Sunburst technology for math class

This week we were assigned to look at Award Winning Publisher Software for our area of discipline so I decided to look at what the Sunburst software had to offer as far as math programs for educators. I was impressed by the multitude of programs that it found for teaching math classes. There were programs ones on number, sense concepts, and operations and others on algebra and trigonometry. I took a closer look at one of the algebra ones to get a better sense of what these programs were like. Under the algebra heading alone there was 12 different programs categorized by the different grade levels that they were designed for. These programs let students compete against other students or against a computer player and also record the individual students progress so that the teacher alone can see it which is great because that way students feel like they are playing a game instead of learning through a lecture format and the teacher is able to track where each individual students learning level is at in different concepts.
To figure out if this is a good software program to buy you can evaluate it using a Software Evaluations Rubric which includes the ease of use, the documentation and support, the ability levels, the built in assessment tools available, and the technical quality as well as the recommendations of others.
However, a down side to all of this is home much these programs cost. Most of the programs have a wide range for prices with the most inexpensive ones ranging from the up 50s to seventies and with the most expensive ranging from the upper 700s to the upper 800s. Depending on your school budget it makes getting these programs a challenge and it is wise to check out a free online demo or download first so that you are sure that the program you are buying is money well spent.

Second Life: the good, bad, and the ugly

This week we were asked to examine the virtual reality tool known as Second Life sparing nothing looking at the good bad and the ugly.

So lets start off positive and look at the good. Second Life can be used as a good tool for education in the way that it allows a teacher to be able to set up real world examples of things that students could not see otherwise. For example Second Life can be used as tool to provide the teacher a way to set up a virtual tour for their students of Ancient Rome.

However Second Life has many negatives in the way that it would take an extraordinary amount of time to build the virtual world of Ancient Rome as well as the fact that everything that one does in Second Life costs money even though it is at a much reduced rate to what things would cost in the real world being around $1 of real money equaling 100 fake dollars on Second Life. Second life is also bad in the way that it is an obsessive thing that you pour your real hard-earned money into buy things in this virtual world such as going to a U2 concert instead of actually experiencing such things in real life.

Second Life can also be very ugly. Second Life can consume peoples life where they are spending all of their time building this virtual life instead of actually living their own life. On Second Life people get married and divorced and there has even been cases in which people have found out their spouse on second life was married in real life and considered them an adulterer because they should divorce their spouses in real life before they get married in Second Life

Although Second Life can be awful and used improperly it also can have some redeeming point in education such that it can be used to illustrate places that your students could not have been able to go or see before even places throughout history. However I believe that the little benefit that you can get from it as a teacher does not outweigh the horrible nature of the program as well as the time and money that you would have to put into making a project like this in which the educator would put way more time into then the educational advances that they would get out of it.

Google Earth

Google Earth is a tool created by Google that can transport you to any part of the world (now including the moon). Google earth is a virtual reality tool that is computer illiterate friendly. In order to use Google Earth to the fullest one should download it for free. The newest version of Google Earth is Google Earth 5 which includes historical imagery from around the world, Ocean floor and surface data from marine experts, and Simplified touring with audio and voice recording. In addition Google Earth gives its user the ability to film tours to any place in the world. You can fly to any place in the world by giving the address of the place you want to go. You can then mark the location you found with a placemark. Also if the user wishes to look at their favorite baseball stadium they can do so and visualize the 3D picture of it. Google Earth can even take you back in time or even change the time of day. In general Google Earth is the gateway to a whole new form of technology.

Google Earth could be incorporated into a mathematics classroom to help show pyramids and to teach the law of sin, law of cosine, and basic trig to a Calculus class, geometry class, or even algebra with the Pythagorean Theorem. The Great Pyramids of Giza can be found and then you can use the information attached to it's location (a snipping from Google Earth is located above and to the right). With the information provide a student can find the angles of the pyramids, the height, or even how the shadow long the shadow cast by the pyramids during any given time of day. This can be quite useful and a fun interactive way to use it in the classroom. Then after this the students could even pick a landmark that interests them and perform the same tasks done in class as a project grade.

