Math Technology in the Classroom

iMovie is a simple program to create very unique and exciting videos!

According to the Apple website, iMovie is a user-friendly program in which you can create multiple varieties of movies. iMovie has the following features to make the program very simple to use:

Organize

Import your video and organize it just like your photos.

Edit

Drag and drop to start. Precisely edit with ease.

Enjoy

Browse and view your video all in one place.

Add Details

Choose titles, transitions, and effects.

Enhance

Make home movies look like Hollywood masterpieces.

Share

Premiere your movie online with a click or burn a DVD.

On the Apple website, there are several video tutorials to watch and explore the variety of uses of iMovie. I recently started using a Mac and discovered this program and learned that it can be very practical in a variety of classrooms. Not only is it fun to create videos, but they can also be made into an educational activity. In my case, with being a technology teacher I can teach this program to the students so that when another teacher wants to do a project using iMovie the kids will already know how to use it and it will make the project run much smoother. As a Math teacher  if I want to make an iMovie to show the students a practical real-world example of a skill rather than taking a field trip to see it in person, I could take a video of it and create an educational video to teach them this lesson.

This resource is very simple to use and as a beginner it does not take long to begin creating your first iMovie project. You will need a camcorder to get started, but once you take some video clips you are ready to begin. With iMovie, you can add titles, transitions, photos, and other interesting effects that allow you to create a professional looking video. It is the easiest video program that I have ever used, but you must have a Mac to be able to use this program. This is the biggest limitation that I found with iMovie. The advantages greatly outweigh the disadvantages, so consider using iMovie the next time you want to create a movie. Last semester, I introduced iWeb to my students and they caught on very quickly. We created virtual tours of our schools to post on the internet for incoming 6th graders to few before coming to school on the first day. Next semester, I am going to have the students create videos on careers because at the beginning of 8th Grade our entire grade does a lot of career activities so we can show these videos at that time next year. I tried to attach an example project that one of my students created, but it is very large and says it will take hours to upload so I did not attach it on here.

I have been using Diigo with another online class and it allows us to post articles and websites to discuss and share about topics related to our class. You can create a group and invite anyone to join your group. The website then allows members to post articles and websites that come up for everyone in the group to read. Members can post responses to those articles to have a discussion about the article. Members can also add sticky notes on a certain passage in the article that caught their attention and felt was important so they commented on it. According the the Diigo website is a powerful research too and a knowledge-sharing community in which members have the ability to do the following:

• Online bookmark: Organize by tags or lists; Access from anywhere, anytime!

• Archive: Do not just bookmark! Archive pages forever! Make them searchable too!

• Annotate: Do not just archive! Highlight! Add sticky notes too!

The website for Diigo is http://www.diigo.com/index. You must create an account and then begin adding bookmarks to your account. If you join a group or class, then you can begin communicating and sharing information with that group. This would be an excellent tool for posting interesting websites and articles that relate to a topic that we are discussing in the classroom. It would allow students to come to our Diigo space and look through articles to learn more about the topic. They would also be abe to search for articles that they think were useful to them. It would allow for us to communicate using a different medium. We could communicate about articles using sticky notes to point out the most important parts about an article.

According to their website, “Animoto automatically produces beautifully orchestrated, completely unique video pieces from your photos, video clips and music. Fast, free and shockingly easy.” They also describe Animoto by saying, “the heart of Animoto is its newly developed Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology that thinks like an actual director and editor. It analyzes and combines user-selected images, video clips and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills and techniques that are used in television & film.” To me, I feel that Animoto is a unique tool to create a short- 30 second video of your own pictures and video clips. It is interesting because the pictures move according to the beat of the song so the faster the song the faster your pictures change. I created a very short video that can be seen here:

After exploring this technology and creating a short video, I think this is a tool that I will use frequently in my classroom. First of all in my computers class, this will allow students to create videos on various topics without have to put a lot of work in teaching them to use more complicated programs. Currently, I have my students making videos using iMovie, but if they get to college and do not have a Mac then this program might not be useful for them. However, Animoto is available to anyone since it is a free service on the internet so this be a more useful tool that would be better to teach instead. Granted, Animoto does not have nearly the features that iMovie does, but it will still allow the students to create a video. I will be able to have the students pick a topic or career to research and find pictures to create a video clip.

