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C- 1.) Aug. 5, 2015
R- It explains how to use an analog clock.
A- 4.) Amy Alcocer
A- No.
P- It teaches and informs.

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An Analog Clock

In this lesson, you will learn how to read analog clocks. An analog clock is a clock with moving hands. Most offices and classrooms have these clocks on their walls. This is the clock that has been used for hundreds of years. It has a round face with the numbers 1 through 12 written on it. It also has sticks called hands that move around in a circle. These hands allow you to tell the time.

The longest stick, the red one in this image, tells you the seconds. The second longest one tells you the minutes and the shortest one tells you the hours. Let's see how this is done.

How to Tell Hours

First, how do we tell what hour it is? We look at the shortest hand. What number is it at, or just past? All our hands will move from the smaller numbers to the larger numbers, except when they reach the 12. Then they go towards the 1. Looking at our clock, what number did the short hand just pass? Is it the 8? Yes, it is. It just passed the 8. This means that we are in the 8th hour.

How to Tell Minutes

Now, let's talk about reading the minutes. To read the minutes, we rely on the second-longest hand. This is the hand that is longer than the hour hand, but shorter than the second hand. Some analog clocks only have an hour and a minute hand. In this case, the minute hand is the longest hand. In our clock, our minute hand is the middle one.

When we look to see what hour it is, we use the large numbers written on the face of the clock. When we look to see the minutes, though, we won't be reading these numbers. Instead, we will be counting off the small tick marks. We start with the tick mark right after the 12. This is tick mark number 1. When we are reading minutes, this equates to 1 minute. Just like when we are reading the hour, when we read for minutes, we look to see which tick mark our minute hand is at or has just passed.

Looking at our clock, which tick mark has our minute hand passed? An easy way to count is to remember that the numbers 1 through 12 separate the small tick marks into groups of 5. So the number 1 is equal to tick mark 5. The number 2 is equal to tick mark 10, and so on - the 12 is equal to tick mark 60. However, we won't write down 60; instead, we will write down 0 because 12 is where our tick mark begins again.

So, looking at our clock, we see that our minute hand has just passed tick mark 7. This means we are in minute 7, making our time so far 8:07. We use a colon to separate our hour and our minute when writing the time.

How to Tell Seconds

Third, we need to know how to read the second hand. This is actually the same as reading the minute hand. The second hand uses the same tick marks that the minute hand uses. Just like the minute hand, we read the number that the second hand is at or has just passed. For our clock, we see that our second hand is at tick mark 32. This means that we are at 32 seconds in time. So our time right now is 8:07:32. Again, we use a colon to separate our minute and second time.

Our time right now isn't complete, though. Because analog clocks only show 12 hours, we need to figure out if this is the time for the first half of the day or the second half of the day. If our time is 8:07:32 in the morning, then we will mark it as AM at the end. If it is 8:07:32 in the evening, then we mark it with a PM at the end. Let's say this is the evening. Our complete time is, thus, 8:07:32 PM.

Examples

Let's practice reading a couple clocks.

What time does this clock say?

First, let's tell the hours. Which hand is the hour hand? That's right, it is the shortest. Which number it is at, or has it just passed? It's just passed the 3, so we are at hour 3. What about minutes? Remember, we are now looking at the tick marks. Our minute hand is the middle hand since we have three hands. Our minute hand has just passed tick mark 49. This means that we are at minute 49. Now the red hand is the second hand because it is the longest. This one is at tick mark 40, so we are at 40 seconds. Our complete time is 3:49:40. We are not told whether it is AM or PM, so we will leave the time with just the numbers.

What time is this clock? We are looking at it in the evening.

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how to tell time on an analog clock - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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How to Tell Time on an Analog Clock - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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In this lesson, you will learn how to read analog clocks. An analog clock is a clock with moving hands. Most offices and classrooms have these clocks on their walls. This is the clock that has been used for hundreds of years. It has a round face with the numbers 1 through 12 written on it.

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C- 1.) Jun 25, 2019
R- It teaches how to read an analog clock.
A- 4.) MooMoo Math And Science
A- No.
P- It teaches.

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C- 1.) Dec. 15, 2014
R- Yes, it is a counterclaim.
A- 4.) Sandy Merz
A- No.
P- It informs and also persuades a little.

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On Friday, my colleague Steve Andre wrote in a staff wide email that he was considering teaching how to tell time on an analog clock to his seventh grade computer students because they can't read the one on his wall when they sign out with a pass. On one hand, Steve was for it because analog clocks are still prevalent so it's still a relevant life skill. But he adds that people don't wear analog watches so much, and analog clocks' days are numbered. He wanted our opinions on the matter.

