ohhey[blog]

If You Have It, Use It

I took the time the other day to show my students what exactly I look at when I’m grading tests. I use standards based grading, so I’m going way de... Read more

Making Endnotes from Footnotes

**Update 12.22.2016** Since this has become quite a popular script, I’ve converted it into a Google Docs Add On so it can be used across documents.... Read more

Transparency Matters

Some backstory. A month ago I wrote about Geddit going out of business this summer. I mentioned another response-system app, Kahoot!, which has exp... Read more

Denotification

I went about four months this year without a smartphone. I used an unlocked flip phone that barely made calls and didn’t have reliable text predict... Read more

The Talk

We had school on Good Friday this year because of snow day accruals, which means we had a ton of students out. I wanted to give one short assessmen... Read more

Creating docs with Python

Another extension to what I wrote last night, mainly for my own purposes so I don’t forget what I did or where I put scripts. bash is great, but it... Read more

Automate ALL the Docs!

I’ve been programming a lot lately, mainly to make my own life easier. I usually start something when I’m doing a menial task that a computer could... Read more

Getting Random Post Suggestions from Custom Google Search Engines

Update 3/31 – After more tinkering, I’ve changed the code to be more stable with any changes Google makes in the future. Code snippets are up to da... Read more

Making Sub Plans Easier

I hate missing school. It’s stressful. I have to do multiple days worth of planning ahead of time, plus know what’s happening the day I get back. T... Read more

Another Casualty of the Free-Only Economy

Geddit, a response-system app will be turning off its servers on June 30th, 2015. I heard about this software about a year ago when I sat down next... Read more

The Solemn Duty of Educating

Featured image is creative commons licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Raed Mansour The community is suffering. Students are frustrated and they... Read more

Cleaning up PHP functions

Last year, I took some time to write a small blog theme for Anchor CMS using some PHP and a lot of CSS. Too much, if you ask me. If I had the time,... Read more

Why I Quit Teaching

A post caught my attention the other day and I'm usually not one to write response pieces, but I can't stop thinking about this. This post is about... Read more

Student Rubrics with Google Forms and docappender

Every other month, we give students an argumentative writing prompt which is then scored against a standard rubric. One of our school goals is to i... Read more

Because We Can Doesn’t Mean We Should

This weekend, our local over-the-air movie stations had a marathon of classic monster/science fiction movies. I watched a bit of King Kong (1976) w... Read more

Double Bind

I nearly lost my temper this morning. One class in particular has some…big personalities. I want to be able to do hands on, interactive work with t... Read more

Funny Money

How much money do we spend to go to conferences? A few hundred, easily. How much money do we spend on tools, apps, programs, and resources to use i... Read more

Grade Games

I get asked abou my grading a lot because it’s pretty different than a typical classroom. I’ve refined it slowly over the years, and I’m by no mean... Read more

Find Your Seats

I’m a big believer in letting students make their own decisions as much as they can. In high school, they’re dictated to. A lot. I figure picking s... Read more

Look Up! It’s a Space Comet!

I get really, really excited about comets. I remember seeing comet Hale-Bopp back in 1997 hanging in the sky and being amazed that those wanderers ... Read more

What’s Worth Your Time?

This year, my wife and I decided to make many of the gifts we gave for Christmas. Me, having a bunch of time off from working, and Lindsey, raising... Read more

Teacher

I’m really struggling. I lost my job in November and I’m in the midst of trying to balance what I do with who I am. I wrote in January about the co... Read more

More Email Management Tips

Email is a bear. The Oatmeal covered it pretty thoroughly. I use a few little tricks with Gmail that many people don’t know about, so I figured I’d... Read more

An Argument for Creative Work

This is the final post for my Creativity in Teaching and Learning course, and it’s broken up into three parts. The White Paper The first part is a ... Read more

How To: Find Emails You Haven’t Replied to in Gmail

David Wees asked a question on Twitter today that I thought would be pretty easy to solve: @bennettscience I probably read the email though. In fac... Read more

Homework is a Red Herring

Polarization is easy to achieve, but it’s hard to undo. Education is riddled with polarizing issues, both political and practical, and the issue of... Read more

My Space

(No, not that myspace.) I’m on my computer a lot. Having been a remote worker for 18 months and taking classes online, I needed somewhere to focus.... Read more

Shape Games

Featured image creative commons licensed ( BY-NC-ND ) flickr photo shared by Jonas Tana Shape is immensely important in science. The shape of a mol... Read more

Book Giveaway – Thanksgiving Edition

The first major break of the holidays is upon us, and I’m in the mood to do some giveaways. Over the last 18 months, I’ve contributed (along with t... Read more

Are We Already in a Tech Dystopia?

Featured image creative commons licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Wonderlane I apologize for the click-baity title, but I think it helps get t... Read more

Protein Permutations

Proteins are some of the most varied, complex, and mind-bending models studied in biology. Built from our genetic code, proteins have multiple leve... Read more

Down the Rabbit Hole with Alice

I read Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture when I was in college. In it, Randy talks about developing Alice and how it impacted his career and his view... Read more

Flipping so Kids Can Rewind May be a Bad Idea

There are times where I wish I could go back, rewind what happened, and listen again. Daydreamers, you know what I’m talking about. Even though it’... Read more

Why Net Neutrality Matters to Schools

A little history Big, important ideas can often be overlooked because of how boring they sound to the average listener. Remember SOPA and PIPA a fe... Read more

New Layout, New Title, Refined Focus

I’ve iterated on this blog a lot over the years. I started by focusing on chemistry, and then switched over to teaching and learning in general. La... Read more

Get in touch

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