Mess with Math

It is an absolutely gorgeous day outside. I spent much of it indoors grading papers, working on averages, and playing with blogs and RSS’s. Yet, I am not upset. True, I can now check many items from my “To Do” list. An added bonus, though, was the reading of two blogs:

http://students2oh.org/2008/06/05/nothings-important/

http://students2oh.org/2008/06/24/never-stop-doing/

The contents of these blogs first put me in touch with what the current generation of soon to be adults is thinking: to do or not to do??? As I work with adolescents, I often try to understand what rocks their boats. Their reality is so very different from mine. But my reading convinced me that I actually share with them more than I could possibly imagine. Though contrasting in their seemingly opposite positioning, their arguments reinforced my feeling that one’s entire actions can result in nothingness and that one’s lack of action may result in a world to someone. And then I try to be optimistic about the Federal government’s actions and the current economic crisis.

It seems that the blogger puts forth informed positions often derived from a passion. Responders, on the other hand, appear to be free to react more impulsively. The end result is positive.

I find myself scanning over the information much more quickly than I would had I had a book in my hands. This might result from the sense that there is just too much to go over at once. As well, I feel that I am reading opinions rather than research-based information. Opinions do matter, but with the wealth of information out there, I simply find no time to devote to too many of them.

Blogs, though, do represent a venue to explore one’s own ideas and to facilitate feedback to these. Two of the blogs listed in Thing 4, for instance, spoke directly to me.  http://817math.blogspot.com/2006/12/boeuns-scribe-for-december-4th.html gave me ideas on how to enrich information I have on edline for the students by transforming them into scribers – or translators – of what happens in the classroom. Edline is a useful instrument about a particular course for students. A blog would give additional information of what happens in the classroom on a given day. In addition, blogs present students the opportunity to have a voice. http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=133, though not of immediate application to me, was also helpful. In discussing the value of homework, it reminded me of the unreal reality (oxymoron?) I face with my students. These little eager honor students truly see homework as an opportunity to check their own learning, to verify their ability to apply what we started in the classroom. Reading the comments in this blog, I immediately started counting my blessings.

Please view:

http://123.writeboard.com/67b9661a87937e544

“I am a walking metamorphosis.” ( Raul Seixas)

Lifelong learning is the most important value for an educator. As we work with students and each other, we only confirm that knowledge is an ever expanding pool. Reconstructing one’s mental schemata is important for all humans and essential to those who enter a classroom.

Maintaining my learning tool box is, to me, the most important survival skill as an educator. As I input information, integrate it with the existing schema, I can actually feel that I evolve cognitively – if not spiritually – and physically. This course will allow me to search for learning sources that intimidate me: technology.

Learn to use technology to my advantage is what I am seeking the most in this course. Working with technology is not intuitive to me – everything takes longer to me than it does the way-below average person.  Because of that, I tend to fight trends in education that involve technology. In a timely manner, technology just ate several minutes of my time: the last and current sentence are written in a different font. I have no idea how/why this happened and, after spending a long time searching for ways to correct this, I gave up. Problem is, I do not give up easily… So, I am not a happy blogger right now! 

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