Our opinions, and those of outside friends who have joined the discussion, crossed emotional, pedagogic, and philosophical lines. Emotionally, many were dismayed at the loss of this skill, one was even "appalled." Many teachers were frustrated because the clocks on our classroom walls are analog, so kids need to know analog time. (I wonder why they're not frustrated that our facilities are stuck in the 20th Century or that half of the clocks don't work anyway.) One bridged the emotional - pedagogic divide by expressing the frustration of teaching a skill that first or second graders are not developmentally ready for.

Other pedagogic arguments included the value of using an analog clock as a concrete example of math skills. Miriam added that learning analog clocks helps visual learners:

...I believe that the analog clock can provide a vivid representation of time that digital clocks cannot. Analog clocks are great for teaching time management, concepts including the passage of time, how much time we have left to complete something, etc. Even our little kids who don't yet have the concept of numerals can understand that "when the big hand is on this red line it's time to line up.

Philosophically, several people compared learning analog time to learning cursive writing, another skill that's about as common these days as an 8-track stereo. They pointed out that all anybody seems to write in cursive anymore is their signature. But isn't that a reason to stop teaching it, rather than continue?

Barb, my favorite non-conformist, wrote a response that combines emotion, pedagogy, and philosophy:

I don't know if it's necessary to learn to read an analog clock; but I definitely think it is good for the brain and even better for the mind. Even though the analog clock "moves time" through a single plane or two dimensions, at least time is moving through space at some level. And time needs space although not as much as space needs time. Digital clocks offer only a linear time, and even the linearity is broken up-a kind of dotted line of time. I think our conditioned and cultural tendencies in the west-forever- and increasingly all over the planet, are already towards a mental and psychic linearity( and very much broken up at that ) which lacks depth and scope and a connection to the non-physical world. So, I love the analog clock and the sense of something moving through time and time moving through something....The only thing is that analog watches ALL lose time on my wrist pretty dramatically. But I have a great analog art clock made out of those little firecracker things that you stomp on- hanging in my kitchen. It ticks and tocks, too. I still love sensations and the tactile, visual world-so yes, analog clocks.

That makes me want to teach analog time just so I can then teach them how to find south with an analog watch.

Her comments also led to a mental digression. Our English unit of length began as the average size of sixteen residents' feet in a given village. Daylight was divided into six equal parts so how long an hour lasted depended on the season and your latitude. So, time and distance were proportional the cycles of nature and her human inhabitants. A meter, by the way, is 1/299,792,458 of the distance light travels in a vacuum in one second. (Why not 1/300,000,000?) A second is equal to the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation in an energy level change of the Cesium atom. (Why not 10,000,000,000?)

My own response to Steve's original question was that I think reading analog time is about as virtuous as using a rotary phone or zip-a-grade. (I was going to use put in a picture of a zip-a-grade for younger readers, but couldn't find a single one. There are, though, lots of zip-a-grade apps.)

Instead of comparing analog time to cursive, I compared it to reading dice, which a lot of kids can't do anymore, either. But the digital games they play instead:

...are more cognitively demanding and require more planning, collaboration, and communications skills than board games. Plus, like any good teacher - the games they play don't let them move on until they've mastered their current level while providing the motivation to continue. I'd love to be able to teach grit the way World of Warcraft does. My kids never asked me a geography or history question after playing Yahtzee or Monopoly, but they do after playing Assassin's Creed.

To that, my colleague Cheryl fairly pointed out the advantages of dice games in developing number sense.

And to Steve's earlier point about the prevalence of analog clocks in public places, I'd add that yesterday I visited the supermarket, the mall, two libraries, and a party. In those peregrinations, I saw exactly four analog clocks hanging on walls. The last was at my friend's party in her home. Her clock was quite lovely and made me think that in terms of decorative value, analog clocks win hands down.

At the end of the day, Steve wrote to us all that he had decided to teach analog time-telling.

I'm going to pass some time watching Cesium atoms radiate.

I grew up in Silver City, New Mexico and went the University of New Mexico, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology. After working for the U.S. Geological Survey in remote regions of western New Mexico, I moved to Tucson to attend graduate school at the University of Arizona, earning a Master of Science degree in Hydrogeology. While working as an intern hydrologist for a local county agency, I started doing volunteer work that involved making presentations in schools. At that moment I knew teaching was the path to follow. It must have been a good decision because I'm still on the path after thirty-two years. My teaching certificates are in math and science and I am a National Board Certified Teacher in Career and Technical Education. After teaching engineering and math and elective classes at the same school in downtown Tucson my whole career, I've moved to a different middle school and district on the edge of town to teach math. In addition to full time teaching, I am actively involved in the teacher leadership movement by facilitating National Board candidates, blogging for Stories from School Arizona, and serving on the Arizona K12 Center's TeacherSolutions team. In January 2017, Raytheon Missile System named me a Leader in Education and I'm a former Arizona Hope Street Fellow.

