PowerPoint

PowerPoint is an awesome tool for teaching.  I like the fact that it allows a teacher to have all of their notes already written down before the class begins.  Teachers that use PowerPoint save about fifteen minutes each class in writing down notes.  Great teachers always prepare for their classes.  Another feature that I like is that the teacher can control how quickly or slowly the slides are changed.  The best part of this piece of technology is that all the teachers of this generation grew up using this technology.  My classmates and I know more about this technology than teachers have ever before.  This is a great piece of technology that helps teacher prepare for and control the tempo of class. 

PowerPoint is also a great tool because it allows the user to make it into what they want it to be by having multiple backgrounds and the user can even create their own.  In addition, it allows the user to add as many slides as needed.  On these slides can be text, pictures, sound, videos, and many animations.  This is great because teaching style and methods have really changed over the past few years.  Instead of just lecturing and writing down notes for students teachers today are encouraged to show visual representations of problems.  PowerPoint really allows teachers to show the information in any format that they want. 

Another feature of PowerPoint that I think is great is that you can print the slides out as handouts.  This is great because students can reference the class notes anytime they want to.  This is a very effective way to use technology to enhance a teacher’s teaching ability and the way student’s learn.  This is a similar circumstance to the use of Webassign in my last post.  Students are always looking for something to reference when they get home to do schoolwork.  This represents another piece of technology that gives students something to reference.        

Webassign

Webassign is a great piece of technology to use in the classroom.  Webassign is a website for students to do their homework online and the teacher can see when it was submitted, started, and how long it took to do it.  In addition the teacher can control the number of times a student has to answer the question.  However, it is also student friendly because it has practice problems and it tells student what part of the text book the problem goes with.  As a student I loved using this website because I grew up using computers, the internet, and technology.  This made doing homework fun and helpful.  I was used to doing homework and being on my own.  This website and the practice problems provided me lots of help. 

As a teacher it is great too because so many students do not do their homework because they get home and struggle with the problems.  I know because I have done this.  There have been multiple times when I said I will figure it out tomorrow when I get to class.  This website provides so much help so that is not the case.  From a teacher’s perspective this website serves as a formative assessment as well.  This is another important aspect because normally teachers cannot check every student’s homework.  This is a problem for us teachers because the students know that a teacher does not have enough time to check everyone’s homework.  This leads to students just writing down anything. 

If I knew that the teacher was checking and grading my homework every night I would really take the time to make sure it is correct.  The teacher could also see which problems confuse students in a matter of seconds.  This is great because then the teacher can focus his/her teaching on those certain problems.  This is one way technology can be integrated into teaching to make a teacher more effective.            

Technology Integration Plan

The lesson plan that I broke down is from my teaching of mathematics class that I am taking this semester.  This is a lesson on surface area of cubes and rectangular prisms.  It is the second lesson of unit plan that consists of twelve lessons.  The sixth grade geometry standard that I used was from the common core website and the standard was embedded in many aspects throughout the lesson.  This standard says, “Represent three-dimensional figures using nets made up of rectangles and triangles, and use the nets to find the surface area of these figures. Apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.”

The first row of my matrix represents the do now activity in this lesson.  It will be easier to understand the standard by exploring it.  I will lecture a little bit and present a visual form of what the standard means.  Following my instruction I will present the think-pair-share strategy to the students.  This is a great way of having students think critically and collaborate.  The students will consider how using nets made up of rectangles and triangles could be an effective way of thinking about surface area.  On the iPad they will use an appropriate application to share their explorations and thoughts.  After they collaborate, the students will share their thoughts with the class and show their visual explorations on the document camera.  After the students share, I will present my thoughts and then lead a group discussion about this standard. 

The second row of this matrix is symbolizes the heart of this lesson.  This activity and the do now are the foundation for the rest of the lesson.  This activity will start with a demonstration by the teacher.  The class will continue to explore how using nets made up of rectangles and triangles can help learn about surface area.  Then they will look at the interactive activity using the computers in the classroom on the website, learner.org.  This is a great interactive geometric activity that helps teach surface area in multiple ways.  After the students complete this activity they will work with their partner and discuss how each of these strategies led to the surface area.  The students will see that the multiple approaches all connect.  Each group of partners will use the document camera to present their findings and connections.  The students will present their findings because sometimes students can understand students better.  They “speak” the same language.  At the end of each student presentation the class will have a Q&A session. 

