Imagine sitting in a CPD session on Read and Write from Texthelp. Read and Write can read aloud text to learners, look up words in a picture dictionary and allow learners to speak in and it types for them. (it does a LOT more but I'm trying not to waffle!) it's brilliant, what a powerful tool for our learners. Amazing. Now how do you embed that into a maths lesson? Possible, thankfully, but not a perfect fit. Can it read complex formulae or calculations? Does it have pictures in its dictionary for density? No? Boo! I was gutted when I first came across it. I thought, argh it's so close but it's still not for me.
A short while later I was sat down again to be talked at, sorry I mean, I was sat down in a CPD session, and this time it was on Equatio. Which is a pain to blog about because Google thinks I mean Equation, so if Google auto corrects and I miss it I apologise, I am talking about Equatio! Hold on to your seats if you've not heard of Equatio before and if you are a maths or science teacher this will blow your mind!
Equatio is a toolbar that allows you to speak in maths work. You say 2x bracket x add 4 bracket and it will write 2x(x+4) with curly xs. Equatio will let you type in fractions and curly xs and all the other niggly things we battle with typing as maths teachers with ease. If you have a touchscreen device you can freehand your maths and it will type it up for you. Hurrah, at last we have something amazing for maths, whoop! I was so excited and got straight on it, fractions were now a breeze to write, my work sped up when I was writing questions and making resources. You can even put it in Google Forms and make quizzes! I mean come on, this is the dream folks!
Loving my new Equatio life I ingested their website. I watched video after video, became certified in Read and Write (Texthelp make both products, I am not paid by them for this post, this is not an ad, I'm not paid by anyone to blog, wish I was!) importantly I signed up to updates from Texthelp and their monthly webinar list. Some time later I was introduced to the mobile features of Equatio. Students can handwrite their working out, photograph it into Equatio and it will make it editable typed maths for them... Take a moment... Take that in. Happy dance!!!!!!! Equatio has and does a lot more but I might do another blog on the other bits later.
Students prefer pen and paper for maths in my experience. Maybe it's because I teach resit and they have experienced that paper linear exam, I don't know. I know that I prefer paper when I am work things out, I always have a pen in my pony tail ready to go in class! Students like to show their working out, sometimes! I like those conversations where they have spent ages anwering a question incorrectly and you go through their working out together to spot where it went wrong. I dislike those conversations where they have spent ages working something out incorrectly and their working out cannot be followed and they cannot articulate what they were trying to do. Those conversations are the hardest, where you desperately want to help but you can't. I have always wanted a way to make students stop and check their work or at least check they are on the right track. I have tried setting timers to get them to practise pausing mid answer but generally they just lose their flow. I have tried building in check your answer time but mainly they stare into space. Anyway back to Equatio...
It's become my new way of working, especially since lock down. Students snap their work and sent it to me all typed up. Yes they could just snap their work but sometimes I struggle with the shadows of their photos, or the clarity of their working out. This way Equatio does the quality check for me. If it can't read what the students have put (and its very good at reading, trust me I have tried all sorts of maths working out to try to catch it out!) then an examiner wouldn't be able to read what they have put. Equatio helps me promote high standards. Equatio saves me time and it saves me marking on paper, although that's not happening in the world anyway at the minute.
Since lock down I have wanted to stay connected with my learners. I have found that the Read and Write tools that I have ignored in my maths lessons have really become invaluable. It has a feature where you can make a 1 minute voice note. I have been able to give verbal feedback to my learners. I don't mind that it's 1 minute because if I'm talking for more than 1 minute to each learner I'm not being clear enough in my feedback. My learners have said they feel little difference in terms of marking and being in the classroom, they can still hear my voice.
I am so overjoyed that finally I have something that is invaluable and it is maths specific and maths focused. I feel like we can truly support learners remotely now, which is more important than ever. We have accessibility and maths speak all under one roof. Learners like it too. Sure they get frustrated when it doesn't correctly type up their written work and they have to edit it. But what's the harm in that, they are checking their work! A battle I long since thought that i would never win!