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Should We Still Teach Analog Clocks? - STORIES FROM SCHOOL AZ

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SHARE THIS STORY: On Friday, my colleague Steve Andre wrote in a staff wide email that he was considering teaching how to tell time on an analog clock to his seventh grade computer students because they can't read the one

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C- 1.) May 4, 2018
R- Yes.
A- 4.) Brett Molina
A- No.
P- To inform.

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Despite smartphones and other technological advances, one object has withstood the test of time: the analog clock.

Many of us remember learning about them in schools, between the "big hand, little hand" and converting those numbers to multiples of 5.

But is the analog clock's life in schools slowly ticking away?

According to London's Telegraph, some schools in the U.K. are ditching analog clocks for digital ones because students are struggling to read them.

"The current generation aren't as good at reading the traditional clock face as older generations," said Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders.

Telling time is a key part of elementary school curriculum in the U.S., as many kids read the hands on a clock and write out the correct time.

In 2014, a teacher in Arizona discussed whether it was time to retire the analog clock in an age of smartphones and smartwatches where everything is digital, citing a colleague who wanted to teach his seventh grade class because they couldn't read the analog clock on the wall.

Carol Burris, executive director of the advocacy Network for Public Education and former educator with more than 25 years experience, said teaching analog time still holds value.

"The skills that you need to read an analog clock are skills that kids when they're young begin to learn," she said, citing concepts such as counting by fives and fractions.

Meanwhile, schools using Common Core standards for math require educators to teach kids in earlier grades such as first or second.

While schools in the U.K. have chosen to pull analog clocks, it appears the devices' time in U.S. schools won't expire any time soon.

"There's a lot of very complex mathematical manipulations that are involved in being able to tell time with an analog clock," Burris said. "It takes some of the math skills students are learning and gives them an important real world context."
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.

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Some students don't know how to read analog clocks. Is it the end of an era?

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Despite smartphones and other technological advances, one object has withstood the test of time: the analog clock. Many of us remember learning about them in schools, between the "big hand, little hand" and converting those numbers to multiples of 5. But is the analog clock's life in schools slowly ticking away?

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C- 2.) Sep. 19, 2016
R- Yes, it agrees with my claim.
A- 4.) Rick Wagner
A- No.
P- To inform and teach.

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I immediately thought of four folks: my younger son, junior son, senior daughter and grown step-daughter. The youngest is in third grade in Hawkins County, the middle two in Kingsport City Schools and the oldest graduated from Hawkins. That's four folks, and the result of surveying them, actually just interaction over time, has shown 75 percent more or less can't tell analog time, on a round-face clock, which was the point of the email. I remember once time telling my older son in late elementary school it was a quarter till or quarter after a certain hour. He asked if that was 3:25 or 25 minutes till 3.

These digital natives read time as 3:15 p.m. or 3:45 p.m., not a quarter till or quarter after anything. But analog clocks and before that sundials have been around almost as long as civilization. The youngest is learning and nearly complete in understanding analog time; the other three, not so much at all. They use their cell phones for time except for the youngest. He borrows his mom's phone or asks somebody. I asked him recently, and he said he prefers digital clocks because they are easier for him to understand.

Before I go any further, I need to point out that a watch retailer put out the release to promote its program with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America "to educate children across the U.S. on how to tell time" and creation of "a self-learning watch." So the watch seller has some self-interest in mind: Create life-long time tellers, and you create a market for your product. I also need to point out the survey got nowhere near Tennessee or Virginia.

"A recent survey conducted by ... online watch retailer, DiscountWatchStore.com has revealed that 75% of children across the U.S. are unable to tell time on an analog clock. In a mission to raise awareness of this issue, the watch retailer teamed up with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to put on 'Time Telling Workshops' throughout the country, and has now designed the 'Easy Time Teller' - a custom self-learning watch to better facilitate the learning process." So it's a watch to teach children how to read a watch.

In Tennessee, Robin McLellan, supervisor of elementary education for Sullivan County schools, said time is taught in grades 1, 2 and 3 and involves both analog and digital time, in contrast to a period in which standards did not specify analog. In first grade, she said students are to learn how to tell and write time in the nearest half-hour intervals, in second grade, students go down to every five minutes and use a.m. and p.m;. and in third grade they go down to the minute and learn how to measure intervals in time by adding and subtracting and how to solve word problems.

