Journal Blog 1

The standards for students center around six different concepts:

1. Basic operations and concepts

-students understand and use technology proficiently

2. Social, ethical and human issues

-students hold positive attitudes toward technology and use it responsibility

3. Technology productivity tools

-students use technology to enhance creativity and proficiency

4. Technology communication tools

-students use technology to communicate with peers and other audiences

5. Technology research tools

-students use technology to report results and use different sources in research

6. Technology problem-solving and decision-making tools

-students use technology to solve problems and make informed decisions

While watching the video of the teacher in the classroom using graphing calculators in her classroom, I had a view ideas of things I might do differently. The whole class was involved in the same activity, as well as the same problem. The kids may have benefited more from the exercises if they were taught how to use the graphing calculator and then went through the problems alone. Perhaps, the kids could even work in groups, since their desks were arranged in clusters anyway. I think the children should be given the chance to guess whether or not they believe the equation will be true and why or why not. Then they should work the problem alone before the teacher goes over the problems together as a class.

The whole exercise seemed too easy for the kids, which is probably why they appeared so bored. Another way to involve the children more would be to give them turns using the calculator that was connected to the projector. The classroom should be challenging and center around involvement.