I teach Geometry Honors to 9th graders at Easley High School in Easley, SC. While finishing my Webpage with Examples assignment I found a lot of great ideas for integrating technology into the general mathematics classroom, however, many would involve a high cost and with the present economy my school district is having to face a lot of budget cuts. Some things just may not seem feasible.
I'm not really set on a specific project idea yet, but I do have some tools that are available that I would like to use. Maybe just one, or possibly a combination of a few.
To start with, my school has a site license for the Geometer's Sketchpad software. This software allows students to draw, measure, create, and manipulate shapes to investigate properties and relationships in mathematics. It's a very useful constructivist tool and mainly user friendly for the students.
This year I have been given the ABTutor classroom management software. Since I have about 15 computers in my classroom (I know I'm lucky!... even though they are slow and old) I needed an easier way to monitor their use. Our business labs had this software installed and it seemed to help them a lot. Basically, I can see all of my students computer screens as thumbnails on my desktop and they refresh every 5 seconds or so. I can monitor what they are doing, what apps are running, what websites they are going to etc. I can even remotely access their mouse/keyboard and model how to do something. I can even broadcast my desktop or another student's desktop to the entire class. The software is mainly a management tool, but I think it has some pretty neat instructional capabilities as well. I think it would be cool to explore how to use this as an instructional strategy or a student presentation tool.
Lastly, I have access to a couple of video cameras and would love to come up with an idea on how to implement video making into my classroom. Pretty self-explanatory there...
This week, my goal is to narrow down a specific topic so that I can start planning on when and how I can fit this into my already tight curriculum! Looking forward to your responses...
- LC
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It sounds like you've got some great ideas!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of students making a video. I think that, not only is it a different type of assessment that students would actually enjoy making, but I think they would also enjoy seeing the finished product. And with the popularity of YouTube, you could even have students comment on each other's videos. It's such a neat way to mix things up in the classroom!
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ReplyDeleteHi Lance! It seems that we never have enough resources but we somehow manage to make the most of it. It is not about the state-of-the-art technologies but how the teacher integrate to the classroom and engage learners with meaningful learning tasks. I am looking forward to hearing about how you use the old and slow 15 computers in your classroom and what kind of projects students will generate with their video cameras. Student-generated content have powerful effects: lasting value to not only the student but the teachers, classmates, students in other schools, and the society as a whole. The assignment has a continuing life beyond the assessment. I hope your students can build upon what they create and produce long lasting product beyond themselves. Keep us posted with your technology integration projects!
ReplyDeleteI also think that having the students make videos to "show what they" as part of an assessment is a great idea! I'm interested to see what type of videos these will be. You and your students are lucky to have all this technology available to them!
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