Browsing All Posts published on »February, 2015«

No, really, blended learning chapter one :)

February 25, 2015

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I’m enjoying this chapter introducing “blended learning,” though as with just about everything educational I’ve ever read, parts of it could be condensed and simplified 🙂 It notes that “Although fully online learning has become well established in higher education, many institutions appear to be struggling with conceptualizing and implementing blended learning.”    I’m not […]

they’re the same; they just have different numbers

February 25, 2015

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… not yet. Here’s a “this person might have issues with math” situation:  We’re supposed to figure out how long it will take Forrest Gump to mow a football field with a 30-inch wide mower; field 120 yards by 160 feet, going 4 mph. Converted 120 yards to 40 feet… fixed that… Draw the field? […]

Blendkit! Canvas!

February 23, 2015

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Yes, I’m a glutton for … well, it’s not punishment exactly.   I was perusing Moodle and Canvas and D2L/Brighspace thinking “what is happening as far as their open courses?”  Sunday afternoon and bang-0!  Monday morning this “Blended Courses” course would be happening.   Welp, I do a whole lot better with structure and deadlines […]

Example of math thinking that some people haven’t learned

February 22, 2015

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People often preach that even if we’re never going to use math in real life, learning it teaches problem solving and analytical thinking.   HOwever, almost nobody ever goes on to, say, give an example of that thinking that would be useful, which in my mind classifies it as a platitude. I’m going to try […]

A non ranty day :)

February 22, 2015

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Not a particularly *focused* day… but I have most of my proposal for the Faculty Summer Institute outlined.   I’ll flesh out a few things before I send it if I have time.   My plan is to cram into 50 minutes an overview of OER, some of the places to go to search for […]

Livescribe travails

February 20, 2015

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I suspect this is really a Microsoft issue, since Microsoft doesn’t care for FLash, but Livescribe should understand that. I had this wild fantasy of being able to listen to some of my pencasts of pithy recitations of stuff I want to remember. Forget the first five things I tried, or that no, despite hints […]

Cold as …

February 19, 2015

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… doing pushups in the snow.   Three below this morning so I took the bus, which was not crowded.  I don’t know; maybe people find rides or don’t go places when it’s this cold?   Or maybe Thursday just is a lighter travel day (it’s a lighter course day at Parkland). Got this in […]

problems without figures

February 16, 2015

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Howard Phillips (howardat58) pointed me at this online gem: http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/pdf/2008/10/problemswithoutfigures.pdf Occurs to me that some of these are great choices for practice in asking “are we looking for a part or a whole?”   though much of it is formidably abstract for my students. It’s a busy week ahead:   singing Monday, two meetings Tuesday night […]

Some ships sail too fast…

February 15, 2015

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I read Audrey Watters (http://audreywatters.com/ ) and … there’s this Federated Wiki thing that looked *really* awesome and cool and so I clicked on things saying I wanted to participate.   I joined a google group and now I get all these neat emails from people introducing themselves… and asking questions about doing things in vocabulary […]

Trying so hard! To do it myself!

February 13, 2015

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Students get three chances to take quizzes on ALEKS.   So, I won’t help you during the quiz.  However, the quizzes are pretty much exactly the same kind of problem, so … show all your work, write the problem down (which you’re supposed to do anyway) and … after that first attempt we can work […]