Okay.

So ... um...
My students were really struggling with graphing, but I simply cannot afford more time in class to cover the subject. Thus, I spent several hours putting some videos together. There are ten videos that span 59 minutes.

I had to break two videos up, and I also tried to keep each video topic-related, as well as give them helpful titles.

It's a little uh... series?.... that I plan on adding to. I just got frustrated with my uploading problems and stopped recording more information.

Anywho..... in these videos, I try to explain the WHY behind things, and you know I tend to blab. I tried to give as many details as possible, but I also had a lot of information to cover to get where I wanted to be. Thus, the ten videos does make a large leap from beginning to end and few examples are given of each item I discuss.

Also, since some of these took multiple tries I kept getting tongue-tied.
Oh, and I lost my stylus, so I had to use my mouse to write and.... in some places my writing is very illegible I apologize in advance!

I found two mistakes and created comments to mention the corrections. (Just small silly things akin to typos).

Anywho.. uh... here is my first (incomplete) set of math lessons: How to Graph Equations

Although I know most of you don't like math and certainly don't want to exhaust an hour listening to me talk about it.... I'd be very grateful to anyone that watched these. I'd like to know what was confusing, if there are more mistakes I didn't catch, etc etc.

As a final note, three videos still seem to be processing, but I'm too tired to wait for them. If they don't process while I sleep, I'll re-upload them in the morning.

becerra95 :
Mistress :

You wanted to see these.
I get a little too excited and energetic towards the end of the second video. *hides teacher glasses *

Okay, two of the videos processed while I slept and so I re-uploaded the last video today.

There are now 10 videos that total an hour and 31 minutes.

I will be adding to the playlist this weekend, to include the topic of graphing SYSTEMS of equations, which means graphing more than one line on the same coordinate plane, and then finding their intersection.  I'll even do some word problems.  *Wiggles her brow enticingly*

A user of this :  Wow, really!?  Thanks so much!!  O.o

Though I don't see how plotting points would help you all that much with integers, other than my brief description of the number line. xD

If you haven't covered graphing though... hey! You might be perfect to tell me if the videos make sense to you or not. XD

Oh and.. um.. *blushes * Thanks for the compliment!




And to ANYONE watching, never, ever, ever try to 'spare' my feelings.  I can only learn to be a better teacher when someone forces me to listen to the brutal truth.  Be as critical as possible.  

So I just finished watching "Plotting Points (The Basics)" and I have to say I picked it up pretty quickly. Feels like I'm back in High School all over again. I will continue to watch the rest of the videos since I completely forgot all of this, consider me one of your virtual students Hope your students find the videos you made helpful. Good luck Singelli. 

MoIested : Not to accuse you of anything or... whatever, but... how did you watch 12 minutes of material when you only saw this post 5 minutes ago? You weren't exactly online when I first posted last night and my thread got buried, so I kinda doubt you watched it last night at all.


I just REALLY don't like it when people use threads to increase their post count, but don't actually take the time to read or view what was shared. It's really demeaning to anyone's hard work.

How about a little quiz? I was really obsessive about a little arrow I drew because I'm slightly OCD. Anyone that knows me might find that a little humorous. What was the ordered pair I got obsessive compulsive over?


EDIT: Not to mention I was actually ON that video when you posted, viewing it myself, and refreshing the page did not show me that anyone else had viewed the video while I was viewing it...

Singelli : Yesterday when I was online, this thread was up and I was watching the video for a while. Had other things to do so I left the video in a tab, when the thread came back up I remembered to actually post to your thread with a positive response of your video.?(3, -2) which is what I was going to ask before I posted. If you don't believe it is fine, just telling you that you explained everything well. :/

Singelli :  So, I liked it, the first one on graphing. It's been a while since I have taken a math class (and I ended up taking the same one three times), but I feel like some of it is coming back. Graphing was maybe my third or fourth favorite aspect of math, but it was still really tough for me. Sometime throughout college, we have to take a math class and if  all else fails, I could probably use this because I am going to try to sign up for the easiest class that they have like Algebra or Trigonometry. I hope that in the end, the kids benefit from this.

Singelli : Thanks for posting these!  I don't have headphones right now, so I'll have to wait until I get home to watch the videos.  As I probably told you, I'm a math major, so stuff like this is fun!  I'll be sure to put together a good review soon.

Thank all of you for the feedback. I'm actually going to be making a few more tonight I think, if I can finish grading these papers before I go home. I got a lot of grading done, so I just need to find a nice, quiet spot in the house once I get home. I'll probably doing graphing systems of equations and also start a few videos on solving basic algebra problems now that I see their homework quizzes.

supernerd117 : If we discussed you being a math major, I completely forgot. O.o Nerds unite! You are my new favorite nerd on vizzed! XD XD What do you want to do with that major?

And to you AND everyone else:
zanderlex :
MoIested :
A user of this :

I want to do better videos. I wish I could include humor, and I wish I was tech savvy enough to make them seem less home-made. Kind of like play4fun's amazing apologetics videos.

In any case, I'd definitely take requests for the videos. I want to eventually have enough made that I can link my students to a video on any day or topic. Thus, if there's something you'd like to hear me talk about or make a video about, please just let me know. I need to make as many as I can anyways, so fulfilling requests would simply give me some guidance and experience under my belt.

I actually have a suggestion;

I only watched your first video, so I don't know if you have already done this with the others, but have you considered making your videos deaf friendly? I'm not deaf, it's just that I didn't know what you were talking about when you were explaining what the thing that looks like graphing paper was called. Heck, I can't even remember what it was called!

You tend to talk a lot on the video, but go straight to the problem when you wrote stuff in it. I'm not sure a deaf person who is learning these for the first time could understand you. So what I'm suggesting is that you write down the terms and it's meaning and put short, simple rules that can be easily remembered. Like say;

Y axis; up=positive and down=negative

X axis; right=positive and left=negative

Or something like that.

