Attended a Teacher Training with CSTA-Arizona

Howdy

Had a fun Saturday getting some PDU's today. 

Keynote Speaker was Leon T. Had some inspirational views on how to teach computer science. My main take away is that not kids will want to sit and code some kids will want to see how coding can be applied to the real world.

I also attended to two workshops. The first was Popfizz and learning to use Python to make a retro space invaders game and the how to use Python to take data and make graphs. I am hoping to do Python this coming week as part of my hour of code that I have been doing every December for the past couple of years. In the past I have used Scratch but would like to try something new. I have a nephew that works in computer science and seems like he mentioned working with Python as part of his job. 

The second workshop was Phidgets. Phidgets are programmable USB sensors. I hadn't heard about them till today so I was interested to find out more about what they have to offer. Over the years I have looked into Vernier Software and have used their products and I have used Arduino a little bit. I liked the simplicity of today's presentation. I was also glad to hear that Chromebook compatibility should be coming this spring. At my school that's what I use with my kids.

So I dusted off one of my old Blogs and posted on my activities for today.

Have a great day.

Getting Ready for School

Howdy

Today I was getting ready for school next week and trying to set up my classroom to better use my iPad in the class and outside of the class.  I found one of my old worksheets took the image I used and made a short video using the Educreations App.  The topic was observation.  Then I went into Google sites and made a web page featuring the embedded video.  From there I went into YouTube and found a video that I will use to make a worksheet on observation.  I already have some test questions about plant growth and my vocabulary of control, constant, variable, independent variable, and dependent variable.  Now I am putting together a blog post to share with the world.

Link to Web Site with Embedded Videos

Enjoy the Ride

Jason

Molecular Expressions

Howdy

Revisited one of my favorite sites and saw a different applet.

My favorite java app for windows is at:

Molecular Expressions:  Secret Worlds the Universe Within

This is an applet that shows the power of ten by looking at the universe from a macro view (10²³) to the nano world (10^-16) a difference of dividing or multiplying by ten 39 times doesn't seem like much but it will take you from 100 attometers (the inside of a proton) to 10 million light years which makes our local galaxy cluster look small (Milky Way, Andromeda).

The different applet that I checked out deals with the color of light.  Most people understand that you can mix pigments to create new colors (yellow and blue mix to make green).  However, most people don't understand that if you mix red light, green light, and blue light you get white!  That's because light is about the different between what is absorbed and what is reflected (simple web page explanation).

The new applet is the following:

Molecular Expressions:  Primary Additive Colors 

Put it on manual for best results.

Molecular Expressions:  Primary Subtractive Colors 

Put on manual as well.

Molecular Expression:  Color Structure

 I have seen similar and wasn't wowed by it but goes well with the other two applets.

Since I am talking abut applets the best resource is PhET this is hosted at my alma mater the University of Colorado, at Boulder.

No links just google phet anytime you need a science app.  Then you can find what you need.

Ride the Wave!

Howdy,

While working on my Excel worksheet I thought up a quote.

Trying to make things work harder for you not make work harder.

That kind of sums up my personality.  I like to tinker, I try to make things easier for other people, and I always believe that there has to be a better way to do things.

So remember to keep it simple and don't make things more complicated then it already is.

I always tell my students when doing math problems look for the bread crumbs, every question has one, to guide you in your pursuit to the answer.

Happy Surfing

Oregon Online Tip of the Week 11/18

Missed a few weekends, not enough hours in the days to get everything done.  This week's topic is Excel.  I love Excel it can do amazing things if you know what kind of capabilities it has.  I am no expert but I have used for several different things over the year from making a spreadsheet that would do nuclear chemistry, to making a spreadsheet that would look up oxidation charges for ions to balance chemical equations.  It can also be used to make spreadsheets to track students grades, make graphs that show the position of cars being chased by police cars or to do projectile motion problems.  It can also great for making test generators for math problems so that students have easier time solving mathematical equations.

Another great thing is YouTube once you learn something you can share it with the rest of the world.  Today I wanted to show my fellow teachers what you can do on Excel but making a spreadsheet doesn't do anyone any good if it doesn't have some kind of instructional manual so that is where YouTube is also great.

Here is an example it's not the best but I didn't have time to make two or three videos so I just did a screen capture in one shot.

Video on Excel hosted on YouTube.

So if you want to be better at Excel you can ask me, or search YouTube, there is probably already 10 videos already out there for what you want to know how to do something.

Happy Surfing

Oregon Online Tip of the Week 10/21:

This weeks tip of the week is the re-sizing of images or photos for email.  To show an example of what I mean here is a video that I uploaded to youtube.

youtube video on re-sizing images

On my computer I have Microsoft Office Picture Manager other photo editing programs will do the same thing it's just a matter of seeing what you have on your computer.  If you right click on a document it will give you a choice of programs to open up an image.  Some of them are just viewers others will allow you to edit images.

Another video that might help people out is a link to a video I created showing how to navigate in apex.

another video in youtube navigating in apex

Happy Surfing 

Oregon Online Tip of the week 10/14:

This week's tip of the week is online graphing calculators, such as: 

HRW-Graphing Calculator

I use this all the time either to check my work, answer keys, or students work.  Most of the time math such as algebra, geometry, algebra II, pre-calculus, and calculus all have different subjects that you need to graph such as the classic y=mx+b, quadratic equations (parabolas), or trig functions (i.e. y=sin(x), y=2cos(x), ...) it's nice to see what the graph looks like.  It's also nice that once you have it on the screen you can take a screen shot and send it out to students to see what the numbers really mean.  So the next time you have a problem that needs intersections, maximums, minimums, or roots look for a graphical picture.  It may not give you the correct answer but it will show you were you need to be looking for that answer.

The following image was created using word and the HRW-online calculator.

The above graph is for f(x)=3x² +2x-5.  

Happy Surfing