You’ve had the power all the long my dear. -Galinda the Good Witch The Wizard of OZ Blog Hop 21st Century Teaching and Math

This Blog is a part of a Blog hop happening (hip hop happening) April 14th 2015 Starting at 8:30 pm  Read my post then click a link down below to see what others have said about Math and the 21st century.

I have been working very hard to change the way math is taught in my classroom.  I still use paper but I much prefer open tasks and concept strings to engage and help my students see the connections between different ideas in math.

I am also passionate about technology.  I like to take pictures of my students work, tweet about what they are doing, as a teacher @libramlad and as a classroom @MadocGrade3, and have my students use those pictures to explain their thinking using a variety of applications , Explain Everything and Telligami for iPad and Think Link for other devices to name a few.

One App for iPad I am really excited about is Aurasma.  Not because of the app its self but for what the app is changing in my students in the classroom. This app is an Augmented Reality App, (a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view), that allows anyone to take a picture, say of a piece of student work, and then shoot a video and super impose that video on top of the picture they have taken.  My students LOVE this app.  They take pictures of their work and make a video of them talking about their work (without faces or names, just initials ) and then we post the work around the room and students can see a video of the student talking about their work.   This helps with my students who might be shy talking in front of the class about their work, and gives them some experience crafting a message before they really have to step up and speak.  It also helps to frame questions for our Gallery walks if the students can all walk around and look at another persons work first and get some Ideas as to what other people are thinking about.  It is a dry run before they talk to their classmates about their learning.

It also helps me because I have another form of assessment right there in my hands, the video.  I can look at the paper at the same time I am watching the video and really dig deeply into what my students are saying and get more knowledge about their understanding of a particular concept.  Which means I can ask better questions, which in turn leads to better answers, which in turn leads to deeper understanding, and more questions.

Now as I am writing this, my students are Modifying their learning, as I understand it from the SAMR model of education.  They are taking two things that they are all ready doing in the classroom and using them to make something new that they can use to make their understanding of concepts better, to engage them in their learning more, and to have a little bit of fun doing it.  I have put the power of the learning in my students hands, to show what they know in a variety of ways.

I am also modifying my practice,  I am still marking papers but they are usually bigger and done in marker, and digitally storing all those videos has made me think about storage limits and what I am going to do with it when school ends, but for now it is really working well.

Implementing Tech with any subject, but especially in math,  requires that work  to have purpose, for the teacher and the student.   With that purpose there will be engagement, and with engagement there will be learning, without it the tech in the room becomes just another way of doing the same old thing, but with pixels instead of Paper

Here are the links to all the other blogs participating in the Blog Hop tonight!

Hop around have a read, leave a comment,  thanks!

• Phil Young -http://wp.me/p3RGo2-1LB​
• Shivonne Lewis-Young – slewisyoung.wordpress.com 
• Jay Wigmore – jwigmore.wordpress.com
• Don Campbell https://ateachingyear.wordpress.com​
• Jonathan So – http://mrsoclassroom.blogspot.com/2015/04/blog-hop-digital-learning-in-math.html
• Jason Richea –  http://beyondangrybirds.blogspot.ca/2015/04/edtech-numeracy-unite.html
• Tina Zita – https://misszita.wordpress.com/
• Graham Whisen – http://ideaconnect.edublogs.org/2015/04/14/digital-learning-with-math/​