iMovie

Math Spreadsheet

I recently created an excel spreadsheet where students would enter the root(s) of polynomials.  As many projects as I have done with Excel, this is definitely the first time I've used the program in a way that I can actually use in my math classroom.  To be honest, this is possibly my favorite project thus far for 2 reasons:  Excel is the first program to allow math students the freedom of entering in actual mathematical expressions, and I really think this would be a great idea to integrate into my classroom.  By the completion of my project, I felt that it did not only have an aesthetic quality, but it looks like it would be more fun for students to figure out solutions through my polynomial spreadsheet.  All in all, I give a two thumbs up to the TPTE 486 project.   Below is a screenshot of my excel spreadsheet -- I'm quite proud of it:)

Blogging Down My Thoughts

I came home today from school only to find that my electricity was out.  It finally came back at 2 in the morning, and now I have my chance to blog...  Today turned out to be a harsh epiphany that I've tucked so far away from my consciousness that it took 8 hours of no electricity for me to find within myself again.  Maybe this previous sentence was gobbledygook, but I never said I was a good writer.

No Electricity:  I thought to myself, let's get busy and do some homework.  Then I realized that I needed the internet for all of my courses, so that's a no-go.  Then I figured I can do some chores.  But the chores that I needed done also depended on electricity... So I ended up being extremely lazy for about 8 hours.  The time spent without electricity reminded me of what I always thought was most important: survival skills.  I vowed to myself in my early twenties that I wanted to learn how to grow my own food, create my own necessities, and know how to survive in the wild-- we can't always rely on technology for the rest of our lives, can we?

Web 2.0:  I've become a bit bored talking about my "home blackout" ordeal (it's been on my mind all day), so I'd like to move on and touch base with the web 2.0 tools I've learned about for the past couple of weeks.  I must admit that none of the websites would benefit me in teaching my future math students.  On the up side, I must admit that they are all fun to fool around with.  Sometimes I wonder if math is best taught and learned through the "whiteboard" process and cooperative group learning...

Inspiration:  Inspiration is such a fun and great concept mapping tool.  But it was totally uninspiring when it comes to the mathematics field.  Now is my chance to complain about a software program.  First, Inspiration does not allow me to enter in formal math equations, which makes it hard to want to use it for math in the first place.  Secondly, The program does not allow multiple font justifications within one box (i.e. If you "center" your first sentence, you cannot align your next sentence to the left or right within that same box).  Finally, Inspiration had absolutely no way of putting in math functions.... I know I said that already, but this was the most frustrating part.  I worked so long and hard on this project that there is no doubt I'm proud of it and that I will show it to my future students.  Frankly, I was excited to use Inspiration, but I'm not sure if I would ever use this again... The future of this program is to hopefully focus on more possibilities for math teachers to use it -- I mean, we matter too:)

Calculus Inspiration

Scavenger Hunt

Cats: The 8th Wonders of the World!

I created my very first Picasa -- Just push play and check it out!

Web 2.0

Last week I learned about Prezi and Picnic.  Prezi was pretty impressive because it's way more entertaining to learn from these Prezi creation rather than from your usual powerpoint presentation.  This is because Prezi is set up to handle many animations and it seems to transition smoothly, making the presentation seem more like a movie and less like the ones our teachers continue to teach with (powerpoint).  However, I do not see myself using this tool for my Math students.  As for Picnic, I feel like it's the closest free editing program that we can use to edit our pictures without having to spend all of my money on PhotoShop.  Although this website was fun to use, this is another web 2.0 tool that I don't think I'll be using for my High School Math students.

Tomorrow, Billy and I will be presenting our wiki on Smilebox.  I discovered how to put my creation on a blog, so here goes!

This picture slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Google Docs Totally Rocs!

So this past weekend was filled with me trying to catch up in this class from suffering a horrible illness.  What was worst was that I became ill in  the middle of my FIRST ever online collaboration project!  I was partnered up with my awesome math-education girl, Whitney and I couldn't help but show up to class Thursday morning -- like I said, it was my first online group project, so I didn't feel comfortable not talking to Whitney about our lesson plan.  We finalized our plans, and I bolted out of class after 30 minutes of trying to sit still.... And then I begin to work on the lesson plan...