In the third row the students will be required to evaluate and assess the most effective way to find surface area. The class will start my making a KWL chart which I will put on the document camera for the whole class to view.  This will help students with this activity because it will refresh them about the methods that they have learned.  In addition, if they have anything that they want to learn then we can address that.  After the students decide which method to use, they will need to show this through a visual representation.  They can use manipulative tools, the computer, or any other material that they can think of.  To finish this activity the students will assess each other and the teacher’s method.

In the fourth row the students will be required to visually breakdown surface area and show how it connects to the formula.  This activity will start out with the teacher explaining what he/she expects and how they expect it to be done.  Following the explanation, the students will be placed into groups and will think about how they can show visual surface area of a rectangular prism relates to the formula.  This is the time when they have a chance to use the computers to prove their connection.  The students who do not use the computers will use manipulative tools and/or document camera to show the connection between the surface area and its formula.  Each student will be participating during the group work.  The teacher will be participating by giving each group insight and hints if they are struggling. 

The fifth row shows a culminating activity for this lesson.  This activity addresses the final part of the standard by applying this knowledge in a real world problem.  In groups of three, the students will use any of the programs or technologies that we have explored to create their own real world problem using surface area of a rectangular prism.  They will have access to the computer, internet access, document camera, iPad, iPad applications, a calculator, and manipulative tools to create the best possible problem.  The students will have a choice of which technology to use.  The teacher will explain what they expect then the groups will begin creating their problem.  When they finish, the students will present their problems to the class.  We will decide as a class if the problem was creative and a real world problem through group discussion. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ani9c5BL9ARodDZ6YVpub0doWkZzb2M3NUxzV0pDRmc&usp=drive_web#gid=0    

Glogster

            As this semester has progressed I have learned and explored a lot about technology and how it should be integrated into the classroom.  In this post I will talk about Glogster and how it can benefit a mathematics classroom.  Glogster is a website that allows the user to produce graphic blogs.  Some of the details that can be added and/or changed by the user are text, images, sounds, videos, and special effects.  This website is somewhat similar to the website we used for our canvas.  It is great for introducing topics to students, having them explore mathematical topics in depth, or it is a great way of assessing a student’s knowledge on a unit.  This bit of technology can literally be used during any part of a unit. 

            I would create a Glog to introduce a unit that students normally find “boring” or “challenging” because it will help engage many students that would normally be turned off to math.  There are so many great engaging music videos about math that teachers have made and images that say a thousand words.  I could just imagine all of the possible ways that I could design this Glog.  Another possible way to use this website would be to use it as a formative assessment.  I would give students a chance to show what they have learned by creating a Glog about the information they have learned.  It will be a good way to do this because the only way that they can show that they have mastered the skills and concepts would be to create a descriptive Glog about the content.  Students who have not mastered the material can only create this Glog by going back and reviewing the information.  This is a great situation for the teacher because it will help assess where they are and can help them relearn information by reviewing what they have already done.  This technology can really benefit a subject such as mathematics because it changes up the class and the way work is normally done.  Students today absolutely love technology because they have grown up with it.  Using this type of technology would be easy for them to access and use.  

Smart Boards in the Classroom

Smart Boards are very useful and effective tools for aiding in learning.  This is especially true in the math class because of all of the features that they provide.  Some of the features are it allows users to generate and organize notes, incorporate videos and images, it lets users to record sound, access information online, and do interactive games.  It is so important to be able to create and save specific notes.  In classes without a smart board every student has to copy down the notes.  Very often, students will miss vital information because they are copying down notes from the board.  Now with Smart Boards they can pay attention and the teacher can save and print out class notes for all of the students.  This is a huge step for the evolution of the way we learn in the classroom.  Students love videos because they are so effective in grabbing their attention.  If I have a Smart Board in my class I will use videos to introduce certain mathematical topics when it is relevant.  All of these features are great.  However, the best feature has to be the interactive games that can be played on these boards.  I have seen all of the positive impacts that these games can have on students.  This tool really helps develop the way we learn. 

