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.