It was the funniest thing. I went onto GoogleDocs and Whitney just so happened to get online at the same time.... and we pretty much chatted for at least 30 minutes on our activity sheet: it was the craziest thing I had ever experienced! I saw exactly where her cursor was and it was so much fun seeing her type up her sentences -- I never realized how much we sometimes STOP in order to think about what we should say next (or how we want to put our thoughts into words) and how much we end up deleting because of typing mistakes. The experience made me realize that I should've never been too scared to stay at home with a nauseating fever.... GoogleDocs was such a great tool for Whitney and I to communicate.  It was the best of both worlds: We were able to talk about the project and edit it at the same time. This experience with the lesson plan has definitely changed my resistance to technology/internet-based assignments tremendously from the way I felt about it earlier in the week... I'm not scared anymore *laughs*

As for the new websites introduced last week, Delicious and Glogster, I don't have much to say about them because I see no real benefits with these sites when it comes to teaching my math students. I have to say one thing, though: Whitney and I actually used her Delicious account in order to bookmark the websites that we wanted to use for our lesson plan! I remember when Whitney and her partner started to complete their wiki page on Delicious, and I think I remember us laughing about it because we had no idea there were websites out there specifically for people to save their bookmarks... little did we know that we would need to turn to Delicious in order to help us with an important project.

I think I'm getting used to this technology stuff. What a glorious day!

Wordle & Twitter

Wordle:  I'd like to sum up this Web 2.0 tool with one word:  AWESOMEST.  This online program is so much fun... I mean, look at what I created by copying and pasting a paragraph from my first, autobiographical blog (To the right).  Pretty cool, I know.  Obsessed with arts-n-krafts, I absolutely love things like this... but as for classroom use, there's no reason as to why I would present this to my high school math students.  I don't like saying that, because it makes me think about the fact that I just learned about this fantastic website at the age of 24 -- and I wish I could tell everyone about Wordle, but it would seem inappropriate to bring up something that has absolutely nothing to do with my math subject... So how do I "spread the word(le)?"  No need to linger on this question, so let's move on.



Twitter:  This is definitely a medium for communication that has taken over the world!  I have a facebook, but I've only logged onto it no more than 6 times in the past 2 years... I learned last Thursday that Twitter is different from myspace and facebook in that it is largely based on updated information of a person's interests (i.e. following famous people, the news, friends, businesses, etc.).  I can see myself being an obsessive tweeter, except I feel as though many people that have a twitter are more likely to have a fancy phone where a twitter application can be accessed through at all times of the day... and a fancy phone with internet access is something that Judy Tran has never had and cannot picture having.  When it comes to possibly using Twitter for my math classes, I can see it being useful for my students and I to be able to interact and ask/answer any questions pertaining to an assignment or project during out-of-school hours.  I find that I almost learn more when I do math in a group, because it's helpful to see different approaches to a math problem... so I can only imagine that creating a twitter page for my students would be just like having my entire class physically work together on problems and learn from one another.  However, there's still the situation with twitter-update-alerts in that I should not expect all of my students to possess what I consider a small, mobile computer (i.e. iphones and any other wireless devices that can fit in one's pocket).  What a world: we have little computers that can actually fit into our pockets.  I really hope I don't have to learn how to deal with a "Zoolander" phone (Exhibits A & B below) in my near future...

Exhibit A

Exhibit B



Inquiry-Based Learning

Last Thursday, I learned about inquiry-based learning through an activity that served as an example of how this type of learning could be integrated into my teaching practices.  I ended up loving it.  Frankly, I enjoy having exact directions on how to complete a specific assignment.  I don't feel that it traps me in a box... In my opinion, I was not only able to learn about the topic (rocks/minerals) which is one of our main goals as students, I was able to discover that I absolutely loved looking at the different rocks and minerals that nature presents to us.  Therefore, inquiry-based lesson plans give great step-by-step instructions, and although it asks us certain questions to answer, it still left room for creativity because that's what the internet allows us to have - CREATIVITY.  I actually ended up googling "the top 10 most beautiful rocks or minerals," and that's how I came about choosing my mineral, rhodochrosite -- because the internet allowed me to have the freedom to perform more tasks than what my assignment asked for, while keeping me on track with the topic and questions that I needed to answer.  Using the internet also allowed me to discover more pictures of my mineral than what the suggested webpage had already posted... So in the end, I was able to do more research on rocks/minerals using the internet than what a book could ever offer.  The funny thing is that I spent two hours looking at other websites that had rocks/minerals for sale, because I became so fascinated by its beauty... and I want to warn everyone that the prices for nature's beautiful accidents do not fit into our recession-budget, so go out there, dig, and dicover these treasures yourself:)