Smart Boards not come into to learning without some limitations.  The first negative aspect of a Smart Board is multi-person involvement.  Only one person can write on the board at a time which is something I think this company needs to change.  As a math teacher, I will want my students to go up to the board and do example problems.  It takes way too long to have one student go up at a time.  Another challenge that these boards present is time it will take to figure out how to best use these boards.  Any teacher can say I will write my notes on the Smart Board, but to really take advantage of all of the benefits we need to plan for this.  This takes a lot of planning and effort.  At the end of the day, Smart Boards are well worth dealing with the negative aspects of them.  They provide so many features and knowledge at the tip of our fingers.  After watching multiple teachers use them, I do not think I could be satisfied without having one in my classroom.         

IPads and Tablets in Teaching Math

IPads and tablets are very popular in today’s culture.  I have cousins who just learned how to talk but can fully operate an iPad.  This tells me that this is an essential part of today’s generation.  It is always important for us as teachers to incorporate popular culture into our classroom because this is what our students can relate to.  In the article, “iPads in the class make teachers think differently” the author discusses how to incorporate tablets into the classroom.  IPads and tablets are great because they have so many interactive educational applications and programs on them.  In this article the author states, “Students broke into small groups, each with an iPad synchronized to the game. They jumped, called out and celebrated as they raced to tilt the tablets to manipulate a fraction on the screen into the correct place on a number line”.  After reading this article the question I asked was, “Does this really help students remember the lesson being taught or will they just remember playing a game?”  After thinking about this I am almost positive that students will learn from these games because they focus on teaching the topics.  In addition to this, most students will know how to use an iPad already which is a huge first step.  I am a huge advocate for incorporating technology because I have grown up with this technology just as my students have. 

            One of the best features about the apps made for tablets is that they are not made for one specific topic.  A tablet is like having resourceful materials about every subject and every topic.  I know they are expensive, but they do so much.  On an iPad you can play educational games, read books, browse the internet, use a scientific calculator, make and analyze graphs, and take pictures/videos.  These are just some of the things you can do on a tablet.  If I was fortunate enough to have these in my classroom then I would definitely incorporate them into my teaching. 

    

Collaboration Canvas

The original canvas was titled “An introduction to a unit plan on World War II: The Pacific”.  This original unit showed how the atomic bombs use affected the outcome of the war.  To put a math spin on it I decided to use ratios and percentages to show damage and chances of surviving an atomic bomb.  I concentrated the math part of this collaborative lesson on the atomic bomb because it seemed to be the main focus of the original canvas.  I knew how I wanted to use the math for this unit; however I wanted to make it an interesting introduction to engage the students.  All of my supporting tools, such as the video, picture gallery, and additional resources were there to connect the history aspect of WWII with the mathematics behind it.  The pictures help show the radius of the blast and the damage done per second.  The video also shows the blast radius for bombs of different sizes.  I did not remove anything from the original canvas because it all meshed well with my side of the collaborative unit.

Link to unit: http://www.play.annenberginnovationlab.org/play2.0/challenge.php?idChallenge=2584&mode=view#network6  

YouTube Videos

While I read about technology in the classroom I found a good article titled, “Technology in the Hands of a Great Teacher”.  This article is very helpful because it discusses the positive and negative aspects of bringing technology into the classroom.  Many articles only focus in on how technology benefits the classroom.  This is good however the most important part of bringing technology into the classroom is how it is integrated.  The author begins his article by stating, “I've brought a lot of different technologies into my high-school Physics classroom over the past 10 years, and the results have been nothing short of awesome.”  This quote says a lot to me.  This is a teacher who clearly has a lot of experience and he is not afraid to bring new learning tools into the classroom.  Sometimes you see experienced teachers shy away from using new learning aids into their class because they are confident and comfortable in the way they teach this lesson.

