Christmas Post: EdTech Tools That I Can't Live Without

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. A Rapoport Problem

3. Yule Blog Prompt #7: EdTech Tools That I Can't Live Without

4. Links to Other Challenge Participants

5. Conclusion

Introduction

I've never blogged on Christmas Day before. Then again, I've never participated in a Yule Blog Challenge that encourages us to post during Christmas break before.

Christmas, of course, is on the Christian Calendar. On the Jewish Calendar, today is the tenth day of the month of Tevet. It is a fasting day, and so the old trope about Jews eating Chinese food on Christmas doesn't happen this year. (Jews can't wait until after sunset to eat out because it's the Sabbath.)

For Christmas, I received another Great Courses DVD -- The Mathematics of Games and Puzzles: From Cards to Sudoku by Professor Arthur T. Benjamin. It was a very close call -- I found out that despite it being ordered earlier, it wasn't delivered until two days ago, Festivus (or Christmas Adam).

I usually watch my Great Courses and describe them here on the blog, starting on New Year's. But this time, I'll wait a week until after my long-term subbing assignment ends. I'd rather focus on my final week in this classroom. Then again, I might tell my students about this DVD in order to inspire them -- one reason to learn math is that it can be used to play games and puzzles.

Speaking of math games, it's time to continue the Yule Blog Challenge. And since today is the seventh day of winter break, let's proceed with the seventh prompt.

A Rapoport Problem

Today on her Daily Epsilon of Math 2020, Rebecca Rapoport writes:

(Ho)^3

If we cube Ho, we obtain Ho Ho Ho, which is -- Merry Christmas! That's right -- today is the third of three special days on the calendar with a joke rather than an actual math problem. The other two such days were Pi Day and April Fool's Day.

Of course, I haven't been blogging many Geometry problems from her calendar lately anyway. For example, there was a Triangle Inequality problem on the 22nd, but I didn't blog on the 22nd. I'll return to posting Geometry problems from the Rapoport 2021 Calendar once my long-term ends. 

 Yule Blog Prompt #7: EdTech Tools That I Can't Live Without

So far, in responding to this prompts, I've liked to focus on one day in particular. And so for today, I wish to look back to Monday, October 12th. This was the start of my third week of this long-term -- by now I'd become accustomed to all the EdTech tools that I'd be using (including obtaining passwords).

The first tool I used that day was Google Meet -- to log into the Monday staff meeting. I know that many schools use Zoom instead, but now I'm used to Google Meet. One advantage that I, as a sub, have seen with Google is that unlike Zoom, Google doesn't lock me out when I'm not the official "host" of the meeting -- that is, the regular teacher. (But I know that there are some other features possible in Zoom but not in Google.) Since it was an online Monday, all students would attend class using Google Meet that day.

The next tool I used was Canvas. Other schools use Google Classroom instead -- and yes, it's odd that we would use Google Meet but not Classroom. All our classes are in Canvas, including a special Activities course for special events. We also enter grades for specific assignments in Canvas.

That day, the eighth graders were preparing for the Unit 2 Test on functions. To prepare for this test, they would take the Unit 2 Practice Test in Go Formative. The regular teacher had already set up the practice test, so all I needed to do was assign it. The practice test contained twice as many questions as the real test, so that I could do one question of each type with the students and they would do the other on their own. The only real problem was that in this functions unit, some questions required students to look at a graph, but the graphs were difficult to see in Go Formative. My solution was to go over only the problems that didn't have graphs, since there wasn't enough time to do all questions anyway.

After I would do one problem, I'd call on a student a random to do the next, very similar, problem. To choose names at random, I use my TI-83 Graphing Calculator. Here is a short program that I used:

PROGRAM:PERIOD1B

:randInt(1,4)->X

:If X=1

:Disp "ADAM"

:If X=2

:Disp "EVE"

:If X=3

:Disp "CAIN"

:If X=4

:Disp "ABEL/O"

The last /O there is to remind me that this is an online student who has opted out of hybrid. This isn't as significant on Mondays, which are online for everyone, as it would be the rest of the week.

In the seventh grade classes, we'd already taken the Unit 2 Practice Test. So for these students, it was time for them to take the real test in APEX Learning -- our main curriculum. APEX as a curriculum has had its ups and downs. This particular seventh grade unit on adding and subtracting signed numbers was well-suited for APEX, but subsequent units on solving equations didn't go as well. Instead, we had to assign worksheets and post them to Canvas -- and this is trickier, because students often had trouble figuring out how to complete them and submit their answers.

The last class of the day was Math Skills. For this class, the regular teacher has set it up so that students work on two websites for 60 minutes per week -- ST Math and Dreambox. These sites are aligned with the respective curriculum (Math 7 or Math 8) and direct students to play simple games that allow them to practice grade-level material. My students usually enjoyed this games -- it's something nice and fun to do at the end of the day.

The topic for today is about EdTech tools, and it's almost impossible for a math teacher to answer this question without mentioning the "D" word -- Desmos. Well, I didn't use Desmos on October 12th itself, but I did use it the rest of the week. You see, after the eighth graders took their actual Unit 2 Test on their respective in-person day, they did a short Polygraph activity on lines -- a Unit 3 preview. And I know the students enjoyed it -- on the last day before winter break, one guy asked me whether he could play Polygraph again. I told him that Polygraph required partners, and many of the other students were making up or retaking their tests in APEX for the end of the quarter.

Still, I reckon that I haven't seen the full power of Desmos yet. I've glanced at a few other math teacher blogs, and many begin by describing some activity that they used to do in class before the pandemic, and now there's some new feature in Desmos that allows them to do the activity differently now. But so far in my own classroom, I've only used Polygraph and Marbleslides with the eighth graders.

Links to Other Challenge Participants

For today, we return to the blog of Cheryl Leung. She also mentions EdTech briefly in her post:

https://matheasyaspi.wordpress.com/2020/12/24/my-pandemic-artifacts/

I will tell them about turning on a dime and learning how to teach math virtually. I will tell them about Jamboards and Desmos and Google Meets and Breakout Rooms with my students. I will tell them about kids who were lonely and families who struggled. I will tell them about staff and students and families who became ill.

Actually, some of the best posts I've seen about Desmos and other EdTech software are from outside the Yule Blog challenge. For example, Shelli, the leader of the Yule Blog challenge, mentions Desmos in her September 26th post:

http://statteacher.blogspot.com/2020/09/figuring-out-new-normal.html

I can't even imagine trying to tackle this year without Desmos.  I know some of my students are probably getting tired of my love for Desmos, but I'm so appreciative of the ability to upload videos, do self-checking activities, provide feedback, have the equivalent of "chats" with my students, monitor their work in real time, and really see their thinking.  I love that my students working from home are still able to get an equitable experience and that when I do a short recap at the end of the hour, I actually can use student work (Love the snapshot tool) to share quality thinking.

I obviously haven't uploaded any videos onto Desmos or do anything else that Shelli describes here. I have found videos to show my students, but they have nothing to do with Desmos. So this is what I mean when I say I haven't seen the full power of Desmos yet.

Conclusion

I hope you were able to enjoy your Christmas this year, even if Christmas looks a lot different from the ones we used to know.