First of all, we can all say that we have some type of need for organization in our lives, this is especially true online. Over the years I have acquired more and more accounts, some of which I can't even remember at this point. Since I have joined this program, this is even more true. In the past there was no need (that I saw) for me to use certain sites or programs, however, I have found that the sites I have been avoiding are the ones that will be the most beneficial to developing exciting lessons, sharing information, and engaging the students.
For this project, I was assigned the website www.evernote.com. On the surface and in its functionality evernote is similar to google docs or google drive. There are some benefits of using google drive over evernote, but there are also some benefits of using evernote over google docs. First, there are things that you can do in evernote that you cannot do in google docs. For example, in evernote you are able to sync information between computers, phones, tablets, and a variety of other devices. Also, when creating notes you can create audio and video notes. At the moment, I can't think of when exactly you would need use this feature, but I think it will be a useful tool in the classroom.
There is another feature that allows you to save files/information from the internet through their webclipper tool. Now instead of make numerous bookmarks you can save only the information you want from the webpage for reference. The tag feature allows you to make note of keywords in your note. This is helpful when you are looking for a note and forget the name, or even when you can only remember a certain part of what you wrote, this helps you keep track of things. I like the organization, the available space, and that I can access the information in this program from anywhere. I love the idea of using this program to work with students on projects, to have students use it to work on group projects, and to give them a useful and creative outlet to communicate with each other and the community in an effective and professional manner. The only side note I make is that, with all forms of technology, we (as teachers) need to ensure that our students now how to use the programs/sites effectively and appropriately.
"No matter how correct a mathematical theorem may appear to be, one ought never to be satisfied that there was not something imperfect about it until it also gives the impression of being beautiful." ~ George Boole
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Missed Class....Portfolio
This post will be short and sweet since I missed class. The first half of class where gaming was talked about was not recorded. This was the section of the class I was most looking forward to hearing. I am hoping that this coming week I can have the chance to get a brief overview of the discussion.
For the other part of the class, I found that making the eportfolio was interesting. I enjoyed finding the pictures of what inspires me and thinking about why I chose the pictures that I did. By dong it at home, I may have had a slight advantage because I had access all of my pictures. I spent a little time thinking of what type of pictures I would pick. I ended up picking ones of some of my family and of my home. I also thought about the video I would pick, what type of video inspires me. Again, I chose to go with a video of my nephew singing itsy bitsy spider. I love my family, and I am inspired because I know what type of teacher I want them to have. My hope is to be the type of teacer that I expect those that teach my neices and nephews to be because I expect them to achieve a lot in life and to do so they have to have great teaches.
At the conference, I learned about different strategies and techniques to help to engage students and to help them advocate for themselves. I learned about different ways to structure lessons so that you can reach all levels of students with the same activity through the use of differentiated instruction. In this presentation I also learned about different websites that can be used to help engage the students in lessons and assignments such as: http://goanimate.com/ and http://www.glogster.com/.
In the other session I attended I was able to meet people from the Voices Against Violence Organization. They talked with the group about classroom management, we also talked in smaller groups about potential strategies in this area, http://vavpgh.org/.
My online portfolio on weebly can be found here: http://kathlyenharrisonportfolio.weebly.com/.
"Mathematics compares the most diverse phenomena and discovers the secret analogies that unite them."
For the other part of the class, I found that making the eportfolio was interesting. I enjoyed finding the pictures of what inspires me and thinking about why I chose the pictures that I did. By dong it at home, I may have had a slight advantage because I had access all of my pictures. I spent a little time thinking of what type of pictures I would pick. I ended up picking ones of some of my family and of my home. I also thought about the video I would pick, what type of video inspires me. Again, I chose to go with a video of my nephew singing itsy bitsy spider. I love my family, and I am inspired because I know what type of teacher I want them to have. My hope is to be the type of teacer that I expect those that teach my neices and nephews to be because I expect them to achieve a lot in life and to do so they have to have great teaches.
At the conference, I learned about different strategies and techniques to help to engage students and to help them advocate for themselves. I learned about different ways to structure lessons so that you can reach all levels of students with the same activity through the use of differentiated instruction. In this presentation I also learned about different websites that can be used to help engage the students in lessons and assignments such as: http://goanimate.com/ and http://www.glogster.com/.
