Week Two of 535

This week's assignments were very interesting, along with some being applicable to the classroom environment.  Starting with the readings on wikis, I thought it was very informative to see a teacher create a wiki for an upper level class in which the students are essentially feeding the system.  This would be an excellent way to help my advanced math students improve their communication about troublesome issues; offering troubleshooting techniques and/or helpful links or examples.  As far as Twitter or photo sharing are concerned, I'm not quite sure how I would incorporate their capabilities into my classroom, but they are certainly very interesting.  Lastly, finding the four blog links that related to mathematics proved to be quite helpful.  For example, one blog was that of a teacher listing his helpful hints for a successful math classroom.  Where I may not have agreed to every one of his points, some of his ideas were quite logical and practical.  Another blog that I found was very insightful, with the most recent post pondering the question of "when am I ever going to use this?"  Mr. Meyer's response to this age old question, was similar to my philosophy, which is reassuring that my ideas don't exist on an island.  I look forward to reading these blogs in the future, and hey, maybe I could add some the blog authors to my Twitter account!

First Week of 535

As this class deals with using web tools to enhance our classroom instruction, it is only fitting that our initial text deals with the specific tools that can be used to incorporate technology into our learning environments.  Our text of "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms," not only does a great job of explaining the various web-based applications that can enhance our classroom comprehension, but also points out the shift in how we should teach.  One of the biggest take aways that I can use from this book is how the classroom should be viewed as less of a "teacher-learner" atmosphere, and more of a constant, "everyone is a learner" environment.  It also helps to cultivate a classroom where is not only allowed, but encouraged.  As a math instructor, I always try to emphasize that there is not one correct way to do a problem; and it may take several attempts to find which way works out best for each individual learner.  Also, in terms of possibly incorporating a blog into a math classroom, where as I haven't thought of anything concrete, it would be nice to have a venue where the students can express their thoughts, or even pose questions to a larger community.