Pascal's Triangle

Microsoft SharePoint Designer

Microsoft SharePoint Designer is a software program that provides the user with a convenient and easy-to-use format for designing web pages. It is an HTML editor that can publish sites from either local to remote or remote to local with one click of a button. SharePoint allows users to preview their web pages before publishing in the default internet browser. It is easy to use SharePoint to make a website when you begin with an index page, and split it into a navagation bar, a banner, and the main page. From there, other pages can be created and hyperlinked from the index page. SharePoint allows you to use cascade style sheets, which are pre-determined color schemes. All you need to do to color each page is drag the cascade style sheet to that page, and it will transform your background and text color and font. Sharepoint allows internal hyperlinks, hyperlinks to an already existing file, and hyperlinks to a new page.

Although I really enjoyed learning SharePoint designer because I have never done anything with web pages before, I do not think that a website would be too useful to me in my mathematics classroom. Perhaps I could use it to post links to homework assignment in Word (using Equation Editor), however I plan on giving all of the students hard copies of the assignments anyway. Sometimes schools already have websites and allow each teacher to have a little part of that website for posting information. That being said, it is extremely important to continue to be knowledgable about technology as a teacher. Just in case something comes up where I would need to know all about website design, I am glad that I now have this tool.

DyKnow

DyKnow is a brand of classroom management and interactive educational software that we have gotten to experience in Technology of Instruction. It can be used in a classroom where each student has a computer and is connected to a network. It saves a lot of effort on the part of students because the teacher can send slides to each participant's computer. The students can then take notes on those slides and save them for later. This can help focus their attention on the lesson. The students can send information to the teacher as well. There is a continuous poll for understanding and teachers may create polls or ask open-ended questions on the slide to gather information from the class. One particularly interesting feature is the teacher's ability to freeze all the computers in the classroom and view what is on the screen of each student. This obviously improves attention and accountability.

DyKnow is good for computer classes, but I don't think I would ever use it in math simply because of the lack of computers in the classroom. However, if all my students in a class had networked computers, I might try it. It would be useful for giving examples for the students to work on and assessing their comprehension. If for nothing else, I would use it to see how well the students understood the lesson through the polling feature.

Pascal's Triangle

Educational Podcasting

1) What is a podcast?


A Podcast is an audiofile that you can download from the Internet and transfer to your mp3 device. Podcasts are usually someone speaking about a subject and can include radio or news. The technology is not limited by time, so podcasts can be anywhere from a couple seconds to hours long. In order to make a podcast you need a microphone and recording software. Podcasting is different from an audio blog because it uses feeds and podcasting software.
(taking form gonepodcasting slide show in the network folder)


2)What podcasts have you found that are of interest to your discipline?


http://www.learnoutloud.com/Podcast-Directory/Science/Mathematics/Calculus-Podcast/31559/

This was podcast of a Berkeley Calculus class by F. Michael Christ. It covers material on functions of one variable at an introductory level.



http://www.mathgrad.com/

The mathgrad website gives 21 podcast shows and was created by a Colorado University Grad student on topics such as probability, complex numbers, and mapping.



http://www.mathfactor.uark.edu/

The mathfactor website has been running such 2004 and is also on the FM radio. It is a blogging website that contains math podcasts for each post. The most recent podcast post is about the book Mathletics.

3) We will be able to use podcasting in our future classroom in two ways.

Firstly podcasting will be a useful tool for the purpose of homework help. If students are having difficulty with homework problems we can give them podcasts that helps to take them step-by-step through the problem.

Secondly, we will be able to use podcasting as a way to get absent students caught up. Math is one of the subjects that is continually building on prior concepts that students have learned. This makes it extremely easy for students to get behind or become lost with even missing one day of class. Podcasting supplies a simply answer to this problem by allowing teachers to make a podcast of their whole lecture that they can put up online for students who have been absent to be able to listen to in order to avoid getting behind.

