Week 7

This week, I spent a majority of my time working on my module. I found several activities that I enjoyed and I feel it represents good concepts under the large umbrella that is Calculus. I'm happy with my module, but I feel it could be more. I'm not sure, though. I seem to always doubt myself on big thinks that I turn in. At least we have a large review process that I can use to my advantage in this situation. I definitely will need it.

I really liked the Geogebra lesson on Tuesday. It was well put together, easy to follow, and Geogebra was easy to learn. I'm definitely going to use Geogebra in my future classroom, becasue it was easy to use yet could demonstrate some powerful mathematical concepts. I also liked the SmartBoard. It definitely has its purpose in the classroom, although it is VERY expensive. Perhaps I will be lucky enough to teach at a school that has access to a SmartBoard.

There wasn't really a prompt for this blog this week, so I just figured I'd write a short little update. As I said, most of my work this week was put into my module. I can't wait to complete this Fathom module for next week.

*Edit* I was just informed by a classmate (Thanks, Joe!) that there actually is a prompt for this week! I must have read over it or something. My apologies for any inconvenience.

I was really impressed with the Geogebra technology. For me, I noticed some similarities with Sketchpad (i.e. you can create lines, points, translate things, etc.), but it seemed to me to be more user friendly. First, there was a grid that was easy to turn on and off (I am aware that Sketchpad also has a grid) and I could easily plot points wherever I wanted. Geogebra also told you where your points were in a little side bar. Also in the side bar, one could find equations of lines, coordinates of intersection points, and derivatives at points. This was a neat feature because a student could easily make connections between the graphs and the equations, something which is not noticeable with Sketchpad. As I said before, I loved the level of easiness that Geogebra has. I could find almost any command function I wanted and apply it to whichever equation or point I selected. I also enjoyed how there were multiple ways to do things, such as finding derivatives at points. Geogebra could even draw derivatives of functions with a single command! Another cool feature was that Geogebra was free, which is always a plus.

The SmartBoard was also neat. We only got limited interaction with it, but I would love to see the SmartBoard actually do something with an actual program, like Sketchpad or Geogebra. We only got to draw things, highlight things, and draw smiley faces all over the place. I can only imagine what it can do with mathematical programs like Geogebra and Sketchpad. I think it would be neat to go back to the SmartBoard later in the semester and play around with it more, only using the programs that we've been exposed to. This way, we could actually see how it would be used in our classrooms.