Emerging Technology 1

TeacherTube

I have beenexploring with teachertube.  I had never heard of it before taking this class.  I have found that there is an enormous array of things available here!  You only have to enter a topic and press "search"!  It is often difficult in mathematics to find activities for class that are actually useful and "on topic".  I found a delightful calculus song on derivatives created and sung by high school students.  I found some magic tricks that use mathematics.  But most useful to me is the graphing video.  I am working with some struggling Algebra I students this quarter.  This is the part of the textbook that frustrates a lot of students and causes them to shut down.  This video is short and sweet!  [It is about the same length as their attention span.]  It provides a great visual for demonstrating the affect of changing the slope of a line vs changing the y-intercept.  Illustrating this by hand would have taken up an entire class period.  This video accomplishes the same thing in 5 minutes!  This is also particularly useful for ECA review! 

I just read some statistics at a conference last week that said that as much as 25% of the ECA exam will be over linear equations and their graphs!  It was also suggested that utilizing any and all technology that you can could help these struggling students who are very comfortable with technology.  Graphing calculators, which have predominantly been reserved for "upper level" students only in the past, have proven to be a great asset for struggling Algebra I students.

Oddly, my son who is in 7th grade has been introduced to these topics last week in his pre-algebra class.  He was utterly lost!  He came home very confused and frustrated!  I spent MANY HOURS working with him last week and this weekend in hopes that he might be prepared for his chapter test this week.  His reactions mirrored those of my high school students.  It is a difficult concept, and yet one that the state finds valuable enough to weight heavily on the ECA exam.

Overall, I found teachertube to be a valuable tool.  Sure, there are some "poor" postings here as well.  I found one video that merely taped a teacher showing students how to put their name on their calculator!  Seriously...someone made a video of that!  If you are willing to sift through a few "duds" their are a lot of gems out there waiting to be uncovered.

Shelly