Creating a website is like running?

About 2 years ago I decided to try running. I was never any good, but I enjoyed the time to myself and the feeling of accomplishment when I finished my first (and only) 10km race. Running taught me a lot about perseverance.

I'm having to apply those same lessons to this website. But before I get into a progress report, let me remind you of what I'm doing.

Next year I will be returning to the classroom after 3 years of content development.Going back is both exciting and scary. To help me cope with these emotions, I've created a website which collates resources specific to my teaching plan for the year. At this stage, I'm focusing on instructional resources but I hope to do more interesting things in the future.

Progress has been slower than I anticipated. It took a while to figure out how to put equations on the site and to be honest, I also got a little bored. (In fact, I'm writing this post now to try avoid doing more on the website.)

Here is the progress report written as a word problem:
When Fabumaths.co.za is completed, it will have 53 pages. Helen has completed 6 of the pages and another 33 other pages are 20% complete. It has taken Helen 56 hours to do this much work. If she continues at this rate, how many hours will it take her to complete the website? And if she works on it for 5 hours a day, when will she finish it?

I have completed the content pages for Grade 10 Term 1 and have moved on to the content pages for Grade 11 Term 1. Before I go away for Christmas, I'd like to be complete with this and Grade 12 Term 1.

If you would like to see a draft copy of the website, look here.  If you have comments or suggestions for the website, please post them here. (Don't judge me too harshly though, it's very much a work in progress.)

Running taught me that sometimes the action seems boring and insignificant, liking putting one foot ahead of the other, but the outcome is worth the boredom. So with that, I shall go back to working on the site.

Much love.

Putting equations on Weebly

Any Maths teacher can relate to this frustration. I'm doing such cool and exciting things, but I am limited by my lack of ability to code LaTeX and I am limited by Weebly's lack of built in equation editor on their website. 

I've spent roughly a week researching how to get around this and I have FINALLY found a way. MathType.

I have been working on the 30 day free trial version but I will be buying the full product shortly. Anyone who knows me, knows that the product really has to be amazing for me to spend money on it, so this is a huge recommendation.

Anyway, MathType is an equation editor. It looks and feels very much like the equation editor you'll find in Microsoft Word. (And if I'm not mistaken, the equation editor in MS Word is actually based on MathType.)

One of the exciting things MathType will do is copy your normal looking equation as MathJax: LaTeX code. This means that I can paste an equation in a text box on my Weebly site and it will look like I want it to look:

Equations are automatically pasted as an equation that will appear on a line of it's own. The square brackets are what tells Weebly to do this.

The code:

The published page:

Inline equations use round brackets at the front and back. I have to change these manually after I had copied the code from MathType.

The code:

The result:

To get this to work, I had to follow a couple of steps. At first they did feel like Greek to me, but I have summarised them below:

1. Edit the HTML/CSS code in the Design Mode of your Weebly website.
2. Change the 'Cut and Copy Preferences' in the 'Preferences' menu of the MathType program.
3. Set up your equation in MathType, and then copy it into a text box in your Weebly website. Remember that it will display as code.
4. Press publish and view your website for the completed equation.

I hope this helps!

Much love.

Creating a website - exciting new adventures

Well, I have been deeply distracted by the website I'm creating. I used Weebly while working on the Mindset Teach website and found it really user friendly and as result, chose it to use it again. To be honest, I wouldn't know how to work with anything else!

I've arranged the website according to my year plan and have collated relevant resources in each section. I've embedded the videos from Mindset Learn and linked the sections from Everything Maths textbook. I've also aligned all the exercises from the textbook we'll be using in class. At a later stage, I want to include online assessment activities. I might need some advice on how to do that. Any ideas?

Basically, I want this website to match and support my teaching. I will still do conventional teaching in class, but at least the learners have the ability to give themselves extra lessons in the afternoon.

I know that the teenagers will take a while to adjust to this. It takes a while to get used to being responsible for your own learning and I have a feeling they will be resentful about it. By going to extra lessons, you are making your problems someone else's to sort out. This approach forces them to figure out where they are going wrong and finding the right type of help for them. Maybe this is the sort of problem solving skills we should focus on?

Anyway... Once my website has been published, I will post the link on this blog. #suchfun

Until next time, much love.

Year Plan for FET Maths on a Calendar - Use It!

I'm starting teaching again next year after being out of a conventional classroom for the last 3 years. (To see some of what I've been up to, go to my blogs here, here, here and here at Mindset Teach or view the Maths and Maths Lit content at Mindset Learn) At Mindset, we do almost everything on Google Drive, and it's awesome. I don't want to go back to working on paper, and so I've decided to do most of my planning and work using Google Drive and other Android Apps. I've based this decision solely on the fact that these are the platforms most accessible to me. But anyway, enough about that and on to the interesting thing.

I've spent some time putting the CAPS pacesetter on a calendar. I've only focused on FET Maths as this is what I'll be teaching next year, but I have done a calendar for both the inland and coastal school term dates, as well as for the IEB 3 term system. I've made them all public, which means you can copy these dates to your calendar too! Best of all, inside each calendar event, you'll find a link to the CAPS or IEB document which stipulates what needs to be taught in that section. All you have to do is figure out which type of file you need and download it.

CAPS Inland schools
XML: https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/lkcv9rta78d29v9k3iaatnlloc%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic
ICAL: https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/lkcv9rta78d29v9k3iaatnlloc%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
HTML: https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=lkcv9rta78d29v9k3iaatnlloc%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Africa/Johannesburg 

CAPS Coastal schools
XML: https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/put9f67i807mag5ab2ojoo6km0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic
ICAL: https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/put9f67i807mag5ab2ojoo6km0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
HTML: https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=put9f67i807mag5ab2ojoo6km0%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Africa/Johannesburg 

It appears that there is one week short in term 1 to cope with the content laid out in CAPS. That was an interesting move by the DBE. Sometimes I wonder... Anyway...

IEB 3 term schools
XML: https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/1qftqdu2u4brfnt6235tpf8360%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic
ICAL: https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/1qftqdu2u4brfnt6235tpf8360%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
HTML: https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=1qftqdu2u4brfnt6235tpf8360%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Africa/Johannesburg 

I've had to shift around the schedule a bit to make it all fit, so please check the IEB document for the correct order.

I hope these help in your planing. Actually, I hope they help me in my planning!

Much love.