On another note, I feel that inquiry-based lesson plans are very similar to WebQuests... they both serve as a platform for teachers to create engaging activities that include very descriptive directions in order to achieve the ultimate goal: to facilitate the learning process through technological means.  If I were to have to state a difference, the only thing I can truly come up with is that WebQuests have more of a similar structure with one another when it comes to the makeup of the webpages than 'facilitation plans' do... but then again, many WebQuests are based off of  a "pre-set" webpage from a few websites like questgarden.com

WebQuest and Ramblings...

I entered the world of WebQuests last week, and I've come to this conclusion: How amazingly awesome!  I went onto this website (which I think is the best page for WebQuests) and it made it so easy for me to search for my specific topic because it has it's own "search engine."  So I went on and chose "Math" for "9-12" grade, and found an awesome WebQuest that I actually did for my Geometry class my Freshman year!  What a great idea:  I remember my teacher giving us this assignment, and the instructions were covered in two pages... WebQuest is that solution that all of us who are sensitive to "tree-killing" need!  In addition, WebQuest allows teachers to add a lot more information than what a couple of worksheets can offer.  The assignment consisted of making up a fictional geometry story, so I used The Wizard of Oz as my inspiration.  The main idea of my story was that certain shapes (i.e. triangle, parallelogram, square, etc.) were needing to see the great, wonderful Oz in order to fix something, whether it be a shortened side length or an angle that needed to be changed... Anyways, this website gave students EXAMPLES of mathematical story books that have been published out in the real world and so much more things that my freshman Geometry teacher never showed because giving instructions on paper has its limitations.  At first, when we got into WebQuests last Tuesday, I didn't think it was all that great... but after playing around questgarden.com that following Thursday, I see all its benefits and why it's so great.  The only problem I can think of is dependent on the students themselves.  Should we expect every child to have access to the internet?  Is the school that I will be working for going to provide every class with at least one computer for those who cannot access the internet anywhere else?  WebQuest is such a great idea, but are we getting a little ahead of ourselves in wanting to implement internet-based technology when there are so many children (and schools) out there that cannot afford these specific commodities?

On another note, I've figured out what super power I want.  When I was younger and had more of a "bad side," I wanted to be invisible.  My family and I lived in Philly and we were pretty broke... So broke that I constantly asked myself, "why did my parents have 5 children? That's too many!"  Therefore, I wanted the ability to be invisible... so I could steal money and get away with it... Thank goodness I grew up and developed many-a-morals.  So in my teens, I wanted the ability to fly -- Who could deny that capability?  Now, after this past, strenuous week, I want the ability to manipulate time.  I wish that the Earth really did move much more slowly.  How do we do it-- as students, I mean.... How do we keep up with our responsibility of being pretty much the "perfect student" when there are so many other tasks that need tending to... like working and making money in order to survive and have some sort of roof over our head... and don't forget about the times when LIFE HAPPENS... like, your car breaks down... or your family who's 3 hours away has a horrendous emergency.  I wish I could just FREEZE time... to just stop everything.  Sometimes I think teachers (especially professors in college) are invincible and just plain NOT human--  There's never been a time in my college career when "life happens" to my professor and he/she had to cancel class -- they're PERFECT (like robots!), and it shocks me as I continue taking classes semester after semester after semester...  This is the way society tells us to be, and that's what we are: multi-tasking students -- we have so many responsibilities, and it amazes me that we're able to do all that we do at such a 'young' age.

