Yes, I’ve really been hungry for an iPad. I guess this want is logical since I am a proud owner of an iPhone 4. In order to be a pioneer in using this tablet technology in the classroom, I must be prepared to be a model for my fellow educators, right? The iPad 3 was released yesterday (3/16) and I was able to stop by an Apple store to witness the madness and get my hands on this device.
Anyway, My school district has an innovation for transformation grant that will supply me with an iPad 3 and an additional ten iPads for my students. My school has until the end of the month to get the paper work together. I participated in a workshop on Thursday that gave participants grant writing ideas which was useful. I will share further details on my quest to integrate this new technology in my classroom or other educational endeavor.
I was asked this question the other day by a college student interviewing me as a Technology Coach. Believe it or not, I actually struggled with this question. I know so much “stuff” about technology, what do I actually “know” the best?! I have many projects that I work on, but in my opinion to know something the best, you must have mastered it, right? I know and love Moodle, but can I say I know it best? I am still learning how to use it in a non-hybrid classroom structure.
Could I be a whiz with using the TI-84 calculator with the TI-Navigator system? Not sure, especially I can confess that I don’t use it everyday to get the official guru hat with that system. Hmmm… Could I be the master Smartboard ninja? I can say I know and shared some advanced techniques using this IWB, but there are other electronic IWB that I haven’t even touched. I can go on and on about my lack of mastery of technology, but as I concluded with answering this question. I stated that…
The lesson that I have learned that technology is evolving so fast, what you may “know” the best today; you have become master of an archaic/obsolete piece of equipment the next day.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my Smartboard that is mounted in my classroom. Unfortunately my whiteboard occupies approximately 75% of the dry erase whiteboard board space. Others have complained of this issue too…
If you are a math teacher, you may already know where I am going. My rhetorical question (only because I know that no one with answer) is that… does it matter if students go to the board to display their work?
Hmmm…. my temporary workaround this this issue has been to pass out designated mini-whiteboards and flipping to my document camera to display completed student work on the mini-white boards. Pretty high-tech,eh?
I spent my teacher workday at a MathForward workshop. The presenter used a SMARTboard and an additional LCD projector onto the board. Seemed like an exhaustion of technology; however this was a logical a solution if you need to write on that worksheet that is projected by your document camera OR do not want two surface images to interact (Also this allows the user to break away from that goofy SB transparent layer).
This weekend I picked up a few things from the teacher store in preparation of the 1st day of school. I passed by and ended up picking up this cool Unifix Sudoku game. As you can see, when I got home, I ended up placing the blocks in ROY G. BIV order and numbered the tops to match.
I also created a Smart Notebook file to go with this activity when modelling the activity with my students. This is a great hands-on activity for students of any age that has never played Sudoku. The purpose for placing the numbers on the cubes is for you to create your own puzzles with the help of online resources such as ultra-magnificent logic puzzle site of Vegard Hanssen. I will post later reflecting what the students thought about this game.
owner of an iPhone 4. In order to be a pioneer in using this tablet technology in the classroom, I must be prepared to be a model for my fellow educators, right? The iPad 3 was released yesterday (3/16) and I was able to stop by an Apple store to witness the madness and get my hands on this device.
Unfortunately my whiteboard occupies approximately 75% of the dry erase whiteboard board space. 
I spent my teacher workday at a 
