Major Project Blog III: Practice Makes Perfect

After completing my first pillow, Samantha (my critical friend) and I decided that I should spend some time working on my straight stitch technique rather than moving on to something new. I was working on making my stitching closer. The tighter (or closer) the stitching is, the cleaner the seam is going to look. This is why sewing machines are so great. The machine stitches very close together.

Fleece Material

The material that was used this time around in place of felt was a fleece material. Fleece is harder to sew than felt because it's more pliable, therefore it doesn't always stay together as easily as felt.  The needle used this time was much smaller than the one used for the pillow. Even though bigger ones are more friendly for beginners due them not being too sharp and their ease of use, it was necessary to use a smaller needle for fleece because of the type of material it is. The fibers in fleece are woven; therefore you need a smaller needle to pierce the material easier. Sam decided that I should sew in a circle this time around because its harder to keep the stitches straight and consistent.

My stitching vs Sam's. Can you guess who did which one?

Sewing machines save a lot of time

I asked Sam if she could do some sewing this time around so that I could use hers as an example. As you can see from the picture above, her's is a lot more consistent mine. Lucky for her she's lightning fast with her stitching. Unfortunately I still move at a snail's pace. Even though my stitching is not as good as her's it has improved quite a bit since the last blog entry. In the picture below I compared the progress of my stitching to the pillow I created in the last blog. The stitching in the circle is a lot closer together compared to the pillow. Because of this you don't see the stitching as much in the seam. I also added a picture of a seam that was stitched together using a sewing machine so you can see the difference.

Progress!

  

 For my next entry, I plan on moving to a different type of stitching technique. The technique that I want to work on is the back stitch. The back stitch is more advanced than the straight stitch, but is still an appropriate technique for beginners to learn. I have already began searching the internet for information on this technique. I have already found a great Youtube video and a website that provides tutorials on how to do it. Thanks for reading!

Cool Tool Entry V: Geoboard

Geoboard is an educational app created by The Math Learning Center. The Math Learning Center, or MLC, is a non profit organization the contributes to the education community. Their mission is to inspire and enable individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. For more information on MLC you can check out their website or follow them on twitter @MLCmath.

MLC has created multiple apps to help enhance math education. The names of these apps include:
Geoboard, Pattern Shapes, Number Line, Number Frames, Number Pieces, and Number Rack. All of these apps are free to use and are compatible with both iOS (iPad and iPhone) and Windows.

Default Geoboard

 If you've never used a geoboard, or forgot what what they were I'm sure that the picture above will give you a great understanding or reminder of what they are. For classroom use real geoboards are usually made out of plastic and have pegs placed on them equidistant apart. Geoboards can come in different sizes and even in circular shapes and students wrap rubber bands around the pegs to create shapes. Geoboards are used to explore basic concepts of geometry and can be used for students in both elementary and middle school. It can be used to help students learn about algebra, perimeter, area, properties of triangles, congruence, translations, as well as many other topics.

As you can see from the pictures posted, the app has some nifty features. You have the option to choose from a square 25 peg board , a rectangular 150 peg board or a 13 peg circular board. The circular board can help open exploration into time measurement, angles and fractions. There are eight different colors to choose from and you can fill individual shapes with a transparent color. You can also duplicate, rotate, flip, or move shapes. The ability to leave notes on the board is, in my opinion, a great addition to the app. 
The app is easy to use and will take little to no time at all to teach how to use to your students. It also comes with a well made tutorial just in case there may be a question or concern on how to use a certain feature. Also with this app you don't have to worry about student's rubber bands breaking and you don't have to worry about any classroom mischief (like students shooting the rubber bands at each other). I think that this app is very convenient  can prove to be quite beneficial to classrooms that have access to the technology to use it. 

Cool Tool Blog Entry IV: TagCrowd

For my fourth cool tool review I decided to take a look at TagCrowd, which is a website that generates word clouds. Word clouds are images that are composed of words in a certain subject. The words that are used more frequently appear much larger in the picture compared to those that aren't used as often. 

