Final Reflection on GAME Plan

I have now been working with the GAME model for a little less than two months.  It is a good system for gaining new skills and knowledges, and I will continue to use it and share it with my students as an option.  The one problem I had with it is the same issue that I would have with any strategy for improving myself.  I need to stay motivated with the project in order for it to work.  For me, that means that it will only work if I am truly interested in the topic and want to learn it or need to learn it as a requirement.  This is not a shortfall of the system, but of my own lack of focus.

Despite that, I have made progress on my goals.  I have found several web sites that can help me extend the learning for my highly motivated students, and I have seen what other teachers have done in similar circumstances to help their students.  While I don't feel like I have truly reached my goal yet since I have not had a chance to implement these strategies, I feel that I am making progress.  I will continue my routines that have helped me so far, and when I work with my class again this fall, I will have an opportunity to test them and decide which ones work for me and which ones do not.

This class has actually helped me practice my modification techniques since that is part of the GAME plan format directly when writing lesson plans.  I have thought more about different situations that may arise, including lack of computer access, highly motivated or unmotivated students, and time restraints.  These have led me to better ideas about what I will need to do in the future.  I feel like I have finished the first iteration of this goal, and now I am planning on extending it to other lesson plans.

This class has also been very good for me to see different ways that I can use technology in the math classroom.  I had learned some strategies from previous classes, but I am impressed with the three strategies that we focused on in this program.

While problem based learning is not a new concept to me, I had not thought of all of the ways that I could use technology to help my students.  I like the idea of my students using real data to solve real life problems as opposed to numbers that are provided by the text as examples.  This makes the problems seem more valid and relevant to the students.

Online collaboration is something that I have been wanting to do, but I could not figure out a way to do it that would interest my students.  With math, it is difficult to come up with topics where much discussion is needed with regards to the concepts, so I have been looking for ways that I can collaborate in other areas.  The idea of working with students in other countries led me to the fact that conversions from metric to imperial are something that my students both need to learn and have had trouble with in the past.  I feel that working with students that think in the metric system might help my students gain these skills.

But the strategy I am most excited about is digital storytelling.  I can think of many ways that my students can use digital storytelling to assist in their learning.  They can make videos about how to solve problems, examine the world around them and see where math fits in, present their own real-life problems as samples for the class to solve, and many more that I am only beginning to think about.  I hope to use this in my classroom as much as I can based on the availability of technology to my students.

Eventually, I would like the classes that I teach to be focused around technology about half of the time.  The strategies that I have learned in this class will help me gain that goal in ways that are exciting for my students.

An App for the Classroom

In many classrooms, one of the biggest issues is teaching students who do not speak English as their first language.  Teaching word problems in my math class often means teaching the meaning of words as well as the techniques for solving the problems.  We currently have translation dictionaries available for each of our students, but a new app for the iPhone and iPod touch has been released that has tremendous implications.  Word Lens instantly translates text from one language to another (currently only Spanish/English, but that will be improved with time.)  Imagine putting a problem or a text on the board and having your students be able to understand it in their own language instantly by simply viewing it through their hand-held device.

. . .Now we just need the schools to allow hand-held devices in the classroom.

After reading Thomas Friedman's "It's a Flat World, After All", The first thought that crossed my mind was that he was missing the point.  Yes, India, China, and other countries have had a boost in their presence on the world stage due to the technology boom of the 90's.  Yes, they have the population and the motivation to become world leaders in technology, communication and the information age.  But we are not in competition with them.

We need to think of the world as a cooperative.  The great minds from all over the world are now able to communicate with each other instantly.  The top companies from India, China, Russia, the US and more can share their success and failures.  I am not saying that this should be the end of capitalism.  We will still have multiple choices and the economy will decide which way we choose to continue.  But we must use all of the resources at our disposal.  And those resources are in other countries.

Mr Friedman does make a good point that we need to change our education system and improve the outlook at the local level.  We will not be able to work with the best in the world if we are not also the best.  We must teach all of our students how to use the tools available to us.  We must encourage creativity.  We must encourage teamwork.  And we must encourage technology.  If this is not done in the near future, then we will not be a world power any more.

Can Technology Rescue School Budgets?

This was the title of a recent post on Flypaper.  They ask the question with regards to e-schools and hybrid schools (specifically New York City's School of One program).  I really like the School of One program in NYC, although it can require more effort on the part of the teachers. E-schools are expanded home-schooling options.  Both of these programs have important places in our society, but I don't feel they should be used as budget reducing options.

The extra effort required by the School of One means that the teachers should be earning more money for doing the work.  It may require fewer teachers, as mentioned by John Chubb, but those teachers deserve the extra rewards.  As for e-schools, I don't feel that home schooling is the best option for most students.  Children need the social interactions and leadership skills that brick-and-mortar schools provide.  Some students find these through other groups and organizations, but I don't think a wide-spread home schooling system is the way to go.

 Can technology rescue school budgets?  Absolutely.  Technology makes text books cheaper.  Paperless classrooms save money on resources.  It may be possible to use fewer teachers (although I do not think this is the best solution).  But these are all ways that technology allows us to do things differently.  The real purpose of technology, as all of my classmates will attest, is to do different things.

Blogging in Mathematics?

As I've been working on my assignments for my class, I have been thinking frequently, "That would work so well in an English classroom." or "Every history class should be doing that."  It has even made me want to get my teaching certificate for science more so I can do some of the things that have been suggested for biology or physics.  It does seem that many of the features of the read/write web do favor the classes that are focused on reading and writing.  But as I've gone through my days thinking about it, I have developed several strategies for using technology in general and blogs in particular even in a math classroom.

If you have heard me talk about mathematics at all, you know that I feel that math is really just the study of patterns.  Different courses give you different tools to use to find, analyze, and create patterns.  Arithmetic is the patterns of counting.  Geometry is the patterns of shapes.  Calculus is the patterns of change.  I want my students to understand patterns in their lives and in the world around them.  A blog is the perfect way to do this.  I can set up a topic of "what patterns do you see in _____?"  Or I can have the students discuss how different tools can be used on a specific type of pattern.  Or the students themselves can find patterns and start a discussion about them all by themselves.  They can find information about how different cultures or people looked at patterns.  No matter what the student finds interesting, they can find a way to tie it to patterns.  A blog will help them discuss their ideas with each other and let them use their creativity to develop new ideas beyond what is taught in the classroom.