"Your begin in first building foundations and then add more skills," McLellan said. For the time three of the four I referred to earlier were in school, analog time was not a big deal. For me, it was practically the only deal. My first "digital" alarm clock circa mid-1970s flipped over a new number or numbers every minute. It is (yes, I still have it) like a Rolodex, not to be confused with a Rolex watch. If you don't understand any of this, never mind. You probably don't know "Time is on My Side" by the Rolling Stones, "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce or "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)" sung by Frank Sinatra, either. (The latter starts out: "It's quarter to three. There's no one in the place, except you and me."

According to the news release, the analog time telling survey consisted of 15 questions and was split into three levels of varying difficulty. It was distributed to 2,100 children between the ages of 6-12 in New York, Florida, Connecticut, Washington, Nevada, Utah and Texas. Children unable to obtain an 80 percent mark in levels 1 and 2 or a 70 percent mark in level 3 were judged not to be able to tell time to an adequate level. Only 263 children out of the entire survey achieved full marks on the test, with 527 children achieving scores of a sufficient level. Based on the sample, findings and criteria stated it was revealed that 25 percent of children were able to tell time.

"Through educational workshops, the nationwide initiative has reached thousands of children across the U.S., seeking to highlight a significant problem with today's youth growing up in the digital age, and allowing the youngsters the opportunity to learn a fundamental component of early childhood and development. The survey assessed over 2,000 children between 6-12 years old in seven states across the U.S., with only 1 in 8 children scoring full marks on the test and only 1 in 10 children even owning a watch," the release said.

However, the premise is important, much more important than selling watches.

"It is alarming how many children only know what a digital clock reads, and despite an era of digital technology, there will undoubtedly come a time when today's youth will need to read the time on an analog clock. It is a basic skill every individual should posses," said DiscountWatchStore.com owner Zai Zhu. (Notice how he got "alarming" in there in a news release about time pieces.) "We've been going up and down the country holding workshops with children in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to help educate our children. It is these workshops that inspired the idea for a specially-designed watch for children to learn how to tell time."

The educational watch has a color-coded design, with hour blocks and specifically catered hour and minute hands that correspond with the appropriate information, allowing children to learn to read time on a round dial on their own. The campaign recently had a Kickstarter campaign in an effort to raise funds and reach as many children throughout the U.S. as possible.

"The ability to tell time on a regular watch is not something being taught to our children. It is important that they learn this lost skill," said Steve Davidson, chief operating officer at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada. "At our clubs, we are using the ability to tell time also in our daily math tutoring program."

Today's lesson: I'm not trying to sell watches or with the Boys & Girls Clubs, but I couldn't agree more with the importance of learning about analog time.

Bonus question: What time is quarter till 3 in a song Frank Sinatra sang?

Rick Wagner is an education writer for the Kingsport Times-News and can be reached at [email protected] or (423) 392-1381.

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Behind the Blackboard: Telling time on an analog clock should not be lost to new generations

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Digital natives read time as 3:15 p.m. or 3:45 p.m., not a quarter 'til or quarter after anything. But analog clocks and before that sundials have been around almost as long as civilization. The youngest is learning but not yet complete in understanding analog time; the other three, not so much at all.

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C- 2.) Aug. 14, 2018
R- Yes, it agrees with my claim.
A- 1.) Vivienne Pearson
A- No.
P- To teach and inform

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Can your kids read an analog clock? You know, the round ones with hands. Like the Rocket Clock in Play School (as opposed to the digital watches that were soooo cool in Back to the Future).

Learning to tell the time on an analog clock is HARD and, pardon the pun, it is a skill that takes time to master.

Some people think that kids are increasingly unable to read analog clocks. I haven't been able to find hard evidence to support this claim but, from anecdotal evidence, it is certainly true that some kids are reach their teenage years without developing this skill, despite digital and analog time telling featuring equally on our school curriculums.

It is unsurprising - digital clocks are far more common, especially for "i-Gen" kids brought up with screens. Yet there are still enough analog clocks around - in people's homes, on town halls and on people's wrists - to make it an important skill to learn.

So how does a kid learn to read a clock with hands?

Sonja Walker is a teacher with 30 years' experience. She points out that the most important thing is to have regular exposure. "I suggest having analog clocks around your house, and buying your primary schooler an analog watch," she says.

She also suggests consciously using the lingo associated with time. "Use a timer when you are encouraging your kids to take turns, or say things like: 'We need to pick up Sarah from soccer at 5pm so let's look at the clock to see what time it is now.'"

Play School has the right idea by starting with hour and half-hour times, something that is echoed in the early years of our school curriculums. "After that, you need to know patterns of five," says Walker.

