Think #7

I went to yahoo answers, because my daughter that is going into the 5th grade seems to think that this site has the answers to EVERYTHING! I asked a couple of different general questions like how to set a table and what is the cube root of 27 (no one had answered that one yet) and got some interesting questions. I then asked it whether or not K2 was a dangerous drug and got a whole host of different answers. Apparently, she uses this site all of the time at school. I am not sure how I feel about the fact that she takes these answers as fact. I definitely think that our children need to be educated about verifying the sources and answers that they get...

Thing #6

These tools can be hard to integrate into a math classroom. However, I do like the motivational poster maker that is available through big huge labs. I think that this application can be adjusted to make "motivational" math posters over different math ideas that students have trouble with. Students often learn best when it comes from other people. I can also see using the trading card maker to help my students with their conics project that I do every year. In the past, I've had students do the project with images found on the web. Using flickr to use copyright friendly images and then using those to make trading cards would be an interesting twist on the project.

Thing #5

I tend to be a little nervous about sites like flickr. But, after exploring the level of control on the privacy settings, I am relatively comfortable with the site. I searched the term Golden Number, and found this image.

Thing #3

Wow, that took a little longer than I thought it would. The directions were very good, but I was getting frustrated with going back and forth between the activities and the directions page. I ended up taking a screen shot of the directions page and putting it on my desktop. This made it easier for me to go back and forth and I did not lose any content of what I was doing this way. I will go back later and further design my Avatar and blog.

Thing #2

By far the easiest of the 7 1/2 things is to begin with a goal in mind! I am excellent at setting goals and planning how to achieve those goals. However, I often get off track and don't get to the end of the plan. This brings up the one that I struggle the most with. That would be viewing problems as a challenge as opposed to a crisis. It always seems that when problems come up on the way to achieve my goal, I go into a tail-spin and panic. I really should meet these problems head on and view them as part of the learning process. Getting lost in Dallas is how I learned my way around most of the city and showing up at the wrong address in college is how I met my husband!