Digital Stories

This week we have continued to work on our digital stories. There were some very important concept that are essential for a Digital Story that we discovered. The hook at the beginning is, of course, essential to catch their interest and get the students to listen to what you are saying. The music sets the tone for what kind of emotion the kids should feel while watching it. Lastly, it should make an impression that the students will remember when the story is all finished.

For math we at first found it a little difficult to portray really strong emotions into what we are teaching. Not many students feel that passionately about anything related to Algebra! So we decided to target something that everyone knows and is familiar with: beauty. This was our hook to draw the students in because everyone is familiar with beautiful faces in Hollywood. Relating this to math may at first seem like an obtuse sort of idea, but extracting a connection between the two will hopefully ingrain it into their minds. The music needed to be lively and set a pace where it keeps the students interest throughout. And lastly, we posed a question at the end, where they see the Golden Ratio in their lives, which we would open up for discussion in the classroom and get the critical thinking juices flowing.

Digital Stories do seem like a lot of work for such a short amount of classroom time that the students will see it. I feel that they will be very effective in other content areas where discussion can follow and deep questions can be addressed. But for math, it sort of seemed like a lot of work for something that will most likely have to be explained further in classroom lecture so they can grasp all the details. However, if there was an extremely important subject that the students needed to learn, say, the distance formula or Pythagorean's Theorem or the trigonometric functions, Digital Stories might be very useful to produce an effective way for them to remember. They reach such a variety of learning styles and could play with emotions in a ways that permanently places things into long-term memory.

Video

A lot of the information presented in this video was extremely similar to others that we have seen in the past. It did bring some interesting points though. The computer that will have capabilities like a human brain just blows my mind and the fact that a $1,000 computer will handle the capabilities of the entire human species is almost incomprehensible. Crazy!!! This just means that we as teacher have to continue to better ourselves so that we can be prepared to teach these incredibly capable kids. We are going to have to bring our A-game to the table and be willing to alter our teaching to fit their needs as technology changes from year to year.

Technology Articles

Clickers for Class!!!

Clickers are a tool that looks similar to a remote that a student can have to submit answers to a multiple choice question. Once they submit the answer it is automatically available for view either to the teacher or the class. This is all done via the number of the clicker, so students don't know who said what answer.

Some of the benefits of clickers are:
The teacher will have instant access to how the students are feeling about a subject. It doesn't matter what I'm teaching, I could use this for any concept. For example, I might be teaching about right triangles and how to determine the lengths of their sides. I can post a question on the board or up on the screen and they can perform the work on their papers at their desks. Then, using the technology of the clicker, they can enter in their answer and submit it. The answers can either be brought up on the screen to show the class or shown to me as the teacher privately. This can enable me to gauge how the class is doing and where we need to go from there. We can go through the steps again, or move on to the next problem if the majority understands.

I love the abilities of these clickers because they ensure privacy among students and they shouldn't feel embarrassed to say they don't understand something. If they continue to miss the problems on right triangles and don't seem to understand the concept of the pythagorean theorem, I can give them special attention and solve the problem before the test.

In addition, like one article states, students can discuss with each other the possible answers after they have submitted them. They can point out why they think an answer is correct and help each other understand, stimulating cognitive learning. Doing this will help them better interact with each other as well as engrain certain concepts into their mind.

One setback of using clickers are the cost. One article stated that an iClicker cost $40. Obtaining these tools might be expensive for a public school to purchase for every student and the classrooms might not be equipped for that kind of technology. Another setback is technology difficulties that might come from a remote not working or breaking. A student would find it hard to participate in the activity if they don't have their remote!

Clickers might also be hard to set up if your aren't familiar with the technology. However, on one of the websites I found they have four videos that show how to set the system up, how to make sure it's running properly, how to use it effectively and set up your questions, and how to view the results at the end of the day. The results can show a students cumulation of answers throughout the day so you can see how that student is doing.

