Hindsight 20/20?

It is very difficult for me to look back and remember what the dark looked like.

What I mean by that is, this program has changed my world and my work so much that I don't remember how I did it before. Everytime I plan for a lesson now, there are so many sites and resources available to check my facts and display the material that it gets overwhelming.

I heard a colleague ask another colleague about the new kindle fire and if they knew anything about it. I fired off an email giving a link to CNET and their review of a couple products including the new kindle fire. Before this program, I would have just sat in the dark and not offered any input. It's not that I have an informed opinion on any of those products, but that I know where to find informed opinions.

This program has also changed the opportunities available to me as well. I am teaching 5 F2F and 1 online course. The online course is something I would never have dreamed of doing a few years ago. I was also afforded the opportunity to go to the Virtual School Symposium this past week and I do see the change is on the horizon. One statement made at VSS that I shared with my colleagues, I can't seem to get out of my head. One of the keynote speakers said, "by 2020, it is projected that 1/2 of all learning in this country will be online".

It is my obligation to share all of the information I have learned in this program and the VSS to everyone who will listen. There are a great deal of nay sayers. I used to be one of them. I liken this new age / revolution and teachers roles in it to workers such as the pipe fitters who worked with galvanized and iron pipe and were replaced by the plumbers and other tradesmen (people) who learned to work with PVC. A great many lost their jobs from a new technology that they did not learn. One can also look at our local mall - not much business at all. Online shopping has taken its toll. A new age is upon us!

CED0599

Overwhelming is a word that describes my current situation. I just returned from the 2011 Virtual School Symposium in Indianapolis, Indiana. Wow! It was an event I would recommend to anyone who has the opportunity to go. The problem is, with all of the ideas it has given me to work on and all of the new websites to try, I have little time to do so.

Specifically, I must finish this Culminating Experience for 599, which I keep changing, altering or tweaking, if you will. It is entirely my fault. This past summer, I was given the opportunity to take on an extra class, online Algebra 2, for this year and now find myself with even less time. I will get through this. How do you eat an elephant (if you chose to)? Answer - One bite at a time.

Translation: At times in one's life the challenges can seem limitless and consequently overwhelming. The way to survive is by knocking out each task one at a time.

Perseverance is the word that I need to concentrate on.

1st Blog of 599

About a week and a half ago I had what I would write in this blog made up in my mind. It was after I spoke to Louis about what my culminating experience would be. He made me realize that what I originally planned was too vague and in his words, "nebulous". I admitted that I painted a hazy, not well defined goal and consequential plan. It sounded good, but admittedly, I wrote it loosely so that I may have some "wiggle" room.

So, off I went to make my culminating experience well defined and very specific. I thought I would create an "online gradebook" using Engrade. Respectable, but not having the bite that I would like, I now find myself wanting to change, partly due to the fact that my district has online grading for some schools and wants to put it into practice throughout my district. I do not wish to put in the time transferring everything into Engrade and then possibly having to transfer everything into yet another software package. The clock is ticking... I have to make up my mind and stick with it... Time to talk to Louis again...

CED0565 -Final Post

• How has your definition of leadership altered or been reinforced? Your definition of teacher leadership?

In the wake of taking the classes for my Masters, I have found myself saying certain things more and more to my classes.

Things like:

1) You can be part of the problem or part of the solution. No other choice exists.

2) Who would you rather listen to, someone who complains about everything or someone who offers a solution?

3) The simplest, yet most complex math problem to figure out is: You were born with how many ears? With how many mouths? Figure it out. (This one, I use when some student won't stop talking)

4) There was an old owl, who lived in an Oak...

the more s/he saw, the less s/he spoke...

the less s/he spoke, the more s/he heard...

why can't we be like that wise old bird...

A new one that I will be trying out. A quote from Rosanne Barr on CBS Sunday Morning...

Nobody can stop you from getting better at something, except you.

Nobody can stop you from making something right, except you.

I added the "except you's"

I had forgotten for a while, how much influence I could and should have on students. In this sense, I have had a rebirth in my opinion of teacher leadership

• Has your opinion of your leadership potential changed?

No doubt, it has changed. How can you realize your potential unless you try new things and feel you make a difference. We accomplish in proportion to what we attempt. We may fail at many things many times, but, if we never try, we will never succeed at anything.

