Boosed Grader: An Android App EZ Grader

As a child, I was lucky enough to attend elementary school where my mom taught (for grades 3-5). At the time, I understood little about what teachers actually did, and often thought that she stayed an hour or two after school each day just to torture me.

My mom had a magical tool in her classroom, a mystical green rectangular wonder that somehow told her how to grade things. I did not understand this piece of cardboard, but thought it held some mystical power. 

As it turns out, I was almost right. I'm talking about the EZ Grader of course. 

I have an EZ Grader, and am led to believe that every teacher on the face of the planet does as well. This little sliding piece of cardboard really makes the job of grading easier. I bought mine at the local school store right after accepting my first job, and have used it timeless times since. I like to have students help grade papers (only the ones who want to), and even teach them to use this simple little device.

As great and timeless as the EZ Grader has become, sometimes you don't have it with you. A simple calculator always works well in a pinch, but for those teachers who like to have all the percentages right in front of them, you do have some options.

I've used a few different Android apps that are EZ Grader clones,

and the best one I've come across is called Boosed Grader. Boosed Grader is great because it's free, and has a very simple, minimal interface. If you use a Droid smartphone, I highly recommend this great app!

Boosed asks you simply to input the total amount of points in the assignment you are grading, and in turn gives you a list of the percentages given the number incorrect, just like EZ Grader. I like this tool because I always have my cell phone on me, while my EZ Grader is in my desk at work. Plus, I always love the price of free apps.

Our Finished Social Studies Fair Projects

Last month I posted about a project based learning research project that we do called the Social Studies Fair. Obviously this isn't a unique idea, as there are national social studies fair societies, and teachers all over the world have been doing these in different forms for many years.

In any case, I've spent a few years refining the requirements for the fair that we put on at my school, and you can access all of the documents and requirements by clicking the link that begins this post.

This post showcases some of the projects that were presented. I wanted to do something a little different and share some of the photos from our fair in an Animoto video (to learn more about Animoto, click HERE). It was a great social studies fair, the kids were proud to share their work, and I was genuinely impressed with the overall quality of the work presented.

My Thoughts on the Tragic Events of Today

Like everyone else, I was completely shocked and saddened by the events that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut this morning. Upon hearing of the events, I was in class with my 5th grade students. I immediately thought of the 500+ students that were attending class in my school, and how, as teachers and educational professionals, we are tasked with keeping these students safe (among the many other things we are responsible for).

But how do you keep things safe in the face of such evil actions? Are schools doing enough?

My school is what you might define as rural, but we're definitely not out in the middle of nowhere. We exist in the oldest area of a city with 100,000+ people living in it, but we are out in the quieter part of town. We've always taken our safety for granted, and have never had a major incident, like most schools in the country. The shootings that took place this morning are tragic, and shocking. Almost every person who comes to this blog is a teacher (or you're probably in the wrong place, I cater to and write directly for teachers), and one thing I know about teachers is that they love children, and would die for their students. Some of our own died today protecting their students, and are heroes for that.

The children who died today leave this earth never realizing their full potential, their little lives robbed from them.

Now, how do we proceed? Obviously students will be attending school on Monday all across the nation, and many of them will be in fear, fear that grows out of watching the news and hearing adults talk about the shootings at Sandy Hook. What is our job as teachers?

On Monday, I'll address school safety and our roles at schools on an "if it comes up" basis. If students enter the building scared, it will be addressed. You never can be too careful when your entire job revolves around the fact that you are a de facto guardian of other peoples children for 7 hours per day.

On a personal note, I feel so much pain for the parents, families, and surrounding community that felt the loss of those children and adults who died this morning. In the coming months, there will obviously be talks that center on the politics of gun control, school safety, and mental health services. I don't think the time for those talks is now. Now, it's time to mourn the loss. My two year old son is sitting next to me right now, and I can see my seven and ten year old sons sitting on the sofa in the next room, and I cannot fathom the pain that I would feel if they were taken from me.

My heart goes out to all affected.

My Oregon Trail Story of Survival and Daring on the Apple IIe

I sat down tonight to write a post with great materials for the unit we're currently doing in social studies. I got a few sentences in and realized it all seemed very familiar. So, I paused for a minute, and went digging into my blog archives, and found out fairly quickly why I was struck with this sudden sense of deja vu.

I already posted the entire unit, over three months ago. Yikes. I've officially reached the point where I can't remember what I've already done on this simple little blog of mine. I guess simple isn't the correct word. It's not exactly Wikipedia, but with over 110 posts, it's getting big for me.

In any case, what I wanted to share is a quick story, and a link to a great online game that kids love.


I grew up in the 80's and 90's. When I was in elementary school, we had a computer lab. We're specifically talking about 1989-1990 here, so it was a magical time before the internet, the era of the Apple IIe, the ones with the green only screens. The first computer game I had a chance to play, and master (or kill all of my friends through various ailments and injuries). Of course, I'm talking about the original Oregon Trail.

As a 3rd grader, I couldn't get enough, this game was fantastic. It was the right balance of strategy, trail riding, and friend bruising. We got graded based upon our performance. It was great, my first experience with digital learning.

