mini presentation

In the beginning of the past few grad classes we had different mini presentations about ways to that they incorporate technology into their classrooms.
One program that I loved was photo story. It is a free download so everyone can use it Teachers and students can both utilize this program. It is simple program that you can incorporate into almost any lesson in any subject. The program allows you to put pictures in any sequence that you wish and add audio to it. Erik used it as a teaching tool to introduce the different steps to the writing process. In each slide he used a picture depicting a step in the writing process along with audio explaining the step. It was a neat way to introduce a topic or to remind the students of the different steps that they must take when writing something.
The next presentation from Mei-Lynn was about photo story but how students can use it to display research instead of writing a paper. It was amazing what the students were able to do given the right guidance.
After seeing both presentations I started to think about different ways that I could incorporate this new use of technology into my classroom and right away I thought about math word problems. I find that students in general don’t like math word problems and tend to just give up before really trying doing it step by step. I thought it would be fun to depict each step of the word problem with a picture to go along with. We can even do thins with regular math problems as well. It will allow the visual learners to connect the math procedures with pictures so that eventually they will be able to create those pictures in there head.
The next two presentations were about this program called Inter Write. It is a program that allows the teacher or student to write onto a “notepad” and it will appear on the white or smart board. It allows students to answer problems and show their work with out having to use chalk and getting dirty. Jennifer said it helps with a lot with time management because she can prep the night before and not have to waste time putting up math problems on the board. She can easily hit the next button and the next problem will appear on the screen. The version that Jon has is mobile so it allows him to walk around the classroom as he is writing notes on the screen to make sure every one is on task.