I’m presenting at the ISABC professional development conference tomorrow, twice. Once on using Twitter as a professional development tool, and the other time on the use of technology in math class. I’ve embedded the slides for these presentations below. Both presentations are intended to be run as workshops so that participants will be expected to do just that, participate.
Dawn DuPriest says:
Picky thing, but it’s http://www.codecademy.com (not “codeacademy.com”, the a is missing). 🙂
I noticed the anti-Khan slide. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but Khan Academy has a little programming platform as well. I discovered it before I discovered Codecademy, so that’s the platform I use with my students when we program. I love it. My kids already have Google Docs accounts, so they can log in to Khan through Google. I manage a class list and can see all of their programs to help them troubleshoot. They can view the same program from home or from the school computers – it’s all online and there is no saving or transferring of files. You can modify code and see the effects immediately – no compiling and you can just experiment and play to your heart’s delight. I have become a big fan, so I do not hate on Khan.
I take issue with some of the ways that Sal Khan approaches his topics… but he has a really compelling vision of education – that it should ultimately be portable and personalizable. He learns from his mistakes and adapts. I don’t think we’ve seen the best that will come out of Khan Academy yet, so I’m curious to see where it ends up.
All that said, I get that the heart of your message that the technology isn’t useful as just a platform for watching videos and viewing worksheets. Computers are actually a way to solve complicated math problems and understand the mathematics better, and they need to be used as such. I appreciate your vision very much. 🙂
Cheers!
Dawn DuPriest
Preston Middle School
Fort Collins, CO USA
February 7, 2013 — 7:34 pm
David Wees says:
The Khan Academy is certainly improving, and I agree, the programming resources there are useful, particularly the ability to share projects and then fork them into new projects.
Thanks for spotting the error in the URL. 🙂
February 8, 2013 — 12:27 am
Tevin Flowers says:
You have definitely given me some very thoughtful ideas on how I should expand my teaching of Math in my future classes. The computers as well as the usage of the white board will definitely be a plus and helpful with my teachings and the students different ways of learning.
February 10, 2013 — 11:12 pm