More To Come

As we close out our blog assignment it is fitting to reflect on my experience.  It was a hard adjustment for me knowing that I had a global audience that could read and comment, so that put on more pressure. All writing assignments should include research, creativity, and an overall theme that is interesting to the reader.  A teachers’ blog should provide students with information as well as encouraging tips, interactive resources and guides that will engage them to want to learn more.  I came across many teachers that have remarkable sites dedicated to education.   

These are three that I have bookmarked and wanted to share. 

           

#3        http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/education_futures/

Education Futures: Emerging Trends and Technologies in K-12; this blog is embedded in the Education Week’s website.  It is written to introduce new trends and technologies in the K-12 classroom.  He wrote an interesting entry entitled “The Business of Lesson Plans”.  It was about the new taboo trend of teacher’s selling their lesson plans for profit which is frowned upon.

#2        www.scienceFix.com
This site was designed by a middle school teacher with the last name of “Fix” hence the name.  the blog contains science lessons, example experiments, and provides scenarios on how to use science to break down other concepts.  

#1        www.ed.gov/blog

This website is named “Homeroom” in reference to the first place in school that students obtain important information.  The blog contains updates regarding school initiatives, and topics such as: parent and family engagement, success stories, and standards/assessments. 

Overall the blogging experience has been a creative outlet to share ideas and experiences.

International Collaboration

The world wide web has opened doors to a wealth of knowledge.  It has allowed learners the access to not only locally but abroad.  Establishing a collaborative connection to students globally develops new proficiencies and will help build character.  It will also open discussion on new cultures, new languages and enhance students communication skills.  Students will be engaged in the activity and will take an inquisitive approach to researching more about other countries. 

I read an interesting entry from http://collaborate.iearn.org/ about a collaborative project several schools across the world were participating in. The duration was about a year and will conclude this May.  The theme is to explore how math is used in their communities and take action to promote greater equity in the world around them.  The objective was to demonstrate how math should be taught across the curriculum in other courses such as science, social students and even English.

Some of the activities include “a) "What Math Means to Me" in which student will produce a math collage to share with a partner class and “Virtual Gallery of Mathematics and Culture”  This project will create a photograph, drawing, or other artistic expression of some aspect of your culture that you would like others to know about, along with a text describing the item you have chosen and its connection to the world of mathematics. 

They will use web pages and upload their designs and data for all other groups to view.  This  collaborative effort will serve as a resource on culturally relevant teaching for math educators globally.