8
February
2010
I had such fun with Quizlet! This was a tool I can absolutely see using in the classroom. There were flashcards that could be used to study math terms as well as actual expressions. Very cool. Excellent way to study for any course, and I imagine that kids would have more fun with this than actual paper. This tool also has different games that the students can play to help them study.
I also checked out Wordle, which was fun and looked neat. However, I didn’t see any real use for this within my classroom.
Skype is another tool that I checked out. It’s such a neat idea, to be able to talk to someone online. This is something I would love to use in my classroom to connect with other classrooms around the world. I also can imagine using this in my personal life to connect with friends in far away places.
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8
February
2010
Well, I won’t pretend this was my favorite “thing.” I really don’t like hearing my voice on any recording device. However, I heard several fascinating podcasts while exploring this lesson. I am now subscribing to the NPR podcast as there are always shows that I miss that I’d like to hear. Who knew that I could listen online? Oh, the things I have learned!!
In terms of professional use of the podcast, I’m not too sure yet. My colleagues and I are working on a Wiki project as a graduation requirement for our seniors, so I’m trying to figure out how to get the podcast involved. I can imagine the students creating something through Garageband which would help them explain a concept to another student. I can’t actually imagine it not being paired with something visual, but that might not be fair. My students are quite creative and I bet they can figure out something that I have not yet thought of.
Anyway, here’s my podcast – enjoy!
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29
January
2010
I have spent a fair amount of time on YouTube. Friends have sent me interesting videos, family members that live far away have sent me videos of babies doing cute things, colleagues have sent me videos of pertinent information that could be useful in terms of my teaching. I enjoy looking at the different videos. I haven’t ever posted one. But I have seen several that I have passed on. It’s a very cool concept.
So I decided to look for some cool math stuff. I found several interesting videos of neat math tricks, other videos of people explaining useful concepts. I am toying with the idea of using one if I am ever absent as a “substitute” teacher. That will be an interesting experiment.
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18
January
2010
I LOVE the idea of digital literacy for use in the classroom! Just playing around with making a slide show was so much fun for me – I imagine the kids would have a blast. FLICKR has a plethora of images to use. I just typed in “math everywhere” and found images that wouldn’t have even crossed my mind to look for. What a great tool. Creating a project for the kids to show math in the real world would be an interesting use of these tools. Practicing using these tools during my limited class time is my only concern, but that seems like the only way to it right. I also found a very interesting project using Trigonometry through FLICK which I”d like to maybe use with my Precalculus class.
cosine cactus
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24478813@N03/2404831042/
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31
December
2009
The session I attended entitled “Engaging Our Youngest Minds“, by Angela Maiers was inspiring. This session reminded me that pretty much every child has something that they are passionate about. And how important it is to foster that passion whenever possible within the classroom setting (to say nothing of outside the classroom). It’s true that much of our teaching is mandated by necessary curriculum – which I most certainly see within the math classes that I teach. However, as an 11-year veteran teacher, I have certainly had students over the years whose passion lies within the realm of mathematics. Besides being able to converse with these kids on a whole other level (as I share their passion!) it invigorates me as a teacher, which is a bonus to my teaching.
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19
December
2009
What a fascinating and thought-provoking website! Among other wonderful groups, I found a great group called “High School Math Teachers” on the site, which made me very happy. There were several discussions that were centered around math that I found myself engrossed in! I wound up going deeper and deeper into some of the discussions, finding cool websites and other resources – my favorite entitled “Using the internet to spice up your math class.” Oh wow – I got lost in it! Anyway, I surfed around a bit, but have not yet signed up. I’m sure I will at some point, but I’m still working on my wiki and blog!
I can definitely see the benefits to joining a social network. Especially in terms of collaborating with other professionals across the world. I joined Facebook several months ago and am enjoying keeping in touch with friends and family from far away. That was a very cool project that the teacher did on To Kill a Mockingbird using Facebook. Wish I could think of ideas like that for my math classes.
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12
December
2009
I found Kim Confino’s presentation very thoughtful and thoroughly enjoyable. Her experiences living in SouthEast Asia have given her different perspectives on how we should view education. The fact that goods and services are available around the clock there, and therefore learning should take place around the clock as well, makes a lot of sense. In the States we seem to restrict learning to the school day, whereas it really needs to continue throughout the whole day. Teachers also need to work more in collaboration than in solitude. We should really be blending cultural influences together while educating our youth.
