Las Vegas

I still find it hard to believe that I went to Las Vegas. Well, this is one of my favorite pics from that Trip...this is me and my other half standing outside the Wynn Hotel. I actually am already looking forward to our next trip!!

This is one of my favorite pics of me and my other half from our first trip to Las Vegas, Nevada. The trip was a blast, and I can't wait to go back!!

Scott Collegiate

Yesterday was my first day volunteering in a math class at Scott Collegiate. I was helping out in a Math 10 and 20 class...and it was very interesting!!
If you don't know anything about the classes at Scott, I will try and enlighten you.
They work on the quarter system, instead of having 2 semesters like most schools they have 4 of them. In this system each class is 2 hours long, because it lasts half the time. How things generally work in a math class, is the kids are giving their contracts and outline for the year and they have certain things to complete...they work at their own pace and get help when they need it.
So there is very little classroom "at the board" teaching. Instead when a student is ready to move on to a new section, you give them a "mini" lesson on that section...ranging from 5-10 minutes depending upon the student.

It was really exciting to be in there yesterday and give numerous "mini" lessons to different kids, and start to build that trusting relationship where they can start to ask me for help.

I am really thrilled about working here for the next while, because I would love to teach there in the fall next semester...and there is a possibility that they'll be needing a math teacher either part-time or full. So I am hoping that working there and getting to know some teachers, the students, and the admin, will help me to get a position there if it opens up.

Now, aside from my personal aspirations of this blog, I have another thing that I would like to bring up.
In society and in education we are to "educate" our students...me being in math I am to teach them how to factor before they are able to graduate. Now, I am DEFINITELY not saying that math in unimportant, but I am thinking that in this school, and with this particular clientale that they need other types of education. They need to know about money, about consumerism so that they can go to a store and buy groceries on a budget, and make sure that they are getting the right amount of change, and so many other applications. To be realistic, there are a lot of students (and not just at this school) who are not math minded or even school minded and therefore will not be moving on to any form of post-secondary education...so I pose the question to anyone out there...why do we not teach these children, the skills that they need to be a contributing member of our society? and why don't we teach them the social skills they'll need? how to retain a job? how to get a job?
Why isn't anyone doing ANYTHING about this??

Wow, nother point...this brings me to a point at other schools, any school has children like this, and what kind of help are doing for them, by forcing them to factor and read Shakespeare, or anything else, when what they really need is to learn how to function in our society...?? Does this not make sense to be a goal of our education system, so we can eliminate welfare and unemployment rates as much as possible, by giving the upcoming generations the skills to function in society??

Smart Boards

Throughout my internship I was lucky enough to have access to a Smart Board. For those of you who do not know what this is, a Smart Board is like a white board that is connected to a computer and has a lot of technology in it, so that you can use it for a number of things (not the greatest description...but that's about what I know!!)

So, what I used the Smart Board for was my Math classes. It was really neat because it allowed me to pull up cartesian planes (grids) and made it much faster to graph something for the kids. It also gave my students the opportunity to come and do some of their own. Since it was faster, it gave the lesson a nice flow to it, and kept the students from getting distracted...after all it's graphing and MOST students seem to REALLY dislike this topic!!!

Now, not only could I bring up these graphs but I could do a lot of the lesson (notes, examples) already and just pull them up onto the screen as I liked. Here comes the really cool part...with 4 special "markers" you can write on the board and highlight anything that you like! So when I brought up a graph, for instance, I could highlight a specific area for the kids, or I we could find the slope together and the kids could watch me and follow.
You can also bring up any image from any document and are able to write on the screen, so when I used winplot on the internet, I could use the Smart Board to highlight things and then talk with the kids.

All in all, I think it is an awesome tool, and if any one ends up having one in their school I suggest you at least try it out...it's really cool and the kids just LOVED it!!

Viva Las Vegas!!

Well, this has nothing to do with ECMP, but I just got back from Vegas and I am pretty excited! Being only legal age for 3 months, this was a pretty big deal for me...and it was my first flight ever.
The trip was beyond awesome. There was so much to see. I was there for 3 days and I maybe saw half of what was offered.

Now, I was a little skeptical about liking this trip to Vegas as I do not like gambling. But believe me I had a blast and I barely gambled...I only did a little bit, just to say I could!

In closing, I would recommend anyone travelling to visit Las Vegas, Nevada in the United States. I bet it would be really hard to not have a great time!

Learn something new everyday!!

Wow...I can't get over everything that I've been learning in ECMP 355 with Alec. Blogging, wikispaces, online google spreadsheets, moodle, online portfolios...and my list goes on. I always thought I was "up" with the technology...but I was sadly mislead. There are so many things that I never knew of, or knew how to use...I'll be honest, I've only had MSN for almost a week now. But that was more of a rebellion to say that I didn't need it...but that's another topic.
I'm really looking forward to getting my own website for my math 10 class...even if I end up in a community school (my ideal job), and the kids don't have the resources to use that website, there is a hope that someday it will get used!! Even if it helps out other teachers that would be good, as I have a hard time finding resources online that are free!

Technology in Classrooms

I've come to a problem...the schools that I wanna teach at, do not have computer labs with access to all the students (only computer classes have access), and there are no computers in th classrooms, and only a handful in the libraries...what I am to do, if I wanna use ANY technology?

Why isn't our board doing anything about this in the city? There are some schools (not naming names) with an abundance of money, and have everything the kids could want and then there are the poor schools who really need the funding and are getting nothing....perhaps there is some logical reason for this, I just can't seem to find it.

Blogging in ECMP class...

Okay...nothing new or exciting. Just posting a blog in my ECMP class. Not sure if this was to have a point, but I'm going to go with no!
Attended a resume workshop yesterday at the UofR for education students...wow!! A lot of work goes into trying to get jobs...not looking forward to any of that stuff!!