Reflection on MACUL

I had the pleasure of presenting at the MACUL conference about everyone's favorite online webinar tool, DimDim. I think the presentation went pretty well. We were in a really big room so it didn't look like that many people attended but there were probably 30 people watching us. My portion of the presentation was on the features of DimDim, like the white board and chat room. Although I am not nervous to get in front of my class, I was a little unnerved to present at the conference. But once I got up there and started to talk things went smoothly. I was happy that we got some positive feedback after the presentation from the audience members. DimDim really is a great tool and I hope teachers from our presentation find ways to incorporate it in their classrooms.

I also attended a presentation about making videos with students, which was ok. The presenter claimed that students learned much more when engaging in video making. But there are a couple problems with videos. First, there is a lot of scaffolding that is required to get students to a point where they can make good videos. And two, it could take considerably more time than you have to allow the students to make videos.

All and all, it was a really good day and I'm thankful for the opportunity to attend and present.

MACUL Session

Geoparty

Today, I did a geoparty game with my math students. What is geoparty? Jeopardy for math students, hilarious I know. It went pretty good the students seemed engaged and to be learning from the game. I had them get in groups of three and gave each of them a small white board along with a marker. They had to come up with the answer, jot it down on the board and then hold it up when they were done. This way, I was not trying to pick the student whose hand was raised first, which only leads to problems. Additionally, they each had to think about the problem instead of zoning out while other students played.

The game was not to hard to make but took me a few hours to put together. Putting the links in for each of the slides was the most time consuming part. But now I have a template I can use and change every time I want to use jeopardy as review. Overall, the students seemed to enjoy the change of pace from the every day routine. This may have been the first time they play a jeopardy game like this made from a Powerpoint. Hope this is the first of many successful Powerpoints!

Interactive Whiteboards

I was fortunate to attend a session on interactive whiteboards last Friday. Luckily, my mentor's name was chosen from a hat to receive one of four interactive whiteboards that will be installed throughout the school. The session I went to on Friday was basically a bunch of sales pitches by the whiteboard companies. The school brought in four different companies that produce the boards so we (a committee of about 15) could pick the best one. To sum up the presentations, interactive whiteboards = awesomeness.

Basically, the an interactive whiteboard consists of three parts: a board, a projector and a computer. You can project anything on your computer onto the board. The key is you can "interact" with the board using an electronic pen. The pen allows you to write on the board and also serves as a mouse. One of the boards came with a software that basically had anything you would ever want on it. For example, any map of anywhere at anytime can be reached with a few pen taps. Also, resources like conjugations for foreign languages, graphs and virtual dissections are available. In sort, its a really powerful tool and I want one.

I hope that my classroom gets one installed within a month or two so I can start utilizing it. I think these types of boards will be commonplace within 10 years. The Bloomfield Hills District put one in every room. So they are starting to show up more and more. One of the sales guys made a good point when he said, "Students come to class and the room looks exactly like it did 30 years ago. They are playing with video games and cell phones before class. But when they get there they see chalk....chalk and a board."

Math and Computers

At Thurston, the algebra students go to the computer lab twice a week where they work on practice problems. Apparently the district purchased an entire curriculum that is computer based. The students also have a textbook written by the same people that produce the computer program, which they work out of the three days of the week they are in the classroom. I noticed something interesting the other day while I was in the lab that made me wonder if the program was worthwhile. Along with completing the problems on the computer, the students were also hand writing some of them out on paper. I asked my mentor about it and she said was noticing that students were not doing so well on hand-written tests when they had previously aced similar problems on the computer. I guess she felt some learning was lost by not actually writing the problem down instead of just typing numbers into a computer. It made me curious about how much learning takes place when pencil hits paper and a student physically solves a problem by hand. I think it makes sense to me as I always remember things better if I write them down but then what is the point of the computers? Why not just stay in class and work on problems? Well I suppose students like to get out of class every so often and, maybe, they are more apt to be motivated if working with computers. I mean who doesn't love computers. I have been in MAC for six months and constantly see entire classes of grad students typing away on their computers. They are cool. So I guess if it makes them want to learn, its alright. But it seems kinda silly to write the problem too. But hey as long as the students are engaged and learning, what's there to complain about?

Some (sporadic) Thoughts

I wonder what will happen to the state of Michigan if one of the auto companies goes under. Well, I guess it is pretty obvious, bad stuff. Besides all the people that work directly for one of the auto companies, those people who depend on the autoworkers will be in trouble too. What about the restaurants that make their money from businessmen on lunch hour? I guess that could be expanded to all the business surrounding the Big 3 facilities. So are all the people that get laid off going to go on unemployment? Move out of the state? Why do I have this grim picture of Michigan in ten years as an old west town with tumbleweeds and guys carrying around six-shooters? Does this also lead to schools closing because of the dwindling population? I can't imagine a lot of schools are being built/expanded in Michigan. So the only jobs available for teachers will be those vacated by retiring teachers.

In other depressing news, Michigan's football team will most likely lose for the 5th consecutive time to OSU tomorrow. It seems like 10 years ago that I was a freshmen and watched the Wolverines beat up on the Buckeyes. I'm just glad I got to see it once as a student. On the bright side UofM basketball may have turned the corner (whatever that means) by beating UCLA last night. My lack of a t.v. prevents me from watching any of this. But has lead me to watch a show on hulu.com called It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, which is great. I recommend it. And thanks to Sean for telling me to watch it. Speaking of which, Sean and I are 2-0 playing pick-up basketball at the IM building. I would compare him to a sprier Tony Kuckouc and myself to a Wally Szczerbiak type of player. We look to maintain our undefeated record by setting picks, getting rebonds and taking charges.

EduBlogger and 9/11

While I was looking at edublogger posts I found one that made me feel old, sad and determined at the same time. This particular edublogger, Doug, wrote a post entitled "The Memory Hole," about his 11-12 year old students who had difficulty remembering anything about 9/11. They were about four in 2001 so I can't really blame them for not having clear memories about that day. But the quote that really caught my attention was when one student asked, "Why do we have to talk about this every year?" Obviously, someone has failed to explain to this student how the world is affected by this single event. I think Doug summarized the impact of not comprehending 9/11 nicely when he wrote, "How can we understand Al-Qaeda? Osama bin Laden? airport security? the war on terrorism? Afghanistan? the Patroit Act provisions, or the war in Iraq?"

This situation also made me think about Pearl Harbor, which has more significance to those people who lived through it. Whereas, I learned about it in school from a textbook. There is almost an emotional detachment for me, in the sense that the event is like a story I would read or a movie (damn you Ben Affleck!). The problem is we are living the post 9/11 history right now, so there are no textbooks for this next generation to learn from. The history is still writing itself. So how are the students who were too young to remember 9/11 going to get the relevant information? How can they understand much of their world is shaped by a single day? Well, those people who remember 9/11 are going to have to make sure that younger students grasp the significance of the event. But teachers should shoulder most the responsibility because, well, that is our job.

For the next generation to understand the world they live in, they must know about past events. Especially, relatively recent events like 9/11. I hope teachers don't take for granted that their students know or feel the same way they do about history. Meaning, if we don't explain topics like this to them, who will?

http://borderland.northernattitude.org/