I attended a Global Math Department webinar hosted by an amazing Mandi Tolen (who apparently saw this idea from Micah Shippee) and I completely fell in love with this project! Basically, the students create a Google Slide with their assigned unit, each unit has topics that must be included on a separate slide, and all slides are put together to create an App for their phone.
It may be helpful to check out this folder with everything relating to this post so you can follow along better. Here's the breakdown...
I created a Slides Presentation for each unit in Precalculus (Triangle Trig, Conics, etc.) and labeled what topics needed to be addressed within those units. I also included directions for students to create their own Presentation so that the slides would fit on the screen of a phone (hence, the "app" part of the activity). I shared the folder of all directions and Presentation topics with the students to make life easier for me. They were prompted to choose a card at random with the unit name they were responsible for and open that Presentation only from the folder. (I always get a little nervous sharing folders with students as things tend to get deleted, so these are not my only copies of the documents!)
Students immediately dove into the activity without being prompted by me and began creating their portion of the App. Once the groups had completed their components, they shared the Presentation with me (hind site: I should have instructed the class to create their Presentations in the same folder I shared with them so that my inbox stayed clean).
After I had all units were shared with me, I went back and created the actual App for them. I needed to put all of the topics into one Presentation and make sure the links worked. I then gave them instructions on how to add the App to their home screens. BAM!
Some things I learned...
This was the second time I tried this activity. The first time, I emailed each group the Presentation with their unit. Well that was a waste of time, so I just shared the folder with all units and hoped nobody messed up the files.
Also, the first go-around I was WAY more controlling and made sure everything was perfect before I shared the App with the students. This time, I only made a few changes and gave the disclaimer that "not everything on here is absolutely perfect".
Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think! The above GIF is the App that my students created last semester I and made more changes than I should have :)
Bonus: I created a rubric for grading, if you're into that kind of thing. It's in the shared folder.
Thanks for reading!
~ssb
It may be helpful to check out this folder with everything relating to this post so you can follow along better. Here's the breakdown...
I created a Slides Presentation for each unit in Precalculus (Triangle Trig, Conics, etc.) and labeled what topics needed to be addressed within those units. I also included directions for students to create their own Presentation so that the slides would fit on the screen of a phone (hence, the "app" part of the activity). I shared the folder of all directions and Presentation topics with the students to make life easier for me. They were prompted to choose a card at random with the unit name they were responsible for and open that Presentation only from the folder. (I always get a little nervous sharing folders with students as things tend to get deleted, so these are not my only copies of the documents!)Students immediately dove into the activity without being prompted by me and began creating their portion of the App. Once the groups had completed their components, they shared the Presentation with me (hind site: I should have instructed the class to create their Presentations in the same folder I shared with them so that my inbox stayed clean).
After I had all units were shared with me, I went back and created the actual App for them. I needed to put all of the topics into one Presentation and make sure the links worked. I then gave them instructions on how to add the App to their home screens. BAM!
Some things I learned...
This was the second time I tried this activity. The first time, I emailed each group the Presentation with their unit. Well that was a waste of time, so I just shared the folder with all units and hoped nobody messed up the files.
Also, the first go-around I was WAY more controlling and made sure everything was perfect before I shared the App with the students. This time, I only made a few changes and gave the disclaimer that "not everything on here is absolutely perfect".
Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think! The above GIF is the App that my students created last semester I and made more changes than I should have :)
Bonus: I created a rubric for grading, if you're into that kind of thing. It's in the shared folder.
Thanks for reading!
~ssb
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