What is on my computer?

Since I have talked about using my Tablet PC often while teaching I thought I would have a post listing all the programs that I have installed – well, many of them at least – as well as some thoughts about each. In addition, if you feel so moved, I have made each of the names links to the relevant sites. Many of the software I list is free, others are not.

AutoGraph 3.2 – Beautiful graphing software, particularly for 3D. In fact, while I love WinPlot, it cannot compare to the 3D graphs in AutoGraph. Another nice bit here is that, for a Tablet PC, you can actually use an ink marking pen right on the graphs. If all things were equal between WinPlot and AutoGraph I would be very tempted to make this my primary graphing program, but the fact that you have to pay for AutoGraph (not much, but more than I want my students to have to pay at home) makes me choose WinPlot. As a demonstration tool, it is worth the price.

Calques 3D v2.4.1 – Another dynamic geometry software program. I have a number of different programs of this type and this is the one I use the least. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I even clicked it open. Hmmm… maybe it is time to get rid of it?

CamStudio – I have not used this a lot, but it is free software that allows me to make videos of things that I am doing on my computer. I plan on making some tutorials on how to use certain pieces of software for my students.

ClassPad Manager v3 Basic – I got this emulator software for the CASIO ClassPad 330 when I took their online class this summer. Great piece of software and ever better calculator. However, because I chose the Nspires for my class I probably will not use this very often.

Cropper – Nifty little tool for taking snapshots of your screen for use elsewhere. My choice when creating .png graphics files for LaTeX documents.

CutePDF – This is essentially a print server that allows you to direct documents to be printed as .pdf files right on your computer. While OpenOffice and MS Office 2007 have this functionality built in, many programs do not, and this becames a very helpful program to have. Did I mention it is free?

Evernote – I am just starting to use this program. it looks fascinating, and I have started saving things to it, but I am not sure how much I will use it yet.

GeoGebra – Like WinPlot above, run, don’t walk, to download this software. It is free, and it is really a great piece of dynamic geometry software. It works on all three major platforms and its interface is fairly intuitive. Even moreso than SketchPad. The dropdown menus include pictures as well as descriptions making it very easy to find what you want. The ease of integration with coordinate graphing makes this a must-have. There is even a way to use this without installing it on your computer!

Geometer’s Sketchpad – A staple for any geometry teacher. Yes, you have to pay for it, but it is still very flexible and holds its own against the other programs, and there are far more teacher and student resources out there for this software than anything else.

Geometry Expressions – Great dynamic geometry software with two huge advantages over everything else out there in this category. It can evaluate symbolically as well as draw diagrams with restrictions easily. It is not free, but for anyone teaching Geometry I think it is worth the cost.

Google Sketch-Up – I have not used this very much, but when I need to make and demonstrate things about 3D shapes this is a beautiful piece of software. And it is free.

Mathematica 6 – An amazing and versatile CAS software. Way beyond what I need, but worth it to explore. The Demonstraction project is really neat, and I have played around making some simple ones with my Mathemacia. Definitely a steep learning curve and not a program I would recommend to a novice or someone easily frustrated.

Maxima – This is an open-source and free CAS environment. It is software like Maple or Mathematica, but not nearly as polished. I have used this with my students in the past when I wanted them to have CAS, but did not want them to pay an arm and a leg.

Microsoft Math 3.0 – Very cheap to pick up if you are a teacher. Very similar to many of the graphing calculator emulator programs that are out there. It has CAS functionality, and one thing I really like was the ability to see the steps used to symbolically solve an equation rather than always jumping right to the answer. Neat little program.

Microsoft Office 2007 – Yes, I do have this for two main reasons. It is becoming the standard at my school, and as more people use the .docx format it is easier to open it with this. Additionally, I have to admit I like its commenting and revision formatting.

Microsoft OneNote – If you have a Tablet PC than you have to have this program. I use this in class everyday to write my notes for my students. I can then export as .html files or .pdf files and put them in our school network to be accessed by the students.

MiKTeX 2.7 – I was a latecomer to LaTeX, but once I started to use it I really liked it. I know write all my tests in LaTeX, as well as the entire book of problems that I hand out to my Calculus BC students. There are many distributions of LaTeX, but this one makes it very easy to install. I will warn you though that LaTeX formatting is not WYSIWYG. There is a steep learning curve here, but, in my humble opinion, worth the effort.