• Do you agree with our textbook's assertion about "improving education from within"? If so, what will you do to help?

I have brought more work upon myself. Just what I needed. This past Friday in an "early release" of students / staff development, we, teachers, were asked to come up with some solutions to improving WKCE scores.

Being a math teacher, I came up with the idea and volunteered to make screencasts that I will send to other teachers to offer students example problems and their explained solutions. This will be the first of the changes I will choose to spearhead.

565 5th Blog Chrome homepage fee

Did anyone else loose their Google Chrome homepage?

I don't know if I did something to change it or not, but I lost the homepage that I had set up just how I wanted it. Now, it seems, Chrome is asking for a one time $5 charge for apps under the guise that it is for verification of usage and working against fraudulent behavior.

Perhaps it is so some hacker doesn't set up a macro to create an extraordinary amount of "free" accounts. This would bog down the system. I can afford the $5. I just don't like the idea of paying for something that was previously free. Also, I have 3 Google accounts, my personal one, my district one and my Stritch one. That makes it $15 if I want to set them all up the way I want.

Any thoughts or similar experiences?

565 4th Blog What I've learned or maybe relearned?

I must admit I haven't had time or made the time to look at my Stritch account in a while. Logging into Angel was fun (trying a number of different passwords 'til I remembered it!).

To the subject of what I've learned.

#1 Write down your passwords to all of the different applications in a safe place immediately after installation.

#2 Taking on an "overload / extra class" during the last few weeks of trying to finish your Masters is not recommended.

#3 Simulations covering the topic of school and district improvement ("the game we played in class") can be very frustrating.

#4 Assume your students know nothing unless they demonstrate to the contrary.

3rd Post 565 Best Invention of All Time?

The countdown is on. About 2 weeks of freedom left. My mind is full of what I need to do with those 2 weeks. I was going to use this summer to create a lot of content to engage my students.

I started looking at some things that were successful last year. If you have the time, look through some of the TED videos that weren't part of our work in this program. If you want a great one that I showed to my students, here it is (a little more than 9 minutes).

The way I used it with some of my students last year is I asked them what they thought was the most important invention of all time and why? Then I showed them the following video. It would be a great way to start the year!

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/hans-rosling-and-the-magic-washing-machine/

Take a look at the site that houses the video, gapminder. It is great for stats, social studies, health and other subjects!

2nd Post 565 Information Overload

As I stated in the title, I am the victim of information overload. When my students tell me their heads hurt from thinking so much (yes, they have said that to me!). I ask them: "What happens when someone goes into the weight room and lifts way too much for too long?" Answer - the areas of their bodies that were out of shape and exercised too much now hurt from atrophy. I do feel like I have been using my brain a lot this summer, though.

I have several new plans that I want to do once I get back to school. One plan is posting some of the great quotes I have read in the readings for this class and elsewhere. I will ask my students to tell me what they think the quote means. Another plan is to do "pop-up" drills of multiplication and division tables, then throw in some integers and fractions. I will be teaching freshman again (I had a vacation from them for the last 3 years!)

Having stated these plans and brainstorming on others, I have a practice of telling my students that, plain and simple, my job is to "make them think". I will continue to do this.

1st Blog of 565 - How I lead at my school or job

Quite a few of my colleagues come to me for help when encountering new technologies. Whether the problem that they are having relates to navigating, trouble-shooting, or just plain what it's used for, many times I find myself answering questions.

Knowing that I worked for a while in the private sector, some of my colleagues will also ask me about applications of which I know. Like me, they also often hear the question "When am I ever gonna use this?".

I have also been on several committees to select new text books for math classes in my district.

When I see an application that can help save others time and energy I will create and share it.

(Example - See Google Spreadsheet to tally the responses in the Leadership and Virtues questionnaire from session 1 work that I shared with everyone).

Furthermore, to the new teachers, I have always offered help before being asked and suggestions after.

Ohhh! How could I have forgotten to add this? I have taken the position for the coming school year as the "Online" Algebra 2 content teacher - the first one in our district. And, in fact, I have 2 online students right now who were approved to take the class early. On that note, I did agree to teach them on my own time, because I figured it will help me get the class set up before the regular school year starts.