TagCrowd homepage

The use of word clouds in the classroom can be beneficial to students. I think that one of the obvious benefits of a word cloud is that it can help improve a student's vocabulary. Using the word cloud allows you to see which word you may be overusing. From there you could use a thesaurus to identify some synonyms that you could put in place of that word you're overusing. Word clouds can also be used as an icebreaker or a "get to know you" tool. As a future math teacher, I think that  I would use word clouds as a pre-assessment tool for lesson vocabulary. This can obviously work in other subjects as well. 
TagCrowd is a free to use website, but you can donate money to the website. TagCrowd is very easy to use and takes little to no time at all to learn how to use. The website lets you create a word cloud by letting you type in words, by pasting in web page url, or by uploading a plain text document. As you can see in the picture above there are options that you can choose from that include language selection (over 15 languages to choose from), how many numbers you want to show up in your word cloud, and allowing the option to show the number of times a word is written. There is a "frequently asked questions" section to help answer some questions that users may have and there are contact and blog sections on the website. 
Unfortunately I could not find an option to customize the font style or color, which leaves the word cloud looking a bit ordinary. I also was not able to connect to the blog section of the website. Despite there short comings I find the website useful and is something that I could definitely see myself using in the classroom. 

The cloud that is generated when I type in the url for my blogspot

Major Project Blog II: Introduction to Sewing

I finally got the opportunity to start learning how to sew. To start things off I decided to start off with learning about the most basic sewing technique, the straight stitch, or a single and short embroidery stitch. I decided to turn to Youtube to learn the basics of the straight stitch. After reviewing the video I asked Samantha, who is my critical friend for the project, how I should start my project. Sam came to the conclusion that sewing a mini pillow together would be a great hands on experience for a first timer. 

Supplies for the pillow

Lucky for me Sam has enough crafting supplies to open a mini Jo-Ann Fabrics store stashed away in one of our closets. She supplied me with felt fabric, polyester fiberfill (I call it stuffing), a needle, thread, and some sewing pins. She decided to start me off with felt because it's an easier fabric to sew and she gave me a larger needle so I could thread it easier. The pins are there to help hold the fabric in place as I sew.

Threading the needle and straight stitch sewing

Straight stitch shown before the flip

Towards the end of the sewing Sam noted that I should leave a part of the fabric open for the stuffing and so that I can flip the fabric inside out. She said that this is common because the stitching won't show. She also tipped me off with the thought that you don't want to keep the fabric too open because it will be a pain to sew the pillow closed when the stuffing is inside.

Sam demonstrating the ladder stitch

Sam taught me another sewing technique to close the pillow without the stitches showing. This technique is known as the ladder stitch. The ladder stitch (often referred to as the hidden, slip, or blind stitch) is a technique that is mostly used on dolls and stuffed animals. Steps on how to sew using the ladder stitch technique can be found here.

In my first major project blog I noted that one of the benefits of sewing was that it can help you focus better. I bring this up because I have a history of finding it difficult to focus on one thing at a time. This often leads me to straying away from whatever my current task may be.When it came to sewing the pillow I can say that I was definitely focused on it without hardly any distractions affecting me. Maybe it was because I wanted to be extra careful so I didn't accidentally poke myself with needle. I hope that my focus when sewing continues and that it could eventually lead to an improvement of me being able to focus outside of it. Despite what I believe is a very poor stitching technique I have to say that sewing the pillow was an entertaining experience and I am looking forward to doing more!

Final Product

Blog Entry VII: EBooks

Technology is always providing us with tons of new educational opportunities. When both education and technology are brought up together I think that the topic of ebooks is something that is thought of quite often. Implementing the usage or creation of ebooks into classroom instruction can prove to be beneficial. 

As a college student two questions come mind when I first think about textbooks: How much does the book cost? And How am I going to get my hands on the book? An option to get an ebook version makes things convenient. Due to being electronic the book can be cheaper and it is always available. Just this semester I had to wait 2 weeks before getting a textbook for one of my classes. By that experience you can tell that the option to not have to wait for a book is very appealing to me. Even in grades k-12 access to ebooks can help lower expenses. 