All of this information on using technology in the classroom is great, but what are the best technologies to use?  The author of this article responded to this question by saying, “No single technology has changed the way I teach (and learn) more significantly and in more ways over the past decade than YouTube.”  Learning videos can be so helpful because our society today is obsessed with watching videos and TV.  If this is how my students will stay engaged then I will definitely incorporate YouTube videos into my lesson plan.  Before any teacher can do this we need to answer a few questions about using videos.  When are they appropriate?  How do we implement them so they are helpful and not a distraction?  Is there a time during class in which they are more productive?  These are just a few questions that we need to answer in order to make using videos a positive.  I believe that using videos can be good way to show things that may normally not be possible.  A good example of this is measuring surface area of a house.  It is impossible to bring a house into a classroom, but you can show this example using a YouTube video.            

Unit Plan Canvas

Creating this canvas was a fun and great idea because it allows our students to see what they are going to be learning.  This will help engage them in their learning.  I really enjoyed making this because I was able to explore videos and images about this unit.  I would not have viewed this video otherwise.  This is something I will definitely use in my future classes because I know as a student I would have loved to have an insight into what I was learning.  In high school my classes normally just moved from unit to unit without a proper introduction.  I think my friends and I could have benefited from knowing what we were starting next.  In addition to this I like how the students can leave comments and questions on the “what do you think” tab.  If we can know what our students are thinking then we can teach them what they do not know.  This unit is all about the geometry of circles.  This unit will teach students the basic terminology and key concepts.  They will learn about area and circumference of circles.   

http://www.play.annenberginnovationlab.org/play2.0/challenge.php?idChallenge=2442&mode=view#network6

Information Visualization Tools

            Information visualization tools are very important to incorporate into our lessons.  An information visualization tool is a visual tool that allows a student to view, analyze and understand challenging information.  My area of concentration is mathematics.  Some examples of information visualization tools in math are graphs, pictures and using manipulative tools.  All of these visual aids help students think about and understand crucial and complicated topics such as sine and cosine functions and the Pythagorean Theorem. 

            Some things that we should consider before we incorporate these information visualization tools into our lessons are our learning objectives, the way our students learn, constraints you have and the context in which the tools are used.  The learning objective will state what the goal of the lesson is and if a specific information visualization tool is appropriate or not.  To use an information visualization tool appropriately you need to know who your students are and how they learn most effectively.  We need to know if our students have the ability to use the information visualization tools in the time given.  Some specific constraints that we need to consider are time and if you will have the resources.  Resources can be computer lab time to see interactive graphs or software to draw pictures.  The last thing to consider is the context in which the information visualization tool is used.  An example would be if you already were using a visual aid then would it be appropriate to use another one.  As teachers we need to figure out how we could incorporate both. 

            Once we know how to successfully incorporate these information visualization tools into our lessons we need to figure out the best way to assess our students.  Assessing the way our students use these information visualization tools is not very different than the way we normally assess them.  We need to make sure they know how to analyze and understand the information they are presented in the information visualization tools.  An example of this would be drawing a picture to represent distances from three points of a right triangle.  Then the students would have to identify why they drew the picture the way they did and how the Pythagorean Theorem is applied.   

Technology & Pedagogy

My goal was to find a lesson that was engaging and allowed the students to think critically.  I chose this lesson because it was student oriented and it integrated technology effectively, but at the same time there were parts that I believed I could add and edit to make it a more complete lesson.  I truly believe there is no such thing as a perfect lesson because there is always a small hiccup that we do not account for. 

              There were certain parts of the lesson in which the curriculum, teaching strategies and technologies used were not completely connected.  In the first step the lesson describes how the circumference of a circle depends on the diameter of it.  The lesson then gives the students a procedure to follow integrating MIRA, which is a transparent geometric tool that reflects like a mirror to help understand characteristics of a circle.  In this example the technology and curriculum goals align very nicely, but I think the teaching strategies relied too much on the students to do all the work.  I would have liked to see the lesson reflect the teacher/student combination of work.  It would have made it more complete, although it is a great lesson.  I would have liked to see this second standard covered in the lesson because they could be so easily implemented so I added a standard and example.  In the part I added I had the learning more teacher centered because of the fact that most of the other parts were student centered and I wanted to see an even mixture.