3rd Post 555

In light of what you've experienced in creating your portfolio, how might you use portfolios professionally or personally in the future?

There is no doubt that one of the uses for my portfolio will be showcasing my abilities when applying for a new or different job. Another use will be to reflect on what I now know and where I wish to go with this knowledge. It will be shared with some of my colleagues who wish to see it. And, as it was mentioned in class, I will use it to show the furthering of my education for PDP's.

2nd Post 555

What important info is my portfolio missing at this point?

I have yet to write an introduction page. I now know why we were doing that for several of the courses in this program. I am also missing a few artifacts. I wish we could access all of the Angel and PBWorks sites from all of our former classes. While we were enrolled in the classes, I was thinking "I won't forget the gist of this class". But as with anything, the further away from something you get in time, the more the recollections are gone.

I mentioned it before, but I will again. Rereading all of the blogs I have written throughout this program goes a long way in remembering the important sights, sites, sounds and feelings/opinions that I underwent and evolved through.

Lastly, I am missing the idea(s) for my culminating experience for 599. I am still "brainstorming" that one. A few ideas that I have are writing/finishing websites that supplement the classes I will teach next year along with a battery of online assessments.

Perhaps I could propose writing some Q & A lessons where I poll the students and require them to answer via their cell phones (against my school rules).

1st Blog of 555

Since the answer to the question, “How have you or your schools used e-portfolios?”, is “We haven’t”, I thought I had better come up with my own subject to blog about.

I remember my first thoughts about blogging. I felt the vast majority of people in this world are uninformed about most things. Why would I want to read what most of these “uninformed” people write? And when I was told that I had to write a blog about my thoughts, feelings and opinions while being enrolled in this MEIT program, I thought who would want to read my blog? I am one of the uninformed.

Occasionally, some family, friends and/or acquaintances will ask me what I am learning in this program. It is difficult to go back to what I think of as the “Dark Ages” of my computer knowledge history. That is, once someone is exposed to and begins using all of these Web 2.0 tools, they become second nature. I have forgotten what it was like to perform my job without using these newly found tools.

It turns out that the one who can get the most out of reading my blog is me. While beginning my portfolio and thinking about artifacts that I should include, I began reading my blog entries and gained a new perspective and recollected the moments that I had epiphanies about how best to use these new tools I had gained access to.

Final Blog - 550

· My students are gaining 21st century skills by . . .

learning how to use spreadsheets to calculate statistical data, generate the graph and critical points (relative maxima and minima) of polynomial and trigonometric functions and how to apply these to real world problems.

writing and producing screen casts to explain how they solved a problem.

· I understand the Virtual Schools Legislation in Wisconsin and am excited about . . .

the idea of teaching online. My district has a meeting scheduled for Thursday, June 2^nd (I think) to learn more about the new virtual school in our district. I wonder how many in my district are certified to teach math online? I am concerned about the challenge of teaching a subject that seems to be lagging behind its F2F counterpart as far as student success goes.

· My district involvement in online learning includes . . .

only aspirations at present.

· During the module I was excited to learn about . . .

all of the features when being the facilitator/moderator in Elluminate. Furthermore, I am interested in how to set up an LMS for a class that shows students completed work, scheduled work, grades and so forth. It was incredibly convenient and informative to have that in this module.

Week 5 Blog - 550

• In reflecting on my teaching experiences to date, I would say that the proportion of teacher centered versus student centered lessons has been …

99 to 1. And the vast majority of those student centered lessons have been developed while being enrolled in this program.

• I was able to identify more than one authentic assessment to measure mastery of a single concept lesson when I …

reflected on my time employed in the private sector. Every time I teach a new concept, I try to give examples of how to use it in the “real world”.

• The rubric I created for my lesson clearly defined expectations and scoring for the lesson so that my students could …

be confident of submitting work that would receive appropriate marks.

• While working on this module I had success/difficulty while doing something new involving …

differentiated instruction. Specifically, I have a very difficult time with varying expectations and not grading according to the way I have been conditioned to grade.

Week 4 Blog

· I can relate the examples of online learning to my own experience in the following way. . .

