11/7/08 Mathmatics with Technology

In these two podcasts Judy Chandler with the Maine Department of Education discussed the importance of technology in order to effectively teach math. Currently students in math classed either get it by repetition and memorization or they don't get it and fall behind and get frustrated because it just does not make sense to them.

In this podcast Judy discusses that fully integrating technology into math lessons makes the class student centered instead of just the teacher giving the information day after day. When the student is actively taking responsibility for learning the material and visually seeing what is happening in the math problem the student is learning more and better understanding why the concept works instead of just memorizing it for a test.

Most teachers do not want to integrate technology into the math lesson because they feel they do not have the time and the students are doing okay. If the teachers would just integrate the technology they would see that the students are doing better and would have to spend less time re-teaching concepts for students that don't get it and in the end actually save the time.

I have learned from this podcast that just because it may be inconvenient to me as a teacher to integrate technology into math or some other lesson it is not about me, it is about the students and the benefit of the integration of technology for the students far out ways the inconvenience of the teacher.