WebQuest

The webquest was definitely something that a person would individually design from scratch once or twice a quarter. It would work good as a final project for a class. The design was easy and painless just time consuming. I think I would find it very hard to have students design one of these themselves but instead I would have them search for ones they liked. I would have them evaluate the ones they liked and then create a list of good ones they could use as final projects etc. or extra work when they finish regular work. It could be something they work on individually when finished with another assignement as a long term project.

Virtual Tour Of Mathematicians

The virtual tour I designed for students has them look into the culture of different mathematicians. The activity will hopefully have the students realize mathematicians come from very diverse backgrounds (they reasearch the mathematicians bios) and from all over the globe. Each student will be given three mathematicians to create tours of. They will look into the culture of the area they were raised in and their personal background stressing that they come from different parts of the world with different backgrounds. The following is a brief tour of three matematicians.

Google Earth Tour

The PLN gave me a visual on the variety of ways that I collece information. I found that although I am young most of my information comes from concrete connections with people or materials instead of virtual. I do find it difficult to find quality upper level mathematics on most sites like uTube or iTunes U. There is a wealth of activities for middle school grade mathematics but not too much for upper level algebra. This is reflected in my PLN as most of the learning still comes from professional development offered through my district and book materials.

My PLN

ScreenCasting Assignment

For the screencasting assignment I wanted to give students an opportunity to be the teacher without the fear of getting up infront of the room. Students will be given an identity to prove and use the equation editor in Word to write their solution. As they compose the solution they will explain each step in a screencast. The screencasts from all students will then be posted together on the class website under a page for identities. If a student has a problem with solving an identity they could then go to the class site and get a lesson on solving identities at any time. They could also be used in class for review. The screencasting was very easy to make. The pause feature was very important as computer operations do not always go smoothly and household interruptions do occur. The countdown was great so you knew exactly when to start the recording.

Identity Screencast