Math, technology, education, and beyond

I can’t believe it has been over a month since I last posted. There just does not seem to be enough time for the half-time CFF coach and half-time math teacher to do anything that isn’t 100% necessary to get done. This is a bit of a bad thing for me, as I haven’t had time to reflect on things like I should. That’s one of the things that CFF and 21st Century education is trying to get us to do more of, yet it seems more and more as if I don’t have time to reflect. If I don’t have time, then how will my teachers have time?

We had a great inservice day last month. Well, I guess it was an Act 80 day, but it’s the same idea. There was not a full-day agenda. We started out the morning with a tech update from our Director of Technology about email, then we switched everyone over to OS X Mail from QuickMail. Those that were already using Mail were cut loose to to work on their own, and those switching over joined in shortly thereafter. This gave me a wonderful opportunity: Time to meet with the teachers to discuss their use of technology. Even though I only had enough time to meet with eight teachers, I was able to accomplish so much. Being half-time, it is very difficult to meet with many of the teachers, as their prep times do no coincide with my CFF time. Also, many of the teaches expressed that they felt they accomplished more in this one agenda-free day than in any inservice day where it is all planned out.

Over the past few days, there have been a few things I have seen that have gotten me thinking. The first is this post from Will Richardson. Basically, what we have here is another blog on the fight between schools and technology. As we all know, cell phones are a social technology device and nothing more, right? Wrong! True, that is the most common use of the technology. But why can’t we open our minds to new ways to using existing technology? We did it with the iPod. Weren’t they just created so we could take digital versions of our music with us? Now look what we have: True, we can still carry around our music in our iPods. But we can also carry around podcasts created by teachers and students. And not just audio podcasts, but enhanced podcasts and vodcasts, too. We could put entire courses that we have downloaded from iTunesU onto our iPods and learn while we drive, run, or just relax by the pool! Was that the original intention of the iPod? I doubt it.

This same idea could be applied to cell phones. How could we use this technology in a classroom environment? What if we were doing a weather unit in a science class? You could tell your students that we need data from 10 locations other than our district about what the weather is like. Students pull out cell phones, text a friend or family member who is in another area, then get the responses. Maybe we’ll get more than 10 locations, maybe less. It depends on the availability of the friend on the other end. How else could cell phones be used in education?

True, not everyone has a cell phone, so how would we be able to make the technology available to everyone? Maybe we could team kids up, those without phones with someone who has a phone. Parents may complain about the $.10 used in sending a text message, but isn’t that cheaper than the $2 pens some of them have? And besides, how many of your students have unlimited texting in their plans?

The big thing here is that education is changing. It’s no longer, “What do you know?” It’s shifting to, “What can you learn?” I know there will be many who say that it’s always been, “What can you learn?” But don’t we all learn in different ways? Is it so important to know all the information or where to find the information when it is needed? I consider myself quite savvy when it comes to technology, but I also know that there is A LOT that I don’t know. What do I do if I want to know something? I access my network. I speak with other CFF Coaches. I browse the web for tutorials. I talk to our building tech. Why do we restrict our students from doing the same?

Now, I’m not saying that students don’t need to show that they are mastering content. I still believe that tests and quizzes should be conducted as an individual assessment of what a student knows. But I also believe that there needs to be a way for the students to show what they can learn, such as doing a project on their own (and quite possibly with a partner or two).

The next two bits of interweb goodness I saw both dealt with creativity, but in different ways. David Warlick wrote about teaching to the test. We spend all of this time trying to get our students ready to pass a standardized test (Show me what you know) that we and they lose out on the creative part of education. Let’s take away an art or music elective to give kids another math class or a reading class. Ok, math and reading are two very important skills (reading is probably the most important one) that students need to have mastered by graduation. But how many enjoy these subjects, especially if it is a course designed to prepare them for a standardized test? It this their educational experience?

As a math teacher, I can remember what my high school math classes were like, and that’s mostly because I did a lot of helping out my classmates. I didn’t learn much from my one math teacher, but I probably learned the most in her class. Her teaching style didn’t match my learning style, so I taught myself. I obtained a higher understanding of the math. But if you were to ask me about my English classes, I probably couldn’t recall a thing from any of them, other than the 3D stickers from Freshman English and some of the stories I wrote. I do still remember things from my Chorus and Music Theory Classes. Art had many memorable experiences. And my mother still has the box that I built in Freshman Shop. The classes where the creativity was able to come out are the ones I was able to take something from.

Finally, Larry Lessig spoke on creativity at TED. I highly recommend that you watch this presentation. It’s only about 19 minutes long. And I don’t think I should share my opinion until you watch the clip. I would so much rather have a real-time conversation about the ideas than to just post my ideas here. Leave me a comment if you would like to discuss this presentation.

