Continuous formation

Now, as a math teacher, "differentiation of product" means something completely different... but for this purpose it means -- don't expect every student to respond to your request for evidence of understanding with the same learning artefact. This is well stolen from Vanderbilt University (https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/di/cresource/q2/p07/ ) Now, even as a first year teacher way back in the 90s before I really knew about differentiation of product, I encouraged students to present their mathematics projects as diversely as possible.  But OneNote has truly given them complete freedom and ease of submission. Inking  -- first & foremost, student mathematical work tends to be handwriting.  Most of my students don't know LaTeX (although I have had a few of my students, from Grade 9 and up, learn it once they were told it existed and was what 'real' mathematics authors use.  Interestingly, OneNote (and Word & PowerPoint) supports LaTeX .  ...

Since organization is important when visiting an incredibly packed conference like the annual National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), I thought I would share my approach to that using OneNote.  You can visit it here: http://tinyurl.com/nctm18onenote How did I do it?  First, I visited http://www.onenote.com and signed in with my Microsoft Account.  If you don't have a Microsoft Account (1) they're free and (2) you can make any email into a Microsoft Account login, so you're not creating a new email.  It's just another identity provider, like Google, Facebook or Twitter. There's a (very small) button to add a new OneNote Notebook on the OneNote website -- this is also where you can get at all of your notebooks, both those you created and those that have been shared with you.I named the OneNote "NCTM 2018" .. it comes created with a Section called "Quick Notes" and a first page. Now, every one of my browsers have the OneNote Web...

As folks know, I'm a big fan of #digitalink -- as a math teacher, as an aspiring creative person, I always want to scribble. I write on everything at home, and always have.  The back of envelopes (when people use to send them), post-it notes, boxes... I scribble everywhere.  I also doodle a lot when I'm bored. Lots of geometric figures, fractals and attempts at people. But it's also math -- math is drawing, sketching, inking the patterns & graphs we ask them to provide the algebra for.  And algebra! Lord, the notations. That's why, when we were rebuilding our classrooms and someone asked me my opinion, I asked specifically for desks that would allow whiteboard markers.  And it's been great!  My students aren't encumbered by the limits of paper or the laptop's screen and they don't have to go up to the board to collaborate.  They use the desk-top and a whiteboard marker.  In this digital age, they then use the Office Lens app on their phones to...

Getting content into OneNote is incredibly easy ... since every page acts like a clipboard, just drag&drop or use the INSERT ribbon. You can use the smartphone app  OfficeLens (which takes pictures of "real" content, cleans it up, and pushes it right into OneNote) or you can use the WebClipper  -- a browser add-in for Edge, Chrome & Firefox on Win/Mac devices which captures any webpage, cleans it up, and pushes it right into OneNote. Both are amazing tools ... but there's more than one way to skin a cat!  If you're using Edge browser, there's an even more powerful alternative built-in -- the "Make a Web Note" button (pink emphasis added).  Now, I know there are folks in the crowd smirking at the thought of Edge browser.  Well, I use both Chrome & Edge simultaneously -- because while Chrome is a good general-use browser, Edge offers some great opportunities for productivity & creativity, including the WebNote.  And, Chrome is a hu...

A brief aside. I had dropped by a workshop first thing this morning and was sitting at the front and wanted to grab a shot of the screen; at first I used my camera -- I wasn't thinking.  As soon as I looked at the image, I realized I should be using Office Lens.  Look, it was early morning and I wasn't quite awake. Just using the camera app Office Lens is an app for both Android ( link ) and iPhone/iPad ( link ) - and its main purpose is to capture physical content, clean it up and add it into your OneNote. When you start the app, you get a camera ... but with a bouncing, resizing white rectangle superimposed on your image.  It's a smart rectangle, so it's looking for the piece of paper, the whiteboard, the business card, the content that is sitting in front of you.  Once you have it framed by the white rectangle, you tap the photo button and it grabs the image, cleans it up (brightens, sharpens), crops and... if the image...