Anthony's+Page

=Week 4 Competency - Blogging= = = [] I have found this class to be very helpful in expanding my technological knowledge. I have to admit that my learning objects may not have been as interesting as the rest of my classmates but I tried to work on learning objects that I could directly use in my classroom teaching. Math is not the easiest subject to incorporate technology that is fun and exciting but I could definitely be the coolest math teacher on the face of the earth if I find some way to make math more interesting to my students with the use of technology. As I was looking at everyone's wiki pages I am embarrassed to admit that I envied those of you that had multiple postings to your discussion tabs. For several weeks, by discussion tab said I had zero postings. I was ecstatic when I found that my discussions page had two postings this week. Whoohooo!!

I then realized that "blogging" would be a useful and constructive tool to use in my own math class. The potential hurdles would be minimal compared to the upside of classroom interaction that could be gained. I would plan on creating a website specific to each class. Each class would be required to blog and respond to someone else’s blog (two total blogs) for every homework assignment. To post an initial blog, a student would have to talk about how they approached their homework. Then they would have to discuss any problems they found with their homework. The response blog would be open ended as long as the person responds to the initial blog. It would be a great technique to use this technology as an informal assessment to help me with common difficulties that my students encounter before the next class starts. This would be much more efficient instead of asking them to tell me when they get in class the next day.

Resources:

[|www.untamedscience.com]

** [|Google Earth]  ** I selected both of these resources to talk about because I have been bombarded with questions from students about math like: “How are we going to use this in real live? Or where will I ever see this math stuff in real life?” My response to them has always been people always use math but it is not always clear cut or obvious. This explanation often leaves my students frustrated or confused. It is not clear because I did not provide a clear visual answer. These two websites provide the visual examples about things that physically represent math topics. For example, from the “untamedscience” website, physics videos that demonstrate collisions can be related to quadratic equations in math. Acceleration is a variable that can be explained in terms of a quadratic equation. When a dramatic physical demonstration could be shown to the students and abstract math equations could be related to these videos, more of my students’ ‘curiosity’ (or snotty irritating questions) will be satisfied. As for the google earth website, by students could see various angles and curves from aerial views of maps of their neighborhoods. This would be a visual demonstration of geometry in everyday life.

= Week 3 Competency - Instructional Software = = = [|Educational Apps for Apple/iPhone] I was struggling to find what to do my next compentency on and I stumbled across the link for Educational Apps for an Apple/iPhone. Several of my students have smart phones and are always playing games on them. It dawned on me that it would be neat to expose them to additional math practice (if they are willing) through apps for their iphone. I am not sure how to incorporate this technology for all my students because several of them don't have iphones. I may just suggest it for extra credit and allow students who don't have an iphone to do a different assignment. As for the iphone apps, I was surprised to find a wide diverse selection. I listed the name of six math educational iphone apps:

Mathematical Formulas

Basic Math

Math Ref

Math Magic

Math Drills

Multiplication These apps vary in cost and level of sophistication. I would recommend specific apps for students with specific needs. For example, I would recommend a user friendly drill type app to students in Algebra 1. I would recommend a formula based searchable app for my Algebra 2 students. This flexibility in the different types of apps sets up multiple opportunities to expose my math students who have different ability levels. Resources: Listening to Student Voices on Technology: Today's Tech-Savvy Students Are Stuck in Text-Dominated Schools

I was drawn to this article to see how accurately it reflected technology at my high school. This article was written in December of 2005 so it was a little outdated. The findings were quite interesting. I found that the research showed that students spent much of their free time on the internet and intruction was not connected to that time. That meant that students would be essentially using their time doing something that was completely unrelated to school material during time they should be doing homework. Another key item that jumped out at me was that many students stated that they could not access technology on campus. They stated there were not enough computers at school for them to use. The final thing that applied to my personal teaching style is the lack of technology that I demand my students to use in order to do my assignments. I feel more confident in my need to assign math work through computer media. Whether it be as simple as emailing or texting me a math problem solution or something more advanced like using the student version of an online textbook, I know I must be more focused on bridging the gap for my students and technology.