The Year Of The Rabbit

(The red envelopes above are 
called Lì Xì in Vietnamese)

I usually go home to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family, who are in Franklin, TN.  As I write this blog on my laptop in Knoxville, TN, I am extremely homesick.  Chinese New Year is such a fun and special day for me.  I can picture and smell the special celebration food that my mom cooks every year... and every year I cannot help but sneak in a tiny nibble of something before she presents the food to our ancestors, who are represented through the Buddha Shrine that we have in our 'prayer room' -- Today is a day that I'm usually surrounded by over 30 relatives ranging between the ages of 3 and 78... I already miss those red envelopes filled with money that the "adults" of the family hand out to all of us "children" (yes, I'm proud to say that I get to continue being a 'child' until my career as a teacher kicks off... and all my life, I've tried to prove to everyone that I am just SOOOO GROWN;  however, I enjoy being considered the kid in this case:)... Coupled with these red envelopes is the usual "talk"...

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The Stages of The Talk:

(1)  The adult pulls out a beautifully decorated 2011 lucky red envelope filled with a mystery monetary amount [remember, there is a recession, so forget about what you got the year before]

(2)  The adult slowly hands the envelope to you

(3)  You reach for the envelop, grab a hold of it, but you know to never pull back right away... Note that the adult's hands are still grasped onto the envelope.  Therefore, the envelope should now physically be in your hand as well as the adult's.

(4)  As the envelope stays floating between you and the adult, it is now time for you to open your ears and respond with a "yes ma'am/sir" as the adult lectures you about the following:

  (i)  Continue to work hard in school in order to build a bright future for yourself
 (ii)  Be nice and respectful to your elderly
(iii)  Try your best to make the right decisions in your life
(iv)  Fill in the blank -- Remember, your family is unique... so who knows what unique lessons/morals they'll reveal to you!

(5)  After agreeing to be the best person you can be, the adult will release his/her kung-fu grip on the envelope and you may now respectfully thank the adult and walk away... Make sure to not open the envelope in front of the adult -- Obviously, you are more appreciative of "the talk" than how much money the adult decided to give you

(6)  Open the envelope in a discrete place and break out into your personal celebration dance!  Don't forget that the amount of money you get should never be compared to the amount of love the adult has for you.

(7)  Spend your money wisely, especially in this economy... May I suggest you start up a $avings account?

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Chúc Mừng Năm Mới (Happy New Year)

High School: To Prepare or Scare

So I just found out that we needed to write a post BEFORE class started today, but I swear I checked the website and somehow overlooked this request... Ah-ha!  I found the "problem"-- the blog assignment was written under announcements rather than in our Section 004 classroom website under February 1st (which is what I'm used to, but I'm not going to point any fingers... *cough cough* Beard).  I only kid -- it is my job as a student to make sure I complete my assignments in a timely manner.  Now let's see what's going on in this noggin of mine...

HIGH SCHOOL:  I realized something a long time ago when I was a freshman at UT in 2004... I don't think high school really prepared me for the fundamentals of college life and education.  I remember my teachers telling me things like, "You better know how to write in cursive because it's crucial for you to carry over this skill into college" and other statements that made college seem very strict with rules and regulations.  Instead of saying so much nonsense throughout my four years in high school, I wish they warned us about the TRUE foundations of college.  For instance, when I become a high school math teacher, I will make sure that I share my college experiences with my students in the best and most honest way that I possibly can... So instead of scaring them with all of the "you gotta do this and that and this, and also that," I want my students to realize that I am, what the young generation calls, keepin' it real.

So let's "keep it real" right now, shall we?  Before going to UTK, I would have loved it if my teachers warned me about the grading system in college since it is extremely different from high school.  From 9th to 12th grade, I was able to make straight A's... Because I was a genius? I think not.  I made the grades that I made because I had so many chances to "up" my test grades (the ones that I obviously did not make an A on) by acing the many, many, MANY quizzes and homework that the teacher assigned us.  In college, however, most of my overall classroom grades were strictly based on 3-4 exams... Wait, let me repeat that: 3 to 4 exams! Thanks for the warning senior teachers.  I truly cannot wait until I can share with my future students about what college is really like:)

Website Evaluation

This particular website while having a great aesthetic layout would not be a suitable resource for information simply because it is incomplete. What reading is available is useful but would have to be supplemented by the students by a site that is not in construction and therefore has complete,detailed, and accurate information. There is also a slight issue of possible dated material since this site has not been updated since 2007. Most likely there has been little or no new enlightening data on the subject since it is history but would still use caution and search for a more updated or perhaps currently relevant site. A positive aspect of the site is it does include an in-depth photo gallery, along with copyrights for the texts and pictures. All in all this would be a great resource if it is ever updated to the point of completion. As it stands it is simply a generalized overview of a very limited depiction of a partial history of Henry VIII.

