Technology Integration Plan

               The lesson I choose to use for my matrix was a lesson on fractions that I taught in my methods class last semester. I choose this lesson because it was mainly student based and I wanted to accommodate the lesson to contain more technology. The first time I taught the lesson it did not contain any technology besides the use of calculators and a projector. I wanted to recreate this lesson to teach the same topic, but this time using technology. This was a challenge for me but I was successful at doing so.

                The first row in my matrix contains a do-now activity, teacher directions, and small group work. First the students will complete a do now activity individually to review the idea of equivalent fractions. This will take five minutes and then I will go over the answers with them as a class on my smartboard. I will then explain to the students the activity that they will be completing in groups, which will be discovering how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators. I will split the class into groups of 4 and they will begin working collaboratively. In their groups they will be first working with fraction circles that they can write on with expo markers and erase. With these circles they will be trying to figure out how to represent equivalent fractions with these circles by coloring in sections of different circles. This is a visual process that will help them for the next step, on coming up with a procedure to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators. 

                The second row in my matrix contains small group work, me helping each group one on one, experiments, and student collaboration. The students will now be working on an online activity to start the process on discovering how to add and subtract fractions with different denominators. They will go on a site call illuminations and open an activity that allows them to create fractions with unlike denominators. The fractions in this site will be represented in circles or squares, which ever they choose. I will tell them that once they created a set of fractions to add or subtract them. I will tell them to try many different ways of doing this. I will have my students add or subtract these fractions by hand on their white boards and then check their answers in the calculator. They will see if their process was correct or incorrect by using the calculator to check their answer. If they were wrong they will have to try a different way until they get it right, and if they were correct I will have them create a new set of fractions on the computer to try. The students should take multiple tries until they start to discover a method on how to do this process. As students are working I will be walking around to answer questions without giving away the process and to check for understanding. 

                 The third row of my matrix relates to small group work, student collaboration, one-on-one help, student explanation, written procedure, and peer-evaluation. In this step students will be coming up with a step by step process on how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators by replacing given fractions with equivalent fractions. They will discuss their results to the online activity and collaborate on a method that works. I will ask them to write the process on their white boards in steps. To do this they will have to evaluate what their peers are saying and decide if they all agree or not. This will take cooperation and critical thinking from all the group members. I will be walking around to each group to see what they came up with. 

                 The fourth row of my matrix includes a large group discussion, Q&A, teacher assessment, teacher participation, and direct teaching. In this part of the activity the students will have came up with a process on their task. Once every group is done I will ask each group one at a time to share their results with the class through the document camera. They will tell the class what they came up with and the class and I will discuss our opinion on their process. We will then decide as a whole if they are correct or incorrect. Each group will get a chance to share their results. Then as a class we will come up with a master process. I will then go over examples on the smartboard to clarify any misunderstandings on this process. 

                The fifth row of my matrix it involves individual/small group work, student collaboration, and self-assessment. In this last step students will work on the computer and solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions referring to the same whole, including cases of unlike denominators. Here students will master the process and get more practice on solving problems of this type. They will use white boards to record their work and use calculators to check their answers. 

Matrix

Video Chatting for Extra Help

     Some professor offer to their students that they can receive extra help for a course through video chatting. Professors do this by setting an hour a week or night that they will be online to chat through video to help on homework, or review for an exam. They make this video chat open to a group so that many people can join the chat at once and so she can help everyone. Do you guys think this is a good thing to offer for high school students?

    I think that this would be a conservational topic. This is because of the issue teachers getting to close to their students in the wrong way. By opening up a video chat students may accuse a teacher of saying something that they did not. It also might give students the wrong idea. High School students are in the process of growing into young adults and they may get the wrong idea when video chatting from home with their teachers.

    On the other hand this would open up many chances for students to get help on their homework if they get stuck at home or help them review for a test. Receiving extra help from their teachers one on one can help students bring up their grades and receive it from their own home. Teachers would pick an hour everyday to be available to their students and students would have the ability to reach out to them for educational help on a topic. 

    I do not know if this idea is realistic because not all teachers would be willing to do this without extra pay, but I think that is defiantly something that can be considered with much discussion for the future. This would have to be carefully thought out because of all the problems that can occur, but many positives can come from this too. 

Electronic Attendance

     I am currently doing my fieldwork at Kearny High School and the high school takes attendance of the students electronically. They do this by having the students scan into school with their student ids. The teachers also have to take attendance in each of their classes and submit it through a program called Genesis. Doing this keeps track of the students who cut class. They can check this because if a student is signed into school but not in class means they cut class. Online attendance cuts down on the amount of class cutting because the students know they will easily get caught through the online attendance program. It also helps monitor who is in the building at all times in case of an emergency.  

             I think that this system works well and it should be implemented in more schools because it is quick and effective. No longer does someone have to walk around and collect the attendance from each room in the morning and manually record the absences in a computer. It is also beneficial because it automatically keeps track of how many days a student is absent or tardy to school. They can keep track of this and try to stop to many absences if it becomes an issue for a student. 

