ohhey[blog]

Defining the Problem

Consider the train problem: A train is barreling down the tracks. At a fork, you have the option of flipping the train to the left branch or the ri... Read more

More on Licensing Culture and Owning What You Pay For

I was talking with our school librarian today about why we don’t offer ebooks for students to check out. It came up because I grabbed a real, hardc... Read more

Flipped Learning as a Way to Build an Online Presence

[|](https://farm9.static.flickr.com/8751/17140910740_dc6fcd4ca2_z.jpg)| [Hybrid Pedagogy](http://www.hybridpedagogy.com) is a publication you shoul... Read more

Push Announcements With a Chrome Extension

Patrick Donovan put out a tweet the other day with a screenshot to a Chrome extension he had just put together. It caught my attention and led to t... Read more

Registering Help Requests in Trello from Google Sheets

I’m on a new team with the school district (I don’t think I’ve written about that change yet…). I’m teaching one section of AP Biology and working ... Read more

Maybe it IS About the Video…

In 2011, I wrote a post in which I strongly declared that Flipped Learning [is not about the videos](http://blog.ohheybrian.com/2011/10/video-is-no... Read more

Commenting on Periscope in a Blog Post

A week or two back, Lisa Dabbs, known for starting and moderating #ntchat wrote a post (a second post, actually) on why new teachers should use Per... Read more

17 Year Cicadas

[|](https://farm6.static.flickr.com/5533/10176913895_fb59a06963_z.jpg)| [flickr photo](https://flickr.com/photos/bennettscience/10176913895 “DSC_01... Read more

Another Free App is Closing

News came down this week that [Zaption](http://www.zaption.com), a popular web app that layers quiz question and other interactive features on top ... Read more

Recognizing Devaluation in EdTech and Teaching

ISTE 2016 is in full swing and right on cue, my hype-o-meter tolerance has dropped significantly. A huge concentration of edtech vendors and Twitte... Read more

Using the Hypothes.is API in a Google Apps Script

I’ve started using the [Hypothes.is](http://hypothes.is) annotation tool more lately, mostly at the behest of [Kris Shaffer](http://www.twitter.com... Read more

The Education Freeconomy Gobbles Up Another

Free in education is a big deal. Don’t bother mentioning paid apps in front of teachers because you’ll lose the group. Last year, we saw [Geddit](h... Read more

Hacking Together an Auto-Tweeting Spreadsheet

A while back, I had looked at automating tweets from a Google spreadsheet to reduce the insane number of clicks it takes to do in TweetDeck and Hoo... Read more

The Line Between High Expectations and Impossible Expectations

I absolutely hate teaching bonding. The abstract nature of atoms, the minutiae of nomenclature, and the details of writing formulas bog students do... Read more

Mercury’s Transit

[In 2012](http://blog.ohheybrian.com/2012/06/venus-flyby/), [we saw Venus transit the sun](http://blog.ohheybrian.com/2012/06/venus-the-aftermath/)... Read more

I Need to Remember to Post Answer Keys

Everything I do in class is geared toward building understanding. I want students to be able to both complete the task and understand _why_ they’re... Read more

Minimum Viable Input

In software, there’s a lot of discussion about the “minimum viable product” when you’re designing something: what is the bare basic you can deliver... Read more

Assessing the Assessed

State testing. There are no words. Week two of six is halfway done. Meanwhile, I keep teaching and I keep assessing. Most of it is formative, infor... Read more

Question Mark Answers

We played Jeopardy today in class (with some major upsets coming during final Jeopardy…quite exciting) to review atoms and the periodic table organ... Read more

Why Are Questions So Scary?

I remind my students constantly that I can’t help if they don’t do one of two things: 1) Ask me a question when they’re confused, or 2) get somethi... Read more

The Remodel

Three years ago, my wife and I bought our first home. I can’t believe I haven’t written more on this before (which is partially true. I mention the... Read more

Making Seen the Unseen

My grading practices have improved this year. I’m keeping better track of information, I’m using it more often, and I’m showing students – constant... Read more

Expanding the SBG Tracking Gradebook

I mentioned Evan Weingberg’s standards-based tracking system in a short snippet a couple weeks back. I want to expand on that thought a little bit.... Read more

When Class Itself is a Distraction

I’m going to stop doing labs in one of my classes this semester. Regardless of the supports or steps I put in place, there is a general refusal (sa... Read more

Easily Filter Large Data Sets in Google Sheets

I use Google Sheets in my classroom a lot. I used to rely on combinations of the vlookup, importrange, and index/match functions to get information... Read more

The Power Game

I did something I normally don’t do: I had my students play a computer game for class the other day. We’ve just finished nonrenewable resources – s... Read more

Teaching Thoughts

Some things I’m thinking through this week, written here so I can find them later. – Evan Weinberg has a good string of posts on his blog related t... Read more

Fly, You Fools!

This semester, a few classes asked for bi-weekly review over the entire year so they can keep old material fresh. I was really happy to get these r... Read more

Don’t Call it a Sheep

Test prep is becoming more insidious. Rather than being outright drill-and-kill for the multiple choice marathon students are forced to take, now i... Read more

Above all, I must not play God.

The Hippocratic Oath really parallels education. More on that somewhere else. I cannot play at God in my classroom. I am not a dictator. My role is... Read more

Choices

Before I dive in, I think Justin Aion and I are parallels of one another in the multiverse. His day was similar to mine. — Six weeks into this seme... Read more

Learning as a Sum of Experiences

I’ve been working very hard this year to make sure students experience science – or the process of science – as much as possible. Physics and chemi... Read more

The Earthquake Lab

Waves are tricky to teach. Students feel like they already have a ton of experience with them (you’ve been to the beach somewhere, I’m sure.) and t... Read more

My Favorite Video Tool

I’ve done a ton of labs with students this month. We’re learning about waves and there are some fun demos and experiments you can use to illustrate... Read more

The Environment

My video was rambly this week. I think it’s because I have complete control over my environment, but there’s just not much I can do with it. I have... Read more

Get in touch

Comments are always open. You can get in touch by sending me an email at brian@ohheybrian.com