Me and Google+

There has been quite a lot written about google+, and how it is the same / different to twitter / facebook / blogging / everything else.  This is just my attempt to clarify in my mind how I might be using it in the future, and how it fits for me with all of the above.

Let just start  by saying I don't facebook.  I've never felt the need to particularly.  On the whole I stay in touch with real friends by email phone and text, so have never really seen the point.

I could ramble on for ages, but this is how i see things panning out for me...

Twitter will continue to be the main form of sharing ideas and engaging in conversations. I like its openness, and that many people will see - you may get responses you don't expect and that challenge your thinking, and that is a good thing.

For me, circles are the usp for google+. I envisage using it as a collaborative tool at school, using circles as a way to direct and focus conversations.  Assuming I can persuade enough people to sign up (and I've already got our new eLearning coordinator on side, which is a good start) here is how I hope it might look soon.

A Maths circle, containing my team. We already use GDocs readily, but a forum we can discuss things could be really powerful

A Year team circle. If all Y11 tutors and our HoY belong to a circle then issues discussion points etc can be raised in between meetings.

A maths management circle of me with my TLC's.

An eLearning group circle.

Some might (will) say that this can all be done through forums on our VLE, but circles offers something different to this. If I am discussing Y11 exams with the maths circle I can post it to the Y11 team also.  The VLE doesn't support this (I don't think). 

To summarise...

Facebook isn't (currently) for me
Twitter is for open chat, albeit with a professioanl focus.
Blogging is for reflection, a place to publish thought out and slightly more polished thoughts.

Google+ is for collaboration, both in real time (with huddles, which i haven't played with yet) and as a forum that allows cross pollination between circles.

I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on all of the above.

Do what you like...

An extract from this weeks Monday Morning Maths Memo (shortened to Monday Notes, or M⁴)

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For the rest of this year, with year 9, our proposal is “Do what you like”.

Seriously.

No one is suggesting term 6 is filled with DVD lessons or colouring.

Obviously.

Lessons need to be Learning Goal led, and jam packed with good mathematical learning, but we would like to give you the freedom to teach everything and anything maths like. For me a useful catchphrase for this is “Excite, Engage, Enthuse”. In quick conversations, we’ve come up with the following ideas…

Lalage—Playing with numbers. For example learning cancelling shortcuts when multiplying fractions, but also interesting facts like 111111111²=12345678987654321

Steve—Functional Maths—Using the OCR and Edexcel functional papers as learning activities.

Chris—International lessons. I’ve still got diosplay on my boards from an old top set y9 from “The Swiss Challenge”, including critical path analysis, and complex numbers, doing work based on Euler. We have 18 of these lessons.

Monday’s entire meeting agenda is set over to discussions of all of the above, and every Tuesday briefing will be “what are you doing with Y9 this week” to encourage sharing ideas.

A Lesson on Voting reform

Some days the best lessons just happen unplanned, and the numbers drop out beautifully.

I was going through exam papers with my Y11 last week, and a number of the class weren't there, due to Dance, PE, and Art exams (its that time of year). Some of those left were asking about next week's referendum, and commented that AV wasn't fair and was too complicated.

So we did it.

We modelled the situation, running a vote for where they would like to go on their end of year trip. They suggested the following places...

• Alton Towers
• Bournemouth Beach
• Chessington
• Legoland
• Thorpe Park

I asked them to vote, and the votes came out at...

3 for Alton Towers, 11 for Bournemouth, 3 for Chessington, 1 for Legoland and 5 for Thorpe Park. The general consensus was that clearly a trip to Bournemouth was out and out the winner. Then I pointed out that while 11 had voted for a trip to the beach, 12 had voted for a theme park trip.

We then AV'ed the vote, by physically moving around the room to redistribute the votes. As it happens Bournemouth did win, as some people wanted as a first choice to go to a theme park, but couldn't face the long coach trip to Alton Towers.

They weren't all convinced by the argument that it was a better system, they did at least understand how it worked, and why some people see it as fairer.

Again, I was lucky - the fact that the numbers added up so well to 11/13 for the fptp system was something of a gift - something you just cannot plan for.

This is similar to the video on youtube by "Dan Snow", if you're interested, but I got lucky the numbers worked out the way I wanted!

