How to Become a Better Post Player

When trying to become a better post player there are several things you need to concentrate on and try to do. Here are some of them.

1. Creating space/thinking about where you are posting 

   When posting the most physical player usual wins. A good post player knows how to create space to get open on the block and create space to create passing angles for the pass. Creating space is done with your butt and your arms up and no fending off with your arms. Once you understand how to create space then worrying about where you catch the ball becomes important. Good post players score with no move needed. You should try and catch the ball as close to the basket as possible. 

2. Running the floor 

   Running the floor along with rebounding are the easiest ways for a post player to get free points. Running the floor is all effort and you do not need to be fast to be great at running the floor. 

How to Buy Fireworks on a Budget

How to Buy Fireworks Cheap

So the 4th of July is approaching and you want to buy some fireworks but don't want to spend much money. Here are some tips on how to do this. 

Create a budget.   

Before ever going to a fireworks tent or warehouse determine how much money you are willing to spend and decide to stick to that amount no matter what. Let's face it the job of the sells people is to explain what firework does what and to sell to you. If you have a money amount already determined then their only job to you becomes to inform you. When first walking into the tent let the salesperson know your budget so they can steer you in the right direction. 

Shop around.  

Fireworks tents seem to follow a philosophy. The better location the higher the prices and the worse the location the lower the prices. If there is one tent where you are there are bound to be more in the area so visit them all to see which has the best prices. When looking find an item in every section and compare at the other tents. Avoids the bottle rockets comparison except if you plan to by many bottle rockets.

The 10 Best Apps To Get You Started on Your Android Phone

If you just received your android phone or have gotten a new android phone here are ten apps you must have along with the apps preloaded on your android phone.  As you can see when looking at the apps I really enjoy the customizable features of the android phone and its apps.

• AutomateIt - Allows your phone to read your mind.  You can load actions for the phone to automatically take when something happens.  Really useful in the car.  I have mine automatically turn my volume on when I get home, start Pandora when I plug in headphones, set my media volume to 70% when Pandora opens, etc.  The combinations are limitless.  I have the free version but there is a paid version with more features.
• Dolphin Browser - Simply the easiest fastest browser to use.
• ESPN Scorecenter - Customizable alerts on your favorite teams makes this a must have for any sports fan. 
• Handcent - A better messaging option than the stock messenger.  Allows for tons of customization from the viewer to notifications to sending and receiving messages.

2 Easy Ways to Make Money as a College Student

Blogger

Moral and Easy Ways to Make Money for College Students

As a college student or an ordinary person looking to make a little cash without extending much energy two easy ways are donating plasma and submitting writing to the internet.

Plasma – Plasma is a life giving and wallet extending experience. You can give plasma up to two times a week usually earning 50-60 dollars a week. The key is finding a plasma center which efficiently gets patients

in and out. When I was giving plasma while in college I earned $55 a week and it took me about 3 hours to donate (1.5 hours a visit). The key is to drink a ton of water before and after going to remain hydrated because plasma is mostly water. I have never experienced any side effects from it and have done extensive research on the process and it is safe. It does leave you with a nice looking scar though.

Writing – Everyone in college has to write papers for one class or another. Since you already have to write them why not make a little money off them. creating your own blog. It is fairly easy to set up and once that is done the only thing you have to do is copy and paste your papers to submit them.

Playing with Probability, Percent, Ratios, and Circles Lesson 5

Children's Books

Using Children's Books to Understand Probability, Percent, Ratios, and Circles

The beginning of this unit plan can be found here.

Lesson 5

Today's lesson is going to take everything we have learned in the previous lessons and combine them. Hopefully the other lessons have introduced combining the mathematics but today this will be driven home. I really want today to be more like a work day and not a teaching day. I want to read A Very Improbable Story and for them to do the rest of the project with almost no instruction from me. I plan on walking around while they are working on their projects but hopefully in their groups they will be able to answer each other's questions without any of my help. This is how the differentiation will be done in this lesson. Also I will spend more time with groups which I feel might struggle more.

Playing with Probability, Percent, Ratios, and Circles Lesson 4

Children's Books

Using Children's Books to Understand Probability, Percent, Ratios, and Circles

The beginning of this unit plan can be found here.