Mistress : Well see, that's the problem. I agree with you 1,000%.  Even in class, I write EVERYTHING down. I mean every little thing.

The problem is.... I don't have enough ROOM.  I use Paint, my mouse, and the images on the screen.  by the time I write down everything I want to write down in 15 or so minutes, I have no room.  I can erase it as I go, but that's difficult and time consuming, and if I erase any part of the graph paper by accident, it's just gone without the chance for retrieval.  Plus, it is SO, SO hard to write with a mouse..... My handwriting (letters) is nearly illegible when I'm writing with the mouse.

But I definitely agree.  I just need to find a better way to make it work.  Especially since on half of those videos, I didn't end up using the second coordinate plane.

These are going to be my plans though:
When I make the videos tonight, I'l definitely write more down, even if it takes time and is difficult to read.  (if my husband allows me, I'll even buy a new stylus, so I don't have the 'legibility' problem.)

However, I likely won't be able to redo the others until this weekend. Thus, I'll leave these ten videos alone, take everyone's constructive criticism into consideration, and remake those ten this weekend if I'm able.

Whatever videos I make tonight. I'll link to here as well so you can tell me if they are improved for the 'deaf' friendly, or for those that need something more visual than audible.

Thanks so much! I knew I should be writing more down, but difficulties made me avoid it, and now that I'm aware it's more of an issue than I had imagined.... I'l go with my gut tonight! Write, write, write!

Singelli :

Maybe you can type up some of the major points your videos will discuss, and just put it down in the video description, so whenever students need a reference, they don't have to busy themselves with trying to find the exact time you started explaining one topic, but rather they could just look down and see what slope-intercept form is, or how to find slope, etc. 

I did see your first video (not all of it though, sorry. I know slope and all that good stuff already.), and I looked at the description. Nice little intro to what the video is all about, which is great. If you can add all the specific points, that would be helpful to your students.

Hope this helps. 

Singelli : To be honest, I don't know.  I'm just enjoying being a part of a senior seminar class right now.  I'm the captain of a team trying to prove a case that involves dogs and calculus.  It was a bit hard for me to grasp at first, but with the help of someone on my team, I'm making strides in the presentation.  I feel like the least smart person in my group, though.  I'm a bit slow on the pickup, but I do really understand the material now.  

You already heard what I thought of the videos... I think I was most critical lol....


Anyway, glad you did this and I hope your students could learn in this type of method.

Again, don't try to treat them like little kids... few well hate that. The colored dots on video two was a nice touch but 0.0000001+8.9999999? Too much lol. And you sounded too excited at the end of video two and beginning of video three. .. again... you Wanted some criticism..... only watched bits of each video (up to video four I think... invisible fence part) and enjoyed the lecture... was a nice review lol.

Nice job on these videos. I am sure they will really come in handy, last year if I struggled with anything math related, I would use a site called Khan Academy and they had a whole bunch of videos, lessons and activities on everything I was learning and it really helped make my life easier. So I am glad you made some videos as well. I am sure your students will be really grateful and I hope they use these videos to help themselves out if they need the extra help.

I plan to use that same site this year if I don't understand something! 

Good job on these, I think they are very useful! 

Singelli : Ok, here's my brief review (will add more as I watch more).  I liked that your tone remained consistent throughout the videos.  You described the concepts well, easy enough for my eight-year old brother to understand.  My main gripe is actually the English of the video, such as the use of "would be" instead of "is", or saying "if I want to do such and such" instead of just going ahead and talking about it.  It makes you seem a bit less confident, despite your confident tone of voice.  Also, I think that bright orange wasn't a good choice to use in the first video.  I could barely read the point (-4, -1) on the screen and had to squint a bit to read it.  Yet despite these criticisms, you did much more right than you did wrong.  I could really tell you loved what you were talking about, and that of course made your videos easier to listen to and understand.  I'll be showing my brother these soon!  He's not very patient with this sort of stuff usually, but I bet if I tell him you're from Vizzed, he'd be a bit more excited

I'm extremely tempted to watch all of these to see if an old dog can still learn... math. The first vid was remedial for me because this was a part of math (not sure which class) that I actually enjoyed.

I have no suggestions but I wanted to say that I enjoy your enthusiasm. Also, I promise not to make fun of your accent.

So I got a stylus today, but it's so much harder to write with than I expected. I'm thinking it might just be better to go with my mouse, or maybe even my finger....????

Anyways, I made a super short video just for practice and to see what you all thought. I probably wouldn't explain the concept in the same way, and I'm having difficulty fitting all the text into one location. Any tips or hints before I do a new series on solving equations algebraically? (IT's about 6.5 minutes long.)

Here's the new link:Practice Video
(I just posted it, so it might take a few moments to process)

Summoning a few of you:
Mistress :
becerra95 :
supernerd117 :

EDIT: Since I hated that one so much, I tried to make another video. This time, I used my fingers to write. What do you think? Here it is:Practice Video 2

Also, I am aware that much of what I said is weird, timing is awkward, etc. My main goal was in playing with the format of things and trying different ways of writing on my laptop screen. I got distracted many times while trying to figure this out, hence the awkward pauses and not really paying much mind to what I said. Don't worry... I won't leave all the awkwardness in the final drafts. lol

LOL! Doing some shameless advertising for Vizzed on the second video, eh?

Anyways, here's what I thought;

Despite the not so good writing on the first video, I find that the example on it is way better there than on the second video. The party thing provides a more realistic setting for the age group of students that you're currently teaching. I'm not saying that the second video wasn't understandable, but the first video does make more sense to me than the second.

Basically, first > second.