Overwhelmed

I haven't touched any of the TI stuff that I wanted to because I am working on two online courses. While both are informational and have so much to offer. I am definitely overwhelmed. I am going to finish up the work, and then make myself a list of what needs to be done to put all of the great ideas into practice!

Let's try this again!!!!

Well I have started a new course, and so I am restarting an old blog. I feel that this time I have better perspective as to what I can do with it and how I can use it to make me a better teacher and technology consumer.

Let's start with two promises:

1. I will post information on how to use the TI calculators (especially the Nspire, since I am just learning how to use it myself) with step by step instructions for an activity. (I am hoping for at least once per chapter.)

2. I will figure out how to get my students to use blogging in mathematics.

Notice that I didn't specify a time line. I'm not sure that I can say "by the end of the year" on this but secretly that is my goal. (guess that makes it not so secret!)

Long live 2010-2011 school year!!!!!

Thing 5

RSS can be a difficult concept for some to grasp right away - what questions do you have? What didn't work or doesn't make sense? How might you use RSS in your personal or professional life? Find anything in your searching that you'd recommend to others?

I really don't have any questions about RSS. I really see its functionality. Unfortunately, I am having a very hard time finding the kinds of bloggers that I want. It seems to me that there are a large number of whiners out there hoping someone else will listen to them whine. (maybe that's just the stuff I seem to be good at searching for.)

Does anyone have some good tips for finding good math based blogs? I am going to keep looking, and once I get the hang of some more of the things available perhaps I will be that blogger. BUT until then what do you suggest?

I have already set up the RSS on our home computer to help my husband with his newpaper reading and I can't wait to show my mom! For people who do a lot of online reading this is great stuff!

Thing 4 (RSS)

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of blogs out there - how do handle information overload and how do you think RSS might help?

I feel completely overwhelmed, ad I think that RSS can definitely help with reducing that feeling. It has made me more aware of the things that I don't know that my students are, more likely than not, using daily.  

Another major issue I am feeling is not knowing how to do a good search to find blogs that really pertain to the things I am interested in. I don't even know if I have math teacher friends that look at other math blogs. I will have to start that conversation at lunch one day to see if anyone is reading anything they especially like. 

yeah, overwhelmed is an understatement.

Thing 3 (blogs)

Wow...... this one was tough. I looked at many different blogs claiming a math basis, but really didn't find (or maybe I just didn't understand what i was seeing) anything that is currently being used by math teachers. I found some old (2006) blogs that were OK, but two years old is like ancient history in the tech world.

As for how I might use a blog with students--I'm not entirely sure. I think it would be a great place to record notes, test updates, podcasts, important links. But I would really want students to contribute, and that is where I get stumped. I think I am going to have to do some more research and see what others are doing.

Working with the new Michigan Math High School Content Expectations would be where I would see a more professional use of the blogging atmosphere. It would be nice to have a place for teachers to share ideas and lessons throughout the year. 

Thing 1 and Thing2 (try 3)

Why are you participating in 23 Things? What do you hope to learn? What new insights did you have during Thing 1? How does writing on the Internet, knowing anyone could read it, change how you write or feel about writing?

During our "welcome back" staff meeting our principal told us about this conference. I thought it sounded very useful. As a person who once considered herself very tech savvy, I have found that I am suddenly barely tech literate in my students' eyes. That is not good as far as I am concerned, and I am working to understand what they know so that I can help them use it more effectively and more responsibly. Plus, if they are using it anyway, why not force them to use it for educational purposes. (eventually they will have to use them for professional purposes, why not start now)

I really enjoyed the video in Thing 1. It really made me think about what I do and how I teach. Sometimes I feel like math teachers are left behind in all the "do something new" or "try something different" pushes. How do you teach some of the mundane math tasks differently? At what point can you do it differently, and when does it have to be the same old stuff? To that end I really liked the example of using text messaging to collect data, so much connected to their lives than a random number generator or calculator application.