Parents will love the technology of the clicker because it enables their kids to understand why they missed a problem and correct that problem. It will ensure the student's privacy so the stress of being made fun of is depleted because no one knows who put a certain answer.

h-itt clickers
Clickers in the classroom

Comics in the Classroom

Who doesn't like comics? Comics are a great way to add a little spice to the mundane things that happen in math class. There are many tools online for students to create comic strips that are free, easy, and simple. One of the websites I found was a simple cartoon creator, so simple that you just make the comic as you go, no instructions or anything. The other article was very helpful, it provides websites for other comic creators. Some of them are so much fun to play with!

A negative aspect is because they are so fun, they can easily get distracted and play with all the cool features instead of creating a comic strip! Another negative side is the fact that it is created online so everyone is required to use a computer. But if you can set aside one day in the computer lab, they could create a quick comic strip on what we have learned for the past week. So really that isn't even a problem.

Some of the positive aspects of comic strips are all the different features that are available based on which website you choose to use. The Pixton site is really fun because you can create all your characters, their facial expressions, their poses, and even their clothes! All these options are free which is another plus. Teachers love free things!!! This is a great tool to use for math teachers because, once again, it's something different that the students can do to apply what they learned. If we were learning about the areas of geometric shapes, I would have them create a comic strip about whatever they wanted. They would be required to incorporate the formula and it's shape into the comic strip, whether they had a real world problem, created a classroom discussing it, etc.

Parents would definitely approve of this because it's so much fun to use and the students are required to brainstorm! They have to put what they learn in the classroom into a story, proving that they have mastered the information. If it's an effective way for students to study math problems or remember certain formulas, they can create a comic strip to help them study!

Tools for Teachers
Comic Creator

Educational video.

Video Blog

I absolutely loved this video. It gave me the chills in some parts because it makes you realize just how important you can be in a student's life! Although you don't make the greatest salary, it's all worth it because of the little things that you will experience throughout the day. I am so excited to have these experiences, to see that I'm making a difference in a child's life and helping them succeed. My favorite part was when he commented that he makes a C+ feel like the greatest achievement in the world. We are there to push every student the absolute best they can be. As a student, I have had teachers that could make me feel like a million bucks just because they said good job or commented that I did really good on an assignment. What do teachers make? They make a difference, woo hoo!

Picassa blog, take 2

I uploaded these pictures along with the others, but only the first 4 showed up so I had to put these in another blog. So here they are!!!

Picassa

This week in class we talked about taking pictures and using them for our classroom. Since we are all very familiar with digital cameras these days, it was a very short class. It was so short that I had a lot of time to think about what I could do to incorporate this activity into my classroom.

I love taking pictures, and I think most people would have a lot of fun with it as long as they had the resources to do it. It would be a fun assignment for them to participate in. We could even work with the photography class at the school if we didn't have the time or the resources to take pictures ourselves.

I could also have my students take pictures of ways they might see math displayed throughout the real world. If we talked about using triangles to measure buildings, I would have them take pictures of different sized buildings around town that they could use to make up their own problems and solutions. It could be a really applicable group project. Most importantly, it's good to remember to use differentiation in your teaching strategies to make sure that the students are interested and can keep focus.

Lessons Learned

Instant media gratification. The New WWW hit the nail right on the head. We are living in such a fast paced world, it blows my mind! The WWW article talks about getting out of assembly-line education and broadening out teaching to include all the available technology resources. My only concern is what if these resources become so available and prevalent that students no long have to create their own project, they can simply look up one online and copy it? Plagiarism is already a slight problem today, but will this trend increase? I thought the survey in the article "Teens Disconnect" was very interesting, stating that all the texting and other personal writing may be affecting teens abilities in school writing. I even catch myself becoming lazy in my sentence structure and word choice because of how I text.

On the positive side, the "Committment to High Tech Education" video was awesome! I would love to attend that school and have that kind of technology available to use. The real life application makes education interesting and they apply all the students learning to what they are interested in. I hope that all schools can some day have that kind of technology so students can learn by doing and applying. These are the kinds of tools that would be great to have in math so students can connect with what they are learning.

