“Online learning as an alternative to a violent in-school experience”?

Gail Collins always seems to write an interesting editorial piece for The New York Times. This one, entitled "Virtually Educated", is no exception. In it, she refers to a recent development in Tennessee, where students in one county were given the option of leaving their current school district to attend an online-only charter school run by the company K12 Inc.

What was interesting about this, and I really hate to bring in politics, was the fact that they picked, of all places in Tennessee, an area with a lot of poverty-stricken families. As Gail Collins points out, on the K12 website, the online school headmaster touts her school in this fashion: “online learning as an alternative to a violent in-school experience”.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Will this situation in Tennessee be a wake-up call not just about issues with our education system, but, more generally, social injustice and inequality? I honestly never thought of technology in schools being used in this manner, and am still trying to gather all my thoughts. I just found the editorial to be extremely interesting and enlightening--I just could not help but share it.

Timeline of Classroom Technology

The Globe and Mail out of Canada has a very interesting timeline of technology in the classroom. It starts off with BCE technologies, like the papyrus, abacus and quill pen and culminates with modern technologies like the iPad and the "Flipped Classroom", which was a totally new concept to me. I was very much intrigued by the idea of students watching lectures online at home and having class time used instead for one-on-one practice with the teacher.

Other highlights of the timeline for me which were somewhat math-related include the overhead projector (which I just used substantially in a lesson I taught), calculator and the interactive white board. I was also fascinated to read the description of the Personal PC:

When 17 Ontario high schools were hooked up with 8-by-10-inch computer screens and monitors, Douglas Penny, then director of the research and evaluation branch at the province’s Ministry of Education, found it necessary to dispel fears that computers would replace math teachers.

The most interesting part of that to me is no doubt the fear of computers replacing math teachers. As we know, this has definitely not been the case. Not only have personal PCs not replaced teachers, but I think they have served as an excellent tool in the classroom for instruction. They allow the teacher to integrate multiple learning styles through a choice of interactive programs and visual/audio representations, as well as bring real-life programs and models into the classroom that would not have otherwise been possible.

Interactivity #5

Updated Spreadsheet

When I reflected upon the work I did for my previous interactivity, I discovered a lot of areas where I could have made substantial improvements. In my revisions, I sought to emphasize the importance of a mixture of whole class discussion, individual work and group work using a variety of technologies, particularly, the overhead, internet, Excel and the calculator. I also flushed out the strategies I thought the lesson was using by adding more detail and writing more about the intent of the strategy in achieving the standard. This also meant speaking more as to effective uses of the technology noted in the next column in the corresponding strategy.

If there was one technology in particular I wanted the revisions to emphasize, it was Excel. I think the case of any kind of data analysis, Excel can serve a vital tool in not just representing data, but performing calculations and regressions that give students a greater insight into what the data actually means. If the lesson can effectively incorporate these aspects of Excel, along with a student-applicable real-life scenario, I think it becomes all the more stronger.

Much along the same lines, if time permitted and the lesson could be extended, I would very much like to send students out to collect their own data for a scatter plot. Student-collected data just feels much more organic and relatable to students. It also would present a great opportunity for students to learn more about a major player on the internet (ebay.com), as well as how to collect, interpret and classify user-collected data. Any experience that can further strengthen students’ 21^st-century life skills is definitely a must-do in any classroom.

In terms of copyright and fair use issues, the only major ones were those involving short-length printed material, software and the internet. As mentioned in the spreadsheet, the use of the worksheets and overhead sheets in this lesson is covered by law. A teacher would be allowed to make enough copies for his/her class, and in turn, the students could also incorporate the worksheets and such in any projects. Another issue was that of legal and licensed copies of Excel. As pointed out in the readings and videos for this interactivity, software used in the classroom must be purchased and licensed legally. If I suspected this was not the case, I would be sure to check the status of the program with the school administration or district, if need be. Finally, if students or myself incorporated any aspect of, in the case of this lesson, ebay.com, it must be properly and legally presented. If data is gathered on bids or other ebay.com related features, specific dates must be noted, as well as the particular link where the information was gathered from.