This is where analog clocks get super confusing. Roger Shackleton, who realised just how confusing when he tried to teach his daughter, sums it up beautifully: "When the minute hand points to one, we need to say five; when it points to five we need to say 25; when it points to seven we also need to say 25; when it points to 10 we do actually say 10."

Shackleton realised that there must be an easier way. He hand-crafted a clock that contained more information than regular analog clocks. "It was made of cardboard and had Mickey Mouse hands," he says.

He added numbers to correspond to the minutes and lengthened the minute hand so that it pointed right to the numbers. He then added the words PAST to one half, TO to the other, and a bit of colour coding for good measure.

"Now all the information needed was on the clock," he concludes.

From there, it becomes a simple three step process to tell the time. "All a child has to do is read the number the long hand is pointing to, say whether it is on the 'past' or 'to' side of the clock, then read the number that the short hand is pointing to," Shackleton says.

The idea was so successful that, after his daughters had totally mastered telling the time, Shackleton created a commercial version of his cardboard clock. I used one with my kids so totally agree with Shackleton when he says: "Telling the time had gone from being inexplicable, to three simple steps that can be learned in just a few minutes."

Of course, there is a bit more to it than that. There is learning the concepts of quarter past, quarter to, and knowing that half past four is the same things as four 30. Then there is working out how much time is left before something happens by subtracting using 60 as the base number rather than 100. And, for extra degrees of difficulty, there are roman numerals and the 24-hour clock to master.

But, once the fundamentals are in place, these more complex elements are easier.

Like all skills, learning to read a clock will come more naturally to some kids than others. Walker, who now runs a multidisciplinary service for kids facing challenges with their learning, says: "For some kids, the whole concept of time is hard, it is abstract and some kids will likely always have gaps in their skills."

Like all skills, reading an analog clock will be developed more quickly and fully when they are learned both at school and at home.

If you need some add some humour into the equation, hit YouTube for these hilarious takes on the topic.

An analog clock-reading Vox Pop by Jimmy Kimmel:

An oldie-but-a-goodie - veteran comic Dave Allen routine on the challenges of teaching your child how to tell the time:

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Do kids really need to know how to read an analog clock?

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Can your kids read an analog clock? You know, the round ones with hands. Like the Rocket Clock in Play School (as opposed to the digital watches that were soooo cool in Back to the Future). Learning to tell the time on an analog clock is HARD and, pardon the pun, it is a skill that takes time to master.

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Found image on padlet google search.

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Found image on padlet google search.

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C- 1.) Dec. 12, 2018
R- Yes, it agrees with my claim.
A- 1.) American Time
A- No.
P- To inform.

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Anyone paying attention to changes in schools over the years will notice how evolving technology has altered the ways students learn. For example, iPads have replaced textbooks, digital whiteboards have replaced chalkboards, even the classroom itself has been replaced to a degree, with students able to take classes remotely over the internet. The question begs to be asked. Are analog clocks the next to go?

A Vanishing Skill?

Across the Atlantic, some British schools have taken note of that development, replacing analog clocks with the digital variety, according to the Washington Post, which notes that the same time-telling handicap applies to many American students, too. That's what an Oklahoma City survey concluded, finding that just one in five students ages 6-12 could read an analog clock.

An Unnecessary Stressor?

A Foundational Skill?

Those who want to hold on to the analog tradition say that learning to read the format is part of a basic level of education. In support of that argument, the Common Core curriculum that guides what is taught in American schools still includes analog time-telling as a standard lesson.

Use it or Lose it?

The argument for learning to read analog clocks might also be compared to the value of knowing long division or memorizing phone numbers. After all, the old saying persists today: "Use it or lose it."

Physical exercise could be seen as another valid analogy. Daily life doesn't require that we expend as much physical energy as it used to, but no one's arguing against the value of a good sweat once in a while. Perhaps, then, we need to intentionally engage in certain mental exercises - making computations that we don't actually need to do - for overall cognitive health.

Of course, at American Time, we value the skill of reading analog clocks and believe it will continue to be a necessary and important skill to know in the future. However, we do understand that digital clocks are simply better suited for some purposes. We're interested to see which direction this argument leads us here in the U.S.

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Is Teaching Students to Read Analog Clocks Still Relevant in Schools?

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Anyone paying attention to changes in schools over the years will notice how evolving technology has altered the ways students learn. For example, iPads have replaced textbooks, digital whiteboards have replaced chalkboards, even the classroom itself has been replaced to a degree, with students able to take classes remotely over the internet.

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Found image on padlet google search.

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Found image on padlet google search.

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Found image on padlet google search.