While being employed in former professions, I was introduced to using Microsoft Office Tools in different ways to make these jobs easier. This was quite a few years ago. Since then there has been an explosion of online tools and software packages to make aspects of occupations simpler and more efficient. I have been introducing my students to those tools and tying them into scenarios from real world professions that I know of.

· These are some problems I had navigating the course management system and utilizing the discussion boards, can you help me with . . .

I haven’t really had any problems with the CMS that time and experimentation hasn’t resolved. What I want to know is the programming behind the display of grading.

· I can imagine using Elluminate Live! for a web conference in order to . . .

help students through problems that they are having with the current course work in the classes I am teaching.

· I tried something new while working on this module and it made me think that ...

Ken, you may have a more trying time viewing my submissions for week 4. In particular, when I submitted some of the work – rather than attaching a document containing the template used, I copied and pasted it. I am wondering how it will affect your ability to view it (It may be a pain in the _ _ _ to scroll back and forth to view them). It makes me think of how I will wish to have my future online students submit their work to be easiest for both parties involved.

Week 3 Blog - 550

What is the greatest challenge that I have encountered as an online teacher/facilitator and how did I manage it? (If you have not yet taught online what do you think would be the greatest challenge for online teachers/facilitators?).

A particular worry some potential problem that I have with 100% online at a distance schooling is ensuring a student’s submitted work is actually from that student. Having the students meet in a traditional classroom setting is the only way to guarantee the authenticity of this. For example, ACT and SAT, state board examinations, the Bar exams are all performed in person and not online to safeguard the results.

Some things that I feel are really important to consider about synchronous and asynchronous facilitation as I prepare to facilitate my threaded and web conference discussions are. . .

I am to be considered to be the “expert” on this subject - maybe not so much for the facilitation in this class, but when I am facilitating my own class in mathematics. There are contingencies to plan for in face to face instruction. I believe the planning (once I have my own online class) will be much more time consuming versus the traditional classroom instruction I am used to.

Furthermore, I wish to have my discussion last at least 15 minutes. A wise teacher once told me to plan content and the practice of it, at minimum, that lasts the entire class. One can always "cut back".

I choose my particular discussion topic because . . .

this is the wave of the future and I want to be ahead of the curve. Blended learning is my topic and I wish to move the classes I teach in the direction that will prepare my students the greatest for what they will encounter in the future.

One thing that I thought about when developing rubrics for the 2 different discussions is. . .

keep the rubrics as concise, but explanatory as possible.

2nd Post for 550

My experience with online communities has been limited by choice. I do not have a facebook or any other type of social networking account. For the most part, I have a negative opinion of them as being a waste of a perfectly good resource, computers, much like television has the majority of its programming breaking down social mores in the pursuit of more money. Perhaps, I have not yet seen or found the right community to become a part of. I have a hard time joining and using one when I read a story every now and then about someone’s privacy being compromised or identity being stolen or the number of criminals who are using them.

The biggest benefit of collaborative groups is being exposed to different thoughts and ideas of how to solve a problem. When one works on a problem alone, s/he is obviously limited to her/his own individual experience.

I believe the greatest challenge would be to get me to subscribe to facebook, my space or something else. I am amazed that I continue to look and use my twitter account, but I have found some really great teaching resources (that keep me going back).

My thoughts regarding the social development and socialization issues are: Students need to be warned of all of the dangers that are out there in cyber space and shown ways to use the computer that will help others and themselves to a better future for all.

I hate to sound so cynical and pessimistic. I am teaching in a district where cell phones and ipods are to be confiscated and turned into the office for parents to pick up if used during school hours, yet, for some students it is worth the risk. I would like to find a way where cell phone usage can be a positive rather than a negative. The ipods should stay turned off.

1st Blog of 550

Identify at least two synchronous and two asynchronous online learning tools that would be appropriate for your targeted online learners.

Synchronous learning tools –

Wallwisher.com – A graphic organizer/webpage where users can post messages, thoughts, ideas, (similarity/difference lists, KWL charts, etc.)

Asynchronous learning tools –

Khanacademy.org – Over 2100 videos (tutorials with examples). It is a great site for students to use to “brush up on their math skills as well as get a preview of the next level.

WolframAlpha.com – Self proclaimed “computational knowledge engine”. This site is considered a primary resource for research as well as a site for students to check computations of various mathematical problems.