            I believe the technology used in this lesson was perfect for the information that was trying to be taught.  Without this technology the lesson would have been a complete failure because it relied on it to create the learning materials and implement them.  A compass was necessary for drawing a circle that the students needed to examine.  Then MIRA and the geometer sketchpad program helped see ratios which led to the students understanding the formula for circumference.  This was one of the common core content standards.
SPREADSHEET

How the Document Camera Changed the Way We Teach Math

Every additional piece of technology can be an asset in a math class.  As teachers we just need to figure out how to incorporate these pieces of technology into our lessons.  I think the document camera is one of those pieces of technology that really helped advance the way that we teach mathematics.  Learning is becoming more of an active process every year.  Teachers are supposed to be engaging and involving students in their learning.  This piece of technology allows students to be more involved in the way they learn.  The document camera is an easy way to show students work on the screen or board. 

            It is so important to show and analyze student work because the chances are if one student made a mistake on a problem he/she is not the only one who did.  We can use the document camera in math class to show how our students are thinking.  This will help our students learn by exposing them to different ways of doing certain problems and showing them different mistakes that people make.  Making students analyze and critique work will allow them to be an active learner.  A document camera is one tool that can provide our students a way to be an active learner. 

            The document camera can become a destructive tool to our learning when a teacher starts to use it as a personal chalk board.  The document camera will not be helpful in this situation because it takes time to set up, use, and it would eliminate seeing the student work.  Being able to engage students in their learning is the most important aspect of using this piece of equipment or any learning aide for that matter.  My main focus when incorporating pieces of technology into my lesson is going to be how this technology is going to help my students learn more effectively.          

The Pencil in Mathematics

The first thing that comes to mind when we think about technology is computers, the internet or calculators, but I believe the pencil was one of the if not the most important pieces of technology to be integrated into the math classroom.  This has given our educational society an easy and cheap way to write.  Today this seems like a given.  If you ask students how they would learn without a writing utensil they would think you are crazy.  The pencil was so important to the evolution of the classroom and specifically math class because practicing exercises is so important in learning mathematics.  Students are much more likely to succeed if they are able to do practice problems on their own as opposed to watching the teacher do work on a blackboard. 

Pencils allow students to be assessed, practice on their own, and explore different ways of solving problems.  Imagine how difficult and time consuming it would be to test student’s knowledge and comprehension if they did not have pencils and paper.  Each student would have to be interviewed by the teacher to get a simple understanding of the student’s knowledge.  It is clear that this process would be nearly impossible with the growing number of students in schools.  Sure this process may have worked hundreds of years ago when a school house consisted of five to ten students, but today there would need to be a one to one ratio to assess students. 

Today, students rely so heavily on writing utensils.  It really is important to put your ideas on paper or somewhere that you can see and reflect them.  This is certainly true in a math class because you need to write your work down.  Also, you sometimes need to erase your work which the pencil allows you to do.  People have been doing this since the beginning of time.  We have proof of marks from the ancient Egyptians which were on this earth thousands of years ago.  Now with the invention of the pencil we have made it easier to write our ideas down.  The best technologies are the ones that make an aspect of life easier.  This is why so many of us listed our most important technology as our smart phones.  They have made reading email, accessing the internet, and talking to others a two minute process.  This is really what the pencil has done for our society.  When the pencil was created we no longer needed to use feathers and ink.  The pencil gave us an affordable way to advance the ways in which we learn. 

     

History of Technology in Mathematics

The Graphing Calculator has made reviewing and exploring concepts in math fun again.

                                       

Mathematics and Technology

            Technology is a very important aspect of the math classroom.  Many students find math to be boring.  I think technology can help break up the lesson to make it less boring.  Smart boards are a great way to make a lesson more interesting because you can watch tutorials, do problems, save your work like a document and much more.  Kids today are addicted technology.  They would much rather search something on a tablet than in a book.  When I was at East Orange for my fieldwork on Friday, the teacher used his smart board a lot.  First he showed a tutorial on dividing fractions.  After this he proceeded to have individuals come up to the board to solve problems.  Needless to say all of the students wanted to come up to solve a problem which is great.  I loved seeing all of the students wanting to participate.    