Mathematica

This week I am going to take the time to talk about Mathematica. Mathematica is a computer software program that is used to compute, graph, and simplify mathematical equations. It is used in most of the math classes here at Grove City College as a way to aid students in solving equations and graphing object that otherwise would be almost impossible by hand. It is an interactive way for students to learn about math principles. Mathematica has many useful properties such as its basic math assistant that is a tool bar that you can bring up which has all of the basic mathematical symbols and important functions such as trig functions and log fuctions as well as integration and derivative to name a few. Mathematica also has a help tab that takes you to a documentation center. This is by far one of the best tools that mathematica has. It helps you be able to look up how to write any mathematical phrase that you could possibly need in a language that mathematica can understand.

Although mathematica is used mostly at a college level, it will be very useful in my future classroom as a visual aid. With the help of mathematica I can easily show an accurate graph of what functions or principles that we are learning about. For instance if we are learning about equations for different curves and what part of the equation changes the amplitude or which part shifts the equation and which way does that shift happen, I review the material by putting up a graph, using mathematica, of the standard form of the equation in question. Then i could easily change the equation of the curve in the mathematica code and ask the students to predict what will happen [if i for instance change the equation y=x^2 to y=(x-4)^2] and then enter in the changed data and let the students see first hand how the graph changes. This will save a great deal of time of having the teacher graphing equations on the board as well as provide an interactive way for students to learn mathematical principles.

iCommunicator 5.0

On the textbook website in chapter 2, in the Assistive Technologies Corner, there is a link to a page all about iCommunicator 5.0, which is an amazing software program that converts speech to text or video sign language. This technology is for helping people with hearing disabilities. The page is the iCommunicator website, and it is a really useful tool for finding out everything you would want to know about this technology. There is a video presentation right on the opening page, and tabs on the top banner that take me to different pages within the website. People wishing to purchase this software can even do so right on this website! The great thing about this product is that it works both ways. You can translate speech to text/video, or text to computer-speech.

The iCommunicator would be a useful tool to have in my classroom if I had a deaf student. However, I believe that it would be even more useful in an elementary class or a secondary English classroom. I probably will not be making my math students write too many papers, but they will need to be able to use technologies in my classroom. I am aware the the software has a built-in thesaurus and dictionary, however I would be interested in contacting the manufacturers to see whether or not it has an equation editor within it, so that students can use math speech and have that be translated into equations. The new technologies being developed to assist in special education are astounding to me! I cannot wait to see what the future holds for further development, because I want to be knowledgeable about the best ways to help my special needs students have a great learning experience.

Banning Cell Phones in School

The main concern of this portion of the section of the book is discussing the growing problems of cell phones in the classroom. It is seems that students are capable of displaying etiquette in other areas of their lives at school, such as raising their hands in class to talk and not cutting in the lunch line, but this etiquette doesn't appear to transfer to the students new and most valuable possession...their cell phones. The main problem with this is that cell phones are answered during classes, meetings, and lectures without a second thought. This causes a problem because it is hard for people to filter out a one way conversion and causes a major distraction. Cell phones have even been utilized to start fights in schools and other forms of disturbances.

In my opinion cell phones in schools are a necessary evil. The reason for this being that a lot of kids do need their cell phones to communicate with parents about after school activities, however there is a way to avoid cell phone abuse by students. This can be done by having students leave cell phones in their lockers and turn them off so that they are capable of using them for after school plans. This could be a good compromise because they still get to have them but just not have them as a distraction during the school day. In addition to turning off their phones there should also be cell phone etiquette rules posted in the school rules on the proper cell phone use in and out of the classroom. This can help to further prevent and control inappropriate cell phone use.

Search Engines

(from Chapter 2, Teaching Today #2)

You have started using the computer lab to work on classroom projects with your digital students, which is a great opportunity for all students to get hands-on experiences with different technologies. Scanners, videos, CDs, DVDs, and many other technologies are available from which to choose. Students also can access the Internet. Managing your students in the lab while they explore these different technologies is a challenge. You decide to design a project so your students will work in groups to research a famous person in history. Before students begin their research your might reflect on the following questions: Do students need guidance on how to use a search engine to perform a proper search? Do they need help to avoid getting lost using the various technologies? Do they understand that asking the correct question or questions is an important part of the solution for finding the correct answer? What about searching reference materials? Are students using primary and secondary resources? How can I design research projects that go beyond the standard writing of a paper to engage your digital students in using many different types of technologies in a collaborative way?

