Yippee…I’m done!

I love podcasts, though!  I’ve subscribed to them for  along time on itunes, and I love listening to them when I travel.  In fact, I’ll be flying to D.C. over Labor Day weekend, and I’ll likely listen to the podcasts on the plane (once we’re above 10,000 feet, of course).  Haha!  I don’t imagine that I’ll ever create my own podcast.  My 60-year-old dad has one, though!  His Thursday night Bible study in his living room is now on itunes…How cool is that?  Of course, I subscribed to it.

Since I’m required to give at least one idea for a podcast, I suppose that I could create a podcast recording of each day’s homework assignment.  While that sounds silly, it would probably be a big hit with my students.  They frequently forget what their homework assignment is, but they never forget their ipods!

With that experience as my first exposure to social networking sites, I immediately despised them.  I skeptically asked: What kind of “relationship” can you really have in an environment where the person you’re communicating with may not be who they claim?  Since then, I’ve become a little more open-minded about it…But it’s hard to recover from an introduction like that.  Sometimes, you just can’t forget first impressions.

While exploring the social networking options in this week’s thing, I saw that there are benefits to networking with people who share interests and concerns with you.  If a teacher from North Dakota (or someone who claims to be such a person) has a great idea about how I can enhance my students’ classroom experience, then I can be open to that.  But, I don’t think I’ll ever turn to social networking to develop or enhance personal relationships with friends.  I believe I’ll always be someone who would prefer a letter to an email, a phone call to a text message, and a real face-to-face conversation to online chatter.  Maybe I’m old-fashioned.  Maybe I’ll just always be skeptical.  Maybe I need therapy.  Who knows.  Haha

The National Geographic Photo of the Day was randomly updates in July.  The picture for that blog entry is so cool!

CoolKat had a really neat poem.

Given the effects of today’s economy on the families in our private schools, it’s easy to fear that your job security is not as tight as it used to be.  This really short article is interesting (and a little disheartening).

Application #2: The “word” document I created for this Thing was a Venn Diagram for the real numbers.  I use that chart all the time in my math classes to illustrate how numbers are classified as irrational, rational, integers, and whole numbers.  In fact, I have a homemade poster of the diagram the wall in my classroom.  I created the google doc to experiment with how to create a document that students could edit together.

Application #3: It would be easy enough to create a “powerpoint” presentation in google docs.  I could make a presentation about the FAQ’s of my math classes and then invite my students and their parents to edit the presentation by adding new questions for me to answer.  Then everyone can benefit from the questions asked by their peers.  It’s always frustrating to answer the same questions over and over and over… I could show the presentation each year when the parents come for Open House at the start of the school year.

YouTube video relevant to mathematics – To answer the ever-irritating question: “When are we ever going to use this?”

YouTube video relevant to mathematics – My sixth graders had a hard time accepting the relevance of the number zero.  This video is a cute tribute to the often-forgotten integer.

YouTube “how to” video – I’ve always wanted to try to make a coffee cake.

YouTube nostalgic video: This is my favorite scene from the Anne of Green Gables series (which is a collection of my three favorite movies).

I listened to three episodes from the list Shelley gave.  I found one under the “for Educators” folder, the “Education Podcast with John Merrow – PBS.”  I listened to episode #134, an interview with the new Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.  That was very enlightening.  And, I listened to two episodes from the “MathGrad Podcast.”  The first was on the Rubik’s cube.  Listening to his clear, easy-to-understand explanation of the mathematics behind solving the Rubik’s cube, I had a flashback to my college Abstract Algebra class.  My term paper was on the very same topic, and I wish I had been able to explain in fifteen pages what he explained in six minutes!   The second episode was on Sudoku puzzles, and it was also intriguing.  I decided to subscribe to his podcast, since it provided some intellectual stimulation and fun reminiscing about tough mathematical concepts.  I’m also optimistic about finding some good episodes that I can share with my students, to help them hear about daily applications of mathematics in their world.

I have not heard of any great applications of podcasts in the mathematics classroom.  Our lessons are not as lecture-based as some other disciplines, so it’s hard to imagine recording my class periods and posting them online for students and teachers to access at home.  It’s difficult to explain a mathematical concept without showing it visually.  Perhaps if video was involved I could create some tutorials to post online.  I’ll keep my eyes open and see what I can find.

I was an overachieving student, so I refused to let my reading disability get the better of me.  I spent my middle school years staying up until the middle of the night reading my AR books, and I learned how to work around my reading issues to excel in high school AP English and college English classes.  But, I never read for fun.  And, that’s pretty much the case now.

I’ve always believed that the love of reading was part of being “smart,” so I’m ashamed of and embarassed by my reading issues.  I suppose my husband and I are evidence of the “opposites attract” concept in this regard, because he is the biggest reader I know.  I have always admired, appreciated, and not quite understood that quality of his.  Anyway…

All of that is to say that when I saw that this week’s Thing was about “Library Thing,” I broke into a cold sweat and felt a flashback to sitting in front of that AR screen in 7th grade, trying my best to remember the details of the book I finished at 3 A.M. the night before, knowing that keeping my 100 average in Language Arts depended upon my performance on this one, stupid reading quiz.

After getting over the hives that were breaking out on my arms and legs, I explored Library Thing and found it to be interesting and neat.  I wish I had a personal library of books that I could create online.  But, since I don’t…I’m not sure how useful Library Thing would be for me at home.  My husband, on the other hand, would love it.  It would help him keep track of what books he has already read so that he won’t come home with the same Thomas Jefferson biography again.  In my math classroom, I cannot really see any applications of Library Thing.  If I taught English, Literature, or History, perhaps it would be useful.  I remain open-minded, if anyone else can give me good suggestions.