7.23.2012

Best of...#TMC12

Best hotel goes to Drury because we actually had free Internet, a microwave and refrigerator, awesome breakfast, free dinner and drinks and still cost less than the Hilton :)


Best weapon of math destruction goes to Hedge's @approx_normal marshmallow gun because it's simple, awesome, fun, and actually works.


Best session idea goes to whoever decided we should do My Favorites because I'm pretty sure we could have an entire conference based on that alone and I felt like it was blog reading come to life...like a book of pop up bloggers....except real.

Best session goes to Geogebra because it is now accessible to me, the tutorials were great, and I learned a skill that I will use and which will make my life easier and my worksheets awesomer.

Best presenter goes to Bowman @bowmanimal because I have never seen anyone bounce and smile and talk simultaneously before.

Best new app I downloaded goes to Touchpad (although Educreations is a close second) because I have always wanted to advance my slides while I'm walking around and now I found a free way to do it.

Best moment goes to Roxanne @justagurl24 because she reminded us why we do what we do and how far we have come since our first [terrible] year.

Best ending goes to Rachel @rdkpickle and Sean @SweenWSweens because they awesomely serenaded us with their creative and twittery "Tweet Me Maybe".

Best surprise goes to the goody bag because we got free stuff!

Best new website goes to socrative.com student response system (Thanks Colin @colinmac10) because it's free, easy to use, awesome, and even aggregates data for you.

Best new brainstorm goes to starting the school year with students observing and writing down observations [from videos, demonstrations, measurements, charts, photos, rhythms, etc]. Notice and wonder. Compare answers. Think out loud. Uncover assumptions students make when translating from reading and translating to writing. Practice math vocabulary. Review units. Because students struggle with so many of these things, maybe I can address those right from the beginning and actually have something kind of fun to do at the beginning of school.

Best new product goes to the Fabric Wall-Mount Magazine Organizer from the Container Store because Megan @mgolding gave me the link and it is lime green and matches my classroom. Yayyyy.


Best thing I should have known about but didn't goes to Mathalicious lessons because Karim @karimkai is intense and because there are videos and handouts and standards, hooray!

Best conference location goes to St. Louis because I could drive my own car and do lots of shopping at all my favorite places and have a place to put it. :)

Best Dollar Tree goes to the one on Olive Boulevard because it was half a mile from me and had super cute colorful tubs that my store at home doesn't have.

Best plot twist goes to The Dark Knight Rises because I didn't see it coming and because some things are just true whether you want to believe them or not.

Best awkward moment goes to all the ones involving me because I felt so weird that people actually knew my name and especially that there are people who know me that I don't know.

Best realization goes to the fact that four years ago I didn't know you people but now I know you for the rest of my life, all because of Twitter.

The end.

6 comments:

  1. LOVE LOVE LOVE this list!

    I've told several local colleagues about your "Two nice things!" tip and they love it. Those My Favorites sessions really did feel like pop up blogging. Please keep the great ideas flowing.

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  2. I want to come be a fly on the wall in your classroom as you put your brainstorm to work! Pls blog it and tweet it and keep in touch!

    It's actually kind of similar to a unit I'm working on for a schoolwide numeracy curriculum for students coming into a charter school with really varied school backgrounds. Once it's real I'll share it for sure.

    Oh also, if you're looking for notice/wonder prompts we try to share one a week at http://mathforum.org/blogs/pows/

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  3. Thanks Megan! The two nice things is the ONLY thing I could think of that I didn't steal off twitter/blogs. lol

    Max,
    Thanks so much for the link and encouragement. I will definitely blog it since it something totally new to me. I want to start with videos or pictures of random things that are not necessarily mathy. I think we will start with discussing what we notice and wonder so everyone can hear. Then we will write first, then share our answers. Hopefully some students will mention numbers in some way so that we can point out that math is everywhere. I'd really like the things we observe to have some sort of overall theme/pattern. I'd like to implicitly and explicitly imply that as mathematicians we observe, discuss, write, predict, question, and think. From there I would like to move in to actually solving problems. That's my brainstorm so far but I don't know what kind of pictures/videos to pick.

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  4. p.s. this was such a nice shoutout! it was great to meet you at TMC. looking forward to collaborating more.

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  5. Good because I already know a lesson I want where I will need your major Geogebra help!

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