How The Tides Have Turned: Evaluating A Website Evaluation Site

After looking at several websites in the Google Directory, I stumbled upon this great evaluation site that was not only extremely informative, but it's what I consider an "easy" read.  This website is more geared towards the older crowd such as the middle school or high school students.  In particular, this website especially serves as a great foundation for 'beginner' researchers who have just started to dive into the world of writing a significantly long and in-depth research paper.

The website gives great details on how one can make sure that the online resources chosen are reliable.  What grabbed my attention right away was the first few paragraphs that described how we all should think when it comes to pre-evaluation of a source -- It brought up things that I honestly think never crossed my mind.  This skill eventually leads to screening sources much more quickly.  If I would ever need my math students to do any sort of research, I would definitely have them read through this awesome site (Frankly, I find that most of the evaluation sites on the Google Directory are extremely helpful for my age-range group of kids:)

Wikis & Class So Far...

So we've been learning about wikis... and I must admit, I thought that the word wiki was only associated with Wikipedia.  Now I know that wikis are pretty much a ready-to-edit website and can be great for collaboration among teachers and students.  As of now, I've been hands-on with learning about wikis through pbworks.com and it's definitely been a bit of a challenge.  In fact, I just gave up 5 minutes ago with editing my personal page -- I wanted to place two separate pictures of my cats on the right side of my last paragraph (one on top of the other), and I can't seem to get my page to look "right."  It's really late, so I will try to fix it in about 7 hours when class starts. Yes, I'm always up extremely late -- I'd like think my brain works better after midnight:)  After editing my page many of times over a period of about 2 hours and then quitting because I was "so over it," it hit me: I spent so much time trying to figure things out on my own, that I could've probably saved a lot of my time if I read/watched some tutorials on how to edit my workspace.  I mean, that is what the Help link as well as the tutorial videos are for.  Could it be that I just have no patience for watching tutorials?  Am I a part of the "A.D.D. Generation"?  And does the question mark before this sentence go before or after the quotation marks?... and I diverge...  I've always thought that I could figure most things out myself, so I seem to always forget to look elsewhere for help.

I've recently discovered that I freak out more easily over assignments in this technology class more than I ever have in my past classes.  I think it's because I'm still insecure about my techno skills, and if it seems that I did something wrong, I'm automatically in flustered-&-frustrated mode.  Take for instance my small "freak out" two days ago.  I edited my professor's pbworks.com workspace, and I thought I did something wrong.  Instead of taking another 5 seconds to explore more of this wiki website, I automatically e-mailed Professor Beard about wrongfully editing his webpage... After clicking on the SEND icon of my email, I went back to my professor's workspace and found out that I did everything correctly.  So here I go, e-mailing Professor Beard once again about "ignoring my first e-mail" and whatnot.  This scenario definitely served as a great lesson:  Be patient and really dive in & explore before jumping to conclusions.  I hope that by the end of this semester, I'll be able to shake off this insecurity.

After two weeks of taking this course, I can say that I'm very comfortable with the environment.  The step-by-step instructions coupled with the classroom website has definitely kept me on track with TPTE 486.  I almost don't know what I would do without the class website!  I was afraid that we would zoom by all of the lessons that we must cover within this semester, but I like the speed of the class that it's moving at.  Overall, I give this class a "so far, so good..."

