Journal Reflections

For my journal reflections I've decided to use metaphors based around (loosely) song titles.

The article comes from ISTE: (Collaborative Apprenticeships (2006) by Evan M. Glazers and Kathy Page)

Metaphor for the reading- "Anything you can do... you can do better!"

Teachers challenging their instructional practice in a peer supported community is the theme of this paper. This article was like many leadership papers I've read in the past few months. It sets up the familiar framework for peer teaching/sharing. After experiencing this firsthand in my classroom with ECSD's math consultant I felt that the overview filled many of the valuable points of the preparation, execution, and reflective. The peer instruction centered around the "learning teacher"'s engagement of tech learning through their own choice of instructional focus.

Playing (and still learning)

We had some time to play with the TI-73 graphing calculator. The TI-73 has some fun games that deal with different types of graphing skills. This type of calculator would not be something that I would use with my grade threes. I don't think that I would use these in the K-6 grades. The graphical interface was too chunky for some of the pictures. The vast number of instructions needed to lead students through tasks would be a limiting factor in the use of this tool. I can see how, with it's many add ons the TI-73 can be used to create valuable visual and spatial experiences.

After the TI-73 we went and looked over virtual manipulatives at http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html . These exercises became more manipulate-able (real word?) through the use of the ever popluar SMART board. I'm going to go back and look at some of the things they have there and try to see if they will fit into my plans for next school year.

Overall a very positive day. It was great to see the gang again and to scoop a Mac iBook. Raj over at http://www.idarknight.blogspot.com/ is our T.A.. He's a big Mac addict so I keep complaining I can't right click and whining that my Mac crashed. He doesn't deserve it. ;)