Using Google Forms to make task lists

A short while ago I was given a little problem to solve – to find a way for department members to create an editable ‘task list’ for our Curriculum Area Supervisors – and make it available on our VLE.

After a fair amount of playing around I turned to Google Forms, which is incredibly useful for surveys, formative assessments, feedback and lots of other things. Here I could create a form for staff to complete and make the results visible to all, whilst only allowing a select few to edit the resultant spreadsheet. This was exactly what I was after.

Google Forms has lots of great functions that make it ideal for this task. Both the form and the resultant spreadsheet can easily be embedded in a webpage, whilst you can also control who has access to the editable spreadsheet (Frog IF statements helped here too). The linked versions are copies containing only test data, so you can try it for yourself.

In addition, Google Spreadsheet allows the results to be filtered and sorted – allowing for a quick and easy process of identifying the tasks that need to be completed, including the use of low, medium and high priority options to filter tasks by.

So we now have a new system for building task lists and it’s unbelievably simple to create. I look forward to seeing exactly how successful it is…

Below are some of the failures I endured before settling on Google Forms as the chosen problem solver.

I tried using our Frog VLE Calendar to make the task list. It worked fairly nicely, but only showed up the ‘required completion date’ on the calendars of individuals. Frustrating, as I expected.

Naturally, I asked my Twitter PLN for advice and almost all (kind) suggestions pointed to Google Docs. So I built a straightforward document that could have the information entered on it. Not only did it look rubbish, it didn’t allow the data to be sorted either – one of the few absolute necessities.

Google Calendar was the final avenue I unsuccessfully travelled down, which is strange since I am a huge fan. For some reason Google don’t allow you to share ‘tasks’ with others in the same way you can easily share calendars. They have clearly known about this for a while too.

Any advice on how I could make this whole process even more efficient very welcome.

Maths Exam Video Answers using only an iPad

It has been a mission of mine for a while to create a video selection of past exam answers similar to the brilliant mrbuckton4maths Youtube channel. It has taken me a while to get round to it, but over half term I managed to complete my first exam paper – the Higher Tier Specimen Paper 3 for the new OCR GCSE Maths – J567 (see below). More importantly, this was all done using an iPad, my current favourite app Explain Everything which I have raved about before here and Dropbox, with the exam paper uploaded to it as a pdf. Click on the picture below to access the playlist of videos – I am praying there are no errors in them!

This wasn’t done completely without difficulty.

Question 1 – Demonstrating rotations was pretty hard work. I couldn’t make a triangle any other way than by hand drawing it. As a result it looks a bit scruffy. I would have made the triangle using 3 straight adjoining lines but for some reason the app will not let lines be smaller than a certain size (?!) and even then I couldn’t work out how to join them together as one object. My answer doesn’t really get across the way students should answer the question either.

Question 2 – There were issues here too, but the kind people over at @explainevrythng have assured me they will be fixed in a forthcoming update. There is currently a bug which causes any line you draw during a video to appear ridiculously over-sized during playback. To get round this, I had to draw the line on first and then plot the points on the line afterwards. Hopefully this will all be fixed  soon.

Question 15 (a, b) & (c) - I cheated here. Massively. The question was spread over two pages, requiring you to flip back between pages to answer the question, which you cannot currently do using Explain Everything – at least that I am aware of. So I went for the laptop and chopped up the question into two parts – uploading the resulting file into Dropbox, each part displaying only the information relevant to that question. The result is just about satisfactory.

All in all it was surprisingly straightforward. The rotations would be difficult to display using an IWB and graphics tablet too and the issues with lines should soon be sorted. Questions like number 15 will be difficult to create using an iPad unless you were allowed to build videos across pages; maybe one day. Explain Everything really works well. My only remaining gripe is how long it takes to upload videos to Youtube – on a reasonable home internet connection it can sometimes take a fairly long time.

Please let me know any thoughts on these videos (including any mathematical language errors!)

Maths Video Tutorials on your VLE – CGP’s MathsTutor

A while ago I reviewed a demo version of CGP’s new MathsTutor. This week I have got round to installing it on our VLE and a few people have asked me to update them on how it goes, so here it is.