My Beliefs

Call me old fashioned, but sometimes I do get nervous that technology is making us less and less in-tune with ourselves and others, despite it's effectiveness in connecting us with people immediately through text, facebook, etc. I have enjoyed with Instructional media class and the resources that are now available for me to use as a teacher in the classroom. I believe that these resources will reach a broader range of students and benefit them in their studies. Technology is definitely great for education. According to the NETS AND UNI standards, teachers should always be using technology to create, teach, evaluate, and assess the students. The combination of both of these standards made it seem a bit overkill.

There are many good things with technology and I figure it's inevitable to avoid the jumps that it's making each day. But will there be a point where we all stop talking because we are having video conferences and we never go outside because we can enjoy everything virtually? Are we making students even more dependent on technology? When they are done with their homework on the computer will they go outside and play, or play an interactive game online and chat with facebook friends? I think we need to be careful of how we present these materials in the classroom and make sure that students don't become absolutely dependent on having a computer for their school survival.

Strengths and Weaknesses

A strength that I discovered with the UNI survey and NET standards was that I was at least familiar with every option. I never felt comfortable with saying that I was at the practitioner level, however. Almost all of my answers consisted of apprentice level knowledge, I didn't have the opportunity to really put them into practice. This was a major weakness that I have. Although I am familiar with them and have used almost all the resources at least one time, I hadn't thought of incorporating them into the classroom so much that the students would have to learn and understand what I knew. My only knowledge of video conferencing and podcasts consists of seeing them used before.

Goals I would like to set as a beginning teacher are:

1) Help students realize all the good materials and tools that are available to them through the computer and other technology.

2) Use more audio and visual technology for the diverse learners in class to provide them with a variety of ways to understand the information. Record my lectures and make them accessible

3) Use graphic organizers more readily to help students understand what they are looking at and learning. This is especially important in the math field.

Video Conference Tutorial

I found a tutorial on video conferencing that explains how to set it up and use it effectively. I think it would be neat even if we used it with another math class in the school to interact with each other, have competitions, or help each other with problems.

Graphic Organizers

Becoming more familiar with graphic organizers and how to use them will be very helpful in the mathematical world. Real life application requires students to gain information based on graphs and charts and be able to interpret the data. This site explains why graphs and charts are so important for you and your student, and gives a bunch of sources that can help you build your own graphs.

PPT

For class this week we finished up our powerpoints and posted them on our Google sites. Our two powerpoints we did were called, "What Number Am I?" and Hinky Pinky. Hinky Pinky was really fun to prepare because everyone started to get into it and wanted to start thinking of their own Hinky Pinky's.

Both of these assignments were great for using cognitive ability because the encourage them to brainstorm and think of possible answers to the clues that are given. Hinky Pinky is really fun, funny, and good for an activity that could be a nice break from the typical things they are doing in the classroom. Powerpoints are a good thing for the students to practice because right now they are very typical in the workforce today and it's important for them to learn the proper way of putting them together.

For my classroom, I love the "What number am I" because it's an easy way to test their knowledge of what we are learning. I can make a requirement for them to think of a number that will include certain terms that we have learned in class. I can also have them come up with equations that they will have to solve in order to get a clue to the number. The only problem with these activities is the fact that they might get a little out of control and rowdy. As a teacher you would have to maybe baby-sit the students while they are working on these assignments to keep them on task.

Video Blog

This would be a good thing for students to watch before they start on their own powerpoint presentation. I like it because it's very entertaining, but also applicable to learning what you should and shouldn't put on your slides. A lot of powerpoints have a tendency to have paragraphs of information on a slide, which leads to minds wandering, and ineffective teaching strategies. I get side-tracked when there are animations on the screen next to words and words of information and he even addressed that, I loved it!!! The main point he seemed to push was to keep the powerpoints simple, and be sure to post the most important information ONLY. It's the perfect length for students to pay attention to and teach them the important facts.

Powerpoint Presentations

In class we had the opportunity to design a sample powerpoint presentation that students could design themselves. The powerpoint we chose to do was "What number am I?" This was great for us math majors because it completely applied to our major! It was good because we were able to design them as if we were the student.

