Technology Blog

Technology Blog
Technology is used in many aspects of the normal day-to-day activities but using it to benefit students instead of just using it to technology was used is sometimes a challenge. During the entire semester technology was incorporated through assignments, discussions and ended up becoming a necessary device without being instructed to use it. Of course computers and internet were used, but the sources like NCTM and CCSSI provided a variety of resources such as journal articles, standards, objectives, search engines etc. The option for hard copy journal articles was available, but through investigating the site we were comfortable to use it in other projects and classes that it wasn’t required, but useful, for. I think this is a smart way to educate students on appropriate and accurate sources and showing the importance for an immediate, large database of information.
Like in this case, we used an online blogging site to do our reflections on. The only difference of this assignment to any other reflection assignment was the online aspect. It was different, engaging and allowed all students to see each other’s instantly. It does not require any paper to accomplish this task, important to some for environmental and financial reasons. I personally enjoyed creating an individual page and the skills I learned from exploring blogger.com gives me yet another communicative source I can use elsewhere in life.
We talked about two technology-based tools specific to math; Geometer’s Sketchpad and a calculator. It was important to take class time to go over these tools because as teachers we will continue to grow as we use them with our students but we need a basic understanding so that accurate information and training is given to the students in a smooth way. The way we learned about these two tools is a good model as to how I would like to teach it to my students. We were allowed to explore both tools before doing an assignment with them. The assignment was to teach others something we found. For Geometer’s Sketchpad going up to the front and adding something new, showed a wide range of abilities of the program. With the calculator writing a problem and showing how to find it using a calculator let each of my classmates the opportunity to practice the operation and problem solve through struggles. All of the struggles we voiced during the process are bound to arise in any classroom of any aged students. I plan to incorporate technology in my classroom, and work with the materials provided to me by the school to allow students to use it as much as possible.