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 

Oregon Online Tip of the Week 10/6

Sometime this weekend you will receive a progress report from me.

This progress report is generated from your grades and an excel spreadsheet that I have made for each class.  One of the things I will do is take the progress that you have done now and map out what you need to do the rest of the semester in terms of when things should get done.

The rate at which you complete assignments is dependent on what you have done so far.  Some of you have just been added so you will have to do things faster in order to get done before the end of the semester.  This doesn't mean that due dates are set in stone they give you guidelines to follow (kind of like a pirate code)

Anyway in order to understand my progress report I created a video explaining the different parts of the report.

Video On Showme.com

Happy Surfing 

Oregon Online Tip of the Week 9/29

In today’s mobile world you don’t always have a printer connected to your computer, but you can safe a PDF file to your computer just like a printer.  There are programs that you can download that will act like a printer converting a print job into a PDF file.  For those who use Chrome it is already built in.  If you click on the wrench in the upper right hand corner and select print (CTRL “P”) it will bring up the print menu and you can change the “Destination” to save as PDF.  PDF files are nice because they are usually small (easy to email) and compatible with almost every computer (need to install a reader but is very common).

Happy Surfing

Howdy

It is 9/22/2012 and here is my online Tip of the Week:

For my math students (and anyone else in math), here is a new web site that I found recently.

http://mathispower4u.yolasite.com/ the one difficulty is it might seem overwhelming in that it doesn’t come with a search engine however if you use “CTRL” “F”.  It will bring up a word search engine (This is good for any site on the web).

So let’s say you go the above web site and you click on “Algebra” hit “CTRL” “F” (at the same time) and you get a pop up window you type in the word “intercepts” it will find 16 occurrences of the word then you could watch video #15 Graphing by Finding Intercepts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNKf2DxNs8Q) on you tube.

Talk to you later

Jason

Reflection on Monday.

• Talked and looked at handouts that deal with writing.  It reminded me of some work that I had done on writing a few years ago.
• The exceptional student:
1. Asks Questions
2. Listens to Instructions
3. Is not afraid to fail
4. Reads with Purpose
5. Is a Team Player
• Reading with Purpose:
1. Look at Pictures
2. Investigate Text
3. Ask Questions
4. Re-Read
• Writing with Purpose
1. Describe the Picture
2. Use Vocabulary
3. Ask Questions
4. Try to Answer your Question
• Saw a presentation on Minecraft I didn't see myself using it because of the time it would require to build a world it might be something students could do as independent study or if you gave them a project but would need to know enough to prevent of fix things that students do that were not appropriate.
• Played Settlers of Catan-This was a great demonstration of game theory getting students to interact as they learn material.

Discussion on Anchor Project so that students in class if they finish x they can work on y. Discussion on Game Design and the book Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal. These discussions are things I could see being imputed into my f2f classes and online classes as well.

Family Images from 2011-2012

Family and Activities

Trampoline-Enchanted Forest-Multnomah Falls-Rockets

Rocket Girl

The Builder (Legos and Smurfs)

The Hugger

Working at Oregon Online summer institute 2012.

One of the coolest things I have been doing in my classes is ShowMe

Link to Video