The Next Time You Get That iTunes Giftcard...

think about purchasing a Math App from the Education App Store (http://www.apple.com/education/apps/). Unfortunately, I don't own any Apple products, so I am unable to actually try out and test some of these apps, but it really intrigued me that there was a market out there for math-based apps. Not only can you turn your iPod or iPad into a basic calculator, but through these apps, it can be transformed into a graphing calculator, an interactive manipulative to aid in learning algebra or even a "chalk board" that can be used to learn and practice arithmetic.

I can definitely see there being a large potential for these kinds of apps to play a role in the classroom. Students are glued to these kinds of technologies, and if educators can tap into this successfully, students can take materials used in the classroom home for additional practice outside of the traditional textbook homework assignments.

If anyone has any experience using any of these math apps from the iTunes store, I would really like to hear about it.

Things You May Not Know About Your Calculator.....

Did you know your graphing calculator can draw the derivative, integral, or inverse of a function? How about that it has the ability to perform linear, exponential, logarithmic or power regressions?  Or how it can be used to effectively evaluate sequences and series?

If we are going to effectively use the calculator as a technology in our classrooms to its fullest extent, we need to be intimately familiar with how it can potentially be used. As our Interactivity from this week emphasized, when we use technology in our lessons, it shouldn't be thrown in there just to use it. Instead, we need to incorporate it in truly planned, useful ways that hit home the learning goals and standards. By increasing our own personal knowledge of how the calculator can be used, we open up a whole host of possibilities of establishing lessons where the calculator is use to its fullest and most meaningful extent.

There are a lot of resources available to help in this, but one I found to be particularly helpful is located at http://mathbits.com/mathbits/tisection/openpage.htm. The website contains information about using the graphing calculator (there are sections for the TI-83, TI-84 and TI-NSpire) in many different areas of mathematics. There are also some helpful "Quick Reference" sheets that may be useful to either refresh your memory or distribute to students.

Interactivity #4

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArsgjpLWpPDrdGowcmE4dmFyOXZEeVd0cHBKTVB4WVE 

Whenever I think of technology and Mathematics, I automatically think of scatter plots, graphs, linear regressions and best fit lines. This lesson plan is a great demonstration of many of those concepts, and it presents them using something that most everyone is familiar with: EBay. I also think that by using the PS3 as a “new” technology in the worksheet and questions, it causes students to actually think about factors that affect the prices of new technologies. I did not notice any real gaps between the goals, strategies and technologies in this lesson. When I was reading it though, I immediately thought of trying to incorporate Excel as much as possible as opposed to hand-graphing. In the context of scatter plots and lines of best fit, Excel is definitely the “go-to” technology, and I think incorporating it would only enhance the lesson and strengthen the learning goals. A program like Excel is truly an “all-in-one” package for the learning goals in this lesson: it can find a linear equation to model a set of data and provide a clear, well-organized representation to aid in analysis and interpretation.

Thinking About Standards...

Standard 8.1 Educational Technology:  All students will use digital tools to access, evaluate, and synthesize information in order to solve problems individually and collaboratively and to create and communicate knowledge.

Standard 9.1 21st-Century Life and Career Skills: All students will demonstrate the creative, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills needed to function successfully as both global citizens and workers in diverse ethnic and organizational cultures.

•  Critical Thinking and Problem Solving 
• Creativity and Innovation 
• Collaboration, Teamwork, and Leadership  
• Cross-Cultural Understanding and Interpersonal Communication 
• Communication and Media Fluency 

What does it mean to "prepare" students for the 21st century exactly? I think the State of New Jersey hit the nail on the head with the "5 C's" outlined above in cross-curricular standard 9.1. No matter what subject area you teach, or where you teach for that matter, education is so much more than just learning math, science or literature. Education is learning how to think critically about things, how to innovate, how to work on a team, how to communicate to other people and how to become fluent in the many forms of media available.

This is where we educators can bring in Standard 8.1 regarding Educational Technology. If we can effectively bring technology into our classroom in a way that not only teaches our subject, but causes them to think critically about technology, we are "teaching" them 21st Century Skills. While the use of technology is definitely a great skill to have in the 21st Century, what good is it if we cannot analyze, innovate and question forms of technology?