It sure has been some time since I have added to this blog. There were many things going on that have been taking up my time, and I hadn’t had this as a priority. I hope I can change that, as things should settle down a little more after the next two days, which are our last two days of Apple training. The biggest hurdle with this training is that I am still a half-day teacher, as well, so I lose time in the classroom with my students, and it is difficult to get a substitute in who can also teach the math. As a matter of fact, I had one in on Friday, and she was to cover how to apply length, area, and volume in real-world situations. She left me a note that she hasn’t seen the info since she was in Geometry…in 1965! So when I am out of the classroom, I often have to spend a day to catch the students up on the info they were supposed to have learned.

But such is life, and here I am again now. I have a list a mile long of sites I need to check out, along with being enrolled in two graduate courses over the summer (Flash and Management of Change in Instructional Technology) through Philadelphia University. It’s a great Master’s program in Instructional Technology. And I am attending NECC in Atlanta this summer, as well as doing trainings here at school, working a second job, hopefully visiting my sister in California, working on new curriculum for my courses I am teaching next year (redoing what I’ve taught in Math for Standards and working on materials for FST), moving, and who knows what else.

But I hope to continue looking at these various websites and continue doing research into what new ideas are rolling out in the EdTech world. I want to be able to continue coming up with new ideas that teachers in my school can use (including myself).

So we will see where things go from here for me as we approach the end of a school year.

As more teachers incorporate blogs, wikis, and other Web 2.0 into the classroom, there will be situations that arise where someone will post something that probably shouldn’t be posted. These things do happen. It is important that as educators, we continue to educate both ourselves and our students about what the blog should be for. If a mistake is made and a student spouts off on something they really should keep out of the classroom, please remind that student why the blogs are being used. Be firm, be understanding, and try to make sure the student is aware of what was wrong. For the most part, blogs will be used in an appropriate manner. But when a problem arises, just like anywhere else in education, make sure that it is dealt with in a proper way. I have always felt that we need to learn from our mistakes. It is how I teach my math classes: when you make a mistake, figure out what you did wrong so you know not to make the same mistake again. This is also a great lesson for life, although sometimes there are bigger consequences. I always remind students that when they get in trouble, it’s not because we don’t like them (like many of them think), but because we want them to be able to make better decisions in the future.

I am now using classblogmeister.com in my classes. I am slowly incorporating it into my Integrated Math II and Math for Standards classes. I am looking at introducing it into my Advanced Algebra class next week. The students really like the fact that they can each give their opinions and views on concepts or things we are doing in class, and that they can have a conversation with each other through the comments. As a teacher, I like the fact that I have to approve comments and blog posts before they make it to the web. I try to allow the students to converse as they normally would in class. I’ve had to not approve a few comments here and there, but kids for the most part are completing their posts in an appropriate way.

Okay, they’re not really toys, but I get the same excitement…

What am I talking about? Today, I went into our new school building (dedication this Sunday at 2 PM, open for classes April 16) to get trained on using our new interactive whiteboards. While setting up, my tech director and I both learned some new things about them. But the best part was just getting the walk-and-talk remote in my hand and learning it. I glanced at the manual, but what I really wanted to do was just play (and by play, I mean learn it by trying it out). I was so excited about using it. I will be running a demo of the whiteboard (and overall CFF classroom) on Sunday, and it will be interesting to see the reactions of the community and students who attend. I know I am totally enthusiastic about the new education….I hope it rubs off on others.

Seeing Math Secondary

I was sent a link to this site today, and I found it to be quite interesting. Who would have thought that there would be such a nice interactive grapher out there? And the best part is it’s free! You can download the applets for working offline, as well, which is a great feature, so even if there is an outage in your network, you can still work with the program. I am still messing around with the different graphers, so I’m not 100% sure of what all they can do.

It seems like everyday I talk to at least one teacher in my school about how to use technology in their classroom. And the great part of it is that I don’t go up to them and say, “Why don’t you try this?” They come up to me and say, “How can I do this?” The teachers in my district are so technologically advanced when compared to some of the districts in our area, it’s amazing. And they are not afraid to try out new things. We have one teacher who is going to use blogs to discuss a book among different classes (and hopefully also with the author)! There was never an opportunity like this when I came through school. Another teacher is planning on using Comic Life so students can create a storyboard of a presentation. I only wish that I had more time to work with all of these teachers. Sometimes, I feel being a half-day coach is like only doing half the job.

This past weekend I went to both Hershey Bears games. I took a glance up at the Bears’ suite and noticed Ray Borque was sitting up there. He and his wife were there to watch their son, Chris, who is a second year member of the Bears. During the game on Sunday, my roommate looked at me and said that we should get his autograph. I remembered that they sell NHL pucks in the gift shop, so we bought two Bruins pucks and a marker. We walked to the spot under the suite and my roommate said, “Excuse me, Mr. Borque, but would you mind signing a couple pucks for us?” He said to toss them up, and he signed them! Real sweet! It was awesome of him. Now we each have a signed puck from Ray Borque!

Also, after the game on Sunday, the third star was the goalie from Binghamton, Kelly Glass. They had lost 5-2, but he faced 45 shots, saving 40 of them. Great performance. He got a nice round of applause from the Hershey fans, and then handed out his goalie stick to a little girl in the stands! Now that was a real class act! I have never seen that from a visiting goalie, and he has now made a number of fans in Hershey.