     Having students scan into school also reinforces that they need to be on time. No longer can students sneak in after the bell rings and get away with it. Since they have to scan in everyday the scanner clocks what time they got to school. They cannot come to school late and get away with it because the scanner will point it out right away. In the past a students first period teacher might let them get away with being late to school, but the scanner will not. 

     I have never seen another school using an attendance system like this. All the schools that I have been to and substituted in still use paper attendance. Has anyone else seen an attendance system like this? I would love to hear your comments and if you agree or disagree with taking attendance in this fashion. 

Online Grade Books

     Online grade books are becoming much more common in schools today. Some teachers like to use online grade books because it easily calculates grades, class averages, and much more. Using paper grade books requires you to calculate manually every average which can allow for error. Teachers who do not like using online grade books say it’s because they are not good with technology or they do not trust that it will properly save. They are nervous about the risk of losing all the grades. 

     I think that online grade books are a positive piece of technology in schools because it saves teachers a lot of time because they no longer have to calculate grades by hand. The system does it all for you, all you have to do it input the grades that you want to be averages with the corresponding percentage. This system also is always correct, and makes no mathematical errors, which can easily happen when teachers make the calculations by hands. 

     Online grade books also can make graphs of the class averages to show students where they stand compared to the average of the class. They will be able to observe if they are doing above average, average, or below average. This will allow students to assess their work so far and improve if needed. If they are below the class average they will know to work harder and get extra help if they feel they need it. Paper grade books do not do any of these things for the teacher. If a teacher wanted to show this from her paper grade book she would have to create the graph by hand. Online grade books are also beneficial because once a grade is entered the guidance counselor can pull up a student and see all the grades. This is a good thing because if there is a problem with that student they can call the student down and ask what is going on. Overall, I think that online grade books are a great thing that a school can offer. 

Learning through Power Point

          I was never a huge fan of power point presentations. I felt like they were boring and many teachers just read off the slides. I do not feel like power points are a good use of technology in a math class, because math is interactive and you need to do many examples on paper. This is something that you cannot do with a powerpoint. A powerpoint presentation is used more for factual lessons, not interactive lessons. I do not feel that power point is appropriate in math. 

I do not think powerpoint can never be used in other subjects such as english or history. In english and history there are many more facts and opinions being presented where power points can do the job. Teachers can use power points to organize there lesson into different slides and teach one or two facts at a time. This allows students to focus on one slide at a time and not become overwhelmed of a whole page of information at once. 

In math classes teachers can use interactive websites, typed up outlines of text and examples where they can write in the work on the board, or they can use handed out worksheets for the students to work in groups with any tools they need to figure out a problem. To me these are better options to get learning to take place in a math class than using power point presentations. When I was a student and I had to learn from power point presentations I was always bored and usually did not pay attenuation because the teachers always scrolled throughout the slides to fast and I couldn’t get all the notes down, and they were lecture based not student based. 

Learning Through Video

There are many mathematical videos on the internet that teach various mathematics concepts. Do you think videos should be used in the math classroom to teach or reenforce a concept or skill?

I think that using videos in a math setting is a good way to show students different examples of how to solve or do something. For some reason as soon as you say you are going to show a video it grabs the students attention right away. This is a good way to teach a concept or introduce a new concept and have all your students paying attention. You can also show a video to help your students learn a long formula like the quadratic equation through a song. My high school math teacher showed us a video of the quadratic equation when I was a freshman in high school and to this day I still remember it. So as you can see videos are very effective in a math classroom because they help the students to remember formulas or learn concepts in a way that relates to them. 

Students love the use of technology because that is their life style so anyway you can incorporate technology into a lesson such as video is a good thing. Not all teaching should be done through video but if there is a video that you think would be useful to your students learning, showing it in class would be a good idea. 

Another way to incorporate video into your students learning is by giving them a list of videos to watch on their own time, if they need more examples of a concept. They will be able to watch these videos at home when they are working on their homework if they forget how to do something. I do not see any negatives to incorporating videos into your lessons.   

Collaboration Canvas

Remixing another classmates canvas was very fun and creative. I had a hard time finding a canvas to remix that would go well with my original unit. I used an art canvas to remix and I was creative with what I choose to do. I am having my students create a piece of art only containing congruent triangles. The art also must be of trees in nature and it has to show the effect trees play in art. 

I added videos and pictures to show students how to contract congruent triangles by hand using a compass. I also added pictured and videos to show students how to contrast a basic tree out of triangles. Those videos were just a simple tree, their art works will be more complex.  

I had some difficultly finding art pieces that also contained math, but I did my best to make it work. I had a fun time with this project and I think that it is a great way to show us how to use different subjects in one class. Mixing more than one subject into the same class will be beneficial to the students because they will be able to see how math can be used in other areas of their study as well

Canvas:
http://www.play.annenberginnovationlab.org/play2.0/challenge.php?idChallenge=2755&mode=view#network6