Ebooks can be used by teachers regardless of their area of curriculum. Not only can you use them for different subjects, but you can also use them in any grade level. Software that creates ebooks also provide a great opportunity to get students interested, promote creativity, and keep them engaged in classroom activities. Ebook creation can be used to create formative and summative assessment, project based learning. There are plenty of ideas that students can use when creating their own ebook. They can create "How to" books (how to build something, how to cook something, a step by step process to solve a problem), "About Me" books, poetry books, both fiction and non-fiction books. Ebooks also provide an opportunity for students to share their work outside of the classroom.  

Whether it's the possibility of including audio, videos, enhancing font size, saving trees, lightening backpacks, getting students more involved, or other unmentioned benefits, ebooks offer a ton of them without hardly any downsides (I personally can't think of any). I think that students would really enjoy getting the opportunity to use and create ebooks. Ebooks are definitely something that all teachers should consider researching and working with. 

Cool Tool Blog Entry III: Jing

Jing is a device that is used to take snapshots of your desktop, or can be used to record a screencast. A screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output and often contains audio narration. It is free to download and use after signing up and can be found on the techsmith website. The website also offers other devices available for download such Snagit (screen capture and screen recorder), Camtasia (video editor), Relay (lecture capture solution).  Techsmith also offers much appreciated tutorials and tech support with their devices so that their users don't have to struggle to learn how to use the device. 

  When downloaded, Jing will take up a tiny spot on your computer desktop (pictured above). Jing is easy to use. It's easy to start a recording and you can even select which parts of your screen you want to screenshot or record with ease. Jing also promotes online learning, professional development with technology, and can even promote student created content via technology. When it comes to the classroom, you can use Jing to give lectures, give tutorials, give tips on an assignment, and give feedback to students. In this article from techsmith, a technology specialist talks about the positive responses she got from her students when using the device to grade their papers. Down below I used Jing to create a screencast. The video is brief but shows a how well the program can be by just knowing the basics.

When it comes to student usage, I think of students using Jing to potentially share ideas, or if they are woking on a presentation they can use it to narrate. I think that some narrating to go along with a slideshow presentation would be a good idea.
The downside to using this program is that without paying for the better version (Snagit), you are going to have some trouble sharing your videos online. This is because the original format that the recording is saved as is a small web format (swf). Swf is not a common format and it took me a bit of time to find a converter so that I could change the file to a mp4. I did manage to find a way to convert the video here, but as you can see in my video above there is a brand on the top left of the screen. Overall I think that Jing is a good device, but I would probably look for better options that don't include the hassle of format converting.

Blog Entry VI: Copyright

When it comes to education I have always believed that making your content available for others to access is important. We all know that internet has done a wondrous job of expanding openness by allowing us to communicate, share, and work together through easier methods. By making content more available we are providing students with better learning opportunities. Although the internet has provided us with an extraordinary amount of content, some of it is protected through copyright. 

Review:
Copyright is what protects our ideas and work. When we create something, whether it's a work of art, a song, a video, a book or something else it automatically becomes copyrighted. When your work is copyrighted, it means that other people cannot share it without your permission. There are alternatives to copyright in case you don't want your work to be completely protected. The alternatives are known as Creative Commons. Creative Commons allows you to create rules or conditions for those that want to share your work. Some of these rules include:
Attribution: requires that others who use your work in any way must give you credit the way you request
ShareAlike: You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify your work, as long as they distribute any modified work on the same terms.
NonCommercial: You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and (unless you have chosen NoDerivatives) modify and use your work for any purpose other than commercially unless they get your permission first.
NoDerivatives: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only original copies of your work. If they want to modify your work, they must get your permission first. 

As someone that heavily supports the idea of sharing content, it's also important to understand the laws of copyright and creative commons. Because of how connected the world is and how easy it is to access digital content, it is very easy to duplicate material. For this reason teachers may access content illegally; and sometimes they may not even realize they are doing it. Understanding and abiding by these rules is part of what being a digital citizen is about. As teachers we should want to be trustworthy citizens and reflect so that our students can see. By understanding the rules of copyright, we can teach our students about them as well. As I've mentioned before, it's important to teach them about setting the bar for ethical standards. It's about responsibility, and supporting the future work to help make our world better.