Now, here we are, in 2012, in the middle of the golden age of the computer and internet. My students have access to the knowledge of the human race within the walls of my classroom, although they don't know that, all they care about is Youtube videos and Angry Birds... who am I kidding, that's all I care about as well. All joking aside, let's move this little story along.

I teach a unit on Westward Expansion each year around this time (you can find that unit HERE). We watch a great documentary about the Donner Party (check it out in that unit if you're interested), and they do a research project on some of the major trails that were used to make the journey west, as well as the Homestead Act, the California Gold Rush, and a few other major events/laws.

One thing seems to stick with them more than anything else every year I teach this unit. You see, on day two of the unit, I fire up the laptop and projector, and we play a game together. We play the original Oregon Trail. For the first ten minutes or so, the kids look at each other and giggle at how completely and totally honky tonk this game is. The graphics are ancient, the sound effects are ridiculous, in short, this is exactly the kind of game that students of today picture their parents playing when they were kids. But they sit and watch.  They see me enjoying the game, and laugh as I make a ridiculous epitaph on the gravestone of the first member of my party to die.

Finally, they get their own crack at this gem of a game. And without fail, they play this game during their free time for the rest of the school year. Right now, my students are literally begging me to play Oregon Trail.

So, how can you play Oregon Trail? The first way is to go buy an Apple IIe, hook it up, and go find a floppy disk (remember those?). If you don't want to do that, and trust me, YOU DON'T, there's an easier way.

Head to Virtual Apple, make sure your Java is updated, and enjoy the game right there in your browser.

You know you want to. Go ahead.

Our Finished American Revolution Video (A Masterpiece)

As I discussed in my plans for Social Studies Unit 3: The American Revolutionary Period, the entire unit revolves around a video that students work on that includes re-enactments of various major events from the American Revolution (click that link up there for more information). Well, the video is done. Now, a little disclaimer on this. The video making software I use is not free, and takes some technical know how to master (it's called CyberLink Power Director). I did most of the video editing on my more powerful desktop computer at home, and the student clips and sounds were all filmed on, believe it or not, my smartphone (sadly, it was my phones swan song, I went and got my new phone just a few days after we finished filming). The videos that I added in, and songs as well, were taken from Youtube. It's a grey area in my opinion, taking copyrighted material and using them in educational videos. It's a discussion I want to see out there more often, but in my own opinion, there's no profiting from the video, it's simply educational, and students loved this one.

I used a few websites to assist me here. For the songs I needed, I found them on Youtube, and converted them to mp3 using Youtube to Mp3. It goes without saying that I deleted these files when the video was completed.

Also, for the Youtube clips, I used KeepVid, a great tool that lets you download videos from Youtube in high quality.

Later this week, we have invited parents to join us for a showing of the video, which will be shown in the cafeteria on the big projector screen.

I wanted to show off this little gem here as well. I'm adding it here from my Google Drive, the file itself is a 1.3 gigabyte .mpg file, but it should stream. Check it out! Thanks go out to everyone who created the material we researched and borrowed from for this great learning experience.

Teaching Your Students Blooms Taxonomy: A Gateway to Projects Based Math

This past weekend, I attended a workshop run by a married couple that I consider great mentors of mine, they constantly challenge my thinking and inspire me to take my class to the next level.

To make a long story short, I've been racking my brain thinking about how to create effective project based learning opportunities in mathematics that wouldn't just throw students out there, but would give them the tools they need to succeed. I had thought and experimented with various ideas, and was met with failure each time (of course, as a teacher trying new things, failure is ok, but you just have to keep going). I was beginning to feel like I'd hit a brick wall, and then I got the inspiration I needed. It comes in two words, BLOOMS TAXONOMY.

No, the inspiration wasn't for me to go home and brush up on the levels... I mean domains, so I can better reflect on my instruction, the inspiration was to teach my students Blooms, and how to move through the levels... I mean domains, on their own, and create their own learning. I can take absolutely no credit for this, but am pretty excited about it.

I'm obviously at the beginning stages here, but the first step is, of course, to teach my students the levels... er, domains (sorry, I always forget to use the new terminology, it won't happen again). If you're old school (older than 25... years old, not years of experience) then you probably still remember the Blooms domains as knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation at the top. BUT, there's a new list, and I like it much better. The terminology is much more kid friendly, and... well I'll just show you:

There it is, the new domains up next to the old domains.

What I like is that I always thought creating should be at the top, because when students are able to create something new and original (in their own mind) from the knowledge you have given them, or the knowledge they have obtained on their own, that's about as good as it gets in this world. 

So, I'm at step one, sharing this with my students, and having them practice creating their own work climbing up what we'll call the Blooms Ladder. If you'd like to join me on my journey, download and give one of the following documents to your students. These are kid friendly definitions of the Blooms domains, both in .doc format. I have both:

OLD BLOOMS KID FRIENDLY DEFINITIONS

NEW BLOOMS KID FRIENDLY DEFINITIONS