Mimio software – Instead of a SmartBoard – which does not interface well with the Tablet PC I found – I use the Mimio hardware and software. This is a device which attaches to a regular whiteboard and performs in a similar manner to a SmartBoard. It is also a lot cheaper.

Mozilla Firefox – My browser of choice.

Open Office 2.4 – This is my default office program. I actually first moved to this while my school was still using MS Office 2003, and this program was far less bloated and did everything nearly as well or better than MS Office did, except for the commenting. My tablet at the time had a 30 GB hard drive which I had rapidly filled up, so dumping MS Office in favor of Open Office was eminently practical. Once a new version of OO has .docx (and related extensions) support I will probably go back to this full time.

Peanut Software – Actually, this is two different programs: WinPlot and WinGeom. There are other programs at the site, but these are the two I use. They were written by a math teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy. All of his software is free, although it is not open-source. WinPlot is an absolutely amazing graphing program. If you have the capability of running Windows software (sorry, it does not come in any other flavor) and you teach math, then you should not be without this program. Really. I mean it. What are you still looking at this page for? WinPlot graphs 2 and 3D, and will do anything you ask of it up through calculus. The best part is that if you do not see something you think should be in there, or a bug pops up, email the designer and there will be fixes and changes within months, if not weeks. WinGeom is a decent dynamic geometry program, but to be honest nowhere near as good as SketchPad or GeoGebra. When SketchPad was the only option then this was a pretty decent alternative. With GeoGebra on the scene this is less relevant.

SMART Ideas 5 – Very cool concept mapping software. Made by the same people that make the SmartBoard, but you do not have to have a SmartBoard to use it.

Snipping Tool – Same thing as Cropper, but created by Microsoft. If you want to take a snapshot of a whole window, or even the whole desktop this is better. In addition, you can take a snapshot and then ink on it before saving it.

TI-Nspire CAS Teacher Edition – I just got this version the other day. Nice, particularly if you are using the calculator in class.

TI-SmartView – Great emulator software for the TI-84. If this is what your students are using, this is a great demonstration tool.

ToDoList – Great little task program.

I have other software on my computer, but these are the ones I turn to most often when teaching. A question that remains is how I use all these pieces of software, but since this is already a long post I will save that for another day. I would love to hear from others if there are other pieces of software out there.

I fear for our country

Well, there is little I can say about McCain’s choice for VP that has not already been said, but I can’t help myself. Is there really any doubt that he picked Sarah Palin as little more than eye candy and a way to court the militant Hillary supporters who are threatening to defect from the Democratic Party because Obama won the nomination?

Seriously, I certainly don’t want another Cheney who practically makes his own laws, but if I were a woman I would be insulted by McCain’s choice. She has no foreign policy experience – her state’s proximity to Russia notwithstanding – and it sounds like she has an interesting background in politics and how she runs things. She was not chosen for her experience, but as a blatant gimmick.

And lastly, McCain seemed to put less energy into getting to know her than I did in buying my last car. Considering that she would literally be a heartbeat away from the presidency – and at McCain’s age that may be closer than we think – it scares me that she could take over. In Cheney’s case I was worried because I did not want him running the country, until reality set in and I realized he already did. Sarah Palin isn’t at all ready to step in if necessary, and under the circumstances I find it unlikely she will have any real position in McCain’s government to give her the experience she would need.

I admit that I supported Hillary, and I have not been entirely sure about Obama yet. McCain has worried me greatly, but this choice absolutely cemented my vote in November. Thanks for making it so easy, John.

Just had to get it off my chest.

TI-Nspire CAS Teacher Edition Software

Today I finally received the 1.4 Edition of this software. Last spring I responded to an email I would get a free upgrade – I had purchased the previous version – and it finally came! It would have been nice if it had shown up a little earlier, but it’s not too bad. I installed it and started to play around with it a bit. For the most part it seems similar to before. However there are some cool new things. This is not an exhaustive comparison, but the first thing I liked was the emulator software. On the previous version you could pop up the keypad next to the screen, but not the whole calculator. Now there are two versions of the emulator. The first is a straight up emulator in that it just shows the calculator as is. See?