Referendum on voting as a lesson

I'm planning to use the referendum on voting (FPTP vs AV) as a lesson on sampling etc.

I'd really appreciate it if people would fill in my survey, and then we can compare my sample with the final result. I realise that there is significant bias built in to my sample / sampling, but thats kind of the point!

My 1st Android App

I've written my first Android App. I'll be honest, I have cheated, but it's my app nonetheless.

I had been good, and downloaded the right software from google, but then I got lazy. I didn't want to work through a pile of tutorials that makes a picture of a cat miaow.

So I googled 'android app templates' in the hope I could find someone had some the techy bit for me. I ended up at www.appsgeyser.com; which almost does it.

It takes a url or bit of a site, and turns it into an app with a custom icon and everything.

Then, once you've downloaded it to your phone, the app shows a more mobile friendly view of the website.

It's not really what I want, but it was fun to set up, and run. It doesn't work offline at all. I'd like it to still run off line with the stored history, and update data when possible. I may have ot make the cat miaow after all!

If you have android then there are 2 qr code links below. 1 to my school blog, the other to the app for that blog. Compare & contrast, and then coment here please!

Web blog

App link

Portable Visualiser

Some of you will know I got all excited last night when I discovered a new trick with my phone.

I found an app in the Android Market place that lets me use my phone as a wireless webcam. Its called ipwebcam, and can be found on the right.

Its dead easy to set up. Install, choose image size, refresh rate etc, and click run. You need both your phone and PC connected to the same wireless network.

It really is that easy. You then point your browser to the address at the bottom of the screen, and choose how you want to view - I used the "browser built in viewer" with Firefox.

Here are the results...

As you can see, not bad results.

I had issues at school. It didn't work (I was gutted). Turns out the proxy servers can't cope. Fortunately a friendly ICT teacher found a solution. Turn off the proxy. Now (at school) I have Chrome for the internet (all proxied up), and Firefox with proxy turned off for the webcam.
Edit:  It seems to just work now, updated school network possibly. May 2013

My Dept eLearning rep is @Maridavies82, and while she is a brilliant teacher, she is team apple! There is an iPhone app that does much the same thing - called Mini Web Cam, I believe. All the setting up and proxy issues are the same.

Sadly as a portable visualiser it doesn't really work - the resolution on the camera, and the lighting is not really up to the job. That could be a function of my phone (ZTE Blade btw) as much as anything else.

I have however, enjoyed playing with the gadgetry, and reckon there is scope for using this in other ways. It'll support sound, and as it will work anywhere in the school's wireless bubble it could be a lot of fun...

I'd love to hear if anyone uses phones in this way.

Edit: May 2013:  I now have a better phone with a flash (Samsung Galaxy Ace 2), as well as a tablet (Asus 300) and a Samsung Galaxy camera.  This all works much better now thankyou!  

DreamTeachers, not a Dream School

Jamie Oliver's Dream School caused quite a stir last week. I didn't watch it, but I didn't feel the need to - there were enough tweets about it to get a general feel. Many comments were along the line of "Why don;t they get good teachers, not celebs".

Then I got this email...

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Hello Chris Smy,

Did you see Jamie's Dream School on Channel 4? Did it leave you seething or surprised by the celebrity experts’ approach to teaching? To allow teachers to have their say Jamie Oliver and You Tube have launched a parallel campaign, Britain’s Dream Teachers. Their aim is to promote real teachers who are doing it right in the classroom rather than celebrity experts doing it for the TV.

Britain's Dream Teachers is looking for teachers to video and upload their best approaches to teaching tough GCSE and Standard Grade topics. There will be seven 'Dream Teachers' judged by a panel of past National Teaching Awards winners and the seven teachers will win £3k for themselves and £7k for their school.

The Maths topics teachers are being asked to tackle are:

· How do I rearrange complex algebraic formulae?

· What is Pythagoras’ theorem and where does it apply?

· What are vectors and how do I work them out?

Have a look at http://www.youtube.com/dreamteachers and for tips on creating a short film and to upload your entry. Do also encourage your colleagues from other subjects to get involved, there are topics to be answered in Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Geography, History and English Lit.

The deadline for entries is 5 April.

Thanks

Nicola

Nicola Hern

Hern Communications

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My only worry is that it turns into #xteacher. Lets just say I won't be applying.