Schooled in Budgeting: How my frugality let to a great middle school project

For those of you reading that do not know me, I am a teacher by profession. I teach middle school math and science across grades six, seven and eight. I often try to bring things happening in the real world into my class and make students consider real world situations or possibilities in context with their math.

I often say there are three people in this world, "Those that don't understand math, those that do understand and those that use math in their life".

I want students to be able to understand and know how numbers work in real life!

Here is how this concept played out in my classroom when budgeting and curriculum met. We were working on a unit relating to percentages. This unit even includes the ideas of mark ups, discounts, tax simple interest and commission. I challenged myself to create a project that had students use their percentage skills in a real way that can translate to life outside of and after grade school.

What I came up with is a project in which they researched a profession and made a rough monthly budget using percentages of their monthly salary. Keep in mind these are 6th and 7th graders so the monthly budget doesn't include everything.

Some focuses of this project for me were prioritizing the cost of monthly budget items and giving students "checkpoints" to evaluate and make decisions based on their salary left.

Here is a link to the assignment itself: https://goo.gl/LktWiE

Some takeaways that I had from the project:

• Students were engaged in their learning and were having discussions among each other and with other teachers and their parents
• They were forced to make decisions based on salary. Some of these decisions were living with a roommate, living somewhere else, or driving a used car
• Some students decided to change career to have more salary to work with
• Different students put a different priority on houses, cars and entertainment costs
• Students made varying amounts of salaries work in general. Whether they made $30,000 and year or $200,000 a year they could make decisions to make their budget work

Some takeaways from students:

• Many students said that more went into making their budget work every month than they originally thought
• Students commented that they are glad they had this experience because they can see how it will translate to life
• Students have had ongoing dialogue with parents and friends about budgeting
• A student asked when you learn budgeting in school...I let them know that you generally do not
• A comment that was interesting was a students said, "So if I make x amount of money I cannot just live wherever I want?"
• Planning puts you in a better spot than if you do not plan

The fact is that budgeting and financial planning is only taught  by parents or through self-research unless those conversations happen at home. Fortunately, many of my students have those conversations with parents as it is an affluent district in general. But for the kids that don't get those experiences, it was a great opportunity to start considering budgeting. 

Perhaps the comment that made me chuckle the most was, "Man, it is tough to budget on this teacher salary". My response was, "Bro, you need to read my blog!".

Thanks for reading :)

YouTube Distractions NO MORE!

We've all probably been there before. You're showing a video from the amazing resource which is YouTube. There are a plethora of educational videos that are rich, entertaining, funny and pertinent in which students really enjoy. However, there is always the fear of an inappropriate advertisement or suggestion for a related video that makes you wish you had never shown the video!



There's an app for that!



It is called Quiettube and can be found at http://quietube.com/. 

You drag the button on the web page to your Bookmark toolbar and it is ready to roll. Go to YouTube, pick your video, and click the bookmark you just made for Quiettube  and there are no more suggestions on the side of videos and life is better!

Thanks for taking the time and reading Simple Ed Tech.

If you liked this post you may also enjoy the following:

Screen casting Tools

or

Symbaloo - How to Organize Bookmarks on the Cloud

Screen Casting Tools

Screen Casting Tools

From time to time it is nice to have the ability to capture and share things you can see on your computer. Whether it is a Youtube video you want to add commentary to, directions on how to do a web quest, or having students use it to create content in which to share, there are times where the ability to Screen Cast, or get a video of your computer's screen with your voice in the background, is useful.

There are two tools I use and that I know that work well.

1) Screencast-o-matic: This is my go to Screen Cast resource. There are now two different versions. One that simply runs in your browser (you don't have to download anything) and one that you can download. I just started tinkering with the download version and it has an interesting feature in which it can record whoever is screen casting and place that video in the corner if you have a webcam. I also really like how you have options to simply download the video in multiple formats or even upload it right to Youtube!

2) Snagit: Snagit is a TechSmith product so I'm already a little biased as they are a Michigan company. This Chrome based application was initially used as a screen capture app. They have now included screen casting as a feature and it looks to be promising. You just need to install the extension to your Chrome browser and you should be good to go. One nice aspect of the Snagit application is that it can link up with your Google Drive which is nice for those of use that use a lot of Google products already.

If there is a screen capture application or software you really like please be sure to share in the comments.

Thanks for time to read the Simple Ed Tech Blog. If you'd like to get updates please make sure to put your email into the right column of the Blog.

Symbaloo - Organize Websites You Use

So we have all had the problem when we find a website, link video, etc that we love and we used last year in the classroom and then we can't find it, even after saving it to our web browser's bookmarks because there are 200 addresses saved.

There is a quick fix that is easy to use for you and your students and it is called Symbaloo!

This cloud based website (you can get to it from anywhere and any device with Internet) allows you to organize and save links that you want to save.

Here is what a sample page of links looks like...

This is just one page and you ca make pages for different subjects, grades, classes, etc. (really however you want to organize them).

The graphics in the squares are nice for a quick visual and you can also name them for a second reference.

I have found that students like using this as well for the various websites that they use often at our middle school.

Some links that they regularly have on their Symbaloo page are:

• Every teacher's website
• Online textbook for applicable classes
• IXL Math practice
• Khan Academy
• Quia
• Quizlet
• School Website
• Other

In addition, many students end up appreciating the organization and use the Symbaloo for personal use and organize according to interest.

Students also switch from one device to another often. This means they can access from phones, iPods, iPads, computers and netbooks.

Here is an excellent introductory video made by Symbaloo themselves!

For those that want something a little more in-depth this video is great and it is made by a 7th grade student.

Thanks for reading,

SET

Simple Website to Practice Estimating Percents

If you want to practice estimating percents a great way to do this is by using the real world example of bills and tips at restaurants.

Head on over to Funbrain to play a quick game with levels difficulty to practice this skill. Servers will thank you! :)

Here is what you can expect!

Quick tip for testing new tech

Ever fear that a new technology resource won't work when you go to try it out in class?

A great way to get a feel for how it will work is to have a few students try it out in class or at home and get feedback before introducing it to the masses.

Another great way is to put feelers out on Twitter using hash tags that include the name and/or #edtech #edtechchat or your subject like #msmathchat or #mathchat

Just a couple ways to wade through the black hole of the internet to find solid technology resources.

Thanks for reading,
SET

You NEED a PDF app.

As information becomes more and more digital I think it is necessary to have an app for your phone and/or iPad (if available) to create digital content our of paper content.

My favorite app for the iPad/iPhone is called FasterScanHD.

I use this weekly to change worksheets into PDFs which I then store on my Google Drive for later use.

Here is how it works.

1) Open app
2) Snap a picture of the item
3) Easy steps to enhance the picture
4)Save
5) Email it to yourself to save on computer and/or Google Drive (If you pay for the upgrade you can put it right in your Google Drive or elsewhere more easily...but I'm cheap)

This one works so well that it is all I use. However, I know not everyone has an iPad/iPhone so here is an Android option that I tested and it worked well.

Camscanner worked functionally well and if I did not have the iPad option I would likely use this with my Samsung Galaxy phone.

Feel free to comment with what you like to use and how you use it.

Thanks for reading,
SET