Hi Kristy. I was wondering if you have students or educator contacts who would be interested in participating in a nationwide SAT Vocab Video Contest @ MIT university. You can view contest details at BrainyFlix.com Please let me know. Thanks!

Hey, Kristy! I would be interested in hearing about your classroom experiences! We are trying are best to keep our 486 course current with what is being used in the classroom. I thought that as a math teacher you may enjoy this WebQuest wiki that my math teachers just completed:

Who's Your Poppa?

Also, here is my 486 course web site.

Kristy,
Thanks for the feedback concerning using the PowerPoint. If you get a chance, I am sure that she would love for you to post that information on her digital natives wiki. I love the comment about your six year old! :-)

Kristy,
Thanks for this feedback as well! I will share this with my students, they will be so excited! Let me know if they decide to use the WebQuest as I have some that are still a little skeptical about "really using" the technology in the classroom. Some are not 100% sure about using some things. So that is why it has been such a pleasure getting input from folks like you and Kim Trefz. You have both been so willing to share your own experiences and when I share that with them, especially with examples, I can see the light bulbs come on. Then later they have commented in their blogs that "wow, maybe you really can use this technology stuff in the classroom!" So, many thanks and please feel free to share any thoughts, ideas, or examples that you may have!

Kristy,
I was reading your comment again and realized that I did not respond to the second paragraph. You made an excellent point about the "smartboard, air boards, senteo clickers, etc." We are trying to get some grant money or get the SMART, Promethean, etc. sales representatives to help us with products to use and demo. The professor that directs this 486 course, as well as myself and the other instructors, agree completely with you and we have been trying to add this to our syllabus.

The problem is that in Tennessee we have some schools (like the system my children attend) that use the boards and clickers in every class and then some that do not have the funding. Therefore, there are some in the education department at UT that are still not sure that there is a need to teach our teacher ed students how to use them. So the more support that we can get from current teachers like yourself that are using this technology and agree that teaching our teacher education students how to use them is necessary, then the better chance that we can convince our department head that we need to add this in order to prepare our future teachers. Thanks again for this feedback...of course until this current economic situation improves we may be waiting.

Kristy,
You are absolutely correct and our technology people agree 100%. I know that we have discussed the need to add this since I joined the team last summer (and I understand that it was pushed before). It is just getting everyone else on board and funding. We do discuss it in class (and I show video tutorials and classroom demonstations) so that they know about it, but we have no boards or clickers to demonstrate so it is not a part of the syllabus. As with most university's, as well as industry, we are facing hard cuts at the moment. I hope that if we can't get a grant (there is one in the works at the moment) one of the many rep.'s would see the benefit of putting the product before future teachers. Do you have any good contacts? Or other ideas how I can demonstrate the tools without having the physical tools?

Thanks so much for taking the time to discuss this and offer your input!

Jeff

Kristy,
Awesome! Thanks for taking the time to pass this information along. I have pulled stuff from YouTube, TeacherTube, and found a few sights with demos and tutorials, but this is really good. Like I said I am certainly open to showing about it and feel the need to really cover it more thoroughly. I hope that we get the physical product soon. If you think of any other ideas or sites, send them our way. Thanks again! Jeff