In the other session I attended I was able to meet people from the Voices Against Violence Organization. They talked with the group about classroom management, we also talked in smaller groups about potential strategies in this area, http://vavpgh.org/.
My online portfolio on weebly can be found here: http://kathlyenharrisonportfolio.weebly.com/.
"Mathematics compares the most diverse phenomena and discovers the secret analogies that unite them."
- Joseph Fourier
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Video Game Concepts in the Classroom.....Practical? Useful?
When I first read the article on the importance of gaming, I thought that they were advocating for playing more games in the classroom. As I read further I began to see that this wasn't necessarily true. I understand that there are some goo components to video games that can help students to reach a higher level of thinking, however, I don't believe that what they are learning in the games can all be transferred to real life.
I realize that there are some ways that games can be useful, especially when trying to get students to think about more complex ideas, focusing, and strategically planning. However, this is not the case for some games. I feel fairly confident in saying that the Sims does not help in these skills. This is not the only game either, there are online games that I play that have a free trial. These are games on bigfishgames.com or zone.com. They are slightly entertaining and although some do require some of the skills mentioned like MyTribe or My Kingdom for the Princess, they are not very educational. Trying to use games in the classroom should be through educational games. These may not be as fun for the students, but not always what is fun is conducive to your learning.
Also, as for the motivation aspect, there are some people who do not like these types of major online games and other offline games. Personally, I do not because I have horrible hand eye coordination and I get easily frustrated with games that are too complex, so I usually give up after awhile. During the time that I am playing, I am not getting anything out of that time spent except more frustration for those types of games. I believe that there are better ways to try to get students involved in higher level thinking and to get them to focus in the classroom.
The things I believe that we can do is to have more interactive and in depth projects that get them to look into a topic they have a passion for as well as to get them focused on an educational math activity. Also, there are interactive programs such as geogebra that give students a chance to see the concepts in geometry that they may be looking at in the classroom. I think the games idea is interesting and would apply to some students, but I don't think that all students would benefit from this type of activity inside or outside of the classroom. I think about it like this, when I read a book for fun, I can tell you almost everything that happened, this is not always the case when I read a book for class. I don't always learn about the structure of the book. So, thats why I don't see gaming an important part of everyday life, fun as it is, I don't see it as transferable knowledge for all students.
I realize that there are some ways that games can be useful, especially when trying to get students to think about more complex ideas, focusing, and strategically planning. However, this is not the case for some games. I feel fairly confident in saying that the Sims does not help in these skills. This is not the only game either, there are online games that I play that have a free trial. These are games on bigfishgames.com or zone.com. They are slightly entertaining and although some do require some of the skills mentioned like MyTribe or My Kingdom for the Princess, they are not very educational. Trying to use games in the classroom should be through educational games. These may not be as fun for the students, but not always what is fun is conducive to your learning.
Also, as for the motivation aspect, there are some people who do not like these types of major online games and other offline games. Personally, I do not because I have horrible hand eye coordination and I get easily frustrated with games that are too complex, so I usually give up after awhile. During the time that I am playing, I am not getting anything out of that time spent except more frustration for those types of games. I believe that there are better ways to try to get students involved in higher level thinking and to get them to focus in the classroom.
The things I believe that we can do is to have more interactive and in depth projects that get them to look into a topic they have a passion for as well as to get them focused on an educational math activity. Also, there are interactive programs such as geogebra that give students a chance to see the concepts in geometry that they may be looking at in the classroom. I think the games idea is interesting and would apply to some students, but I don't think that all students would benefit from this type of activity inside or outside of the classroom. I think about it like this, when I read a book for fun, I can tell you almost everything that happened, this is not always the case when I read a book for class. I don't always learn about the structure of the book. So, thats why I don't see gaming an important part of everyday life, fun as it is, I don't see it as transferable knowledge for all students.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Class Discussion: Relate Soda Ban to Conent Classroom
Today's class was interesting. There were two parts to the class structure. In the first part we were in groups based on our content areas. In these groups we discussed how we would incorporate the soda ban into a lesson plan. We had to come up with learning objectives and assessment. Some groups were able to form an idea of what a lesson, that met all of this criteria, might look like. After this my content group talked with another group to share the ideas we came up with. The second prat was to create our first podcast.