As far a math class goes, this would be an interesting way to introduce a lesson if it involves real-world applications. If I were going to introduce circumference, I could make up a short video showing circles in many different ways. Circles are everywhere and could use this video to point out examples. Another example would be if I were introducing slope, I could show different pictures of things that would point of slopes. I could include stairways, hills, and other examples to show the idea of slope. I think these examples would be interesting to the students and engage them in the lesson right off the start.

With the age of technology growing and becoming so common in schools, digital literacy is a great word to describe how education is evolving. After reviewing the sites and watching a few videos on digital literacy, my goal is to continue to find ways to include technology in my teaching methods. The 21st century skills were very interesting to review again even though I was already familiar with these. It is interesting that although one section of those standards discusses technology, so many of the other standards are directly affected by the use of technology. For example, professional development relies heavily on ways to incorporate new technology into the curriculum. The 21st century schools are revolving around how students learn best, which includes using the technology that they have grown up using. The second part of this assignment was to select a article to read from “Edutopia’s Big List”. I chose an article titled, “Picture Perfect: Make Your Own Motivational Posters” by Jim Moulton. This caught my eye because as a first year teacher I am still looking for posters and meaningful items to decorate my room and give my room a climate perfect for learning. I have several motivational posters that were given to me but like the article talks about, they are not special to me besides the meaning. This website will allow you to use your own pictures and create motivational posters that will be very meaningful to both me and my students. He gave examples of making posters up of a child in his classroom that reminded students to work hard all the time. I thought this was interesting because I could develop classroom rules or even motivational posters of students in my classroom. This would give the students a feeling of comfort to see their picture on the wall along with a message below. An idea I had is to have each student create a poster that will have a picture of them along with a goal for the year. This seems like a useful source and I am excited to explore a little more and continue to get ideas about how to use the full potential of this site. There are many other things you can create using this site other than posters. They include movie posters, calenders, magazine covers, trading cards, wallpaper, and many many more. This is a great site for those teachers who do not want to spend a fortune buying those expensive posters and materials from other stores. The website to create the posters can be seen by clicking on the following link: http://bighugelabs.com/.

After watching this video from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-educators, I learned a lot from the educators in the video. The overall theme of this video is learning how to educate the digital generation. One educator talks about using cell phones in the classroom to engage the students. As a math teacher, I liked his way to obtain data from people outside of the classroom. If they text or call someone outside of school, we could obtain data that would allow us create graphs and analyze data through many different ways. I liked this idea and students love their cell phones so I think they too would be engaged in a lesson such as this. Another educator in the video discussed the issue of researching and finding information. Students rarely think about going to the library and finding a book to find information for their research. The internet is easier and readily available for students to find the information that they are looking for. Like the gentlemen said in the video, kids used to be required to find several sources in books and they also made them find one on the internet. Today, this is the complete opposite. Teachers now have to require students to find several online sources and at least one from a book. When using the internet as a tool for research, it is important for students to find relevant information from appropriate sites. They must learn now what are good sources of information and which sites should not be used to find information.

Another lady in the video talked about multi-tasking and how she uses it as a strength in her classroom.She allows cell phones and other electronic devices in her classroom to allow her students to multi-task. I have began allowing my students to bring in iPods and other electronic devices in my classroom so they can be listening to music if they are working on individual work. Like she said, it is important for the teacher to remind them of the goal and task at hand. If they are going to multi-task it is important to make sure that they are still working on what they are asked to work on and they need to stay on task. Students love their technology so this allows them to be happy to be in the classroom and still be effective learners by completed the goal we have for them. As I think about other strategies that I want to implement in my classroom from this video, I liked the idea of the scavenger hunt. Students don’t like to be lectured to our have a podcast shown in the front of the classroom. But if I take them to the lab and have them explore podcasts to find answers to our task then they would be more likely to stay engaged in the lesson. This video was very interesting and I learned a lot of ideas from it! Take a look at the video below…