Tuesday, May 15, 2007

EdClass in Class!

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to talk about a small success using EdClass and Geometry Sketcher this week in class. Ive had two days of lessons using our new toys and I must say Im impressed with the results. With EdClass I have used 3 lessons so far with my Geometry and Algebra classes. With my Geo 10C class, which is a little more advanced, I used the Golden Ratio lesson and the Finding Pi lesson. Both were interesting and the students enjoyed them. And both were easy to use with just one computer and the students hand writing the tables. The lessons both involved the students measuring things and finding ratios. They saw how body parts are arranged in the Golden Ratio and how the idea and number of PI was created. With the Geo sketchpad I used it in an opposite type of class. I used it in a lesson to teach the defenitions of Parallelograms. The lesson involved manipulation of Parallelograms and some cool visual effects. I used it in a class or perpetual F's and was impressed at how it caught their attention and instead of writing notes on the board, or trying to draw the figures which im horrible at, ive been writing them on word and projecting it on my wall. Well just wanted to share with you all my small success and more importantly ask if anyone else has found any good lessons on either program that you can suggest? Or any other program?

4 comments:

Joseph Miller said...

Israel,

Congratulations on being so ambitious in your first week with the new equipment!

It sounds like you think the students were more engaged. Do you also believe that will lead to a deeper understanding of that challenging material?

Dave Tarwater said...

Way to go! I am sure you were pleased to find new ways to engage your students. As an edclass user the past few years I almost always find the activities do generate enthusiasm. I think you will see that when you are able to have the students go through the lessons on their own computers that enthusiasm and engagement will only increase. A good edclass lesson for understanding slope is book e275 Rise over Run. In this lesson students build a slope calculator in Excel. You can make the lesson really come to life by having the students calculate the slope of some mountain highways and passes here in Colorado.

JSummer said...
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JSummer said...

Hello Bloggers-
Yesterday I used the smartboard software to introduce a new lesson. It involved students getting out of their seats and using the mouse to complete a Pythagorean Triple. Many of the students where excited to be able to work on a computer. Following my introduction to the Pythagorean Triples I used an edclass lesson to further the students knowledge of Pythagorean triples. We worked through the lesson together were at points I had students come up to the front and fill in the spreadsheet we had created. I think for the most part it was successful, however it would have been much more efficent if the children could have been engaged in small groups working with edclass. Overall I was excited to see the response it recieved and am ready to learn more about the programs and what they can offer to our students.