It is important that students know how to use search engines properly before they begin to gather information from the Internet. If I assigned them such a project, I would take part of the period to explain the assignment and then the rest to show them how to use search engines to find reliable information. First, I would go over the differences between primary and secondary source material and how each should be viewed. Then I would list some indicators of scholarly and non-scholarly sources, for instance authorship, tone, and citation. I would then guide them through the types of websites they should look for and, if available, introduce them to databases of scholarly work. Showing them how to use these would likely take significantly longer than explaining Google, with which they would probably generally be familiar. Once the class understood how to find and identify reliable sources, I would go over basic search tips: using quotation marks for exact phrases, trying synonyms, and trying various search engines. During the project, I would have groups of students collaborate by having them divide up the areas of research, but assisting each other when anyone was unable to find information on his or her assigned topic. This would help them to discover for themselves and share search skills and strategies which they could then use later on.

Math in everyday life

For this blog I am examining an article that I found on the website associated with my text book for my Technologies of Instruction Class, http://www.learner.org/interactives/dailymath/. This article talks about the universality of math. It points out that it makes sense, when you stop to think about it, that math can be used in such a variety of different real world situations from decorating a room or buying some groceries to flying a plane. Math is a necessary part of life, because we did not invent math but merely discovered it. Also the fact that math deals with numbers makes it possible for it to span across language barriers. The main examples that this website goes through is math's usefulness in making a budget for shopping or remodeling a home, to buy the right insurance, to understand population growth, or even to understand which horse would have the best chance of winning a race.
The concept of the real world applications of math is very important in my future classroom because it is proven that students who understand why they are learning certain information and how it can be useful in their future and everyday lives tend to be more motivated in that class.

A Time Line of Mathematicians

The School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland operates a website called The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. Here they provide thousands of biographies of mathematicians throughout history, from the 17th century B.C. to present. A more user-friendly page, A Time Line of Mathematicians, provides a visual representation of the most important mathematicians and shows how their lifetimes overlapped. This can be an interesting way for students who don't want too many details to see an overview of the history of mathematics and compare when the most important researchers were alive. I would use this in class, when mentioning significant mathematicians, to better explain to my students just when they were alive.

Textbook Website: Math Anxiety Self Test

On the textbook website in the Chapter 2 Integration Corner, there is a section within the Math Corner entitled Math Anxiety Self Test. It is a link to a small page that has a 10 question quiz for math students. The quiz is only a page and it is not interactive. The students taking the quiz could easily scroll to the bottom of the page to immediately see what their scores mean, and could therefore change the scores after they see what they mean. The page also looks boring, and some of the text is off-center with the graphic and the rest of the text. I think that this anxiety quiz is a good idea, but maybe could have been done better.



The quiz would be useful, especially for math students, because children often approach mathematics with an unresolved fear or anxiety. I'm not sure if their fear comes from their own lack of confidence in math classrooms, or from listening to other people's fears. Regardless, I'm not sure if this quiz would be the best idea for my classroom or not. Although it would be good for me as a teacher to know how my students are feeling, the quiz might intimidate my students even more. What would keep the students from lying on the quiz because they are embarrassed? The best thing about this quiz is that if students score low on it (meaning they are anxious), there is a hyperlink to a page called "Ten Ways to Reduce Math Anxiety." This page is colorful, and gives students 10 tips to overcome their fears of math problems. I would definitely be able to use this page in my future math classroom if it seems as if my students are struggling.