Lesson 4

In today's lesson we are going to be using what we learned about percents and turning them into a visual display of data. Today's lesson is going to be fun because we are going to be creating charts so therefore the students are going to get to use markers and their artistic ability. Where in the other lessons in this book were used to introduce and give the students problems to solve, todays book in mostly going to be used for a background and reasoning for why we are going to calculate the central angle theorem. Today's lesson background information is a proof on the central angle. I do not expect my students to be able to comprehend the proof but do want to point out two things. The first being what a professional mathematical proof looks like because many have never seen one. Also the radius and diameter are used in the proof so therefore what they learned in previously math classes is not unimportant.

Playing with Probability, Percent, Ratios, and Circles Lesson 3

Using Children's Books to Understand Probability, Percent, Ratios, and Circles

The beginning of this unit plan can be found here.

Lesson 3

Today's lesson can be approached in two different ways and I want to do it both ways. I want my students to be able to understand a percent as a ratio and also a proportion as a ratio. In the book Pythagoras and the Ratios: A Math Adventure ratios are presented using only two but since in this unit we are working with probability problems which can deal with more than one I need to introduce this also. Today's lesson has a moment where the students can show me their transfer ability and critical thinking skills. In today's lesson I am going to ask the students to answer a question which we have not covered yet but they have all of the tools to solve. I think it is important to ask these questions periodically because in the real world examples students are shown almost always are similar but not the same as the problems they will be asked to solve. Again this lessons activating strategy is also the exit ticket because I am using the activating strategy is the goal we are working towards. The lesson will be differentiated in two ways. The first being when I walk around I will spend more time with the students who usually struggle. Also the students are encouraged to ask someone else in the class for help if they are struggling. This allows for more than one teacher in the room.

Playing with Probability, Percent, Ratios, and Circles Lesson 2

Using Children's Books to Understand Probability, Percent, Ratios, and Circles

The beginning of this unit plan can be found here.

Lesson 2

In this lesson we are going to do an activity with Twizzlers in which the students will be given Twizzlers and expected to work with them in showing percentages. We are going to work through the book,Twizzlers Percentages Book , with our won Twizzlers. Each student will be given 15 Twizzlers of an assortment of black and red so therefore we cannot do every problem in the book but should be able to work several of them. I am going to walk around the classroom while reading the book to help support students with their work. I also plan on putting up a PowerPoint which shows most of the problems and thoughts from the book just so the students can see them better because I will not have the ability to get each student in the classroom their own book. Also because the problems from the book will be written in the PowerPoint it will allow students more time to think about what is happening and what we are doing. I plan on highlighting page two. This will be most of my instruction for the day. After that we will work examples because this is not a complex subject but it is an important one so repetition will help.

Playing with Probability, Percent, Ratios, and Circles

Using Children's Books to Understand Probability, Percent, Ratios, and Circles

This unit plan is going to encompass four main topics and then relating them back together. The first day we are going to go over probability with word problems presented in the book Probably Pistachio . This will be a great opportunity for the students to be introduced to basic probability and the pulling out of information from word problems. The second day we are going to talk about Percent using the book Twizzlers Percentages Book and an activity using Twizzlers. This will allow them to be comfortable to taking multiple items and turning them into proportions of the whole. The third day we are going to talk about ratios using the book Pythagoras and the Ratios: A Math Adventure. This will allow them to become comfortable doing two things. They are pulling information out and turning it into ratios and turning a percent into a ratio. The fourth day we are going to use the 

How to Use Your Smartphone More Efficiently

6 Ways to Increase Your Productivity with Your Smartphone

There are many ways to increase the efficiency and productivity of your smartphone. This article discusses some apps which can be helpful along with using items already in your smartphone to accomplish this task. 

Use Automation software

I personally use AutomateIt to automate my Android phone. Automation software allows your smartphone to complete tasks based on programmed rules created by the user. Some examples of what I use AutomateIt for include opening Pandora and silencing my phone during the night. The reason it allows you to use your smartphone more efficiently is your phone completes actions that you would normally have to do yourself.

