I knocked up an interactive worksheet in just a few minutes (literally) that could be used by students to explore Pythagoras’ thorem.  (I would attach the file here if I could figure out how . I can’t even manage to get a screenshot in). This has definitely motivated me to play around with Geogebra a bit more and extend my current capabilities.

• The first was about how they used LAMS to scaffold the Personal Project that each student is required to work on over the course of a year as part of the International Baccalaureate program.  The LAMS sequence guides the students through the various stages of the project – and serves both as a planning tool for the students and an oversight tool for the instructors.
• The second session was about an online course (on forensics) designed to accommodate students who were unable to attend the regular classes due to schedule clashes. An interesting idea floated by Jarrod in this session was the notion of students enrolled in one school being able to take online courses offered by other schools.  This type of arrangement if implemented will allow schools to share scarce teaching resources and be able to offer a wider range of courses than they would be able to on their own.

I found the last lecture session from the lady at EDNA very useful and decided to check out what they have to offer.  Here is a link to my profile on EDNA http://me.edu.au/p/madhu.  It links to this blog and on early inspection, does look like a useful way to build a professional online profile.

Programs such as the one described in this article can easily be shown to get results (ie improved scores in traditional tests). Paul’s blog points out there haven’t been too many studies to prove the effectiveness of constructivist teaching approaches – I think the reason must lie partly in the fact that our assessment methods are still rooted in objectivist frameworks (at least in mathematics).

A conundrum that will no doubt face us as beginning teachers!

 References

Roblyer, M.(2006). Learning Theories as Bases for Integration. In M. Roblyer (Ed). Integrating educational technology into teaching.  4th Edtn. pp 36-52. Pearson/Merrill Prentice HallUpper Saddle River, N.J.

The prac. school I was at already maintained online markbooks. All that would be required would be to enable secure access to students’ records to only those authorised (carers, teachers, student themselves). 

Grandmother’s report card http://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriabernal/2289482819/  Made available under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence

• We definitely need student teachers to be exposed to a range of technology tools and provided with opportunities to think about and experiment with various ways of using these in the classroom (similar to what we are currently engaged in as part of this course). If we have tried something at uni, we are more likely to use it in our teaching.
•  On an ongoing basis, we need to keep abreast of new tools/ technologies and their potential for use in an educational setting.  We could do this in a variety of ways – we could actively seek out information by subscribing to blogs of interest, reading, networking with like-minded peers etc.  Traditional professional development courses are also an option but likely to be behind the curve?

One of his examples: to use podcasting in our teaching we do not need to know how to podcast.  Students already know how (or can teach themselves and each other how to).  So we get the students to make a podcast and our job as teachers then is to listen to these podcasts, evaluate them and provide feedback to students on appropriateness of content.

Hmmmm…. Maybe.

The above approach wouldnt work for something like LAMS, where the teacher needs to “author” or create a lesson sequence for the students.  So teachers would need to get familiar with LAMS, if they are to use it in their teaching.

Also, even with things like podcasting or voicethread, whilst I agree that we do not need to become the “resident expert” in order to use it in our teaching, we do need to be familiar enough with it to be able to assess the possible uses for it in our lessons.  In that sense, we do need to keep ourselves updated with the new developments to the extent that we know what is out there and how it can be used.

I think the idea has great potential!  Think of asking students to create their own summary of a topic in comic book format.  If playing with technology or creative writing is their thing, this would tap into their interests and get them learning mathematics content at the same time. Their creations could be showcased and shared online with other students and the larger school community.  Thanks for the idea, Paul.

It is easy to see how such mathcasts can be very useful for students who may have missed a lesson or for students to use when reviewing previously learnt material before an exam.  Specially, for mathematics, where it is important to be able to see the working and/or setting out of a solution.

If we have the technology in the schools we work in, I’d love to try out mathcasts.  I can already picture how I could pre-record my lessons for when I am away on holiday