ASchool.us

Over 1,000,000 math fact problems solved!

2011-10-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

We are excited to share that over 1 million math fact problems have been solve at aschool.us/math. Over 880,000 of them were solved correctly giving a student an accuracy of 86%.

How to draw a simple figure using Inkscape

2011-10-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

This tutorial demonstrates how to draw a simple character using a few basic tools found in Inkscape. The tutorial could easily be adapted to most any other vector based drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.

How to draw a simple heart

2011-10-07T19:00:00.001-07:00

This simple tutorial demonstrates how to create a simple heart using Inkscape (www.inkscape.org). It can be adapted to most any other vector based drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.

Moodle & Mahara and other updates at ASchool.us

2011-07-06T15:37:00.000-07:00

System Update: Moodle has been upgraded to verstion 2.1. Mahara as been added to the list of programs available at ASchool.us/moodle. Mahara is an electronic portfolio system that can be connected to Moodle through SSO. I've outlined a few of the great features that can make students lives easier. Single sign-on (SSO): Allows users to login to moodle and then move straight into Mahara without

Tablet Exploration

2011-06-30T08:28:00.000-07:00

I just ordered three Archos 7" tablets for my classroom from woot.com for $75 each. Sure it is an older version of the Android OS but all I was wanting it for was basic web browsing and videos. I'll post more about them when I receive them, the are in the mail but I will not get them for a while since I have to double ship them to get them to Alaska. Over the past several years I have toyed with

Interactive Clock

2011-06-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a resource that I just finished creating to help students explore how to read time on an analog clock. It allows the student to jump to a specific time or increment the time forward or backward by hours, minutes, or seconds. You may integrate this into your website using the following html code: <iframe frameborder="1" height="225" src="http://aschool.us/resources/clock.php?size=200"

For all your random needs

2011-06-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

I just finished adding a new random feature to the list of programs that are available at aschool.us For your convenience here is a description to each of the random programs that are currently available: Random Student Selector Given a list of names it will randomly select a name. You can continue to select names as long as you want. The program will attempt to favor names that haven't been

Free Software for the Classroom Compilation

2011-06-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm working on making a compilation on a DVD of educational software that can enhance student learning and productivity. Here is a list of the programs that I'm planning on putting on the disc. Please feel free to add your suggestions. Many of the programs are open source while others are simply free. Office/Desktop Publishing: Open Office (Win, Mac, Lin) http://www.openoffice.org Create and

Word Fun

2011-06-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

A classmate of mine shared this website with me that she uses to help her with an icebreaker activity. The website is Wordle.net. You can make interesting word designs patterns given a list of words. Here is a sample that I made using a list of prepositions. I'm sure that I will come up with some more creative uses for it as I later.

Word Scramble Creator

2011-06-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

ASchool.us is pleased to offer yet another script to help make your teaching life simpler. Especially for you moodlers. The Word Scramble Creator is a simple web application that takes a list of words and scrambles the the letters of each word. The student then has to unscramble the letters. The output is very simple friendly so that it can be printed or copied to a word processor. Here is a

Math Facts Approaches 600,000 Correct Student Responses

2011-06-05T21:57:00.000-07:00

I was creating some statistics from data at Math Facts this afternoon and realized that there are 600,000 correct student responses to math fact questions so I decided that again it was time to crunch some numbers. Statistics: Accuracy of student responses 87.1% 732,620 addition and multiplication problems solved. 638,347 addition and multiplication problems solved correctly. Multiplication:

Graphing Multiple Inequalities Using Two Variables.

2011-06-05T21:52:00.000-07:00

First graph each equation as explained in my previous post but only shade lightly. Next determine if the problem is asking for the intersection (and) or union (or). If it is an intersection then the solution for the system of two or more equations is only where all of the graphs overlap. If it is a union it is where any of the shading is located. Be careful of infinite solutions and no solutions

Moodle XML Grading Assistant

2011-06-02T22:20:00.000-07:00

I just finished writing a new web app that can save you some time, the Moodle XML Grading Assistant. The Moodle XML Grade Assistant allows you to quickly create an XML (or csv) file that can be imported into Moodle. Here is a list of the features: Step 1 Simple to use Quick Fill. Fill in the same value for all student. You can bookmark your class roster so that you do not have to type it in