This will be good for students because they get to brainstorm and apply the use of what they have learned about numbers in class. It causes them to use a higher order of thinking as they discover and relay what they understand about numbers to help others better comprehend these numbers. It's really effective because they get to incorporate both teaching and learning as they create their own powerpoint, but also will have to do the other students' powerpoints as well.

This could be a great tool for class as long as we have access to computers. But even if we don't, we can create our own without a computer, it would just take a little bit more time. It could be a great activity to take a break from the mundane things we might be learning in class about formulas and such, and help them have fun while still testing their cognitive abilities.

This week we continued our work on the WebQuests with our group. We got together as a group and continued to organize and plan our assignment, figuring out the fine details and straightening out the wrinkles. We discovered that there are so many tools out there relating to math and helping students better understand, but it's hard to find information specific to our topic and what we are covering.

This made me realize how careful we have to be when using information and tools from the internet, because you never know what you're going to end up with. We had to do some in-depth research on some of the sites to make sure they were what we wanted.

Mainly what I realized this week was that WebQuests do take a lot of time but I think they are well worth it in the end, if they are done correctly. The important thing is to set up the WebQuests well enough that the students have a learning experience and gain something instead of just doing busywork.

Video Blog

Wow, this kid has got some incredible public speaking skills! I think he definitely has a bright future, but I couldn't see how this video would benefit me as a teacher. I felt like his situation was very specific for him, and didn't relate to me in the classroom. All it made me think about was how I needed to believe in all my students, to help them succeed in life. Other than that, I felt like he was a great speaker, but I struggled to be motivated during his speech. He seems like an exceptional student, and I didn't feel like his situation was like many other kids'.

Webquests

Webquests will be a good variety in the classroom and will be effective because it can take up a couple class periods, depending on the amount of information you have them research! I like the flexibility of webquests. You can present a concept that you want, and let the students research it for themselves and structure your assessment according to the research they have found. Although webquests might take a lot of time to set up initially, it will pay off in the end because of what the time the students will put into it and what they will gain.

Although math is very straightforward and there are certain requirements they have to master in order to move to the next level, I've thought of some ways to make math more applicable and help them understand it by using it in real life. One of the math webquests I found was something called Carshop. Students had to research certain used cars, pretending that they were going to buy one. They had to research the monthly payments, how long it would take to pay off, interest rates on loans, etc. It was a great application!

Math webquests will also be good to introduce students to the concept we are learning, the background of it, how it relates to what we just learned, and use of this concept in the real world. We are trying to do that with the webquest we are working on in class. I think it will make their study of math more effective and they will be able to retain the information better. It will help them understand why they are doing math, not just for the sake of the teacher inflicting pain to their minds!

Internet Safety

The internet is a great tool to use in the classroom. There is so much information that is readily available at your students fingertips! There are so many great tools that students can use, and are familiar with. Every kid growing up in this day and age uses the internet, and they most likely know how to use it better than we do. Like we have learned from the videos that we've seen for this class, students spend so much time chatting, surfing, etc. It only makes sense to use the tools that they are good at and interested in to help them learn!

Sites that we might use need evaluation because of all the garbage that is available online. You can find anything you want as well as anything you don't want; these things might pop up unexpectantly and we need to be prepared for them. We need to research before we allow students to access these certain sites. We also need ot make sure they are credible. Students need accurate facts, not opinions that others have posted online! As we are evaluating these sites, we should ask ourselves the following questions:
1) Who wrote the article, and are they an expert?
2) What is the purpose of the article?
3)When was the article created? When was it last updated?
4) Where do the sources come from? Are they credible?
5) Why is the information useful?
6) Look at the URL. Is it a personal page? Is it .com, .gov, or .edu?
7) Are there access to other links on the page for more information?
8) Is the article bias?

Using these questions will ensure that your sites are accurate and reliable. This will keep your kids safe from false information. Making sure the students are educated in internet safety is a must. They should know the warnings and what they need to look out for. They need to be alert on the types of questions they ask and the searches they perform. Informing them of good key words will help them find more reliable sources. The information through Pioneer Library guides students to the right path for finding correct information.

