Math 371 Technology for STEM Educators

There is no right or wrong answer when discussing the necessity of technology in the classroom. The technology used in a classroom will vary from school to school and even teacher to teacher. The real question should be focused on the amount of technology being implemented and the effectiveness of it. This was discussed in class the other day and I will gladly expand on it. I hear some people say that their school was "one to one" and I didn't have the slightest clue as to what that meant until maybe a year ago. Turns out "one to one" means for each student, there was a laptop or iPad designated to them for use throughout the school year. Talk about overkill. Do these schools no longer have computer labs? What was wrong with using those? My objection to this "one to one" situation is starting to become clear. It's not all bad, I suppose. There has to be some pros to this abundance of technology. Coming from a high school that did not implement t...

My experience as a high school student had a very even blend of technology and traditional learning in the classroom. All students were given new laptops as freshmen by the school board and were able to use them in all classes for the rest of their high school career. Some classes were able to utilize this technology in better capacities than others. We had specific technology classes that showed uses and applications of laptops from video editing, all the way to simple coding. Despite the classes I had that were specifically formatted to utilize our technology, I never found myself doing much with my laptop other than typing notes, writing papers, and creating an occasional presentation. In fact, I rarely if ever used my technology in a math class. However, another neighboring district offered several math classes that were taken entirely online with video instruction from an out-sourced teacher and with online homework. I initially thought this was a great idea for smaller ...

If you had asked me 6 months ago what I thought I was going to learn about in Technology for STEM Educators, I would have had little idea other than SMART boards and calculators. However, since last semester, I have found a few things that I am curious in learning about. Specifically, I am very interested in learning about mass customized learning.             Mass customized learning is something I learned about from my brother, a student at the University of South Dakota. He is currently student-teaching in Beresford, SD, where they have begun using it, specifically in their math program. He is in school to be an elementary teacher, so he is currently in a 5 th grade classroom while experiencing it. From what he has told me, customized learning, which many people seem to have strong opinions opposing, has been an extremely positive experience for the kids in his class.          ...

Growing up, technology was easily accessible to me. My family always had a computer, I have had a phone from a young age, and my parents always led me to new experiences involving technology. When I was going into my freshman year of high school, we were provided one-to-one technology by our school district, and this technology at the time was an iPad. Because I worked at the school as a technology assistant, I knew what types of apps were being loaded onto these iPads and what uses they each had. Going into the school year, I was excited, only to later be extremely disappointed. Each of the four years this was a repetition for me. The only thing technology was enhancing was my ability to become distracted with apps that were being allowed. As well a becoming easily distracted, students also tend to find ways around the rules. In particular I think to one of my classes, “Novels”. During this class we did exactly how it sounds, read books. At the beginning of the hour we were given ...

Coming into this semester, I felt like I really didn’t understand the prevalence of the big issues we talk about in our education classes, particularly the math-specific classes.   We have talked about how tricks and mnemonics might actually hinder the learning of students because of the lack of understanding and the reliance on blind memorization.   The role of calculators in the classroom has been a hot topic of debate.   How much students learn and retain information about basic computations from year to year has also been discussed.   All of these ideas, and more, were running through my mind as I came face-to-face with the reality I didn’t think I knew anything about. When she showed me her first problem, I knew I had a lot of explaining to do.   The student I was tutoring had gotten a poor grade on one of her first quizzes of the semester, and she told me she had no idea where she went wrong.   As a sophomore in college, she was struggling wit...

When classes began on January 7 th , I was not mentally nor physically prepared for the beginning of the semester.   While I have taught this technology course for several years, each spring it is different because the nature of the content and the students.   This semester will have an additional challenge because the class is larger than normal, 19 students. Since we have 14 weeks in the semester, we will have 2 blog posts some weeks.   This will also make it challenging for presentations as the students won’t be able to do individual ones. While this class challenges me every spring, I love teaching it.   Most of the students in the class were in my geometry class in the fall so they have formed relationships with each other and that will make the class more fun.   As usual, there will be tweeting using the hashtag, #Math371.   In fact one of the students already tweeted with that hashtag! Once again I brought up the idea of having them learn p...