By Melody Hanatani
Daily Press Staff Writer

LINCOLN MIDDLE SCHOOL There’s a video on YouTube that has generated nearly 1,000 views since it was posted last August. It isn’t the latest impressive basketball dunk or footage of pirates versus ninjas, but rather an instruction on adding fractions using different denominators.

The lesson on lowest common denominators is led by “Billy Billy,” a pseudonym for eighth-grade Lincoln Middle School student Aleya Spielman, whose voice in the video guides her fellow classmates how to solve a particular type of problem.

“Hi, my name is Billy Billy and today we’re going to learn about adding fractions with different denominators by using the LCD, or the least common denominator,” Spielman’s voice can be heard over the lesson.

The “Mathcast,” created thanks to Lincoln match teacher Eric Marcos’ tablet PC, is an example of how technology has been incorporated to enhance the classroom learning experience, engaging students by using an interactive lesson plan and as a result, encouraging them to embrace the subject.

One of the ways in which technology has been intertwined with Marcos’ math class is with the addition of Web site Mathtrain.com, a social and educational networking site for the students in the class, a resource through which they can download sample quizzes, converse with peers through a messaging board and watch a series of Mathcasts, ranging from subtracting fractions to rounding a decimal.

But it’s the Mathcasts that have caught the attention of educators across the country, viewing the online video lessons through sites like YouTube, TeacherTube and Mathtrain.com. The videos have been featured in various educational publications and have been a part of several presentations by Alan November, a leading educational and technological advocate.

The video library has slowly been building since the first video was launched on Valentine’s Day of last year when “Bob,” also known as seventh-grader Camilla Spielman, sister of Aleya, created a video on proportions. For the Lincoln student, math has always been a strong suit, and creating the videos came naturally.

“I thought it would be fun if other people could hear me (online),” Spielman said.

The concept behind the Mathcasts is “kids teaching kids,” understanding that some things are better understood to students when the message is relayed by a peer.

They just seem to speak the same

anguage.

“We have a different language,” Leo Erickson, a seventh grader who took Marcos’ class last year, said. “If they explained it to me, I would get it a lot easier.”

The online videos have come in handy during occasions in which Erickson wouldn’t normally think about math. While watching his sister’s soccer game last year, Erickson used his dad’s cell phone to watch a lesson, enabling the student to get a head start on his homework.

“Math is easy now,” Erickson, who also uploads the Mathcast to his iPod, said. “It makes a lot more sense.”

Many of the student say they refer to the online videos if they get stuck on a math problem at home. Others say the Mathcasts are a good way to catch up with school work if they miss a day of class.

“When I do my homework and I don’t get something, I can always go on and find out (how to solve the problem),” Emily Claus, a sixth grade student, said during class on Monday. “Then all of a sudden, it makes sense.”

The Mathcast has become a daily ritual for Matthew Cianfrone, a sixth grade student who reviews the day’s lessons online.

“It’s easier and more fun than to just look at a textbook,” Cianfrone said.

Most of the videos were made by Aleya and Camilla Spielman or former classmate Tiana Kadkhoda, who was responsible for six herself.

Creating the videos and guiding the lessons have actually helped the student producers understand the material better because the videos are all unscripted, testing the student’s knowledge of the subject.

It is for this reason that the videos are so easily understandable to other students, Kadkhoda said.

“When a kid explains something, it’s different than a teacher,” she said. “We’re at the same level of intelligence and our brains work the same way.”

The videos have also caught the attention of other teachers at Lincoln Middle School, some who plan to also incorporate the teaching method in their own classrooms.

Rose Supangan, a seventh-grade math teacher at Lincoln, showed a video on slopes to her pre-Algebra class last week, receiving a positive reaction from the students who showed an interest in adopting the Mathcasts.

“All of the kids were so excited to do the problems,” she said.

The kid-driven Mathcast concept will be presented at two educational conferences this year in Las Vegas and in Boston, reaching educators from across the country. Marcos, who will travel to the two conferences, said he one day hopes to have a video made on every single lesson or topic and have a tablet PC available for each student in his class.

“It encourages kids to work with each other and collaborate,” Marcos said.

melodyh@smdp.com