Podcasting in the Classroom

After viewing various podcasts and creating my own podcast tutorial, I strongly feel that podcasting can be very useful in a classroom. At first I sat there for a while thinking how in the world could I use a podcast to help teach mathematics in the class. There are many situations that I thought about in which I can incoporate podcasting in the classroom. For one thing I could use a podcasting for my students to share any news or media stories related to math. I've always heard students say "we'll never use math again" but now students will be able to make a connection in math with real life situations. Another situation in which I could use podcasting in the classroom would be by posting any homework, upcoming assignments and exam dates so that students won't come into the classroom not knowing what they have to do. From my experience in math classrooms, some of my teachers never gave us homework on fridays. Something that I would incoporate podcasting would be for my students to use a podcasts to create any math riddles, games, puzzles on the material they are learning and have them share it with the classroom.

Attention and Multitasking!

The section I reviewed was on Multitasking. Now a days students are very different than what they used to be back in the days. Now you see students bringing their laptops to their classes, and surfing the web as professors try to lecture. The video made a good point that teachers also have to change their teaching styles to keep the students attention. The distraction caused my the web can be very frustrating and as a future teacher it would also be upsetting for myself to stand in front a class and notice that the attention is somewhere else. It can become very hard when teachers have to compete with this distraction. Many of the students believe they can multitask successfully, yet how much learning do they actually get from multitasking. From my own experience I have tried to multitask by either texting or using my itouch and trying to pay attention in the class. By the end of the lesson, I know that I did not understand the complete context so for me multitasking is not successful. One of the studens made a good point. He said if they are not up to date with technology, they can lose a job in their future. Schools are affected by technology each and everyday. Some teachers have to adjust their teaching styles to keep the students attention. I personally believe that I will try my hardest to be creative and use all the essential tools to create a warm and friendly environment for my students to learn math with any type of technology.

Computers in the classroom

I look forward to this taking this class this semster as I hope to learn so many programs that I could use for my future math classrooms. I was a bit nervous when I walked in because I don't feel too confident with my technology skills so I really hope to make the most out of this classroom and be a creative teacher in the future.