            I like the smart boards, but I really wish schools would not replace their white and black boards with smart ones because it makes it much harder for students to have an opportunity to use it.  It is almost as if smart boards are designed to eliminate student involvement.  It seems to put all of the responsibility on the teacher.  I think to create a productive environment for learning the responsibility needs to be put on both the teacher and student.  Another flaw with a smart board is they are technology which does not always work the way you want it to.  If you only have a smart board and it is not working then it makes the teacher’s job much more difficult because it will be difficult to communicate what you mean.    

            Calculators are an extremely important piece of technology to the teaching of mathematics.  This is a tricky piece of technology to integrate into the curriculum because you not want the students to have technology that will give them the answers.  As educators, we want the technology to help the students learn.  I am on the side of the argument that says calculators should be allowed.  For algebra II and higher a calculator is an important and useful tool which can help show graphs of equations, minimum, and maximum points of certain equations.  The problem is for certain problems the calculator can give you the answer and if students know how to get the answer they may not bother to learn how to solve the problem.  This is a problem because students need to learn how to think critically and reason. 

Overall I think technology in the classroom is a great thing to have because it really changes the pace.  Watching videos can help slow the pace and present information in a different way.  Calculators can help the students get the answers quicker, which would understandably make the class run smoother.  At the end of the day I believe technology can add more to teaching and learning than it takes away from it.  It is really important to keep up with the times.         

Technology Autobiography

            The three most important pieces of communication technology in my life are my smart phone, social networking sites, and email.  It is amazing how these pieces of technology can make your life easier.  I could not even imagine life without my iPhone now that I have one.  It literally can do anything I need it to.  I can pay my credit card bill, manage my bank accounts, get my email, check my calendar, or watch a sports game on my phone.  If I told someone twenty five years ago that I could do all of this on my phone they would look at me like I was crazy.  Technology can often make our lives a lot easier because it gives us access to everything we need much quicker.  I can pretty much contact anyone I need to at any time.  My iPhone allows me to call, text message, email, use social networking sites, or I could even video chat people.  This means I can see someone who may be 1000 miles away from me.  A great example of this is when I was able to see one of my cousins get married over video chat because I was not able to make it due to work.  Social networking sites are great because they allow you to stay in contact with people that you may not talk to very often.  For example, last semester I could not remember what section our modern algebra quiz was going to be on the next day.  I decided to message a classmate on Facebook that I did not communicate with on a daily basis because I could not contact any of my friends that I usually call or text.  Email was my third most important piece of technology because this is how I contact my professors and the third way I contact my classmates.  Most of my classes rely heavily on email communication.  I also get email reminders about when I am working.  It would be so much harder for my boss to send everyone their work assignments for that week.  Email is another way of just making life easier. 

Technology is great, but there also drawbacks to all of this development in it.  I feel that technology makes people lazier.  While I was doing this assignment I received a text message from my girlfriend who is in another room about twenty steps away from me.  I think we are all guilty of doing this.  In addition to making people lazy I think all of this technology speeds up life.  Like I said earlier it gives us access to everything we need much quicker.  This can be good sometimes, but sometimes it is good to take a step back and think about things.  When we do things so fast all the time we are acting more like robots than human beings.  We are hindering our thinking and reasoning skills.

My iPhone has definitely impacted the ways I learn new material.  Before my iPhone I would learn the majority of new information from books or the internet if it was available to me.  Today when I have a question about something I learned in math I will automatically Google search the topic and look at the examples.  When I took French I would use my translator app to help translate specific words and sentences.  Before the iPhone I would have to use a French to English dictionary to translate.  Technology is almost all internet based so now most of my learning comes from the internet rather than books.  Using the internet for learning can be a very good thing because you need to decide what information is valid and what may be stretching the truth a little bit.  This allows you to critically think whereas the book is always right. 

The similarities of my technologies compared to the kids in the video are that we all agree it would be very difficult to survive without them.  I also completely agree with the one student who said his technology is an extension of himself.  I think today our devices really are part of who we are because of the way we use them.  We can show personality and creativity through our technology.  I disagree with the one girl that said she does not like how people shorten words when messaging each other.  Technology is meant to make life easier.  In no way does that make her seem like a computer.  She needs to understand what the technology is there for.