Okay...tech task #9 involved evaluating some software. Being a high school teacher I decided to search for something that didn't apply to young elementary students.
Boy was that hard!!
There were some math ones that I found, Cinderella and geometer sketchpad. But they were not real user friendly. The tutorials were quite difficult to follow, involved a lot of reading and contained a lot of information that was, overall, difficult to follow.
With this in mind I would not recommend using any of these with a class. It would take too long to figure it out, and likely just confuse your students - particularly Cinderella...the geometer sketch pad does have some hope!!
The other one that was at least do-able, was Celestia. I couldn't find any real educational benefit out of it, but it was fun to play around in the galaxy. So what was Celestia about?
Well, you could take tours around different places (planets, comets, stars...), with the tour there was a brief description of some of the places that you stopped at, but not much.
Outside of the tour you could search items in the galaxy, but only ones pre-recognized by the computer were findable.
Over all, out of the 3 programs I looked at, I wouldn't recommend any of them.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
ECMP Reflection part 1
We are wrapping up with classes which means ECMP is almost over. Reflecting upon my experiences in this class, I would like to mention first that I took this class because I heard how great Alec was, and to be very honest, I was looking forward to the no final part. Since it is my last semester before I get my degree, I wanted this to be EASY!!!
Things have changed. I have really enjoyed taking this class, and I have learned quite a lot. I am sad though that I did not take this class before my internship...since the website that I created I would have loved to share with my students. Oh well...I've got something I can share with future students!!!
I would recommend to any students in the faculty of Education to take this class, and try to do so in their 2nd or 3rd year, then they could use their project in their internship, but also their online portfolio, they could actually use during interviews...instead of it being a work in progress.
Things have changed. I have really enjoyed taking this class, and I have learned quite a lot. I am sad though that I did not take this class before my internship...since the website that I created I would have loved to share with my students. Oh well...I've got something I can share with future students!!!
I would recommend to any students in the faculty of Education to take this class, and try to do so in their 2nd or 3rd year, then they could use their project in their internship, but also their online portfolio, they could actually use during interviews...instead of it being a work in progress.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Interesting...!!
The funny math video at the top of my blog is really quite interesting. It is a "math lesson" about dividing shares (25%) evenly between 5 people. The argument is 14% a piece, for each person or 5. It is actually quite neat how the arguments work with this particular number.
I would be careful before showing this in a class, because if I had weak students I would be afraid of the outcome it could potentially have. But as long as I had a strong class, I think this would be an awesome little video to watch at the beginning of class!!
It is called "Math Lesson - Pa and Ma Kettle."
I would be careful before showing this in a class, because if I had weak students I would be afraid of the outcome it could potentially have. But as long as I had a strong class, I think this would be an awesome little video to watch at the beginning of class!!
It is called "Math Lesson - Pa and Ma Kettle."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
