Week 6

Week 6

1) This week's activities:
I already somewhat commented/reacted to this week in the documents I posted on ilocker. However, I really enjoyed searching through the Illuminations site for various activities. I was glad that they could be any activities really, and did not have to pertain to my specific technology. I found many that I wanted to look further into, but my computer would not load the interactive part. This was frustrating because I had to settle for activities that I may not have chosen had the others worked out first. However, I found one that I really loved and that was the graphing trig functions activity. I tutor at the learning center, and almost want to show this to one of my clients who is struggling with graphing in MATHS 112 here at BSU. I think it would be really helpful. I also spent some time with a cousin of mine this weekend who has been teaching math at the middle level for many years now, and she introduced me to the site math-play.com. She said she uses it to let the kids play games, many times to introduce a topic, and see what they already know. It keeps things fresh, not just lecturing day after day. She also said she uses excel often and sometimes GSP. It helped me to see that I really do need to learn as much as I can while in this course, and afterwards as well. She told me that two different people interviewed for a job at their school and one interviewee said he didn't have much technology to bring to the classroom and they immediately crossed him off the list. This almost scared me into wanting to learn everything I can about mathematically beneficial technologies ha. Ok, that was kind of off track but I just wanted to share.

2) Criteria for NOT choosing an Illuminations activity:
Any activities that had too long, or involved instructions led me away. I don't want the majority of the students' time to be taken up by trying to understand the directions rather than the math itself. Also, if I tested out an activity and found it boring, I did not choose it. I tried to put myself in the shoes of adolescent students and imagine if the activity would keep their interest for long or not. Lastly, if activities seemed too baby-ish, as in not challenging enough for students, I went on to the next activity. They will lose interest rather quickly, I'm sure, if the task is too easy.