My Back to School Night Presentation

Last year, when I first started toying around with technology in the classroom, I printed QR Codes on stickers for Back to School Night. The codes had all the information parents needed from me: email address, phone number, office hours, etc. I typed "Thanks for popping in!" next to the QR codes on the stickers, and placed them on uncooked popcorn bags. I blogged about that here.

Parents told me that they really liked it, which was great. However, I have really grown technology-wise in the last year, thanks to Philips Exeter, TMC, ISTE, and of course, MTBoS. So this year, I used a thinglink (if you don't know what this is, basically, you link sites or pictures or text to a spot on a picture that you download). I made two of them...one for all classes, introducing myself to parents, and one that had a picture of each particular class.

This year, when parents came in, I had this picture on the smart board:
NOTE: IT TAKES A SECOND TO LOAD...WAIT FOR THE LITTLE BUTTONS TO SHOW UP!



Slide your cursor over the picture, and it should show little icons that you can click on. Just in case, click here to see it live. It's very cool! First, I went to http://ipiccy.com/ and created a shadow picture of myself. Then I imported a beautiful picture of our campus behind me (see the rainbow?? Thanks to JSA for that pic). Then, through thinglink.com, I made questions about myself where when you touch most of them, things open up. (I got the shadow and puzzle idea from a blog years ago...I wish I knew whose it was!)

First, I did not realize how small the text was on this picture until right before the parents came in, so I made the parents come up to the smart board...and that was actually a highlight of the night. They were much more participatory. After we went through each thinglink and answered the riddles/math problems (the answer to the puzzle, btw is Back To School Night, just in case), I then put up a second one:



(Original link is here.) Keep in mind that the real picture had all the kids in it, but I took it out for blogging! Each thinglink that I touched had to do with my extra help hours, calcchat.com (which I love), the school website and google classroom, and then how I use visible random grouping, desmos.com, and goformative.com (all of which I blogged about here and here.) The parents truly loved seeing how things have changed in the classroom since they were students, and they were genuinely excited for their children. I love that you can link to text, a picture, or a website immediately. The 10 minutes were up before I knew it. Just keep in mind that you can get a free trial from Thinglink, but otherwise it costs $35 a year for educators.

I will definitely do this again next year, but by then, who knows what the latest technological sites will be? Or how much better will these sites? It's crazy to think how far I have gotten in just one year, but I promise you, it gets exponentially easier with time.

I just wanted to thank Heather at Global Math for finding my first Back to School Night blog and asking me to participate in a webinar next week. Unfortunately I can't, so I decided to write about it instead.

My First Blog--Eating, Playing, and Explain Everything!

After attending the Anja Greer Conference on Math, Science, and Technology at Phillips Exeter Academy as well as ISTE 2014 in Atlanta, I realized that this old dog CAN learn new tricks. My main goal from attending both conferences was learning how to implement technology in teaching high school math. I can't even begin to tell you what I have learned...previously, I thought being technologically savvy meant knowing how to navigate my iPhone and Mac well. Not only did I learn a ton of new things, I began to actually USE my twitter account @lisaqt314, started reading blogs (I start my morning each day reading through blogs on bloglovin.com) and watching tons of free Google webinars on http://www.simplek12.com/. I am inspired daily by what so many of these great teachers (and bakers! yes I follow food blogs, too) do! I have learned so much and decided to just pick one major thing to start with rather than make a list...it will give me more to write about in the future!

Math~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What Explain Everything page looks like on my iPad

One of the best things I learned about at Phillips Exeter is the Explain Everything App. You can check out how to use it here: http://www.morriscooke.com/?p=134. Explain Everything is so easy to use, so intuitive. Using the iPad, I can create a video that explains a math problem. I can write in different colors, draw pictures, and record my voice so students can basically see the problem all over again, any time they want. Here is one video I made that goes over the famous "maximizing-the-area-of-a-three-sided-fence" problem. By the way, I should tell you that when I went to ISTE, I was told NOT to perfect the videos (hard for me to not perfect)...basically do it once and be done with it. Otherwise, it will take too long to create each video. That was the best advice for me because I would have redone this video 12 times before finally uploading it to youtube! And trust me, if I can do this, you can too!!

Now the BEST thing about this is I can use a URL shortener and/or QR code creator (I use the chrome extension goo.gl URL shortener) to create a short link or QR code for the video...and copy it right next to the problem in my notes. (I pre-type my notes with lots of examples and space...I find that gives me a lot more time for questions and discussion). See, here's the codes! So for the more difficult problems, a student can look at the video at home to see me explain it again. Explain Everything is awesome! And so is the google shortener!!!

QR code for my Explain Everything video

http://goo.gl/8nQPTX (goo.gl shortener for my video)

Play~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know, it's not in the right order of Eat Play Math, but it makes sense to focus on the math first for me!! For the PLAY part, I need something good for the soul...something that makes me just feel great, that is unrelated to work. This could be a great workout, a fun excursion, a class unrelated to math, a fantastic restaurant, an awesome time with the family, or a fun time with friends. 

For my first blog, I'm going to talk about a cooking class I took this week with my mother-in-law. It was at Publix Apron's Cooking School. Publix is a grocery store chain in Florida. There are other several cooking classes available if you look online...Wholefoods has them from time to time, as do local culinary schools. This one was so much fun because there were only 5 of us and 2 chefs! I met a food blogger, who also inspired me to get started. Follow Shaina on Take a Bite Out of Boca. I wish I took pictures (there are some on the food blog I just linked you to), and I will for next time. For now, just do something fun that is great for the soul!! It was such good bonding time for my mother-in-law and me, and I learned something and met other people with common interests. So fun!

Eat~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For this portion, I am going to post a recipe that I tried and loved. My family asked for this again this week after I made it last week. I find most (if not all) of my recipes on Pinterest. Follow me on http://www.pinterest.com/lisaqt314/ for the recipes I love as well as tons of math/tech stuff! What I made was Healthy Blackened Chicken Fajitas with Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice
A. MAZE. ING. (Yes I know how to spell amazing, ha ha!) 

photo courtesy of 
http://fromeverydaytogourmet.blogspot.com/2014/05/healthy-blackened-chicken-fajitas-with.html

Well I think that is it for my first blog! I hope you enjoyed. Comments or questions? Let me know :)

~~Lisa