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.
2 comments:
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.
I showed my kids MathCats although we haven't had the time to really play around with it in class. We did the Donkey, Wolf, Cabbage problem. It is presently a link on my blog however!
You mentioned Study Island in your lastest entry. We have that at our school, and I can't stand it. I use technology far more than any teacher at my school, but I can't bring myself to get my kids to do Study Island. I am probably biasing my kids too far in the other direction from test preparation, but I see technology as so much more than that. Actually, the book I am reading now for my book report (Failure to Connect) discusses how so much of the software and programs do little to help students become more successful other than doing marginally better on standardized tests.
Oops,
Ok, in the last entry, you can see that I cut and paste the first paragraph from your previous entry. My response begins below that. I wanted to able to see what you had written without going back and forth between the page.
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