Maths Teaching in a 2.0 World
refllections of a Maths HT (with this view from his classroom!)
Part 3a – Waiting game produces more fear/anger
Had some negative opinions expressed today when I raised the possibility of going to a DER PL session. It is increasingly becoming obvious that the digital divide is causing a large amount of angst amongst some staff and this is exposing itself as anger against the provision of new technology that will upset the status quo.
How do I convince / cajole someone who believes that laptops will have absolutely no benefit for his class and does not want to even open his mind. Hmmmm…. a challenge. I don’t want to just give up on one of my best Mathematics teachers!
As the rollout to students at our school moves closer those with their heads in the sand are realising that it will actually happen soon! HELP!
As most of my staff are digital immigrants (not yet arrived!) they claim that it is useless to teach them a software program (e.g. GeoGeBra) when they won’t use it for several months – they will forget it. On a more positive note – one of the faculty who was issued with a T1 laptop used it today for the first time with a projector to show the Yr 12 class past examiner comments!
Any suggestions that are left of centre would be greatly appreciated
September 1st, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I dunno that it’s very “left of centre” but some kind of stats lesson where data is entered into an Excel then sums performed, graphs created etc is kinda straight forward, yet engaging for a group of kids… Your teacher might see the merit in that?
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September 1st, 2009 at 8:22 pm
If you get them to the Curriculum Support TPL you might get them to start shifting – the English one today was great at showing the possible usages of the software/technology. Lots of oohs etc when they clicked on its potential and that was from novices. They still felt overloaded with info and could see that there was work to be done but at least it seemed to give some purpose to the rollout for them.
How you get them there (and with a mind that will absorb) is trickier…
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September 1st, 2009 at 9:43 pm
This may well be a bit overwhelming for newbies, but you could point your teachers in the direction of Darren Kuropatwa’s blog http://adifference.blogspot.com/
Darren is a Canadian teacher using technology really effectively with his maths classes, and he’s a nice guy!
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