Kaci+Cohn



I'm a senior at Clemson University majoring in Secondary Education in Math and Mathematical Science, with a minor in Spanish. After I graduate, I want to teach high school math in New Mexico, Arizona, or Tennessee. I would love to work in an inner-city school, as unusual as that may sound, because I feel like those are the schools that need the most help, and honestly, that's my mission in life: to help students have an appreciation for math where there previously was none. It's cheesey, but I want to change people's lives, even just one person's will do. I want someone to look back at their life and remember me as their teacher, someone who helped redirect them their life for the better and see things in a new perspective.

**1. Technology in the Classroom**

**What are your current beliefs concerning the use of technological aids in the teaching of mathematics?** I think technological aids can be incredibly helpful to both students and teachers. They can help visualize more complex graphs, help compute difficult equations, and help students interact more with the lesson. Technological aids, however, can hurt mathematics. Students can become excessively dependent on things such as calculators, to the point where they can't do simple computations such as 2*0 or 7+3 without typing it in their calculator first. If teachers utilize technological aids for their unique features and help students to use them similarly, everyone in the classroom can really benefit from them.

**How did your teachers use technological aids when you were learning mathematics?** The technology my teachers used when I was learning mathematics in high school and middle school was not to its fullest extent. We used out high end graphing calculators to compute simple functions, graph simple equations and look at tables. We didn't really use anything else other than a basic projector and document camera for notetaking.

**Please give me a brief summary of your experiences using technology – i.e. in what aspects have you used the computer and/or other technology devises? Be sure to include any technology you used in teaching experiences as well as personal experiences.** I use a variety of technology on a daily basis. I've taught using SMARTboards and document cameras, both I used to encourage student participation and involvement. I've explored a lot of different programs both in classes (like the previous technology class we were required to take) and at home. I've used all of Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Elements, SMARTNotebook, Casio graphing calculators, T.I. graphing calculators, and more. In general I love technology and feel incredibly comfortable with it; if I have never used a program before or used it only briefly, I can usually figure most of it out through both trial and error and researching my questions on the internet.

 **2. Online Assessment Tools**

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**What are the benefits and challenges for this technology?** Polleverywhere.com is an incredibly convenient tool for being able to see instant results to questions,using multiple forms of media. People can respond to the poll via text message or from a computer, so it will be able to reach anyone with access to that technology. In the classroom, this would be helpful to get an instantaneous assessment of whether your students understand the material. It could also, however, act as a distraction. If students are to use their phones to vote, then it's hard to monitor what they're doing on their phones and whether they're only responding to the poll or whether they're responding to all of their friends as well.

**Would you use this technology in your future class? Why?** I think it would depend on what level class I was teaching and what the rules of the school are. If there aren't explicit cell phone rules and it was a class I believed I could trust with their phones out, or if each student had computer access, then yes, I would definitely use it. It's an interesting, simple, free way to get feedback from each and every student. The only thing I think that would make it more helpful is if each vote had to have a username attached to is so that the poll creator would be able to see who answered what. That way, I could determine which student(s) is(are) completely lost and try to set them back on track in private, and see what else we could do to help them understand.

**3. Flip Camera Video Recording** [|Clearing the Green Monster at Fenway] I liked this video because it showed a real-world application of velocity and using sine and cosine functions within an equation. It also is a great problem to have to translate word problems and a visual representation into a mathematical representation. It helps reinforce trigonometry concepts and incorporates several different concepts in one problem. It would be helpful to use in a classroom because it would be both interesting and challenging. There are also a couple of factors such as not starting at a height of 0 that are incorprated that usually can confuse students when they're solving problems on their own.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">**4. Virtual Graphing Calculator**

