I thought this was a great group
activity because we had to work together and be sure to read each other’s
technology choices so we did not repeat them. I liked reading my group members ideas because they were
often things I had either never though of or had forgotten about, many of which
we have used in many of our math classes already. This activity definitely makes you realize how important and
how helpful technology is in a math classroom. At first it seemed like a lot of work to find 10 different
technologies used in the math classroom, but once I started researching the
topic there were so many, it was almost hard to narrow it down to what I
thought were the ten most effective teaching technologies.
As we learn in our other classes,
two important aspects of teaching are teaching literacy and assessing
understanding. Many of the
technologies on or list are visual aid because in math is so important to
connect terms and formulas to graphs to gain literacy and understanding. A few of the technologies are also
tools for assessment such as “Math Teacher Tools” which helps teachers create
worksheets which can then be graded, “Math Pad Plus” which allows the students
to do the worksheets online, or my personal favorite “Dream Box Learning” which
assesses the student’s progress, identifies the area which the student is
struggling in, and provides further practice and instruction. “Dream Box Learning” has games and
animations that make learning fun for the students and assessment easy for the
teacher.
In relation to Literacy, I agree that being knowledgeable on how to use & interpret technology is absolutely a vital form of literacy in today's modern world. Being aware of how to use technology for learning academic content is just as important as learning the academic content itself. For instance, in High School when I took an Algebra 2 course I was provided a scientific / graphing calculator. It was necessary for us to be oriented on how to enable the functions of the calculator in order to continue with the class curriculum where our calculators would be put to use. I recall many students (myself included) whom understood the material of the lesson being taught, however had difficulty in operating the calculator to solve the assigned problems. Not knowing how to properly utilize the technology that was granted to us kept us from taking advantage of the learning experience it offered. This can apply to any subject-area. If the student is not aware how to utilize or obtain the valuable technology resources that can enrich his/her learning experience, then it is as if she/he lacks access to an essential part of the class content.
ReplyDeleteSarah, glad to see you are making connections to the math classroom.
ReplyDeleteSarah, I did also notice that many of the Math tools we posted in our spreadsheet consisted of visual aids or outside help tools. Math comes with a stigma that it is a hard material, and so many students come into our classrooms with an "I'll never understand this" attitude. By providing the visual aids and outside help using the technologies listed in our spreadsheet (and others we left out), students might gain a better understanding of the content being taught.
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