COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOM -DAY 4

Today's class was the most interesting one to me so far. I think one of the reasons why I liked it so much was because the technology that we learned about and used was easy for me to follow, which definitely peaked my interest in the area. This lesson also proved to me yet another way that I will be able to incorporate technology into my math classroom and lessons.

What I loved about the training was the fact that we investigated every site thoroughly, to explore every aspect and concept of the web pages, giving us an expert understanding in how to manipulate each site. I really appreciated that we had to go into each contributing website of thinkfinity and explore certain lessons and activities that were of interest to us. Although some of the web pages didn't pertain to my major, it allowed me to see how different content areas set up lessons and the variety of lessons that they offer. To me, history is a very boring subject, but after playing around with the activities, some areas really caught my attention and allowed me to express a new interest in history. I feel if a simple website can do that for me, I'm certain it will help other students that find certain areas either boring or difficult, develop a new sense of appreciation in the subject. As a future math teacher, I have observed that many students ask how math is going to help them in life? Many of the activities that I came across show students how math will relate to certain everyday activities, and presented a fun approach to practicing this type of math.

I enjoyed this website so much that I sent the link to my roommate who is an elementary education major. When I got home, I showed her how to use the website and she was so excited about it. On the walk home from class, I called my mom, who is a teacher herself, and raved about thinkfinity. She said that it sounded so interesting that she was going to mention it to her principal and suggest that he put the link on the school website so it would be available to teachers, students and parents.

What I liked most about this lesson was that we spent the whole class examining this website and there is still an endless amount of information to be discovered and exposed to our students.