The second version puts the calculator, as above, on one side of the screen, but then puts an expanded version of the main calculator screen on the other side, like so:

This is one think I liked about the TI-Smartview software, so I am glad they brought it back for the Nspire. Of course, now that I am thinking about it, the new software is specifically label the “Teacher Edition.” Perhaps that is why. There are a couple of changes in the menu bar in the ‘Normal’ mode as well. Now there is a screen capture button which will capture whatever you have in the calculator screen as well as a button whereby you can send files to your class if they are connected with TI-Navigator.

Although I will not be presenting a lot of material in my calculus class (where my students will all have one of these) I do envision having mini-lessons on how to use the calculator for various things, and this software will be great.

By the way, I did notice that if you do not uninstall the previous version, installing the new version does not automatically overwrite it. I now have both versions on my computer.

Testing

I have been struggling with trying to create good assessments for years. I am still somewhat traditional in that I use tests fairly often. I am toying with the idea of portfolios this year, but maybe second semester. But testing, yes.

One of the things that I found in my lower classes (Geometry and Algebra in particular) is that I wanted to find out if the students knew the basic facts and skills as well as how to apply them to new situations (transfer). I always got myself into trouble. Either the tests were too long or the problems were not really new situations. Or, on the rare occasion when I made it a good length and the problems were new, I still did not feel I was able to pull out information about exactly where the students were having trouble.

Did they do poorly on the problem solving questions because, in truth, they did not have a firm grasp on the skills and took too long on that part? Did they understand the skills well and just now know how to do the problems? It was too hard to tell. About four years ago, in my Geometry Honors class, I decided to split these up into tests, which were to measure the skills, facts, and basic procedures in the class and quests, which were problem solving tests with, generally, six questions that were unlike any we had seen before, although all could be done using the skills we had learned up to that point. I now had a better picture of where the struggles were.

I did this for two years in Geometry Honors before asking if it would work for our regular students, so I moved to teaching the regular Geometry and proceeded to continue with tests and quests. While gauging the difficulty of the quests for the students was a little tough in the beginning, soon I felt I had a good handle on it, and it gave us a lot to talk about in terms of problem solving.

Then, last year, when teaching Algebra 1 Honors (and, incidentally, the regular Algebra 1 teachers did the same) I introduced this method of testing, although now we explicitly called them “skill tests” and “problem solving tests.” I still struggle to find a good and happy medium of problems, but the information this gave me about the students ability to attack problems was invaluable.

Of course, I have been thinking of ways of tweaking this concept this year, and I am finally working with someone who I think will help me really look at whether or not this is really the best way to emphasize problems.

In calculus, however, I have a whole other philosophy I will share later.

Jury Duty

So today I went in for jury duty. Where I live they have the policy “One day or one trial.” It essentially means that you only need to come in for one day, and if you do not get on a trial you are done. If you do get on a trial, then you are only done when the judge excuses you. And this all assumes you get called in. You are actually on call for a week and if you do not get called in then you are done.

I got called in for today so I dutifully showed up at 8 am as the instructions said, although when all was said and done nothing began until 8:30 when the jury clerks showed up. The man in charge was actually quite humorous, and he made listening to all the various rules and suggestions entertaining. That, plus a video, took until about 9:10 when we were officially checked in.

We then sat there until 11:30 when we were dismissed for lunch, to return by 1:30. We got back by 1:30 and continued to sit. We could sit in the jury room, in the courtyard right outside, or in the cafeteria just inside the next building. We stayed until about 3:30 when they told us we were done for the day. Apparently all the cases on the schedule for the day were able to settle without ever needing a jury, so nobody got called.

So I left feeling that I had done my little part in the broader civic arena. The sad thing? I wanted to go into a courtroom, I wanted to be on a jury, I wanted to hear and deliberate on a case, and I got to home. Why do I want to? I do not know. I believe strongly in standing behind the system when we can, even though I know parts are, possibly irreparably, broken. I vote in almost every single election, and I want to be on a jury. I want to have the chance to listen to the prosecution and the defense tell their sides of a story and then deliberate on the evidence.

But not this year.

I did do some reading. Quality Questioning by Walsh & Sattes is great, as is On Dialogue by Bohm. I got to play around with my TI-Nspire a bit so that I don’t look like a total idiot in my BC class when I hand them out. I read some news and played games on my Blackberry.

But I was not on a jury.