ohhey[blog]

Back to the Flipping Basics

Ken Bauer has more energy than I know what to do with. I met him two or three years ago (something like that) and ever since, he’s taught courses, ... Read more

Into the Deep End with Circuits (and Batman)

I’ve been looking forward to teaching electricity all year. I’ve never done it before and I was excited about the hands-on stuff you can do. Who do... Read more

Running WordPress Without Jetpack and Why That Matters

I gave up using Jetpack a while ago on my blog because I couldn’t control where it sent information. I wish it was more modular in nature because i... Read more

Quickly Format Articles for Annotations

We’re working very hard with students on annotating articles in preparation for the new state test sections. The goal is to help them find pertinen... Read more

Play in Class

We’re playing with magnets this week in class. (We’re actually finishing playing with magnets now.) It’s been great and this is by far one of my fa... Read more

Piping You the Emails

Months ago, I turned off Jetpack on my blog. I use WordPress and Jetpack is a package of apps which handled email subscriptions, comment management... Read more

DIY Recipe Cards

My wife had been hinting that she wanted to use recipe cards in the kitchen rather than her phone all the time. So, I took a few hours and made som... Read more

Christmas 2015

I’m overwhelmed by the feeling of immense blessing and immense wretchedness each year. The birth of Christ – King of Heaven, seated at the right ha... Read more

Graduate School Final Project

I promised Stacy Lovdahl I’d post this the other day and then promptly forgot. Sorry, Stacy. I took a graduate course on curriculum development and... Read more

Futility

The end of the semester is bittersweet. It’s exciting to think of the long break coming up. At the same time, the burden of work to be completed fe... Read more

Updating the getText Extension

In October, I wrote about a bookmark application to get the text of a website for analysis in the Lexile analyzer tool. It’s a pain in the keister ... Read more

Actions Beget Standards…Kind Of.

I wanted to write this down while it’s fresh in my mind (and because it’s late). I’m finishing a graduate semester on curriculum theory and practic... Read more

Thoughts from Home

My wife had our second daughter last week. I’ve been fortunate to be able to stay home with them this week and help out with the newborn and our tw... Read more

Columns and Colors

I’ve taken a big dive into test analysis lately. Spreadsheets, formulas, correlations, and color-coding have become the norm after an exam to help ... Read more

Language

The language I use around grading is very specific, especially when I’m speaking with students. “Your grade is based on how much you learn. You mus... Read more

Close Reading – Day 1

We’re working on our close-reading skills. Indiana has changed the standardized test format (again) and students will be doing very Common Core-lik... Read more

Newton’s Laws Posters

I don’t know what day of class this is, but here’s what we did today. We took a test a week ago that did not go well, to say the least. I already w... Read more

Cultures

I gave a test a week or so ago. When I scored the test the first time, I didn’t think I made my key correctly. So, I double checked it and re-score... Read more

An Easier Way to Get Plain Text

Our school is moving to more active use of Lexile scores for reading selections. The Lexile website has a nice analytic tool which allows you to up... Read more

My Robot Will Fight Your Robot

Spam on Twitter feels like an all-time high right now. Twitter itself is woefully horrible at taking reports of abuse and spamming and all a user c... Read more

Natural Consequences

This is the hardest part of teaching, if you ask me. What are the natural consequences of not completing a task in the given amount of time? It sta... Read more

An Experiment in Process

This post outlines a recent lesson and activity I designed for my integrated chemistry/physics students. Fair warning: science ahead. The Problem I... Read more

Make a Website for your Flash Drive

The Problem If you’ve ever been in a situation where substitute teachers can log onto the computer but not do much with the Internet other than tak... Read more

Getting the Axes Right in Google Sheets

I think I finally figured it out. Getting charts and graphs created in Google Sheets (or Excel for that matter) has always been somewhat of a wrest... Read more

Building Rigor

I missed two days of school last week. One day gone is enough added work on it’s own, two is nearly unthinkable. I wanted to make sure my students ... Read more

From Crappy to Okay

One of my goals this year is to help students struggle productively with ideas before I loop back to teach it. I don’t remember who said this first... Read more

Quickly Make Bulletin Board Words

Marc Seigel is always doing great things in his classroom and he tweeted out a great picture of a bulletin board that now lives at the front of his... Read more

More Scripts to Make Life Easier

It’s been an intense week of teaching, church band practice, and Google Apps Scripting. I’m really focusing this year on using the computer to do w... Read more

Updated Student Response Template

A while back, I wrote about a new Google Sheets response system I created for use in class. I suggest you go back and read that first if you haven’... Read more

QR Codes Everywhere

In my continuing effort to make things more available for students, I’ve started rearranging my Google Drive files. I’ve realized that thinking of ... Read more

Start of Year Notes

It seems appropriate to bookend my summer writing hiatus with some notes on the start of the year on August 6th. I’ve got a lot of things planned a... Read more

End of Year Notes

I just finished my fifth year teaching after an 18 month hiatus. I usually jot this stuff down in a notebook, but it’s full, and I haven’t replaced... Read more

In the Silence

In the silence, a shuffle is a landslide. Clicks and ticks shake the air. Furrowed brows rattle individual hairs. Teaching is a human invention, th... Read more

Thinking Smarter

I want to think smarter. I don’t want to know more facts or spout more trivia. I don’t want to just work smarter, either. I want to actually think ... Read more

Withholding Opportunities or Planning Accordingly?

11 days left. There’s a lot of review happening right now – we’ve finished our final chapter tests and looking ahead at a double-whammy final exam.... Read more

Get in touch

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