Let's Reflect ~ On What I Expect ~ On This Subject

I started my day by waking up last Thursday (January 14th) and packing up my books for my first day of classes.  Before I walked into the classroom, I read the title of my textbook, "Preparing to Use Technology: A Practical Guide to Curriculum Integration."  First, I thought to myself, "Seriously, this book is the SECOND edition!  Have we really been using technology in high school long enough for there to be a 2nd edition on using technology in school?!"  So obviously, I walked into class scared because I consider myself to be technologically-challenged.  After a fun interactive get-to-know-the-rest-of-my-classmates game, realizing that the professor was very laid-back, going through the syllabus, and a few Hershey Kisses later... I walked out of the class feeling just as scared as I walked in -- Hahahaha.

Today, however, I actually am extremely excited about this course.  I'm a blogger now!  What kind of class assigns me to get online and create my own AWESOME blog site?  THIS CLASS!  I feel like I'm learning so much already, and it doesn't feel like busy work... It almost doesn't feel like doing schoolwork at all, because I'm finally "catching up with the times." I'm getting 'hip to the scene'... I'm starting to get 'down with the get down.' Ok, I know, that's enough.

So what are my learning expectations for this class?  Let's see... Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is to become familiar with all of the facets of technology available to be integrated into a classroom.  I don't remember anyone ever bringing a laptop to class during my years from K-12, so it will be very interesting to see how the dynamics of a high school classroom has changed with the implementation of technology.  By the end of the semester, I expect to be able to utilize effective software in order to create papers for my students such as worksheets, quizzes, and other assessments.  I am also interested in getting to know the "Pros and Cons" of supporting engaged learning through technology.  As of now, I cannot think of any cons, but one of the biggest pros for me, as an educator, would be that my students would hopefully have more 'fun' with learning the classroom material through the use of a digital game or through some sort of online program.  And we all know that fun = attention = memory storage (right?) ... That's why I feel that using technology not only brings in creativity to the classroom climate, but it'll hopefully show students that learning is not always all about constantly writing notes and listening to monotonous lectures.

This leads to the biggest expectation I have for TPTE 486 -- and it's that, for the most part, I'll be learning by being more HANDS-ON with my coursework.  Although we do have to read a textbook, I am having so much fun doing what we're reading.  For instance, I read Chapter 5, which touched on blogging... and after an hour of being hands-on in class on the topic of "web logs," I'm now officially a blogger -- and it's actually pretty fun.  By the time this Spring Semester ends, I know that I'll be so much more confident in my future career as an educator --> all because I'll be up-to-date with the tech world.  I'll end this long post by writing, "I'm very glad I had to take this class, and I can't wait to see what else I can use in/for the classroom."

A Small Autobiography

The name’s Judy, but most of my friends call me “Judy Tran”-- they all feel that saying my full name flows much better than just calling me by my first name.  I have two sisters, two brothers, and divorced parents.  My family came to America from Vietnam in 1982, thus, I do speak both English and Vietnamese.  Most people forget that I am bilingual because I miraculously have no accent.  In fact, although I was born in San Fransisco, California, I did not speak English until I was 6 years old because I began attending public school.  


I was raised in the harsh streets of Philly until my mom (she’s my superhero) decided to make a better living by moving to Nashville, TN.  I am very thankful for this move because I would not be who I am today if the ‘Tran Clan’ remained in Philly-- I went from witnessing shootings between gang rivalries to being spoiled by Southern Hospitality, and I do not take it for granted one bit.  Like “The Jeffersons,” we moved on up (or technically down) to the south side to Franklin, TN where I graduated in the top 5% of my class in 2004 at Centennial High School.  I will admit that I was a nerd and always cared about making straight A’s... and I’m proud to say that I’m still a nerd, but I’ve become more relaxed about making perfect grades.  I guess that just comes with age.  


It was during my junior year at Centennial when I decided that I wanted to be a teacher.  I was fortunate enough to have a Calculus Honors and Physics Honors teacher that inspired me to want to teach Mathematics.  Doing homework, taking quizzes and exams, etc. will never be fun, but I will admit that I looked forward to going to these classes every day because my teachers actually made class enjoyable.  This is why I want to teach.  I want to make learning more entertaining and engaging rather than the usual monotonous lectures.  I have had no experience as of yet in the teaching field, but I hope to be some sort of math assistant this summer at a Knoxville High School.  I absolutely love arts-n-krafts, so I hope to not only be a role model, but to also bring in a lot of creativity and smiles to my future students!