements, students used the Skitch App and paper/pencil to calculate the hypotenuse.



***UPDATE: After three years from the original post above, Mr. Isham took this to another level by having the students find the triangles outside, but returned inside to explain the process for finding the hypotenuse using Explain Everything.

See some student examples here and here.

iPad + Twitter = Perfect Tool For A Timeline

We have been studying the events leading up to the American Revolution.  First, with individual exploration of learning, and second, with some direct instruction. Read all of about that here, here, and here,

Today, we have assigned students an assessment that requires them to use Twitter.  Items we needed to think about prior to assigning this type of assessment are below:

• What order should the tweets be in?  We decided to have the tweets be in reverse chronological order so that when the student is done, the tweets will be in the correct order from the top (beginning of the story) to the bottom (end of the story).
• How will we be able to quickly view the tweets?  Students have their own, unique hashtag for each tweet.  This will allow us to click on the hashtag to see all tweets in order.
• How hard is it?  Some students expressed a challenge of limiting to 140 characters.  The purpose is to give a timeline of events, which SHOULD be summarized in short phrases.

View the exact student directions!

View the Process:

Logical (Math) Apps To Complete After An Assessment

Students complete assessments at different times during the class.
iPads offer the solution!  iPads offer many apps.

Logical thinking apps are fun and challenging for students.
Students used the apps below to enhance their thinking today...

Classic Peg Jump

Sudoku

Primo Kakuro HD Lite








Students reflected on their use of the apps by video taping themselves.

Google Sites - Forms - Blogs - Twitter - Personal Econ

Today we concluded our week long personal economics unit and may I say it was exhausting, but outstanding! We created an entire city using Google sites.  All items students needed to complete were completed through Google Forms.  Students discussed their experience by using Twitter and Google Blogs.

We communicated each day's agenda by sending an email to all students.

BOTTOM LINE: We couldn't have done it without iPads, desktops, laptops, Google tools, and Twitter.  It was our largest problem based task to date.

*some material will not be accessible as we made them only available to our domain.  If you truly want the forms and other things, leave a comment with your contact information!

Our Town:  Raiderville, Wisconsin (created in Google Sites)

Some videos:

Crack The Code App For Logical Thinking

Introducing patterns and rules for algebra today, we had the students use Crackthe Code App to develop the logical thinking in which it takes to solve that app and those puzzles and then applied it to our algebraic
lesson.