Screenr.com – Screencasting software resident online and accessible from twitter, facebook and other locations. There is no need to download any software. Students can make a screencast up to 5 minutes long that explains there solution in solving a problem and choose to submit privately to others or publish to the web.

Synchronous and Asynchronous learning tools:

Graphing Calculator 3D (www.runiter.com). Downloadable Calculator that will graph equations and inequalities in 2 and 3 dimensions (free version available).

Google Sketchup – Free downloadable CAD software. This can be used, not only to design architectural structures, but to demonstrate and calculate formulas and applications involving 2 dimensional polygons and 3 dimensional polyhedra.

Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 – Free Downloadable Calculator that will solve everything that traditional calculators will, as well as, algebra, trigonometry and triangle solver (not the ambiguous case), statistics and calculus. MM4.0 will also show solutions of Algebra problems (step by step) with explanation and has a handwriting recognition feature.

List four different types of activities that you might use with your targeted online learners and identify an appropriate online tool to use in implementing that activity.

A probability and statistics lesson could include using Quizicon.com. Quizicon.com is a site that has timed quizzes from subjects such as the 100 most popular words in a given language, Greek letters, the 50 States, etc. The object is to name as many as possible within a 5 minute time span. I could have students work alone or in groups and take specific quizzes, gather the data of how many answers they were able to get and see what kind of distribution arises (Normal, Poisson, etc.). We, as a class, could then calculate all of the statistical parameters associated with the data and make predictions about the results of people who have yet to take the specified quiz with a given confidence interval.

In calculating the volumes and/or surface areas of various polyhedral, the students can use Google Sketchup to construct a visual representation and explain how they arrived at their answer while orbiting the figure and giving appropriate dimensions.

As stated earlier, I could assign the students to use Screenr.com or some other screen casting software to make a screen cast that will explain any type of mathematical problem using Google Sketchup (for Geometry) or a word processing software or presentation tool (MS Word, Google Docs, Powerpoint, Animoto, 280 slides, others) to report to the class or just me.

Yacapaca.com can be used to give a quiz or test to students during class or at their leisure as a means to assess their current level of understanding.

Is my initial contact warm and inviting? Are there things I did particularly well or could do better in the future?

I believe I made my initial contact e-mail warm and inviting, while trying to maintain an authoritative demeanor. Having yet to conduct an online course, I feel it is important to be open, yet firm. I made an admission of being a terribly slow reader, not so much to show vulnerability or weakness, but to invite openness and honesty. I believe every teacher wants their students to eventually consider him/her their friend, but not at a cost of loss of respect or authority. This is why I felt it important to spell out that my students should address me with Mr. This policy, and others, can obviously change with time. I used a somewhat subliminal message (the word “welcome” in a number of different languages) as a backdrop in my welcome pdf file to send that message as well as a cute picture of my puppy to offering a feeling of warmth and ease. I did not include a starting time in my initial contact - just recognized that looking at the others.

Is my initial contact clear and concise and yet user friendly? What are some strategies that help to format your contacts to make them as clear and concise as possible?

Once again I believe I made my initial contact e-mail as clear, concise and user friendly as possible. I wanted to put more, but believe too long is a bad thing, concise being the key word. The strategy that I employed was putting myself in a student’s situation and answering the following questions: What do I need to know now? How do I communicate with my teacher if something goes wrong?

Last Blog for 540

The timing of certain events in this world and this program never cease to amaze me. Doing the Google Trends assignment over the past couple days in the wake of the 8.9 Richter Scale reading earthquake was very ironic, yet enlightening. With the quake producing tsunamis that reached Hawaii and the western coast of the contiguous U. S. and watching the changes to the searches and their locations in Google Trends was fascinating to watch. Now, with the possibility of core meltdowns in the reactors of the nuclear power plants there are related searches going on that are flooding the search engines. I've also seen the Japanese Nikkei Index and yen being hot topics in searches. God help us!

I find it very sad, this being selection Sunday for the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament, that something so relatively trivial as college sports will begin to eclipse the hardships, the poor residents affected in Japan are dealing with, in the minds of our citizens so quickly.