Advanced Grapher

A new tool that can be utilized by advanced math students is new software called Advanced Grapher. This software can be used by students and teachers to graph complicated trigonometric functions by using their equation or by using tables to graph. The Advanced Grapher also has a tool called regression analysis, which is curve fitting. Advanced Grapher also allows a student to be able to graph 100 graphs on one document, it is easy to install, and it also allows the user to be able to use graphs that are already stored in the software within the graphs gallery. Also there are stylistic features that are very useful in making the graphing process easier on it's students. For example student are capable of changing the color of the lines, the width, and the style of the lines. The Advanced Grapher software works on Windows 95 and higher.

The Advanced Grapher software could be utilized in the classroom by students and teachers when working on projects involving graphing especially in Pre-Calculus classes and Calculus classes where graphing trigonometric functions becomes more complicated. However it can also be used by Algebra students so that the students can learn and see where and how you find the slope of a line and what equation is best to use when graphing binomials and trinomials.

Microsoft One Note

Microsoft Office One Note is a very useful piece of technology that I was not familiar with until coming to Grove City College. It is part of the Microsoft Office Suite, and is essentially a handy way of taking notes on the computer. One Note allows users to create different notebooks for different subjects. Each notebook contains numerous pages, each with a label and the date and time written on. The great thing about One Note is that it promotes organization, since all of the notebooks and pages are easy to navigate. One Note is especially useful for tablet computers, because it allows you to write directly onto the page with a stylus as if the computer were actually a notebook. The software gives tons of options for different colored pens, highlighters, erasers, and shapes.

Although the program is extremely useful to me here at Grove City for note-taking during class, it would only benefit people with access to computers during class. Thus One Note is probably the most useful on college campuses, or in school districts where laptops are provided for every student.

One Note is, however, a really good tool for mathematics. Since math notes usually have a lot of symbols, it is difficult to quickly type up your notes during class. The stylus and One Note provide a simple solution: you can electronically write your notes! The benefits? You can save paper, email your notes, or print your notes. The color choices are great for math notes, and you are even given the option for graph paper grids. I can see my future math students using One Note if they are allowed tablet computers in class. However, if they are not, I as the teacher will still be able to use it. For example, if students had questions about homework at night, I could email them my written solutions.


Below are pictures of different notebooks and then different pages within a notebook:

Here is an example of math notes taken in One Note:

Equation Editor

In Microsoft word there is a very handy tool called the Equation Editor. This is a tool that allows a person to enter in an equation in an efficient and easy way into their document. In order to use this tool one must first locate the ribbon on the top of word. After locating the ribbon one must then go to the Insert tab and within this tab on the far right there is a button called Equation. Once you click on the Equation button it then takes one to a new tab called Design. It is in this tab that one can select an equation from the built in equations, such as the binomial theorem or the area of a circle. The user also has the option of creating an equation from scratch using the different structures offered in Equation Editor. Some such structures include fractions, scripts, radical, integral, brackets, and trigonometric functions. The user also has the options of incorporating different symbols in order to write proof and definitions of specific functions. A few of these symbols are less than and greater than symbols and other similar symbols.

The Equation Editor would be a very useful tool in the classroom. It could be used by both the teacher for writing assignments and exams. Also it could be a useful tool for the students as well. For example, it could be used if the students were required to write a paper discussing the different theories and proofs that go into proving certain laws of Mathematics. Also it could be used for students who feel that taking notes on their computer is a more efficient way to take notes.

This is the design ribbon for the Equation Editor.

This is a sample built in equation: The Binomial Theorem

Math PowerPoint

(Taken from the website of Greg Kelly, Hanford High School, Richland, WA; this is Lesson 3.6)

Here is an example of a simple lesson in calculus taught using PowerPoint. The author effectively uses non-distracting visuals to illustrate the flow of information through example problems. Because each step of the problem is prompted by a click, the obvious interactive component to this lesson is for the teacher to call on a student to provide the next step, and then click to display it. Since this is not visible in the PowerPoint itself, we included another type of interactivity in the last two slides: the first of the two asks an open-ended question and then a specific one. To check the answer to the specific question, the teacher can simply click the action button immediately to its right, and will be taken to the next slide, containing the answer.

