Thing 10

Picture taken by Felix Idan.

I like Flickr, but for a math teacher I really don't see that many uses. I checked out the Fascinating Flickr Assignment to Teach Math blog, but I really didn't see much of a use for it in math unless it is being used for geometry. We haven't done many projects this year in my class, because we have been so testing-oriented. Once testing is over, I think I might use Flickr for a project on Geometry and to introduce Creative Commons and posting attributions. I could probably have students create a slide show or a presentation showing difference 2D and 3D shapes. Then the could lable the parts of each shape on the picture.

On a personal note, I love the idea of saving all of our family photos on Flickr. This could be used to educate my children about their family history. Plus, there are things in photos, other than people, that can help students learn how to use the context clues in the photos to help date them.

When it comes to math, I can't think of many uses, but for other subjects I can. When studying other countries, students can find pictures of other countries. Language Arts teachers could post a picture and that could be their students writing prompt. Each student could have a blog, be required to post the picture (with its atribute) and then thier journal entry. In Life Science, students could have pictures of bones and use those to create a slide show to describe a part of the body or a system from a body. The ideas could go on...I just wish I had more math ideas.

A Sharing Habbit

I have definitely created a reading habit, but I have also created a sharing habit. Whenever my reader helps me find a gem of an idea to use or that one of my colleagues can use, I share it. I probably email at least one person a day from my reader to share with them a blog or a website or an idea that the reader has found for me. I get a lot of thank yous for doing this, but what I would really like is for someone to actually use one of the things I send them and then let me see the results. A lot of the items I email are the types of sites and programs that as a math teacher I will never get a chance to use. For instance, I sent a student teacher at our school who is teaching about mythology a web version of a Myth and Legend Story Maker. It sounded like she liked the idea, but I haven't heard anything since. I sent our Scope teacher, who I knew was doing some project which involved picture taking and collages a link to Photovisi. Again, found by the reader. I haven't received any negative feedback, but a little more positive feedback would be nice.