The most interesting part of the conference to me was the section on interviews of TCK’s. I loved listening to all of the kids and adults talk about their experiences living overseas. I have often wished that I had had that experience as a child. As a teacher, I have spent every summer traveling to new places (from Nepal to Eastern Europe to East Africa) in an effort to expand my own horizons and learn about different countries. Of course, now that I have a family, I’m hoping to give my daughter the opportunity to have many adventures overseas as she grows up.
Listening to the TCK’s, I realized that there are several attributes that they have acquired that could be useful to our students that we might not spend enough time teaching them. TCK’s are more flexible and adaptable. They are not afraid of new experiences. They seem to be more able to naturally problem solve, have more confidence, be more tolerant of others and be more empathetic. These are all such important qualities for the young people we teach to be learning.
A tool like Skype seems like a really neat way to connect to other cultures. I would love to somehow incorporate this type of technology into my classroom if I could figure out how. I think it would be invaluable for my students to connect with, and learn to respect, other cultures. I was touched by the young girl who was interviewed from Illinois. She said that she had thought that she would live there forever until she moved out of her country and saw what else was out there. I’d love for my students to have that experience and I worry that some of them have no interest in ever leaving their neighborhoods. I think technology is a wonderful way to get them to see what’s outside of their own backyards.
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4
December
2009
Lots of cool wikis out there! I liked the one that the elementary school kids did with math. It showed some creative and innovative ideas. I can see how much time and energy goes into making these wiki pages. The idea that you can add things to them, as well as take things away, makes them useful tools in the classroom. I also read about the project on the Holocaust which seemed very well done and worthwhile. And the google earth wiki also seems like a great tool if you are using google earth in the classroom.
I wish I had found more wikis on topics in mathematics. I mean, I’m sure they exist. I just need a little more time to explore what’s out there. My colleagues at Crefeld and I created just one little one last year on “how to” multiply and divide positive and negative numbers. A goal we have is to have our students add more “how to’s” to the page. Then, we could create a whole reference book for future math students to use when they are struggling with a concept. It’s a work in progress!
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24
November
2009
Oh wow!!! I wish I had more time to read all of the interesting information that I see on my Reader every day. There’s simply not enough time. That might be why I stumbled upon blessings and stressings on the Cool Cat Teacher Blog the other day and it resonated with me very strongly. There were a few topics in this post that I really enjoyed reading and actually made me feel a little better!
I have a chance to check out the weather everyday, and the latest vegetarian recipe, which of course, would be more useful if I actually had time to try and make it!! This one looks like one I might be able to actually try and this link from the NYT showed some great recipes for Thanksgiving.
I think my favorite blog so far, and the one I’d like to spend more time with, is Math-Blog. It just has such fun stuff on it! Of course, my students like to say “do you mean really fun stuff, or Alicia-fun stuff?” So, I would say that this site has Alicia-fun stuff on it. It’s function is that it is “dedicated to promoting the beauty of Mathematics at every level.” And I love it. Again, just wish I had more time to enjoy it. 
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8
November
2009
I am just recently starting to understand why people would want to blog – or follow someone else’s blog. I like the idea that I can find a cool article or neat lesson that someone else used with their students and then implement it into my own classroom. I definitely see that there are benefits of blogging. As a teacher, blogging can connect me to the wider world of educators, instead of just those that I see on a daily basis. It can enhance my teaching, as well as my learning. It does, however, take a lot of time. If I had more time, I think I might enjoy exploring other blogs more.
Having my students blog is a different story. As a math teacher, I don’t think that I have quite worked out what that would look like. Once in a while I have my students do a little journaling on a specific question/topic. I imagine that blogging could take the place of that aspect of my curriculum. But blogging, in general, doesn’t (at least not yet) feel like something useful to me within my classroom. Technology, like using the SmartBoard and Geometer’s Sketchpad are proving to be extremely beneficial in terms of helping my students grasp 21st Century Learning skills. Blogging feels more useful as a professional tool than a classroom tool.
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