Author: Jon Orr

Using the Internet to create Proportion Problems

by Jon Orr

We used this image today to create our own proportion problems. Shown here is how much data is generated at each company after 1 minute. I took the screen shot from this site

Here was my example of a proportion problem: “If there are 48818 apps downloaded in a minute from Apple, how many in one day?”

My students then designed their own problems to solve……..we then wrote them on the board and everyone picked some to solve….here are a couple:

My kids were engaged and wanted to solve each others problems ……just to see how crazy the data was. We then voted on which piece of data was the most shocking! That gave us a purpose for the practice!!! The consensus was how many Netflix hours were watched each minute!!!!

My first Lesson with Pear Deck

by Jon Orr

PearDeck

Today we gave PearDeck a try. It was awesome….. so far here are the best features:

  1. When I asked students to: “Place a moveable dot on the point where the function gives a value of 40”. On their own screen they see just their dot, but on the projector screen they see everyone’s. — on this particular example the class was split on the two points where the volume is 40. This was awesome because we could all see that there are two solutions. I then asked “Now place a dot where the function gives a value greater than 40” Again they could see in live time everyone’s responses……but it was great for explaining that there are infinite solutions to that question (Our lesson goals were to solve inequalities using graphs)!!!
  2. It worked on all devices!!! It worked on their phones, iPads, tablets and computers…..this was great. I didn’t need to book a lab or for everyone to have an iPad with a specific app! It’s web/cloud based so they just need to access a webpage.
  3. Works with Google Drive….load files right from the Drive….it also saves to the drive. When kids join the class they are asked to sign into their google drive account. So on the dashboard I can see their name!

Some Feedback

Noticed that I had to switch between projector view and dashboard view so that we could see the entire class’s responses to the drawing questions. It would have been nice to see their drawings overlapped just like when you place a dot!
[update: there is a check box that allows the overlay of drawings!!]
More to come. Totally worth the subscription fee though!!

Modelling in Clash of Clans

by Jon Orr

Here is a task I’ve been playing around with lately. Let me know what you think!!!!
Thinking of using this task with my grade 11s functions class/ or more advanced functions classes. I have recently been playing Clash of Clans and if you have played you know that you have to wait for items to be built/upgraded, etc. The time to wait changes based on the your progress and cost of the item/upgrade. You do have the option to SKIP the upgrade wait time by using gems. What has me wondering is that the amount of gems needed to skip an upgrade. What’s the relationship between upgrade time and gems? Our task is to see what that relationship is.

Act 1 : I’ll show this short video to my students:

I’ll ask for any questions the students had from watching the video and settle on —How many gems would it take to upgrade the town hall? — which will take 2 days.

Get the students to make some guesses…..

Act 2 :

Then get them discussing what other info we will need. I want them to come up with the idea they need more instances of upgrade times vs. gems. I can start to show them some pics…..was thinking of revealing each “point” at a time and getting then to guess!

Clash-of-Clans-Act-2

Here comes the modelling time…….plop these down in Desmos. We’ll start to select a model based on the data we see:

Screen Shot 2014-09-24 at 11.04.31 AMpremade desmos page with some sliders built in for each type of model.

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Have them decide which model they like best for the answer…..use the model to come up with an answer. My guess is that students will assume linear and come up with an answer that is too high (I’ll update later after I use it with students). ……and then we can have the big reveal……

Act 3

Watch the video ….

Or use the image..

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Sequel:

Find the cost of upgrading immediately…..how much wait time can you skip with $20?

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To edTech or Not?

by Jon Orr

To edTech or not???

This was my lesson today where I used some technology….

In our Volume of Cylinders & Prisms grade 9 applied lesson we started out grabbing an Explain Everything file from our Google Classroom.

Our first problem embedded within the file was You Pour, I Choose from Dan Meyer. We watched the Act 1 video and then students filled out a google form embedded right in Explain Everything. The form asked them what questions they had after seeing the video.

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The next slide showed the forms responses in a google sheet!

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The students got to see live what each other were asking. Most kids had the same question…..Which had more or do they have the same!!

We then made guesses using a form……and saw each others guesses.

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After, we set out to work deciding what we needed to know before answering the problem……mades some guesses along the way and then solved the problem!

I’ll admit that we had some internet connection problems accessing google forms and every time we do I seriously think that it wasn’t worth it……but today it seemed worth it because it gave some of those shy kids a voice in my class. I’ve worked on problems like this and when I ask students share their questions….guesses…..usually the “brave” kids make their voice heard and the shy ones are left out (unless I ask them specifically). The tech today even though was spotty……served a purpose……its for small reasons like this that I keep trying out edTech in the class!!

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