Already working on next year! Just a little bit, I swear.
Started researching and planning for the first of two computer science courses I am developing this summer. I’m looking into CodeHS for my 8th grade intro to programming class. Thing is, it’s not free. Thing is, Scratch is free. CodeHS looks a little cleaner and is basically a curriculum in a box, which I don’t need, as a computer scientist myself.
Anyone give CodeHS a shot out there? Is it worth it with Scratch around?
Grades done! Summer finally begins! Well, after my dentist appointment. And after umping three games of softball. So, summer can begin tomorrow. I was lucky enough to be on the field facing this amazing sunset (made even more amazing by the wonders of Instagramization!)
I’m kinda counting on some grade issue to pop up tomorrow, however if that doesn’t happen, I am finally done with school year ’12-13.
Another day of moving, this time I’m nearing the finish line. Ended the day with a walk through the new neighborhood. Now it’s back to finishing up exam grades before enjoying total freedom!
It’s the first official day of summer! Woo! It also happens to be moving day (one of two) for me. Boo.
Charley liking the new digs
Today would have been the perfect day to spend at the pool or relaxed at a park. Sunny and 80 degrees most of the day. Unfortunately, that’ll have to wait. Tomorrow I’ll get the furniture moved in and then finish up exam grading and comment writing. It’s summer, but still a lot of work to do!
That’s right I said it. I get the summer off. I’m sick of defending it and I’m here to say: “I get the summer off and I flippin’ love it.” After 9 and half months of showing up to work early to help students, late night grading, later night planning, dealing with 8th and 9th graders at the end of the day every day, waiting for rides to show up after that away game where the bus got back to school at 11pm — *deep breath* — I GET THE SUMMER OFF! Unless you’re a fellow teacher like I, you will be going to work today, or tomorrow, or Monday. I will not because I get the summer off! Got a problem with that? Don’t care – I’ll be hitting the pool in the morning and having ice cold cocktails at night on the sidewalk patios of Ann Arbor. Why? How? Because I get the summer off.
Ahhh… I feel so much better.
It may not be 3 months like some in the “teacher-bashing nation” likes to believe – in fact, for me it is exactly 2 months because soccer practices start August 14. However, I get 8 weeks in summer off. And I may have two weeks, minimum, of course development to get in, but I get the summer off. I’m so excited because I get 6 weeks in summer off!
Ok, you get the picture – summer off isn’t exactly what it sounds like – I’ll be working a lot. We’ll have basketball starting immediately until the 4th of July and then soccer gets going mid-August. Plus, on top of those 2+ weeks of developing two computer science classes, I will be redesigning Algebra I. However, it’s the summer and I’m totally stoked. On this here web-log, I will be chronicling my summer, one day, one picture at a time, similar to the “180 Days at [School Name]” series throughout the math blogosphere.
In all seriousness, I’ll start missing teaching way too soon and I have already put a lot of thought into September and beyond. However, this is a tough job and despite the intrinsic rewards that are inherent in helping young people reach their potential, it is exhausting and mentally and physically draining. Summer provides an opportunity to recoup – let’s celebrate it!
Okay, final meetings today. I thought of kicking this off with a picture of my classroom since I’m moving out of it, however that can wait. This note was left in my mailbox and I found it on my way out of the school today.
No joke. I used algebra II to save me a ton of money. It started by reading this post at SIXbirds Financial:
I do not conform my investment cycle to my income cycle. Instead, I have created a cashflow cycle that conforms with my goals which favors investment which is weekly. Consider that there are 12 monthly cycles in the year but 52 weeks, which does not equal 12 * 4 = 48. If you did nothing else but change your payment cycle to your time, you would end up making a full month’s payment extra on everything. This is why people sometimes pay bi-weekly on their mortgage and save tens of thousands of dollars in interest cost and payoff years in advance of their mortgage. This is the easiest tweak in the world that will put money in your pocket starting tomorrow.
The system and The Man discourage this thinking. They tell you to set your auto payments and let the wonders of online banking put your mind at rest. I get paid by the month, so why shouldn’t I be paying my loan off by the month. Simple, easy, and makes sense. However, precisely because we can easily make online payments, we can use the power of compound interest to our advantage.
I don’t know exactly how to get this into a 3-Act lesson; I need a perplexing visual – perhaps I can mock up a video of me acting or something. Or I just pose the question and discard the 3-Act structure.
The question is simple:
Should Mr. Ward pay off his student loans in one lump sum at the end of the month or weekly?
There’s a lot to disect here, but let’s make some assumptions and state some facts so we can focus on the power of compound interest:
Scenario One
This is simple:
In scenario one, I have $61,462.07 remaining in my student loan.
Scenario Two
Just a little more work here…
Repeating this four times results in a balance of $61,460.47.
Simply by making my payments at more frequent intervals, I knock an extra $1.50 off my student loan a month. I am not spending any more money at all!
However, what if I stuck to the weekly plan for all months, not just ones with 28 days? How much money could I really be saving over the long haul? Great and important questions here.
Alternate Title: Sometimes I Wish I Was an English Teacher
The talk in Hollywood this Monday is that this weekend The Purge took in $31.4M, winning the box office. The Purge had a low marketing budget that really only started running TV commercials two weeks ago.
There’s so much to talk about here! Since this is a math blog, let’s start there. The Purge had a 1047% return on investment in its first week in the box office alone. That’s ridiculous. It was filmed in 20 days. There’s no investment on Earth that can rival it. Here’s a table of the top 10 films in the box office this week that compares the films first week’s box office gross and their budgets.
10 top grossing films of the weekend of 6/7/13
Last year when we hit on stats in Algebra II, I went to box office numbers as interesting data sets. This takes it to a whole other level. How can we best visualize how unbelievably historic The Purge‘s opening weekend was? Was it the best opening weekend ever, by our ROI metric? Iron Man 3 earned $174M in its opening weekend; how does that compare to The Purge?
If you were in charge of Universal Studios, would you prefer to have invested $3M in The Purge or $200M in Iron Man? Would knowing the latter is approaching $400M in gross box office revenue change your thoughts?
Of course, from a literary perspective, this data is also immensely interesting. The premise of The Purge is original and harkens back to the days of The Lottery. Is it a sign that originality and a new idea still can win out over flash, CGI and star power? As Dave Karger of Fandango says:
“Every once in a while a movie comes around that has a premise that just captures people. The Purge is one of these movies. The concept is so different. It makes people want to see the movie.”
Most reviews have lauded the concept before lamenting the execution, which is unfortunate. I’ll probably wait for this one to hit the library shelves, but I certainly am more interested in it than I am Iron Man or Star Trek.
