The online doom is upon us?

[Maria Droujkova]

This week's networking task is up. By request, we will have synchronous and asynchronous options from now on:  http://p2pu.org/en/groups/ed218-developing-mathematics-the-early-years/content/week-10-networking-options-march-19-25/ 

As projections of current trends show, the majority of today's elementary kids will find most of their jobs, spouses and friends online. Their first kiss will probably be a virtual /kiss emote in a chat or a computer game. As a math educator, what are you doing about this trend?

Cheers,
Maria Droujkova
919-388-1721

Make math your own, to make your own math

 

[Garrett, Sandra]

I think educators have to work with the trend rather than against it.  I was talking with a student today about the use of cell phones in schools.  My school has a VERY strict no cell phone policy.  If we even see a phone, we are supposed to confiscate it and the student's parents must come and pick it up from the administrators. After the 3rd offense, the school will keep the phone for 6 weeks.  It's ridiculous, in my opinion.  I think we have to have rules for usage rather than simply banning them. Why fight technology when it can be used for good?

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[Maria Droujkova]

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 7:58 PM, Garrett, Sandra <sgar...@arcadia.edu> wrote:

I think educators have to work with the trend rather than against it.  I was talking with a student today about the use of cell phones in schools.  My school has a VERY strict no cell phone policy.  If we even see a phone, we are supposed to confiscate it and the student's parents must come and pick it up from the administrators. After the 3rd offense, the school will keep the phone for 6 weeks.  It's ridiculous, in my opinion.  I think we have to have rules for usage rather than simply banning them. Why fight technology when it can be used for good?

There are so many wonderful math things you can do with multiple cell phones. For example, smartphones measure angles and can triangulate distances if the gps is enabled. Or students can take, exchange and manipulate snapshots of "found math" as they go on "math treks." Think of the possibilities for explorations!

A few months ago, in several of my LinkedIn math groups, there appeared a message asking teachers to sign a petition for a law that would force an area-activated "off" switch into all cell phones. I started to investigate. The company proposing the law (and trying to sell the said switches, naturally) originally proposed it for prisons. They wanted to enforce blanket "cell phone silence" on the prison's territory. FCC said the technology is illegal and dangerous and prohibited that development. So the company turned to teachers and school administrators for support. Oh, the implications...I am happy to say the idea died by now, or at least stopped appearing in public spaces, and did not gain support from many teachers at all.

The deep issue here is whether students are considered a captive audience who won't cooperate willingly, without coercion. 

[Graf, Amanda]

As a math educator, I think the only thing that really can be done is to keep up with that trend! While I feel it's really important to hold onto "pencil and paper" skills, it's also important to not be left behind! What is a shame is when people are in public and are so used to using electronics for every little thing that they've become dependent on them (i.e. phones having calculators vs. old-fashioned "do it in your head" math!), but, also, it is nearly impossible to survive a class without being familiar with today's technology. For example, I never would have survived high school math without the latest version of T9 calculator! But, at the same time, finding the sine of an angle is much easier (and faster!) done on a graphing calculator than on paper!

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 6:57 PM, Maria Droujkova <drou...@gmail.com> wrote:

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