Sunday, February 17, 2008

Blog #3: Reflection About Online Technology

After exploring Games, Simulations & Virtual Reality in class on 2/11/2008 and exploring GeoTechnologies (GPS, GIS, Google Earth & Maps, etc.) in class on 2/13/2008, followed by an indepth look at a specfic application that could relate to your content area and level, reflect specificially on how you might use an emerging technology in your future classroom.

I have decided as a math teacher, that the most useful tool to me would be the Google Earth application. My students would be able to calculate different trigonometric formulas by using different coordinates of other places. The games that we searched would be more useful in other content areas, though I am sure that if I looked hard enough I would be able to find games that would be geared towards math applications. But as the learning pyrmid suggests; drills are probably the least likely to help students understand content.

Hands on applications such as figuring out a flight plan from New York to Belgium would be a great exercise for students to see how trig could be used in the real world. We all have asked the question, "When am I going to use this outside of school?" I think that the exercise mentioned above would answer that question for just about every student, and I would not just be explaining to them, they would be able to use it themselves.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Blog #2: Reflection on My Newsletter

Reflecting on the Newsletter you created, consider how students would be able to use Word to "construct meaning" for the specific standards your newsletter assignment addressed. Your reflection should mention the specific standards you covered with your newsletter activity.

I think that the newsletter assignment is a great way to make sure that my students are actually learning what I am teaching them. My students would write up a newsletter on each cahpter we would go over after the chapter test. In their newsletter they would be required to present an example from the lesson and make recognition of the standard that the chapter covered. At the end of the year the students would be reuired to make a newsletter for the standards they have covered and an example. This would just show that first off, me (the teacher)is doing my job to prepare them for the next grade. Second, that they actually took in the information being taught. This is something that I otherwise would have never thought about doing for a math class but it definately would be a great assignment for any high school class.