//**[] ** //

//**The second link was used to focus on another important element in my classroom teaching - classroom management. I enjoy listening to experienced teachers' ideas about classroom management. I have not found that any one style particularly works well for me, but I am always taking the best ideas from various sources and combining them together to come up with a style that is my own. Harry Wong provided lots of good ideas for the first day of school to help set the tone for the entire school year. He stressed the importance of greeting students at the door and to create a fun way to find their seats on the first day of class. This pre determined seating chart serves as an expectation for the students to understand that they all have assigned seats from the first day and allows for the teacher to not waste time by rearranging the class after the bell rings. Another strategy is to create a routine so that attendance is taken without wasting much class time. I have incorporated these ideas in my classroom management and have found that it helps to spend the majority of the period doing math as opposed to doing administrative type tasks. ** //

= Week 2 Competency - Wiki's = = = [|5 Strategies for Using Wikis in the Classroom] After doing last week's competency, I realized I was still unfamiliar with how Wiki's worked. I decided to do this week's competancy on Wiki's. I clicked on all the links on the competency website that related to Wiki's and found a link about how to use Wiki's in a math class. I know the focus of the course is to use technology in the classroom for my students, but I got selfish when the article mentioned that Wiki's could be used for teacher collaboration. In my school district, teachers are given a day to meet as an entire department to plan for the implementation of a curriculum pacing guide for the upcoming year. I have long felt that this was a waste of teacher instruction time when students would be taught by a substitute teacher while the classroom teacher of record was meeting up with other teachers to collaborate. After reading this article, I got the idea to create a Wiki that would contain the curriculum pacing guide template. This Wiki could be edited by all the math teachers in the department without requiring us all to meet.

I currently don't have a copy of the curriculum guide but the idea would be to set up a page like this one and create a privacy setting such that all authorized math teachers could edit the pacing guide as they see fit. We could also have a discussion forum tab so that we could all discuss any problems or successes we have with the process of editing the pacing guide. I feel that we would all have to be trained on this technology in order for it to be successful but I think it would be a much better approach that having all the math teachers miss class for a whole day.

Resources: Embedding YouTube Video into Powerpoint [] YouTube for Educators: [|www.youtube.com/edu]

I explored these two resource sites so I could learn how to insert video into a powerpoint presentation. I was excited to learn that there was a way to insert video and still present it without an internet connection. I have been reluctant to embed video into powerpoint for fear that I would not be self contained if the classroom I was presenting in did not have an internet connection. It was as simple as downloading the youtube clip and saving it into the powerpoint presentation. This would eliminate the need for internet and it guaranteed the video playing without disrupting the flow of the presentation.

I was surprised to learn that youtube had a separate site that focused on educational videos. I can use this when I am looking for specific math content that I must cover with my math classes.

= Week 1 Competency - PowerPoint = = = [] I have always wanted to use technology in my classroom and decided to explore the use of PowerPoint for a future math lesson in my Algebra 2 class. I have become frustrated with the traditional approach in introducing math concepts by writing an example on the board, having the students copy it down, then giving the students a homework set related to the example that was just presented. I feel that it would be more effective and efficient to have the lesson prepared ahead of time on PowerPoint. It would also be easier on me by not having to reproduce the lesson on the whiteboard every single period for all my different classes.



Resources: National Common Core Math Standards [] Project/Problem Based Learning []

I explored both of these resource sites because my class is paced by the school district and I am done with the mandated curriculum. I now have the flexibility to do more exploratory work with my math classes. I was also interested in familiarizing myself more with the National Common Core Math Standards and seeing how they relate to the California Math Standards that are textbooks are based on. Both of these sites will be helpful in learning more about what content I would incorporate into my PowerPoint presentations that I am planning on preparing for my math classes.