It works with kids!

Well, Friday I visited my adopted 5th grade classroom and played around with the smartboard with mathcats- and we had fun!!

We first visited the "Multiply It" area. It illustrates multiplication with arrays- which is a very powerful model. It didn't really lend itself to group participation. Then we did the "What a crowd" one. It shows a bunch of people and you have to estimate how many people are in the picture. We grouped the kids into three groups (of four- yes, only twelve kids!!And it's a regular ed classroom! Want to come north to teach?!?) and each group gave a guess. We then found the average of the guesses (they tried to do it faster on the calculator than I did by hand on the board with the COOL pens). It then tells you how far you were off and you get points for how close you were. That was okay.

Then we tried the "broken calculator." I've done this with kids on paper before- but this was so much more fun and interesting. They gave you a number, and ours was 65. They then show a calculator with a button missing- ours was the 6 button. So we had kids come up with equations on a sheet of scrap paper, and when they thought they had one, they went up and tried it. At first they gave us very simple (but correct) one operation equations. The teacher asked for equations that had two operations. The children thought that that meant two separate equations. They didn't get the idea of 50+20-5=65. This would be a great math class "warm-up" in a Number of the Day sort of activity.

I am still having trouble at home with the plug-ins issue, so I was unable to test any activities before I got there. Any thoughts or suggestions on the plug-in issues? I clicked the download button, did the "manual download" and it said it did it, but it still doesn't work. On the classroom computer, we did it, and it worked right away!

It was a little cumbersome to set up the computer and the board. I don't know about the feasibility of keeping one just set up all the time. I know there are boards that are wall mounted, but all the ones I've seen in this county are portable/on wheels. And then you have to set up the projector as well.

Cheryl asked about how much influence I might have in my county in the area of technology in the classroom. I think as much as I want. The technology department seems to be just the tech aspects of getting things hooked up, purchasing, and keeping the server going (which does seem to be an issue). I think as much as I provide resources, and include activities in my staff development, I can have a huge influence. Right now, the K-2 teachers use the palms for entering literacy testing data (and we are looking at a new math component they are making available), and 3-5 does Accelerated Reader (gag), Accelerated Math (gag- but not so much), and TestMagic for a databank for testing type questions. Even in the computer lab, they are going on to Study Island and doing computerized remediation instead of using the tech for producing anything. Babysteps, babysteps.

SmartBoards

Well, I haven't been able to get a minute to call NCTM to figure out my password problems, so I haven't been able to post that article. However, I decided to check out the interactive smart boards- their website has a bunch of articles on research- it sounds like some of the research is action research. Here's one:

http://www.smarterkids.org/research/paper4.asp

It is about how using using the smart board helps to increase communication and cooperation by using game software. The author put kids in groups and let them play as one person would play on one computer. Hmmm....interesting ideas.

Another part of the website has a traveling bear activity. Here's the link. I have a traveling bear with a math problem for classes. I have been thinking about video taping the lesson with the kids, and posting it for other classes (ie teachers) to see. I'll check out more details of this tomorrow. Not enough hours in the day. Here's the link: http://smarterkids.org/imaginations/index.asp
Good night!

Tuesday's babysteps

Well, I am trying to overcome plug-in problems on my home laptop to make mathcats work. What a pain. On the good side, I set up a time to go into a fifth grade classroom where a teacher uses a Smartboard to try it out. What I've been thinking about- video taping how it goes... but, what kind of permissions do I need to get from parents to be able to post a clip online? (but don't assume I know how to DO that... just something that would be fun). Even if I don't get to video tape it, I'll still get to try it out on the smartboard.