During the content group activity, I realized that the people in my stem group approached the same question in different ways. I liked working with others related to math because I was able to see other ideas and perspecitives that I could have easily adapted to my classroom. I had fun seeing the different ways people would use the ban. For example, I had not thought before to look at this issue from an economics stand point, but two of my group members had. As for working on the lesson plan, it took some time for us to get organized and to be able to hear everyone's thoughts. We ended up creating a google doc so that we all could see what we were discussing. This also helped us to be able to organize our thoughts and to see how much we had for a particular section. In our discussion we would talk about a point and then we would elaborate on that point without everyone knowing what to write down. The google doc helped with this. To help get us to think about what we wanted to do for our lesson we looked at eachothers blogs and discussed them so that we had a better understanding of the ways in which everyone looked at the question.
For our lesson we wound up with more of a research paper type of activity for the students. Our goal was to get students to think about a broad question and to create a more focused question for which to do their project on. We recognized that this may be hard for some students and we were prepared to have guiding questions to help them with their activity. The main focus we came up with was to have studetns to determine if the amount of soda would in fact decrease or if it would increase, ie. to see if the ban would be effective. One member of the group (Pete) came up with an idea as how to implement this idea in the classroom. Creatively enough this idea was dubbed Pete's Idea. The idea was to have students do the research and to form an opinion as to if the ban would be effective. Then, the students would spend one week where the lived as if the ban was taking place in their homes and record how much soda they drank. Then they would spend one week where the ban was not taking place and record their data. At the end of the two weeks they would compare how much soda their families consumed. They would then present their findings to the class. I liked this idea becuase it got students engaged in the material and helped them to see how this ban might effect their lives. It would also give them an idea of how to do research and how to interpret data.
We later discussed what we did with a history group. I liked their idea on using prohibition in relation to the soda ban, although I was having trouble with this idea becuase prohibition "eliminated" all concumption of alcohol whereas the ban only limited the sizes of sodas you could by at restraunts, theaters, and the like. Their lesson plan was ectremely detailed and it was interesting to see how they planned an entire week around the ban. Mixing the two groups was frustrating at times, but it was interesting none the less.
The second part of class we worked on our podcasts. I liked learning more about this, but I found it difficult to come up with something to say. I found this activity to be very useful since it is something that I have talked about doing for my class. I would also like to learn about doing some type of video casts so that I would be able to work out examples and have the students to see what I am doing when they are home and need a refresher.
"One of the endlessly alluring aspects of mathematics is that its thorniest paradoxes have a way of blooming into beautiful theories." ~ Philip J. Davis
During the content group activity, I realized that the people in my stem group approached the same question in different ways. I liked working with others related to math because I was able to see other ideas and perspecitives that I could have easily adapted to my classroom. I had fun seeing the different ways people would use the ban. For example, I had not thought before to look at this issue from an economics stand point, but two of my group members had. As for working on the lesson plan, it took some time for us to get organized and to be able to hear everyone's thoughts. We ended up creating a google doc so that we all could see what we were discussing. This also helped us to be able to organize our thoughts and to see how much we had for a particular section. In our discussion we would talk about a point and then we would elaborate on that point without everyone knowing what to write down. The google doc helped with this. To help get us to think about what we wanted to do for our lesson we looked at eachothers blogs and discussed them so that we had a better understanding of the ways in which everyone looked at the question.
For our lesson we wound up with more of a research paper type of activity for the students. Our goal was to get students to think about a broad question and to create a more focused question for which to do their project on. We recognized that this may be hard for some students and we were prepared to have guiding questions to help them with their activity. The main focus we came up with was to have studetns to determine if the amount of soda would in fact decrease or if it would increase, ie. to see if the ban would be effective. One member of the group (Pete) came up with an idea as how to implement this idea in the classroom. Creatively enough this idea was dubbed Pete's Idea. The idea was to have students do the research and to form an opinion as to if the ban would be effective. Then, the students would spend one week where the lived as if the ban was taking place in their homes and record how much soda they drank. Then they would spend one week where the ban was not taking place and record their data. At the end of the two weeks they would compare how much soda their families consumed. They would then present their findings to the class. I liked this idea becuase it got students engaged in the material and helped them to see how this ban might effect their lives. It would also give them an idea of how to do research and how to interpret data.