The time had come for the Mathswatch package which was built into our Frog VLE to be taken down and sent back to 1996. Conveniently, our Mathswatch subscription (£350) was about to run out. My fellow department members were also very keen to have Mathswatch replaced by the new fancier-looking CGP MathsTutor (£250 – bargain). So we went ahead and bought it.

Soon after, the following problems all crossed my mind:

1) What actually is a SCORM package?

2) What on earth will I do with it when it supposedly ‘arrives in the post’?

3) It is half-term next week and we need it up and running by the time we get back to school. Will this take me all half term?

It soon became apparent that I would be here until Christmas if I tried to upload the SCORM package using my home internet. So, depressingly, I traipsed into school on the Monday morning of half term. Unfortunately, the SCORM files provided by CGP are large in size and there is close to 100 of them, each of which had to be uploaded manually onto the VLE. This took about 3 hours – it was a good job I remembered to bring a book with me.

Once the files were all uploaded and unpacked I had to make a home for the Video Tutorials in the Maths Department Website on our VLE (see pictures).  The process of actually linking the SCORM packages to the website was relatively straight forward (in comparison to most processes on Frog) and it was all ready to go.

I was hoping that CGP would have a way of making the files searchable. MathsWatch had handy features that allowed students to search by GCSE Grade. It appears that I will have to try and do this myself with MathsTutor. Currently, the drop down menu contains the links to the SCORM files. When you click on your chosen link, the chosen SCORM package boots up in another window (picture below).

I am content with the way it works but it does have a few definite areas for improvement. I will wait for student and staff feedback before developing it further.

In terms of a MathsWatch comparison, I still remain convinced it provides a far higher quality of videos and resources and I look forward to hearing student feedback on the resource. It is inevitable that because it is bigger and fancier it will take longer to upload and for the videos themselves to buffer. But it is up there now so it shouldn’t need too much changing around for a while. In fact, possibly the only advantage of having a VLE is it’s ability to host the SCORM packages.

So, in response to my earlier questions:

1) I still don’t know what a SCORM package is, but I like what it does

2) Uploading SCORM files into a Frog VLE is surprisingly straightforward

3) It didn’t take me all half term. Only one day in fact!

Mangahigh.com – games based Maths learning

I have been meaning to try out Mangahigh.com for ages. It has certainly always looked very impressive. Unfortunately, that is the main reason I have never got round to trying it out; there always seemed to be some flash issues that were stopping some parts from working properly.

Having finally ironed those issues out, I have recently been putting it to the test. The results were incredibly positive. However, from an admin point of view, I found loading large numbers of students (1000ish) using the ‘bulk import’ option to be a complete nightmare. I have read a few rave reviews of this upload system but found it hard work and very time consuming. I will be having nightmares about ‘fuzzy matches’ and ‘manual matches’ for a while yet.

Moaning over. I decided to subject one of my classes to 25 minutes of Mymaths induced agony, followed by 25 minutes of them using Mangahigh to complete a couple of tasks that I had set. I then asked for the opinions of the students on the two websites. The unsurprising result was a landslide victory for Mangahigh. Students’ generally loved seeing the leaderboard refresh (could be quicker) as they completed the Transtar game, which is truly superb. What surprised me most was how many of my students then went back on the website when they got home that evening. That can only be a positive sign. The other occasions I have used Mangahigh this term have followed a similar pattern; students being engaged and competitive with their Maths and regularly continuing this at home.

There are lots of great things about Mangahigh. It is free. It is accessible to a very wide variety of abilities and ages. It develops mathematical skills in a fun environment. It encourages healthy competition between students and schools. I could go on…

I am still a complete novice and very much finding my way around Mangahigh. For a free learning resource it has huge potential to motivate students. I would really like it if students could view and complete challenges of their own, even if they do not have any challenges set by their teacher, rather than just relying on a very good – but limited – selection of games. I don’t see why students shouldn’t be given access to all of the challenges too.  Several of my students were left disappointed they didn’t have more challenges to complete.

If this post sounds negative, it shouldn’t. It really is a very very good Maths website.

