Math collaboration tools

I work with K-12 teachers in a variety of districts in southern Wisconsin. We are working on integration 21st Century Skills into the curriculum. I have found lots of great collaboration tools such as Google Docs, wikis, and Glogster. Where I am having trouble is collaboration projects for high school math that teachers can integrate into their curriculum and that meet their standards. Does anyone have any ideas for high school math collaboration projects?

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Permalink Reply by David Wu on January 31, 2011 at 5:53pm

Hi Tara,

Microblogs are a good way for students to share their thoughts and collaborate with each other. I see a lot of opportunities for groups of students to have joint ownership of a blog where they can have:

discussions
share project research information
share thoughts, ideas
develop team work skills
and communicate with each other (on projects, answering each other's questions, etc)

Some math teachers have found a use for microblogs in the classrooms. From back-channel discussions to students posting questions they have while working on homework assignments, microblogs present an interesting way to connect the teacher with students. Posting questions via microblogging is a great alternative to emailing the teacher. By using a microblog it makes it easier for students to ask questions and also creates new learning opportunities. Before, the questions would be locked away in the email inbox where only one student can see the teacher's response, but now with the transparency of an open microblog every students can learn when the teacher responds to one student's question. It also reduces the need for the teacher to answer the same question emailed by multiple students.

For math teachers, the difficulty lies in how to effectively communicate the answers to the students. It's very hard to type out the answers, so this teacher Mr. Samulak from Ann Arbor Huron High School found a creative way to teach students by using a free screen recording tool called Jing. You can see it in action here:

http://www.screencast.com/t/L13HIxeaQa

http://www.screencast.com/t/2p96cQpS9

I am a recent college graduate and some friends and I have developed a simple online microblogging platform. We have been pilot testing with some teachers in Ann Arbor, MI and found that microblogs really helps to connect students and teachers. When used properly it helps to augment the teacher's teaching effectiveness. And because it's so easy for students to connect with the teachers, the main concern now is how that can sometimes cut into the teacher's own personal time off away from school.

If you would be interested in finding out more about what we are doing, please feel free to connect with me! We are always looking for more educators to help us test-drive our site and work with us to improve it.

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Permalink Reply by Tara on February 1, 2011 at 8:39am

Thanks David. Many of our math teachers have SMART Boards and they use the record feature of the Notebook software to create videos. I will investigate Microblogs. Thanks for the info.