On-line Class

It's fun to brag to your co-workers that you would be going to grad class in your P.J.s. While I can be a slob while attending class, having class in the comfort of my own home, what a treat. Having the opportunity to participate in this unique learning environment was great as a teacher and as a learner. The implications to using streaming video in the classroom would allow some teachers to work on some interesting projects, as seen on the right.

I remember one of our more advanced computers at home. It had a microphone connected to it and since it was connected to a phone jack the computer was able to be used as a telephone. Skype is able to perform this function via the world wide web. We were only able to call locally because the long-distance charges would be too pricey, my parents said. Two years ago I was able to Skype my sister in London while she was studying abroad, for FREE! Can't beat that. While Skype has great implications for keeping you connected to friends and family, it could also be used to help teachers in their professional development. Some math functions are hard to explain through written word and would be much easier if it could be expressed through words. Being a part of a professional audio group could be an interesting forum.

A New Set of Ideas

This week for class we were asked to select and watch a video from inTime.  Luckily I was able to sort through them by subject and the website listed each of those in the math category by which grade level the lesson was geared towards.  I looked through the link for the lesson about modeling quadratic equation, which just happened to be the next chapter we would be talking about in my Honors Algebra 2 class.  I read through the accompanied materials and watched the video.  I liked how the teacher linked the factored form of quadratic equations to the standard quadratic form using both pencil and paper as well as graphing calculators.  The teacher's students were able to make connections between the two as well as write an equation for the general form of a factored quadratic equation.  The lesson continued with a "real world problem" as well as the use of the CBR, calculator based ranger, to have the students use the graphs collected to create the quadratic equation for and find the vertex to determine their vertical jump. 

I was able to use parts of this lesson today in class.  I re-worked how I would typically present this lesson and mimicked the lesson's student lead discovery of the relationship between the factored and general form of the quadratic equations.  Students in both classes worked very well with the material and seemed interested in their discovery.  When attempting to present the "real-world" problem the teacher lead her students through, my students griped about why all word problem had to do with creating a garden so we changed it to Clark G. wanting to create a swimming pool for his family with his Christmas bonus.  They worked through the problem very well, so just phrasing the problem differently I went back to the problem I had intended to do.  The students worked the entire hour with their graphing calculators discovering new ways to gather information as well as new ways to solve quadratic equations.  So thanks to Mr. L for introducing me to this site and reminding me that math can be discovered even at the high level of Algebra 2.