We later discussed what we did with a history group. I liked their idea on using prohibition in relation to the soda ban, although I was having trouble with this idea becuase prohibition "eliminated" all concumption of alcohol whereas the ban only limited the sizes of sodas you could by at restraunts, theaters, and the like. Their lesson plan was ectremely detailed and it was interesting to see how they planned an entire week around the ban. Mixing the two groups was frustrating at times, but it was interesting none the less.
The second part of class we worked on our podcasts. I liked learning more about this, but I found it difficult to come up with something to say. I found this activity to be very useful since it is something that I have talked about doing for my class. I would also like to learn about doing some type of video casts so that I would be able to work out examples and have the students to see what I am doing when they are home and need a refresher.
"One of the endlessly alluring aspects of mathematics is that its thorniest paradoxes have a way of blooming into beautiful theories." ~ Philip J. Davis
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Soda Ban and Math.......Compatible?
At first this post seemed like a daunting task. To avoid it I spent
countless hours watching YouTube videos and British TV dramas on Netflix. I
imagine this is what some of my future students will also do instead of getting
to homework right away. I was unmotivated to write this because I could not see
a connection the soda ban had on my future math classroom or how I would teach
it in relation to math. The more I thought about and the more I read on the ban
I slowly began to realize that there were a few ways math could be used.
In regards to cups and different sizes, I could use math to help students learn about different geometrical shapes. One such shape would be a conical frustrum (also known as a truncated cone). This shape resembles the shape of peanut butter cups, there are some activities you can do with this (http://exvertigo.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/peanut-butter-cup-geometry/). Another example would be the rolling cup activity
(http://kentoncountymdc.wikispaces.com/file/view/l17_modeling_rolling_cups_alpha_complete.pdf). This is where students working with different cups and their dimensions.
Also, there are some ways in which all students can be actively engaged in learning about how the ban and math relate. For example, students could be given a word problem such as:
You have a cup that holds 4.125 cups of liquid. You decide to fill it up with Sprite. You know that every 8 ounces of Sprite has 96 calories. If you drank the entire cup, how many calories would you have consumed?
Although this example seems trivial, it would help students to convert units of measurements and to think about how many calories are being consumed. To alter this problem and relate it more to the kids, I would bring in different cup sizes, have them pick the size they drink most often, and have them "count" the calories they consume each time they have this size filled with their favorite drink.
Along this line, I could have students look at how calories are determined do some of their own calculations on foods that they like. I would then have them break down the calorie count per ounce of food for one serving size.
Some of these examples are slightly more interesting and engaging for the students, whereas the other examples get them to think about math concepts in a more practical way. The first two activities only relate to the soda ban in that it uses different types of cups, but it would be a way to engage students in thinking about cups in a new light. Like I said at the beginning, this post was difficult for me from the start because it has been challenging to try to incorporate soda into the math classroom other than setting rules against soda.
"The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing by unconscious arithmetic." ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
In regards to cups and different sizes, I could use math to help students learn about different geometrical shapes. One such shape would be a conical frustrum (also known as a truncated cone). This shape resembles the shape of peanut butter cups, there are some activities you can do with this (http://exvertigo.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/peanut-butter-cup-geometry/). Another example would be the rolling cup activity
(http://kentoncountymdc.wikispaces.com/file/view/l17_modeling_rolling_cups_alpha_complete.pdf). This is where students working with different cups and their dimensions.
Also, there are some ways in which all students can be actively engaged in learning about how the ban and math relate. For example, students could be given a word problem such as:
You have a cup that holds 4.125 cups of liquid. You decide to fill it up with Sprite. You know that every 8 ounces of Sprite has 96 calories. If you drank the entire cup, how many calories would you have consumed?
Although this example seems trivial, it would help students to convert units of measurements and to think about how many calories are being consumed. To alter this problem and relate it more to the kids, I would bring in different cup sizes, have them pick the size they drink most often, and have them "count" the calories they consume each time they have this size filled with their favorite drink.
Along this line, I could have students look at how calories are determined do some of their own calculations on foods that they like. I would then have them break down the calorie count per ounce of food for one serving size.
Some of these examples are slightly more interesting and engaging for the students, whereas the other examples get them to think about math concepts in a more practical way. The first two activities only relate to the soda ban in that it uses different types of cups, but it would be a way to engage students in thinking about cups in a new light. Like I said at the beginning, this post was difficult for me from the start because it has been challenging to try to incorporate soda into the math classroom other than setting rules against soda.
