I'm back!!

It's 2012 and a lot has happened since I debuted this blog. I am now well on the way to developing an electronic classroom. I started using TI nSpire calculators, with wireless communication capabilities at the start of the 2011-2012 school year. That has proved to be a tremendous help for my students. In addition, during the second half of this school year, I began using both Temple University's Calculus on the Web and the Khan Academy's Websites to help my students with their math.

It has been an eye-opener.

The biggest point: Giving students direct feedback on their work is one of the best motivators--especially if they can see a way to improve their performance and their knowledge. I think that's the real key: Give students a clear path for improving their math skills and, most likely, they'll put in the effort.

Some of my students are competitive and the Khan Academy's "energy point" setup is conducive to competition; students can rack up tens-of-thousands, even hundreds-of-thousands of points by cranking through the practice exercises.

But I created a couple of important "benchmarks" that are better measures than raw, total point scores. One of the most-important of these: Points per minute.

Oh, yeah. Calculus on the Web

Temple University has a fantastic instructional Website devoted to helping students learn as much as possible about math---everything from Algebra to advanced Calculus. I hope to incorporate "Calculus on the Web" into my Summer School and Fall teaching.

Will it work?

Stay tuned. . .

Summer School, Pre-Calc and Calculus on the Web

My first full year as a math teacher is over. Wow! What an experience. I never experienced as much consistent, unrelenting pressure when I was a journalist. So, I can say from experience that teachers are among the hardest working "knowledge workers" there are.

Of course, this kind of hard work doesn't compare to the real-world hard work of manual labor. As a friend of mine once said: "Hard work? Being a reporter isn't hard work. Working in a mine, now that's hard work."

He was right, of course, but as far as the knowledge industry goes, teachers work very hard for their meager pay.

Still, I wouldn't have it any other way. I really love what I'm doing and I think my decades in the journalism biz (and all those relentless deadlines) helped prepare me for my life as a teacher.

So, bring on the pressure. Turn it up! I'm ready to keep up the pace.

My latest Web adventure. . .

. . . Is my Web page at my high school, McKinley Tech. I've posted a number of videos there, mainly for my Algebra II students, but I'm expanding those offerings.

Check out "Mr. Sanders's Teaching Page" at the McKinley Tech Web page to see what I mean.

Point your browser to:

http://www.mckinleytech.org

Then, under the "Teaching and Learning" menu, you'll find my page, "Mr. Sanders's Teaching Page."

See you there!

Up and Running: DCWordsAndNumbers Teaching Page

I'm slowly making inroads as a constructive member of the Internet learning and teaching community.

Earlier today, I put some new video on my Teaching Page, DCWordsAndNumbers, which is hosted by Google. The video is just an introduction to the page, but I've added it as a second video on the home page. That video sits side-by-side with my Matrix Multiplication song video.

So, I'm learning. . .

Here's how you can reach the new Website:

http://sites.google.com/site/dcwordsandnumbers

I hope to see you there!

The more things change. . .

. . . the more they remain the same. I'm still a teacher at McKinley Tech but I've been fortunate enough to get the chance to transfer into the Math department. Here's the short version of a longer story. I've always wanted to teach math, especially geometry. I'm good at math and, in another, pre-journo life, I studied pure and applied science and did lots of math. My principal at McKinley knew this, and so did the faculty in Tech's math department. An opportunity arose and I jumped at the chance. So, now I'm teaching Algebra II/Trigonometry and loving it. McKinley's classes are taught in 80-minute blocks. I have three Algebra II/Trig classes each week, along with three SAT Prep/Math classes. The great thing about the SAT Prep classes is that we can cover a wide range of math topics--including my favorite, Geometry!

Gearing Up

So far, my students have been learning some of the fundamentals of journalsim without using any computers. Pens and paper; that's all they've used. That's because we've been working on developing a news sense--an awareness of what news is, what types of events are newsworthy, both in school and in the world around us, and how we can "compartmentalize" that news into topic areas or reporters' beats.

Next week, all of that will change.

On Monday, my students will walk into a class room equipped with high-performance PCs, fully loaded for modern-day journalism. These desktop computers have two different types of audio and video editing software: both the Adobe Creative Suite, which gives them a full range of programs (from Audition, to Premiere Pro, to Photoshop)--and the professional-grade AVID program.

Now, all we have to do is develop the best stories, the best photos, the best radio reports and the best video reports that we can.

Look out, world! Here we come.