Xournal for Windows

2011-05-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

Xournal is a note taking program that I've been using on Linux for several years and has finally been ported to Windows. This is great for those of us that work in hybrid environments. Thanks Dirk for posting your work and thanks Denis for making Xournal. Here are the directions of what Dirk did to get Xournal working on windows (http://dirkgerrits.com/2009/10/28/xournal-on-windows/). Now you can

Math Facts Statistics Update

2011-05-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

A few facts about ASchool.us/Math Students have answered over 920,000 math fact questions since ASchool.us/Math Facts was launched in January 1, 2009. 9 students have solved over 20,000 problems. The average student has solved 5,701 problems. 2010-2011 school year statistics 106 students solved over 477,572 problems during the school year. One student has solved over 23,000 problems during the

Random Group Generator Update

2011-04-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

This morning I was able to finish an update for the Random Group Generator. Now you can choose to divide the groups based on the number of groups you want or the maximum size of each group. First select the mode, then enter the size larger than 1. If you selected max group size then you have the choice between two modes: maximum group size and balanced group size. The maximum mode makes sure

Color wheel in the classroom.

2011-04-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

In science class we are studying about light and color. The video clips below demonstrate a simple way for students to experiment with different ways to create color and how they mix together. The first demonstration used Inkscape (www.inkscape.org) and allows the student to mix the colors to create new colors whereas the second video uses Gimp (www.gimp.org) and has the computer mix the colors

Free OpenBiblio Setup

2011-01-21T15:21:00.000-08:00

At ASchool.us we are doing an experiment to see how much interest there is in the OpenBiblio library software. Sign up now for your free account. We will start by providing accounts to the first 10 people that Sign up. All others will be setup as resources become available. Example book entry Your library patrons will be shown Infolinks, Google, and Amazon ads to help fund this experiment if

Words Your Way Spelling Inventory

2011-01-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a spelling learning/practice/testing application over at beta.aschool.us and have just implemented a spelling inventory that I found in the book Words Your Way by Donald R. Bear, Marcia Invernizzi, Shane Templeton, Francine Johnston, Published by Pearson. It's setup pretty simple you simply share the links below with your students and when they press enter the results get

Yet another potentially useful website

2011-01-02T20:33:00.001-08:00

www.ixl.com This looks like a great website to help access students math levels and help with remediation.

Great website.

2011-01-02T20:26:00.000-08:00

I was looking for handwriting paper this evening and stumbled upon this great website. It even has some free fonts and many different creative handwriting templates. http://donnayoung.org/penmanship http://donnayoung.org/penmanship/make-handwriting-lessons.htm

Periodic Chart Elements Questions for Moodle

2010-11-07T15:19:00.000-08:00

I just posted a set of quiz questions for Moodle at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Periodic-Chart-Symbols-MoodleXML. Each questions asks for the symbol for the given element of the periodic table. The questions are grouped by row of the periodic table. Updated: 11/7/2010 I've added atomic number, groups, and periods to the questions now. Now most of the elements have 6 questions

New Spelling Feature Preview

2010-10-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that a new spelling feature will be added to Math Facts. With the addition of spelling we've decided to change the name from MathFacts to Apps@ASchool.us. You can check out the preview at http://beta.aschool.us/demo/spelling/ Some of the features include emailing of student scores and student responses to the teacher learning mode which gives them hints about which

Exploring Tumblr in the classroom

2010-09-26T22:35:00.001-07:00

I have a student that will be out of the country for at least a month and I've been trying to think of ways to easily communicate with him. Here's my latest idea. Some of our assignments in English class we grade together in class so I will just record our grading process with VR+ on my iPod Touch and send it to my Tumblr email address. This should be quick and easy for me. Now to see how

Preposition Activities

2010-08-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

Just finished adding two preposition activities to TpT and WorksheetShare.com. A prepositions crossword puzzle and a prepositions word search. The crossword puzzle even comes with an answer key when you purchase it from TpT. I plan on adding an answer key to the word search later. Both activities are designed to go along with the Easy Grammar® series by Dr. Wanda C. Phillips. If you are not