Video Blog
This video was so, so awesome! I thought it was so interesting, I want to watch it ten more times, and then some... That's a great introduction to so many topics. You could have students pick out something they don't know about and research that topic, you can give them a time period to research, or have them create their own song like that for our day. That song made me want to research all those things that I didn't know they were singing about, it made me excited to learn about them! We need more of things like this for our students, because I thought it was really great. If I could come up with something interesting like that for math, students would love it.

UEN Assignment!!! Woohoo!

UEN has so many incredible resources to use for the classroom, it's awesome! There are a lot of good ideas for math that can help student better understand the concepts that we are learning. When I looked at the thinkfinity activities, I found some really great activities that will enable kids to change the shape/size of objects so they can better understand area and concepts like that. I would like to have an interactive map like the one I found of Canada, to help them compute area of certain states or territories.

Another thing I like about UEN is that students can have access to these resources at home. So maybe I want them to watch a video on algebraic functions and equations before class, I can give them a couple days to look it over and maybe have a small quiz to prove that they at least looked at the video. For those who might be interested in playing chess or strategy games, this video can be incorporated to show the use of algebra in chess.

For the interactives, there are many games that are interesting to look at and play. Students

might not want to perform these problems, but when they are put on something like a balancer, the visual effect might clicks with a student, and they suddenly understand! There is also a tool called the function machine, that will help students grasp the concept of what a function is, and what it does.

I really love the idea of a lesson plan I saw for Algebra called Car Shop. It takes about 5 class periods, and encouragement for the students to stay on task because there will be a lot of group work. But it's a great, applicable activity for students to prepare themselves for when they go out and purchase a car or any large purchases. I wish I would have done this activity in high school! They have to calculate the interest rate, as well as their monthly payments. Then they are assigned to create a slope intercept formula for their information. Very interesting!!! This will help conquer Standard 2, Objectives 2 as well as 3 in the Algebra core curriculum. These state that students should be able to "model and interpret problems having a constant rate of change using linear functions."

VIDEO BLOG

I really liked the videos, especially the music! That made me want to watch just because I loved the music, but the information given was also interesting. I just saw the "Did you know" video as an interesting clip on the way technology is growing. It seemed similar with the point it was trying to get across as the "Pay attention" video we watched a couple weeks ago. "A Vision of Students Today" was interesting, mostly because it was collaborated by students themselves and I could relate to everything that they said. I had an interesting talk with my parents today about how much technology is expanding, and how I need to continue to familiarize myself with it so I can be a "hip" teacher and educate my students in the ways that are cool and interesting to them. If not, why will they even care about math? All they have to do is type in a problem on the calculator and it will give the answer. Then they will spend the rest of their time on facebook or texting. If I can somehow find a way to incorporate things like this in the classroom, I will be so much more effective!

Week 3--Google Sites

As we created a class website, I was amazed at how easily accessible it was, as well as how simple it was to create! I love learning about these tools because otherwise, I would have no idea they were even there and able to be used! Having a website is great for math, because there are many students who don't like the subject, and their parents can help them stay on track by keeping up to date on the assignments that are due and what they will be learning about. Parents will never question what their child is learning, because it will be all spelled out for them. It's great for students that are unorganized and lose the assignment five minutes after they leave the classroom--they can just look it up online!

For the tool section of the website, I would post information to help further their success in math. I would post information regarding the math club at the high school that they could join. This could help them become a little more excited about math. I would also post available tutors that can help them. These people might be former math students, myself, or others that might have volunteered to help students who are struggling. To encourage students to access the site regularly, I might post a video, a web site for math problems, or a challenging story problem for them to work out for a couple potential extra points. These would be posted on a weekly basis

VIDEO BLOG

Wow, what an interesting video! It takes a whole new perspective on technology than I've even thought about! It also made me realize how fast technology is changing. I graduated 4 1/2 years ago and kids have access to things now that I never would have dreamed possible while in high school! I never had a cell phone in high school, and now I don't think any kid could even fathom that concept. There are classrooms where the overhead projector is becoming history. Computers are becoming more readily accessible I completely agree with the video; these tools that kids are already familiar with should be used to teach in our classrooms. These things are what kids are interested in, so we should play off of their interests. This is where the real life application comes in, anyway.

