530 Session 2

Usually coming up with ideas on how to use a certain digital tool or technique in my math classroom is a process of narrowing the options down to a few practical ones; at least few enough to address in this blog. This is not the case, however, with digital story. That is, if I address a digital story as one defined like I did before this course.

I am defining the idea of a digital story as not one of heartfelt sharing, but more of a dissemination of information, a presentation. If I do this, I can come up with ideas for math.

For instance, I can use Voicethread to have students summarize what they have learned in a lesson. They can share a Voicethread as an alternative to writing responses to reflective questions.

Also, students that have better verbal skills than writing skills can work through an assessment, sharing explainations for their work both orally and in writing without trying to figure out the logistics of where I can listen to them, when can they take their test, and even whether or not I will evaluate their work or the special ed. teacher will evaluate their work.

Finally, the Connected Math program is essentially a set of projects broken into smaller tasks that incorporate the use of mathematical analysis of practical events. Inherent in the process of learning is concluding the project and comparing results. This section of the process naturally loans itself to collaborative digital presentations. Using Presentation Zen, I now have a concrete set of tasks I can add to what I currently use to guide my students to simple, meaningful presentations: Brainstorming, grouping and identifying, storyboarding on paper, and storyboarding in slide sorter.