February 20th, 2012

Ahh a long weekend was needed to refresh the body and the mind.  It was nice to have an opportunity to visit my brother out in Colorado.  It is true what they say the skiing really is better in the west.  It is not comparable to the skiing in the east.  It was great to take a break but I am excited to get back in the swing of things.  Especially after I was soooo sick with altitude sickness.

Februaury 13th 2012

Well that was a jam packed class.  I think that all groups did a good job of conveying their information.  It was difficult to understand one of the groups whos plan seemed a little bit more for the inclass participation.  I think that it is difficult for people to translate in class activities to online format.  It does take more work and planning to be sure that the activities will work and be effective. 

The picture is my valentines day present from one of my students (yes thats right I recieved a carnation in a can)  I hear that they are all the rage this valentines day, and yes I do think that was a used ice tea can.

February 6th 2012

It was nice to have time to work with my group this week, however I was looking foward to starting the information on the learning theorys.  I have been working on my PLT and I have been working on how I am going to adapt my plt in my classroom.  The information that is online does help, however I don't like to view previous products because I feel that they skew my ideas.  I like to start myself with a solid concept and then look at the examples after. 

January 30th, 2012

Unfortunately I cannot quite seem to get to class ontime.  It is difficult to pick up the baby from daycare and get him home in time for the start of class.  Last week he overslept from his nap and wasn't ready when I went to pick him up.  Overall it stresses me out.  I was able to catch up with what we were doing in class probably just because I am well versed in Wimba and I did look through the syllabus throughly.  I was excited to meet my group, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were both middle school math teachers.  I have not had the honor of working with additional math teachers yet in the MAIT program and I am excited to see what ideas they bring to the table.  Math is a very different subject to teach, it requires so much previous knowledge that it is difficult to move on when students struggle at any particular step.  I think that our choice of cognitive learning really does go well with math and the steps that are usually used to teach and learn math. 

I have found that there are some really great online resources for math and others that are just rote practice with pretty pictures.  One site that I like to use frequently is NCTM check it out