Note: I attempted to upload this file in both .ppt and .pps format, but in either case the Google viewer mangled the graphics on most of the slides. I'm not aware that there is any way to avoid this using Google Docs.

Google Docs

A tool that I have encountered for the first time through Technology of Instruction is Google Docs, a free web application within the Google brand of services. Google Docs allows users to upload documents up to 500 KB in text formats, 10 MB in classic PowerPoint form, spreadsheets up to 1 MB, and PDF files up to 10 MB. Once a file reaches Google's servers, its owner may share it with any other user by invitation or by link, as read-only or with edit permissions. Fortunately, those who wish to collaborate do not have to download the document before editing, because Google has its own lightweight editors. Two major advantages of this are speed and consistency; the document is updated in real time and only one version can exist in one place. Another advantage of this over email collaboration is efficiency: the originator uploads one version to one location rather than tying up a network and filling inboxes with numerous identical copies.

While it is ideal for work items, Google Docs could also be very useful for a classroom teacher. For instance, instead of printing handouts every day, a teacher could simply upload the file of the handout and share the link with all his or her students. Certain assignments could potentially also be collected through Google Docs, saving the students from having to worry about their printers as well as the teacher from having an inbox full of attachments. It is especially useful for group projects, keeping students with limited transportation from having to meet up outside class when not necessary. As a math teacher, I probably will not make frequent use of Google Docs, because math is easier on paper and many students do not have scanners. However, I will most likely use it during the next two years of college and will always keep it in mind when sharing documents with my students.

Anyone with a Google account (this includes Gmail) may start using the service immediately, and for those without, it is free and easy to set one up here.

Microsoft Office Outlook

This week I would like to share with you about abilities of Microsoft Office Outlook. Before I start my Technology of Instruction class I only ever used as a quick and convenient way to check my grove city e-mail account, which it is, however I have learned that the software has so much more to offer. Outlook is able to keep track of your personal schedule for which you are able to set an alarm for as a reminder of your appointments. It also has the capability to function as a to do list with opposition to set tasks and reminders to get it done on time. The most useful component of the task operator is that you can simply drag an e-mail that has an important task on it to the task tab. Some other important functions that Outlook contains is the ability to set rules that will automatically send the specified incoming e-mails to a certain folder this is a good way to avoid having your inbox crowded with e-mails.There are also many other benefits to using Microsoft Office Outlook.

I see Outlook as being a vital tool in my future classroom to keep all of my e-mails organized. I will also use be able to use this as one of the tools to keep in contact with the parents of my students and will be able to set a rule to direct e-mails to different folders depending on what the subject is. This will be extremely useful in being organized and not having to deal with having to much in my inbox. I can also use this program to keep track of my various appointments with my students for tutoring or with parents.

Technology of Excel in the Classroom

I wanted to talk about Microsoft Excel as an awesome technological tool for the classroom. Excel, as we learned, is part of the Microsoft Office Suite, and is ultimately a workbook comprising of spreadsheets. Excel is great for making tables, charts, and graphs. You can perform calculations through the use of functions. This software makes it easy to color-code your charts to make them aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Excel is also great for keeping records and staying organized.

As future teachers, we know that it will be imperative that we stay organized in our record-keeping and grading. We can use Microsoft Excel to keep track of our students and their information- such as parents names, phone numbers, and e-mails. It will also be important to document our phone and e-mail conversations with parents about student behavior and grades, so that a record is alway kept in check. Outlook is an excellent tool for this, as well as for the grade-book itself. Specifically as mathematics instructors, we will be able to teach graphing relations through the use of Excel. When teaching our students about mean, median, and mode, we can give them numbers to enter into tables, and create graphs from that data. Excel will give the students a simple, organized, and accurate representation of those numbers so that they are better able to grasp their meaning in the specific problem. The use of Excel in my classroom will aid in my students learning because it will engage them.

Here is data entered into the spreadsheet.

And here is the data in an organized, colorful bar chart

Introductions

This blog has four authors, Jenna Richert, Nicole Powers, Doug Smith, and Christy Scurlock. We are all Grove City College Math Secondary Education majors.