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">**Would you use Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 in your future classroom? If yes, how would you use it? If not, why not?** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">While I enjoyed using Microsoft Mathematics, I don't know if I would use it in my classroom. I don't know if I'd have regular access to a computer lab, which would make it difficult to utilize this program. If my students didn't have access to graphing calculators but had access to a computer, I would definitely reccommend them to use this program. I do, however, think that this program is very similar to graphing calculators, except for it actually shows the step-by-step process it uses when solving an equation, unlike the calculator which just shows you the problem and the solution. It would also be difficult to monitor what students are using the computers for, and making sure they're staying on task-appropriate programs.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">**Would you recommend your students to use this software at home as a homework supporter? Why or why not?** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">I would definitely recommend that my students use this software at home (if they have computer access) as a homework supporter, especially if they don't have access at home to a graphing calculator. It's a very helpful tool in visualizing functions and helping to understand how to solve an equation if they cannot figure out how to do it themselves. They can also check their answers with this program before they turn in their homework to make sure they're doing it correctly.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">**What kind of mathematical view(s) emerge(s) from the Microsoft Mathematics 4.0? Assume that you are a high school student and you use this software at home or during some of your mathematics classes with the guidance of your teacher. How would you view or perceive mathematics in the light of this software? Explain it.** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">I would probably find math much more interesting. Once knowing how to do basic concepts like graphing, I think the actual process of graphing is as critical as analyzing the graph and seeing the relationships represented by the graphs. Programs like this one help to delete that step of extra busy work, once students already understand how to do it (extra computation, graphing, etc.) so that they can analyze the problem and look at it as a whole conceptual understanding. Also, using this program helps students if they're confused in class on how to solve a problem because if you use the solver function in it, each individual step is shown, so they can practice further and get further instruction from it outside of class.



<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">**5. SMARTBoard Exchange Reflection**

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">Solving Equations with Variables on Both Sides //<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">South Carolina Curriculum Standard: // <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">MA.9-12.IA-1

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">The student will understand and utilize the mathematical processes of problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, connections, and representation.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">In this interactive lesson, students are explained how to solve equations with variables on both sides of the equation. Students are first shown generalized steps, then a guided example, are asked to complete an example (with the step-by-step solution given after) and then are provided a video for the real-world application of this type of equation solving, from which they are asked to actually solve the problem.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">This lesson is different than a normal lesson because students can guide themselves through it, since everything is already laid out, ready for them to interact with it. There is a dice rolling simulation within the activity, which gives random terms to each side of the equal sign, which is cool because there is not only one example for that slide and they are several different combinations of terms that the equation can be.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">It's different than using Microsoft Mathematics because it doesn't actually do any computations. While it is possible to create/use a SMARTBoard lesson that uses the math tools and therefore can do computations on its own, this particular lesson doesn't. This lesson guided students through learning a new topic. Microsoft Mathematics is more like a graphing calculator that can be used on the computer.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">Problems that may occur is that students don't follow the slide's directions precisely and therefore don't move the correct pieces into the correct places (for example, on one of the slides, the student is supposed to work the problem out on the left side of a square, and then drag the equation into the right, different colored side when they're finished to check their step-by-step process. If students don't drag and drop the right element, they could be confused and stuck on the technology portion of the lesson, rather than the actual mathematics within the lesson). Also, if students don't understand the basic steps, there isn't much lenience in the structure of the lesson.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">These problems can be avoided by using more concrete tools within SMARTNotebook, that don't necessarily rely on the user's ability to follow instructions. Also, if this is used with teacher instruction within the classroom, then if students are confused by the specificity of the SMARTBoard lesson, the teacher can go on whatever tangent is necessary to get the student back on track and understanding.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">**6. Geogebra 4.0 Applet**

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">**What do you think about dynamic mathematics environment? Do they contribute to student' learning? How?** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">I think dynamic mathematics greatly contribute to students' learning because it helps them visualize functions as they change, like they do in the real world. It can help students visualize transformations and how one graph compares to another. It would definitely help to visualize and further understand many calculus topics as well. In general, I think dynamic math is very helpful to help students understand becuase they don't have to worry about several tedious calculations that they could make arithmetic errors while computing.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">**Compare Geogebra with GSP regarding your experiences! Be specific with examples, tools and design features both have!** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">I think that Geometers SketchPad is definitely geared more towards specifically geometry classes specifically, as opposed to a broad range of math courses. It is very similar to basic ruler and compass constructions that we constructed in MTHSC 408 and previous geometry classes. Some advantages to Geogebra is that its' free and has a lot more tools available for users to use. Geogebra can be used for geometry, algebra, calculus, and even more advanced manipulations like sequences. In Geogebra, just like in GSP, the user can create their own personal tools to achieve whatever they desire. Geogebra, however, is really cool because since it's a java platform application, it functions just as well as an applet on the web as it does as a program itself. As an applet, the user can adjust the settings to allow outsiders modify the sketch or export it, both with the ability to adjust which parts are made more available to outside users.