April 4, 2013 Leave a Comment

Data Sleuthing

Khan Academy Idaho is a grant-funded initiative to help K-12 teachers in Idaho integrate digital devices and the Khan Academy program into their math classrooms. Yesterday I gave a keynote there called “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” about (1) the challenges facing math educators and (2) Data Sleuthing, a way to encourage math curiosity and data literacy in students.

Resources from this presentation:

Homework from the Presentation

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Filed Under: Data Literacy, Data Visualization, Edge of Learning, Future of Math, Interactive Math Online, Quantitative Reasoning
March 20, 2013 2 Comments

Activity Icons for Online Course Design

When I went to build my Social Media MOOC, I wanted to find a great set of icons to visually clue students to the learning activities in the course. I looked high and low, but couldn’t find an icon set that had all the types of icons that I wanted (Discussions, Read, Write, Tweet, Watch, and Groupwork). In the end, I gave up and just hacked together my own icons.

If you’d like to add to the set, I used the IcoMoon App (and the free IcoMoon library), with hex color 2c5782 and 32 pixel heights.  These icon fonts were then layered onto a rounded button in Adobe Illustrator.

You can browse the course if you want to see how the icons are used. Here is an example:

If you’d like to use the course activity icons, you’re welcome to do so. Download the course activity icons zip file, which contains all 6 icons and the adobe illustrator file for the rounded square icon (in case you’d like to build your own).  I will take requests to build more icons for about a week and then create a second batch. Let me know if there’s a learning activity that you need an icon for in your online course. If you create some and would like to share them, that would be great! I’ll add them to the zip file for others to use.

Note that I am not a graphic designer, nor do I play one on TV. If you are a graphic designer, and want to make cleaner icons or different design sets of icons, I’d be happy to share or link to those too.

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Filed Under: eLearning, MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses), TALDA (Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age)
February 28, 2013 Leave a Comment

Canvas Network Social Media Course

I’ve been working hard on developing an open course for Canvas Network on Social Media. The course is now live and publicly visible. This means you can see all the content pages and modules (but not the discussions or announcements). If you’d like to take a peek, visit Social Media on Canvas Network. Here’s a preview of what you’ll see:

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Filed Under: Uncategorized
November 13, 2012 Leave a Comment

Level Up: Video Games for Learning Algebra

Last week I gave a presentation at AMATYC about video games for learning algebra. As usual, Mat Moore did a fantastic illustration for the prezi.

It was staged in five levels:

  • Level 1: Why use games?
  • Level 2: What is a game? (manipulatives, puzzles, and games)
  • Level 3: Become a Math Game Critic
  • Level 4: Play GOOD Games
  • Level 5: Good Algebra Video Games?

You can click through the Prezi below.

Level Up! Video Games for Learning Algebra on Prezi

 

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Filed Under: Algebra, Lame Games, Math Video Games, Play and Learn, Prealgebra
November 12, 2012 3 Comments

Coming out of the Closet: I’m a Game Designer!

I don’t even really know how to begin here. For the last three years I’ve been working on a secret little project that I wasn’t allowed to talk about in public (NDA). I’ve been designing digital games for learning algebra in my (ha ha) free time. The last couple months have been an absolutely insane flurry of activity as we approached the launch date and as a result, I haven’t posted much. Finally I can tell you that I’m no longer a wannabe game designer. I’ve designed four game apps that are now out in the iPad App store! I’m out of the closet and able to talk about it!

There are three years of stories to tell here about the development process, but I’m still recovering from launch week. So if you’re dying to see, here are the apps:

  • Algeboats Lite is a taste of our resource management game for learning how to evaluate expressions. [Note: Full version is not yet available.]
  • Algeburst: Topics in Algebra is a classic match-3 game for simplifying expressions, solving simple equations and inequalities, and using exponent rules.
  • Algeburst: Topics in Arithmetic is a classic match-3 game for pre-algebra arithmetic, including signed numbers, fractions, decimals, and order of operations.
  • Algeburst Lite will give you 12 free levels to try out the game (6 levels of arithmetic, 6 levels of algebra).

To see videos and screenshots from the games, please head on over to the Facebook pages: Algeburst or Algeboats and give us a LIKE!

 

 

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Filed Under: Algebra, Good Learning Games, Math Video Games, Play and Learn, Prealgebra
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