4th? Blog of 540

I don't think I ever want to stop taking classes during my lifetime. I remember thinking a few times before starting this master's program, "Where else can I go to look at interesting info on the web". Now its a matter of managing the time to go to all the places I want to investigate further.

Also, I am becoming more aware of the new knowledge I have acquired. For instance, I now know what the little icons mean at the bottom of the screen at the end of TV news programs. And there was a clue on "Jeopardy" that showed the icon for RSS and asked what it was (in actuality - the icon was the answer, the contestants had to say "What is RSS?"). I would never have known what that icon was before this program and would have gone on with my existence in ignorance and obscurity - all the while thinking I know so much. I also saw Diane Sawyer's intro to a piece on the current TED conference that just convened. I must admit I wondered what TED stood for and tried to find it a few months ago but deemed it relatively unimportant. Incidentally, TED stands for technology - entertainment - design. Thanks Diane! I did take the time to look at the 3 videos ABC news deemed worthy of my time. One of them was shown to us in an earlier class from this program.

3rd Post CEdO-540 Null Hypothesis

I looked a little bit into the site how to create a good survey. The bottom line is, "What does one want to correlate or prove?" I get tired of students constantly sneaking their cell phones out during class to send a text message. What could be soooo important that they should risk missing out on what I am trying to teach them? There is that recurring theme that has been echoing in my mind ever since I began teaching; the material that I wish to show them needs to be related to their universe. They must deem it as relevant and important to their futures. Not an easy task. I would love to see Governor Walker take over a class for a week and try to teach the students anything, but funny enough, I don't believe he has the credentials.

After reviewing what I have written so far, I sound scatter brained to myself.

My proposed Null Hypothesis will have something to do with cell phone usage.

540 Week 2

One of the activities that we had to perform this week was the investigation of survey software, cost and features, etc. I can only surmise that this exercise was to expose us to the possibility of being in the position to make such a purchase one day. I can't help but think that it can't be that difficult to write some macro and include it in a web site that would perform the same rudimentary questions that I would ask. In fact, that was a feature that intrigued me the first time I looked at google sites. The problem with writing my own macro to survey is managing the data after it's collected. Not so much with how to manage it, but the time involved.

CEdO - 540 1st Blog - Stats

I had small encounters with statistics while in high school in the classes that I took, but never had a class devoted to statistics exclusively. When I took my first statistics class in college becoming a math major, I hated it. It took something that was pure and tainted it. Up until this point, every math class had a set procedure to come up with the one (and only) true answer. Upon taking stats, there was this thing called a confidence interval and outliers. It made no sense to me! What did I care and when was I ever gonna use this? How immature I was!

After graduating college, I landed a job as a laboratory technician using my Chemistry minor - more than my Math major (or so I thought). In this job, I was entrusted to ensure the cleanliness of the effluent water used in the production of heat transfer equipment. I began to see what statistics were all about. It finally meant something to me and I had to know it or I would lose my job! Talk about incentive to learn something!

I must admit it has been some time since I have used stats, but the more I do the assigned work, the more I reminisce about the job that drove me into teaching. But that's another story.

I do get a kick out of all of the anxiety shown by my fellow 540 cohorts, not because I'm sadistic, but because I see myself years ago - before I had a better understanding of statistics. I don't claim to be an expert of statistics, but I will help anyone who asks to try to clarify any misunderstanding and if I don't know I'll admit I don't know (without the anxiety). So ask away!

By the way, I wasn't trying to call anyone showing anxiety over this class immature. You should have seen me whine when I began some of the papers that require citations and bibliographies. I have to say, I still dislike those! I did call up a friend of mine for help (an English teacher) who put me at ease...

A Proposal of New Methods

In the past, I showed my students “Rebus Puzzles” (the picture puzzles that one has to reason out the message) as a type of “warm up”. Their brains lighted up like Christmas trees with activity. The excitement about the race to solving it is what I want to initiate when students look at mathematics. I believe I am in a rut that some educators fall into. That is, showing students how to solve problems of similar nature and then asking them to show me that they have mastered it. This may work with some students, but other students see no need to solve problems they deem as having no relevance to their lives.

What I propose to do.

#1 I will find or create problems that spark students’ interest. Introducing the solving of systems of equations with 2 different cell phone plans – comes to mind.

