I was so inspired by Neil's presentation on Friday!
I could not believe the quality of work he was able to achieve with the students! I loved how he used technology as a tool and not just an add-on in the classroom. I really liked the idea of the Pod Casts for assessment, and think it could be quite valuable in my math classroom. One of the general outcomes for the curriculum is being able to "communicate mathematically". I can just imagine using this as a tool to assess student understanding of certain concepts. It will also be interesting to see how students reason through problems. It will be really beneficial to be able to pinpoint where students are struggling in their thought processes, and then focus my teaching on problem areas. Using podcasts will be so much faster than doing the oral assessment via interview.
I'm also quite intrigued by Google Docs. (Hence the topic for my showcase) I started using google this summer as a "more permanent email address" and have become quite comfortable with the basic operations. I didn't really explore GoogleDocs until this last weekend, and I must say that I am quite impressed with the sophistication and ease of use of the program. I think it would be a great tool to use in my teaching!
I'm learning all about these cool technology things that we can incorporate into the classroom, and although I am getting quite excited about using all that the internet has to offer, I still feel slightly skeptical about the ease of use in the classroom. A collaborative website is only as valuable as the members who join in. What if students are just not interested in reviewing course-related websites? What if they are unfamiliar with technology in math? What if I try to bring in technology, and it totally fails? What then?
There are a lot of things I would like to include in my practice. And although I am totally inspired and ready to start teaching, I need to limit myself to slowly incorporate all these great ideas as opposed to overwhelming myself and my students with an overkill of technology.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Introduction
What do you know and like to do with technology?
I enjoy using technology quite a bit. My favorite thing about it is probably using it as a tool of keeping in touch with friends and family.
I use the Internet quite a bit for research whether it be personal or school related. There is a lot of information out there, and its very interesting to see what everyone else has come up with. I used search engines a lot during my undergrad, whether it was for looking up definitions of terms, examples, and even for further exploration of key concepts.
What do you want to learn about inquiry and ICT?
I want to learn how to use technology effectively in the classroom. Specifically in accordance with the mathematics curriculum. I know there are many wonderful calculator programs out there, but resources and often scarce, and not all school have access to them. I am looking to learn about alternate methods for incorporating technology into the classroom. Whether it be via Smartboard, Wikis, Blogs, Graphing programs, etc. I think mathematics is one of the more difficult subject areas to incorporate technology... which is surprising since just about all technology uses mathematics in some form.
I am also quite intrigued by what inquiry looks like in math. Especially in higher levels, where most of the concepts are quite abstract. There is this huge push for inquiry all across the curriculum, but up until this point, most of the inquiry I have experienced and seen has been for the humanities side of the program of studies. I'm quite confused as to what inquiry looks like in math, and would love to take a deeper look at it, and find ways to incorporate it into my everyday classroom practice.
What questions do you have about inquiry, technology and culture.
Even though we have been talking about inquiry all throughout this MT program, the concept of inquiry still seems a little fuzzy for me at times. My main concern is how to gauge understanding and how much is actually being learned by the students within such an inquiry based environment. In this program, there is no need to assign grades, but in the classroom, grades are extremely important to some kids. How can we assess inquiry? I think that is probably one of my biggest concerns.
I enjoy using technology quite a bit. My favorite thing about it is probably using it as a tool of keeping in touch with friends and family.
I use the Internet quite a bit for research whether it be personal or school related. There is a lot of information out there, and its very interesting to see what everyone else has come up with. I used search engines a lot during my undergrad, whether it was for looking up definitions of terms, examples, and even for further exploration of key concepts.
What do you want to learn about inquiry and ICT?
I want to learn how to use technology effectively in the classroom. Specifically in accordance with the mathematics curriculum. I know there are many wonderful calculator programs out there, but resources and often scarce, and not all school have access to them. I am looking to learn about alternate methods for incorporating technology into the classroom. Whether it be via Smartboard, Wikis, Blogs, Graphing programs, etc. I think mathematics is one of the more difficult subject areas to incorporate technology... which is surprising since just about all technology uses mathematics in some form.
I am also quite intrigued by what inquiry looks like in math. Especially in higher levels, where most of the concepts are quite abstract. There is this huge push for inquiry all across the curriculum, but up until this point, most of the inquiry I have experienced and seen has been for the humanities side of the program of studies. I'm quite confused as to what inquiry looks like in math, and would love to take a deeper look at it, and find ways to incorporate it into my everyday classroom practice.
What questions do you have about inquiry, technology and culture.
Even though we have been talking about inquiry all throughout this MT program, the concept of inquiry still seems a little fuzzy for me at times. My main concern is how to gauge understanding and how much is actually being learned by the students within such an inquiry based environment. In this program, there is no need to assign grades, but in the classroom, grades are extremely important to some kids. How can we assess inquiry? I think that is probably one of my biggest concerns.
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