Why Sakai? Hybridizing your high school mathematics courses!

1. Why Sakai?Hybridizing your high school mathematics courses! Kerry Cook Mathematics Teacher Franklin High School Franklin, NH kcook@sau18.org

2. Why Sakai?Hybridizing your high school mathematics courses! • Sakai is a one-stop shopping for organization of class resources • Using Sakai as a way to “hybridize” your mathematics classes gives students a post-secondary experience while still in high school • It gives them a chance to work the kinks out and become comfortable in this sort of setting before they “leave the nest”

4. A sample quiz question from a weekly online quiz.

5. Why Sakai?Introduction to its features and menus

6. What do you need to do to set up a class? • Create your homepage description • Creating a new assignment • Creating a test or quiz • Customizing your workspace • Adding new users to your site • Setting up your grade book • Adding links to other websites • Adding resources –files, video

7. Create your homepage description • Click on the “options” link on the top right of your homepage • This brings up the editor, and you can customize your class homepage

8. Creating a new assignment • Click on the Assignments link from the list • From the menu at the top, click “Add”. • Define assignment parameters and then save.

9. Creating a test or quiz • Several types of questions are available. • You can add questions to a question bank as you go • You can choose questions you have already saved in the question bank – randomly or specifically

10. Customizing your workspace • The menu choices on the left of your screen can be customized to suit your needs. • This is done by clicking the Site Info link • Several menus to choose from here

11. Adding new users to your site • You can add a list of users to your site or you can set up your site to be “joinable” by other users • Add a list of users by choosing “Site Info” and then “Add Participants” • Type in a list of authorized users of your site. • You will be asked to assign a role to participants – access or maintain

12. Adding new users to your site • To make your site “joinable”: • Choose the “manage access” link in the Site Info page

13. Adding links to other websites • You can add links to external websites in your tool bar. • Click on “Site Info” • Click on “Edit Tools” in the tool bar. • This is a list of all of the tools available to add to your Sakai site. • To add a link, choose Web Content, then continue. You will be prompted to enter the web address for the link and a title to display in the tool bar.

14. Setting up your grade book • The gradebook feature allows you to record grades from Sakai assessments and assignments automatically in a gradebook • Students receive prompt feedback from their assessments. • You can set up weighted categories or calculate by points

15. Adding resources –files, video • You can upload files and create folders for storing files using the Resources tool • I have used this feature to give students access to templates for assignments as well as for videos to support them in their learning.

16. Let’s see this in action!

17. Try it Out! • Login to my school’s Sakaizone: • https://sau18.sakaizone.org/portal • User names: sau18_1 through 15, password: guest • Do the Scavenger Hunt assignment • Take quiz – practice quiz • We’ll review our results at the end so you can see it from the teacher’s side of things.

18. Resources Math symbols are a challenge in Sakai – the rich text editor has some, but for the more math-specific symbols, you will need to use these resources. • https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/access/content/group/69ab6142-05e0-4504-8040-8b4c95aec1a9/sakai-content/faq_mimeTex.html • http://htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/entities/symbols.html