Going back to my lesson now. Before school started we were granted access to “Google Classroom”. This is where I the teacher can give students an assignment and they complete online and submit back to me. If you have taken an online college class, it is Google’s version of Blackboard. My plan was to have my students make a dodecahedron (See picture above) and we were going to collect data and look at the probability associated with our data based on the numbers they rolled. So to get all of this set up, I created a spreadsheet where all of my students could place their data, and we could all work on the document together through Google Docs. I got all of my kiddos logged into Google and started getting them into the “Classroom”. Then my trouble began. My kids could not see document I spent the night before making for us to use. I was frustrated, but luckily I was still able to have them begin collecting their data. I worked the rest of class to find a solution which did not happen, as my students collected data. I took to Twitter which was unsuccessful. I reached out to Dr. McCoy which was unsuccessful, in part. My second attempt at making the assignment failed, and my third attempt magically worked as I went outside for afternoon duty. The good news is, it worked. The bad news is, I don’t know how I fixed it. Since day 1 of this lesson was a flop and I was not going to be defeated, we tried again. With the help of Refranz Davis, I began day 2 by getting my remaining students into my “classroom”, but my problems continued. I had one student able to view our Google doc. I have my students collect more data while I punt for the second day in a row. Then a second student is able to view the document. At the time I have no clue what they did. I start clicking anything and everything on the page and I get a third student into the Google doc. Still not sure exactly the fix, I move to another student and then I realize what the fix it.
REFRESH
I have the rest of my class hit the refresh button and everyone was now viewing the document. What a relief! We were able to put in our data and look at the probabilities we had in our trials and continue with the lesson. I could not thank my kids enough for being patient with me while I found a solution, but they did enjoy looking at the data and seeing how probability works.
In the end, I learned a big lesson. When something doesn’t work, hit the refresh button and try again.
Matthew Trammell
7th and 8th Grade Math