Journal #3

Speaking Math by using chat by Janet Graham and Ted Hodgson is an article that explores the use of electronic discussion tools in math classes that helps accommodates multicultural students. The basis for using this technology is through forums and online discussions. Students are assigned different parts of each chapter and are then to express the segment to the class in how it made sense to them. They will then teach the class and themselves as an online community. By using this strategy it allows an additional avenue of participation for non native speakers and others who struggle with language terms in mathematics. Besides ESL students, some benefits of the approach is the ability of teachers to formulate effective small groups which in turn alleviates confusion.

Questions:

As I read the article I was agreeing with the use of discussion boards and the ability to add personality to the answer. Also, by having the security of a computer in front of you, it alleviates the fear of speaking in front of people or asking questions. What I was wondering was a way to incorporate having lessons like this more frequently in the classroom without having to use the computer lab all the time. How can we make this everyday without going to the lab when students don’t have computers at home? I was also wondering, how can we incorporate these lessons to students who are much younger, say in the K-1 setting?
I would like to say in a perfect world, every student will have access to the internet at home and this wouldn’t be a problem, but in most cases it is not. So what I would try and do would be to have fund raisers to buy a bulk set of laptops for my classroom for the students to use. By having a fundraiser which all my classes raise, and the addition of some of my own pocket money, I could buy a class set of laptops to make these assignments an everyday occurrence. For the K-1 setting, it would be limited, but I would use websites like kidpicks to build their motor skills and computer ability and then hopefully get to the area of guided instruction in a simple discussion board.