#2 I will present problems and ask students to collaborate in groups to solve them. This is where I will use pod casting and screen casting. The two different castings can be posted by some means to the internet (and viewed by absent students, too). At some point, when students solve the problem, I will ask them to make (or assist them in making) a pod cast that demonstrates the solving of the problem.

Wiki space or Google sites

Ooops! In the words of my students, I "totally spaced" writing to my blog. But, better late than never.

I have experimented with Wiki spaces and with Google Sites. I will now have to finish what I started so long ago for this class, CEdO 535.

The uses that I can perceive in using either of this two tools is offering links and sites to students to assist and reinforce their understanding of a certain mathematical topic and/or a means to show them where it is used. It could be a great way to have an "online" grade book of missing assignments and a calendar for upcoming assignments, quizzes and tests. Also, these tools have the capability to initiate maintain 1 to 1 communication with students and/or parents. They can also act as a sound board or critique of how I am doing as a teacher in conveying the messages that I am attempting to pass on.

RSS

Did you ever think you knew quite a bit about the world and how it works only to find out you had no idea? This is where I am now, just looking at my computer.

No idea. I haven't even scratched the surface of what this thing can do!

I am overwhelmed by the subject of RSS. I subscribed to the aggregator, "RSS Owl" and while doing so thought I would just put a short list of interests RSS Owl would bring my way, but wanting to stay informed I chose too many. Do like the book says and start slowly or you will be overwhelmed.

Now, to try and ascertain how I can use this tool in my classes. I have to find a "feed" that is streaming info about new applications of mathematical principles that will interest my students and not be over their heads or mine...a seemingly daunting task.

It's no wonder, newspapers are losing subscribers - with novice journalists everywhere and access to everything published at my fingertips (not having to wait for the paperboy to deliver it).

I only hope I am making sense with the limited knowledge I have about this. The old adage comes to mind, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!"

Launching Twitter Account

I joined the twitter legions, yesterday, Sunday, January 9th. The characteristic of brevity is most appealing. It is a reminder to me to get to the point (if I twittered this blog post, I would be way over the character limit). I have chosen to follow the first seven twitter accounts that had anything to do with math as an interest. I am hoping to find some ideas and /or sites that will help me introduce math topics to my students or keep their interest. I am beginning to see where this could be a valuable resource. I am also looking forward to a reply to one of my first three tweets!

What I will use. It's in there, sorry, but you got to find it.

In the preface of the Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts book, the author stated some feelings that I share about the explosion of technology. He states in one way or another, we, as teachers need to experience and learn how to use the net to further learning before we can show students how to do so. How else can we use these new technologies effectively, unless we do that?

The problem that I have with technology and the internet is too many people are broadcasting and not enough are receiving. This new day and age has everyone “needing” a cell phone. For what? Some means to justify their importance. Are peoples’ schedules really that busy that they need to talk on their cell phone while driving? Thank God, texting is now illegal while driving! I must sound like some old codger, who says back in my day we walked back and forth to school “up hill” both ways. Yet it seems to me, too many people are talking and not enough are listening. I have a saying that I tell students who can’t go through a class without talking at inappropriate times, which is, “If you believe in evolution, the creatures with two mouths and one ear died out, what does that tell you about talking and listening? And if you believe in creationism, the Good Lord created people with 2 ears and 1 mouth... it's the world's simplest math problem - figure it out!” As far as assigning every student to blog about class, I can’t see finding the time to check all of their blogs for substance or meaningful content. I can see where it could be useful if they would blog about something they don’t understand and then a fellow student could reply and clarify their misunderstanding. I do believe in sharing web sites for them to gain more understanding, guidance and showing them where it is applied. Instead of trashing each other or sharing personal information on “Facebook”, I need to show them where the new technologies can help them grow and become more productive. I liken these feelings to those some of the creators of the printing press and television must have had. Which is, these new mediums of communication should be primarily educational, but some will use it to “fleece the masses”.

From this point forward, I will try my darndest to not sound negative (call it a new year's resolution)! Don't get me wrong, I do see a great deal of what the new technologies could become. It is undoubtedly the greatest challenge presented to me. That is, to show my students ways to use these new technologies positively.