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Maths and Moodle

Maths & Moodle

Why bother?

I am looking for a Maths Dept that is using Moodle to improve what the classroom is already doing. The dept is successful with very good teachers and great results.

So I would like to see some Maths practice that is beyond the usual ‘VLEs are cool’ stuff I throw at teachers challenging technology in schools.

Email I received from Head of Maths below:

Thanks for taking an interest in us!

It looks good – a bit like equation editor in Word. How would we use it? This is not a moan, but a genuine question – I’m not sure what the benefits for our students would be in doing maths over a virtual environment, but when you have the time would like to discuss this. From what I have seen of independent schools (mainly Hailbury Group) ITC use is minimal – we are probably quite advanced in comparison. Have you seen any good examples?

We determined that we already use it for access to rich-media content in the form of electronic text books mapped to KS3 and KS4. Other than this, and the normal VLE exponents (24/7 access), we thought it would be excellent to adopt an idea presented at TeachMeet Bett 2009 by a TechSmith employee teaching at a Primary School. He suggested using Jing (free product) for pupils to record screencasts explaining what they were doing on whiteboard software (graphics package of some sort). If you adapt this model to tablet PCs, you could see more sophisticated sums being sloved and narrated on video. These in turn could be posted to Maths forums within Moodle as a catalogue of good practice or learning. This would be a really neat idea. And work at potentially the highest level of Maths delivered in schools (A Level) would be satisfied by a tablet PC, maybe the tablet eeePC. I’ll have to investigate the tablets a bit more as I have never owned one but hopefully the annotation facilities won’t be too far away from pencil and paper. The Maths department have expressed their reluctance to move away from that media before but this might tip the balance.

ActivStudio is relaunched as ActivInspire

Promethean have launched a leaner meaner looking ActivStudio called Inspire.

Download it from http://www.prometheanplanet.com/ – you have to be registered to get the download.

It looks great – a welcome makeover and some new features you can read about here!

Quick screencast preview made with Jing (techsmith)…

Best use this link as the video hasn’t resized properly – ooooops….

screencast of Inspire

A new screencast demonstrating the upgraded Handwriting Recognition Tool - I am loving this bit because it is so much better than before.

HTC TouchHD Comments

The HD is lovely. It is a great size and weight and feels just right in your hand. The screen is fantastic and the touch usability is excellent. However, TouchFlo is just a bolt front end that only temporarily hides W6.1. Eg texts ‘arrive’ on a touchflo screen, but as soon as you click on reply, you are in nasty W6.1. It would be good if HTC developed TouchFlo to do all of the main phone functions instead of just pretending! W6.1 doesn’t respond to the accelerometer, so in most screens, turning the HD on its side makes no difference. W6.1 seems to have ‘improved’ some things over PocketPC 2003 (which I think my old ipaq is on) and in the process made it worse. A small example is the alarm clock feature. I use my pda as an alarm clock and on the old version of WM when the alarm goes off, a big screen appears asking ‘dismiss or snooze?’, which is logical. On the new WM6.1, when the alarm goes off, the only way to enable snooze is to fiddle with the menu and then select the length of snooze required. Whilst this is an excellent way of waking me up, it not what a snooze feature is supposed to be! WM6.1 is basically pda software with the mobile phone bits added as an afterthought, so for example emoticons, which now most mobiles support do not display. The TouchFlo keyboard is nice and easy to use and is a massive improvement on the W6.1 version which can only be used with a stylus, but it is nowhere near as nice as the iphone one in which the keys ‘grow’ as you touch them to show you which letter you are typing – surely this cannot be copyright and is such an obvious thing to do.

I realise that these are all minor things compared to all the good things it does do, but it frustrates and annoys me that manufacturers produce software with such disregard for finishing touches. It is a bit like a car manufacturer designing a beautiful looking car that has a fantastic engine and bodywork, but with windows that do not fully close.

The only REALLY annoying thing about the HD is the camera software. I am used to the Sony Ericsson cameras which are SUPER quality. Excellent software and brilliant results. I often used my mobile as my main camera (even though it is only 3.2 mp), because the results were so good. The HD allegedly has a 5mp camera, but what is the point in this hardware if the software is shit. The autofocus takes an age to settle down, and the shutter speed seems to be extremely slow. Most of the pix I took over Xmas seem blurred with dull colours, whereas in previous years the pix I took with the SE were colourful and sharp. HTC need to majorly rethink their attitude to cameras if they intend including them in high end units. I will carry on experimenting with the camera, but at the moment it is a huge disappointment.

Overall, I am pleased I went for the HD.

ICT Prefects at School

I have decided to create the post of ICT Prefect for my most diligent ICT students (6th Formers).

I have had a special school tie made for the prefects which is distinct from all other school ties but includes the school crest. The ties will be awarded in whole school assembly by the Headteacher after a short outline of the project by me.

The post will entail giving them responsibility to:

1. Run ICT Clubs in one of their specialist areas
2. Supervise Middle and Upper School pupils in the ICT rooms during lunch
3. ICT support for teachers and students; all members of the school will be able to call on them for help and advice with computer problems
4. Moodle; I will train them in the basics of using Moodle and they will be able to provide training and support to teachers
5. Interactive Whiteboards; I will train them to troubleshoot basic IWB problems so teachers may call on them if having difficulty with their IWBs.

Professional Development

In addition to the TeachMeet post I responded to a post by Colin Becker, a new blogger (not that I’m that long in the tooth).

Colin questioned Professional Development looking at the possible use of blogging as a means to generate accountability in PD. I think he has a good point. In England we have Professional Reviews each year where we set targets at the beginning of the year and then meet with line managers to discuss how we met those targets at the end of the year. Blogging PD would be a good target for any teacher.

The whole idea of PD (CPD in the UK) needs reviewing and I think that is happening in some ways. The conclusion is going to be some kind of online network or blog or community. But this is going to be a long time in the making.

If I were a Headteacher, I think I might use your idea and ask my staff to create a blog detailing their PD for the year, or their time at that school. It is a great starting place for accountability. Currently, it seems to me, thousands of pounds are wasted each year on little day trips with nice lunches. But even where the PD courses are good it would be excellent practice to see a blog post about what was learned and how it might help others in the school etc.

I am expecting Professional Development to change on a large scale in the next decade, but for me, right now, I have changed my PD by using the web to develop my PLN (Personal Learning Network) using essential tools:

1. Twitter
2. Diigo
3. Podcasts
4. Blogs
5. MirandaMods
6. Ning networks
7. EdTech RoundUp

More about developing a PLN in a future post.