Graphing Calculator Tutorials (TI-83 & TI-84)

Last year I started creating calculator tutorials using Jing. I like Jing, unfortunately you are stuck in a proprietary format and I haven't had any real luck in converting it to another format. So, I don't really use it anymore. Regardless, the tutorials I created last year were done more for a teacher as the audience and I decided I really want some with my students as the audiance. Consequently, I'm redoing them.

I rely on my students knowing how to use their graphing calculators in my Physics class. Consequently, I spend a bit of time at the beginning of the school year teaching them how to use them. Unfortunately, they often loose skills they once had as we go along. So, this year I've decided to handle things differently. I will spend less time in class teaching them and more time teaching them at home. I'm in the process of creating some videos to help teach the skills they need. Don't expect high production values on these. My goal will be to do them in one take and to simply upload when done (no post editing).

Why am I doing this? Two reasons really. The first is so I don't have to spend too much class time covering it. The second is that the videos will stay on the internet, so if they need to review later in the semester they can.

Below is the first video in the series. To see more calculator videos as I create them just surf over to my FLOSScience site.

Screencasting Made Easy

I just discovered Jing while listening to the Geek!Ed! podcast today. Jing can be used for taking screen shots (I haven't tried this yet) or doing video screencasts. It is really easy to use and I was up and running in a matter of minutes. They have versions for Windows and Mac. It is currently free, but they may charge for it eventually. Videos are saved as *.swf files (flash video). You can view them in a browser locally or have them hosted at screencast.com

I'll definitely be playing with this more over the next few days. our science department is trying to get the students using their graphing calculators more. The problem is that I'm the only science teacher who knows how to use my calculator. So, I'm creating a series of tutorials for the other teachers. I'm using Virtual TI, a great (free) calculator emulator and capturing in Jing.

Below is the first in the series of tutorials. You can get all of the here, or you can subscribe to the RSS feed to get them all and any I create in the future.