I have just received an email saying we are being considered for a Fai-To (?). The learning curve continues…

iPads as mobile interactive whiteboards

I can’t remember where I came across the concept of a ‘Mobile Interactive Whiteboard’ for the iPad. I imagine someone on Twitter was harping on about ‘MIW’s. It all sounded exciting, so I have been trying it out for myself.

Doceri and Splashtop Whiteboard are pretty much the sole competitors in the ‘MIW’ market. Splashtop is a very viable alternative, priced at £13.99. Sadly for them they don’t offer a free trial and I didn’t fancy splashing out on a whim, so I have recently being trying out the Doceri app.

The premise of both apps is to turn your iPad into an interactive whiteboard; to allow you to control your laptop/PC screen as usual but also to annotate over the screen using the apps’ own writing tools, all whilst wondering around the classroom. If nothing else, the idea is pretty cool.

At first I used Doceri to advance slides on my IWB, then I moved on to trying to use the app instead of the IWB to demonstrate topics on the move. I was impressed with the accuracy of both aspects; in comparison to various remote access apps this one actually carried out the actions I was after.

I found the main use of the app to be allowing students control of the iPad to demonstrate their solutions and thoughts. Each of my students clearly wanted to use the iPad (they don’t have any of their own at our place) to show their answers. It is extremely unlikely that they would have been so keen to stroll up to the IWB. However, I couldn’t help but wonder if this novelty would also wear off soon too.

Whilst I think this app is great, I do have some issues with it as a learning tool. Put simply, it is not yet a replacement for an IWB as has been stated in some quarters, although one day it will happen. My handwriting appeared a little all over the place, it was too large and it took me a long time to write anything too in comparison to the IWB. The tablet screen simply didn’t provide me with enough space to work through long answers to problems. On several occasions wireless difficulties led to me abandoning the idea all together when I had planned to use it, although that is not the developers’ fault.

The full version – which removes the watermark – is $50. For that amount of money, I would be looking for something that is going to enhance learning, regularly. I am not convinced enough to hand that over. After the initial excitement of using it in lessons – which is worth it just to see the look on students’ faces when you first use it – I fear the novelty factor may just wear off. Is the extra motivation provided by the app really going to enhance learning and justify the spending of $50? I’m not convinced. But I’m not writing it off either.

Using an iPad to capture, embed and share students’ work

Dropbox has long been the best file hosting service available; with the iPad you simply can’t live without it. A large number of apps allow you to sync directly to Dropbox, including the inbuilt iPad camera. Since I am (currently) the only one in my classroom carting an iPad around, I have been looking for ways to use it as a teacher-only device.

One of my current favourite uses of the iPad is to model students’ work using the camera and Dropbox. It may be nothing new, but as a Maths teacher it is incredibly powerful and acts as an incredibly useful classroom visualiser, ideal for modelling answers to some particularly difficult-to-demonstrate-the-answers-to topics. Simply download Dropbox to your Mac/PC and the app to your iPad/iPhone, stroll up to a student’s work and take a picture using the camera. Open the Dropbox app (ensure it is linked to your Dropbox account via the settings, although it will soon apparently be automatic) and upload the image. Wait a second or two and the Dropbox folder on your Mac/PC will magically be filled with your new image, projecting it directly the Interactive Whiteboard – if connected. Here are a couple of negative enlargements from earlier today.

        

It doesn’t have to end there. Once the images are on my PC, using Acrobat X Pro I can convert and merge the images into one PDF, which can then be shared online using Issuu or Youblisher (this idea was completely stolen from @MrMayJTHS) – as he pointed out, it is amazing how neat students’ work becomes when they know their work will be published. Here is an example of my Year 10′s work from earlier this week, embedded in their class wikispace for future reference.

I am looking into how this task could be completed in lesson using only the iPad. A decent PDF editing app (which I don’t yet own) could happily fill the role of Acrobat X Pro – as could a regular document editor that allows you to save as PDF – but (Google Docs aside) I don’t know of a PDF hosting site as elegant as Issuu that is available on the iPad. Of course, if iPads are introduced in the classroom, I could simply upload the file to iBooks for my students to access on their own devices…

Any ideas on how I could make this process more efficient and ideally iPad only are extremely welcome.