Use Speech to Text

The main time I use speech to text is in my car when I am driving. What I mean by speech to text is talking into your smartphone and your phone turning that information into text you can then use. I personally use Google's built in speech to text but there are many good programs out there. The reason it allows you to use your smartphone more efficiently is you can talk much faster than you can text and this is especially true when you are driving.

Mathematical Manipulatives Uses in a Classroom

Uses and Possible Problems with Math Manipulatives

Mathematics manipulatives I discovered are very useful and important in a mathematics classroom at any level. When I started my Mathematics Education 530 at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville, I knew what a mathematics manipulative was but had no idea there were so many different ones or how to use any of them. So when selecting my articles, I selected two articles which showed how to use certain manipulatives in the classroom and I also chose one article which discusses the possible problems with using manipulative in the classroom. The articles that showed how to use manipulatives in the classroom used technology manipulatives such as a calculator and Microsoft Word. I selected these because most of the schools I know of have calculators for every student in each class and rentable computers for each student of each class. 

22 Rules to Maximize AutomateIt

Rule Creation for AutomateIt

AutomateIt is such a powerful tool for your phone but the question is how to best utilize it. In this article are a list of the rules I have created to maximize the potential of this great app. The key idea to remember is to create rules that interact with other rules. These rules are all done with the free version.

App Opening/Closing Rules

• Alarm to Pandora - Anytime my alarm goes off my Pandora is opened and starts playing with a delay of 2 minutes. The delay allows you to cancel it if you wish.
• Alarm Sound - This AutomateIt rule is anytime my Alarm goes off it turns up my media volume to 100%.
• GPS Sound - Anytime Google Maps is opened it turns up my media volume to 100%.
• Pandora Sound - Anytime Pandora is opened it turns up my media volume to 80%.
  
  
  

APY Common Core Project for High School

Students will be required to combine the APY formula with the Present Value for Compound Interest Formula to determine the final value of their investment and how much interest that would end of being. This project has been completed in Algebra 2 as well as Finite Mathematics but would fit well in Statistics. Your parents give you $10,000 to invest during college. You will receive the interest of whatever the money makes during you college career (4 years). You can invest in Ally Bank, Bank of America, Regions, EverBank, and Capital One Savings account. Which one would you pick and why?

APY = (1+r/n)^(n)-1

Present Value for Compound Interest A=P(1+r/n)^(nt)

Steps:

1. Find the APY of a saving account for each of these Banks. (Google it)
2. Plug it in the APY formula from the formula sheet and add 1 to solve for (1+rn)^(n).
3. Take and raise it to the number of years you are in college (look at the present value for compound interest formula).
4. Multiply that by your Principle (look at the present value for compound interest formula)
5. Find the interest for each of these investments.
6. Type a paragraph about why you picked the bank you did. Describe what you notice about the APY value and the amount of interest you earn.
7. For homework create a pamphlet, flier, or poster board advertising the bank you decided to bank with.
8. Prepare to present (Show your project to the rest of the class).

Points:

• 25 points for in class work (Want to see work for solution and paragraph)

• 25 points for pamphlet, flier, or poster board

• 5 points for presentation

Warm-up Problems and Their Effect on Comprehension and Motivation in Math

Introduction

The beginning of my teaching was an exciting and educational time for me. I learned and discovered many things, but one of the biggest struggles I saw with myself and with other teachers was the start of every class. I struggled to completely engage the students while doing all of the administrative tasks that were assigned to me as well as making sure the students had completed their homework. Even if I completed the tasks quickly and could start class at a reasonable time I still wasted some time. With only a few wasted minutes it was still difficult for me to turn the students from what they had been doing previously into what I wanted them to be doing. To combat this problem, I started giving students problems or thought provoking questions on the board to start the period. I soon realized that these questions helped keep students engaged with mathematics while I completed these tasks, and it turned them from what they were doing into the world of mathematics. As I started to implement these questions on a daily basis, I began to wonder what type of questions were the most beneficial. Also, how other teachers were effectively using the beginning of their class periods. This led to my desire to research and study warm-ups. Included in that would be researching different types of warm-ups and there overall effects on students motivation and understanding in the mathematics classroom.