It has been a busy time since I last posted about my NCTM conference. Since then I've gotten my students hooked on Mathletics and we have successfully added Mathletics to our curriculum arsenal. Currently I am using Mathletics as a warm-up for students in the classroom, but we are also using activities and lesson plans to get students engaged in learning in a whole new way. Just after getting Mathletics on board in school, I headed to another conference. This time I went to a Differentiating Instruction conference held by SDE.
Honestly, I wasn't really excited about this conference. (1) During my graduate program and even during undergraduate studies, that is all you are taught. You are taught to differentiate instruction and how it needs to happen, ways it needs to happen, and why it needs to happen. DI, DI, DI... do it is what that needed to stand for. (2) My colleagues who have had the opportunity to go in year's past told me... it's boring.. ewwww... have fun. Not a winning combo there! HOWEVER....
SDE must have done something crazy or maybe I just picked the right seminars to attend at the conference because I came back with so much information my head was swimming and I put things into action as soon as possible. I told my students when I got back.."hey guys, you know that when I'm away I'm learning about new things we can do... so you know I've brought you something back!" They were excited, and why wouldn't they be! Last time I went to a conference I came home with Mathletics!
Two of my absolute favorite speakers at this conference were Katherine McKnight and Cheryl Dick. Katherine and Cheryl both really brought on board A LOT of different things to for me to consider in my classroom, and for me, it was all about technology. I absolutely soaked up how I could use technology to grab my students' attention, and to reach ALL of my students while I'm at it. I highly recommend checking out their websites and their blogs for some amazing information. Katherine is an author of several books to help current teachers and she has more coming out.
In my next few posts, I am going to talk about several pieces of technology that I learned about at the conference. I'm going to share my experiences in the classroom along with my list of things I did, and things I should have never done!
Just to give you a heads up, this is what I'm checking out:
1 - LiveBinders - I'm using this to get students involved in building their own study guides. The fact that it is free is a definite plus, and the fact that there was a free app for the student iPads was even better.
2 - Voki - I'm hoping to use this for some vocabulary exercises (yes... there is vocabulary for math students!).
3 - Kid Blog - I'm kicking this idea around in my head right now to see how advantageous this would be for my students, and how I can relate their blogs not only to math but school in general.
4 - Symbaloo - An alternative to Live Binders, but a pretty cool alternative. I'm thinking of giving students the option between Live Binders and Symbaloo.
5 - Story Bird - yes most story technology is for the English/Reading teacher, but why not Math? We have stories too :) They are called word problems!
Honestly, I wasn't really excited about this conference. (1) During my graduate program and even during undergraduate studies, that is all you are taught. You are taught to differentiate instruction and how it needs to happen, ways it needs to happen, and why it needs to happen. DI, DI, DI... do it is what that needed to stand for. (2) My colleagues who have had the opportunity to go in year's past told me... it's boring.. ewwww... have fun. Not a winning combo there! HOWEVER....
SDE must have done something crazy or maybe I just picked the right seminars to attend at the conference because I came back with so much information my head was swimming and I put things into action as soon as possible. I told my students when I got back.."hey guys, you know that when I'm away I'm learning about new things we can do... so you know I've brought you something back!" They were excited, and why wouldn't they be! Last time I went to a conference I came home with Mathletics!
Two of my absolute favorite speakers at this conference were Katherine McKnight and Cheryl Dick. Katherine and Cheryl both really brought on board A LOT of different things to for me to consider in my classroom, and for me, it was all about technology. I absolutely soaked up how I could use technology to grab my students' attention, and to reach ALL of my students while I'm at it. I highly recommend checking out their websites and their blogs for some amazing information. Katherine is an author of several books to help current teachers and she has more coming out.
In my next few posts, I am going to talk about several pieces of technology that I learned about at the conference. I'm going to share my experiences in the classroom along with my list of things I did, and things I should have never done!
Just to give you a heads up, this is what I'm checking out:
1 - LiveBinders - I'm using this to get students involved in building their own study guides. The fact that it is free is a definite plus, and the fact that there was a free app for the student iPads was even better.
2 - Voki - I'm hoping to use this for some vocabulary exercises (yes... there is vocabulary for math students!).
3 - Kid Blog - I'm kicking this idea around in my head right now to see how advantageous this would be for my students, and how I can relate their blogs not only to math but school in general.
4 - Symbaloo - An alternative to Live Binders, but a pretty cool alternative. I'm thinking of giving students the option between Live Binders and Symbaloo.
5 - Story Bird - yes most story technology is for the English/Reading teacher, but why not Math? We have stories too :) They are called word problems!
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