"The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing by unconscious arithmetic." ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Reflections on the use of Technology and Soda
As I read the article for class I was constantly thinking of how I might be able to integrate technology into a math classroom. One of the methods I found most interesting was the idea of using podcasts and video podcasts. As a teacher making the podcasts can be useful to students to have those lessons as reference. Another way I thought of using the video podcasts would be to make instructional videos on how to solve certain problems in a step by step process. A few weeks ago I saw videos on youtube where students had to create a math rap video for extra credit in their class. At the time I thought this was humorous, now I see that it was a unique assignment that got students thinking about math in a fun and creative way.
In class we talked about the use of electronic clickers in the classroom. I have had some experience with these and I found them to be a useful tool because they allow you to interact in the class without the potential to look "stupid." In my 511 Stem classes this past week we talked about how we, as teachers, can create a safe environment where students will feel comfortable answering and asking questions in class. One of the best uses for clickers is to help you see where students stand on a specific topic because with the quick relay of results you can see where the students are struggling.
There were times in class when I thought that we were getting slightly off topic, but by listening to some of the thoughts of my classmates on how to incorporate technology across different subject matters I began to see how useful these methods can be. Like I mentioned before I have found that podcasts can be helpful but other than that I remember discussing the use of interactive programs and labs in the classroom. In biology, physics, and chemistry classrooms labs can be apart of everyday class activities. For math these types of labs can often times be difficult. From the discussions in class (both 504 and 402) and the reading I have discovered that there are a variety of interactive programs on computers that allow the students to ask questions and investigate different types of math problems. One such program that I have found has been geogebra, which is a free interactive geometry program. I am excited to learn about more uses for technology in math classrooms.
The last thing that we talked about in class was the article pertaining to the soda ban in NY. Although I don't agree with the ban of large size sodas, I admit that there are ways around the ban. In class someone mentioned about how we should set good examples by not bringing in certain types of sodas. On this opinion, I disagree. I don't believe that it means I am setting a bad example for my students by drinking Mountain Dew. Ultimately, I believe that we should all make our own decisions on what or what not to drink in relation to types of sodas, and that this is not an issue of being a role model. I know that Mountain Dew is bad for me, but that doesn't make me want to stop drinking it. I felt like class got off topic in relation to this issue, slightly, and we turned away from the purpose of the article and the ban.
"The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple." ~ S. Gudder
In class we talked about the use of electronic clickers in the classroom. I have had some experience with these and I found them to be a useful tool because they allow you to interact in the class without the potential to look "stupid." In my 511 Stem classes this past week we talked about how we, as teachers, can create a safe environment where students will feel comfortable answering and asking questions in class. One of the best uses for clickers is to help you see where students stand on a specific topic because with the quick relay of results you can see where the students are struggling.
There were times in class when I thought that we were getting slightly off topic, but by listening to some of the thoughts of my classmates on how to incorporate technology across different subject matters I began to see how useful these methods can be. Like I mentioned before I have found that podcasts can be helpful but other than that I remember discussing the use of interactive programs and labs in the classroom. In biology, physics, and chemistry classrooms labs can be apart of everyday class activities. For math these types of labs can often times be difficult. From the discussions in class (both 504 and 402) and the reading I have discovered that there are a variety of interactive programs on computers that allow the students to ask questions and investigate different types of math problems. One such program that I have found has been geogebra, which is a free interactive geometry program. I am excited to learn about more uses for technology in math classrooms.
The last thing that we talked about in class was the article pertaining to the soda ban in NY. Although I don't agree with the ban of large size sodas, I admit that there are ways around the ban. In class someone mentioned about how we should set good examples by not bringing in certain types of sodas. On this opinion, I disagree. I don't believe that it means I am setting a bad example for my students by drinking Mountain Dew. Ultimately, I believe that we should all make our own decisions on what or what not to drink in relation to types of sodas, and that this is not an issue of being a role model. I know that Mountain Dew is bad for me, but that doesn't make me want to stop drinking it. I felt like class got off topic in relation to this issue, slightly, and we turned away from the purpose of the article and the ban.
"The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple." ~ S. Gudder
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