After listening to Tinashe Blanchet speak about her strategies for incorporating technology into her math class and getting kids excited about math. Her strategies reminded me about the different technology integrations we learned about last semester. She mentions making a rap video with her students explaining algorithm and submitting the video into a contest (and winning!). Her students were so excited about making this video that they were taking time out of lunch and other special areas to work on the video with her. As we learned last semester, incorporating video production in the classroom can be a very beneficial learning tool.
She also talks about the use of ipads in her classroom and having students use them as graphing calculators. She states that on an ipad you can really manipulate the graph with making it 2D or 3D, actually grabbing the graph and twisting it 360 degrees around. I could definitely see this being exciting for students and encouraging them to want to learn about graphs and making graphs on a calculator.
Additionally, she talks about using a "google classroom." Where each student has their own page and can communicate in a virtual classroom. She states that she notices that students get excited about projects they have ownership of. I believe this 100% true. I found when teaching, that my students produced awesome and memorable projects when they felt ownership of the project. It amazing to see what students can come up with with minimum direct instruction. Has anyone used any of these strategies for math in their classrooms?
I haven't had my students create a rap song, but I have shared many existing songs with my students to help them understand math concepts and memorize addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. I love facilitating projects with my students that take us away from the ordinary math mats and Envision software to something more unique. Just switching it up in any way gets students excited about the material. Right now, my kindergartners are making their own flashcards to help them practice their facts for the weekly Math Masters competitions and they LOVE IT! They love that they created the cards themselves and they enjoy using them together in pairs or small groups to practice.
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