Week 2, Everything Google

I love being organized. For me to be really successful, I believe I need to be organized. Now, I'm not saying that I'm organized all the time; it's actually more the opposite. The things we learned in class will enable me to become organized and efficient, if I can take the time to set them up and get them going. As we were exploring iGoogle, I was amazed at how I could have everything I ever wanted at my fingertips on that one screen! The calender feature was also incredible. It's an agenda and day-planner, all online and also at your fingertips. Also very effective for becoming more organized, especially with different classes, different church activities, and possibly coaching volleyball and track. The google documents were really interesting to me. I had no idea we had this kind of technology so readily available, and it made me excited to play with. However, I was stumped for a bit, trying to figure out how I could incorporate all of this into a high school math classroom.

I think most of this benefit would be for me, just to help me keep track of all my classes and what I'm doing! The iGoogle will be very helpful for quick access to all the different tools like youtube clips, new information regarding teachers, new strategies for teaching math, etc. Becaue I have a tendency to be a little spacey, the calender on Google will work wonders in me keeping track of my schedule! Once I get is all set up, it will be an incredible asset to my day, because as a teacher I have to be on top of my game with these students! I also want to make sure I can be available to help my students, after school if need be. Remembering plans is not my specialty, so if I can quickly pull up my calender to see what I have planned, it will become a lot easier to help my student know when I'm available for help. Another idea for the calender is making it accessible for my students so they can see what they have to look forward to:)

As for the Google documents, I might have students develop story problems together via this tool, or post an assignment on a Google document and have them work in groups to complete it, assigning them each a specific part of the problem. Not quite sure if this will be effective, but I think it would be a good change for the students, instead of the traditional classroom lecture and homework (although I didn't mind that in high school--what a geek, ha ha).

Since these tools are now provided for me and I know how to use them, I need to research and continue brainstorming how to use them in a math classroom. I won't sugar-coat it, I feel like this assignment is going to be a little challenging! But I'm willing to try different strategies to help kids discover that math isn't so bad. I want my students to be successful, and I'm willing to try different things and impliment different tools to help them succeed.

VIDEO BLOG

I wasn't really a fan of this video. I felt like he was promoting his rapping skills more than his math skills. I felt like the rap went so fast, it was hard to even catch what he was saying. Students need a second to register what they are learning, and when he was rapping and talking so fast, I felt like there was no way any student was going to gain anything from just watching it one time. If he would have shown more than one example, that also would have helped. I did like that the numbers were colorful and big on the screen, and it wasn't boring, for the most part. I also liked at the end when he repeated what he wanted them to remember: "take the top number divided by the bottom number." That was catchy and very effective. So it was sort of affective, but I don't think it's something that I would show in my classroom.

The Ideal Classroom

Hmm, where to start? First of all, if my classroom contains white walls, I'm going to plaster them with quotes, posters, etc! I want my classroom to have a theme, whether it's mathmatical or whatever. I would love to have posters of famous mathmaticians and their achievements hung everywhere. I also want posters of things such as the world's tallest buildings, longest bridges, and other examples that will illustrate the use of math in our everyday world.

Although math is not regarded as a sanctuary for many students, I would like my classroom to become a sort of haven for them. With the crazy life of a high school student, I want them to be able to come in my class and feel comfortable, above all. My students should respect me as well as my classroom and I will treat them with the same respect. I expect my students to come to class ready to learn, with a Spirit of Discovery, as Doc Waters puts it!! I want to show them that math IS a conquerable subject and it doesn't even have to be all that bad...

The energy that radiates from high school is contagious, and I want to be surrounded with that energy as I teach. I would hope that all teachers and parents will understand that I am there to help kids achieve better than they thought they were capable of. I would hope to introduce them to different ways of using math. They will be introduced to certain projects that will force them to look at math in a real-world perspective. Application is where the real learning will come in. I wouldn't mind showing them little media clips where math is used in the real world, just to get their minds thinking...