Week 11 Seymour Papert

Seymour Papert is not only a mathematician, but also an expert on helping children learn to work with computers and was the first to recognize how computers could revolutionize learning and education."Seymour Papert is rethinking how schools should work based on constructionist theories of learning. He also focuses on the impact of new technologies on learning in general and schools as a learning organization in particular.
He co-founded the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He invented the Logo Programing Language. It can be used to teach computer science concepts. Mr. Papert states, "as long as schools confine the technology to simply improving what they are doing rather than really changing the system, nothing very significant will happen." This is what Papert says about the way classrooms should change today, "Well I think that about 90 per cent of what we teach in mathematics in schoolrooms I’d throw out, it’s not really of any use in the modern world. Some of it was useful in an ancient world, like the 19th century or maybe the early 20th century and some of it was only useful as the way you could get kids to adopt a certain mathematical way of thinking when all you had to work with was pencil and paper. Think about the stuff that kids learn, knowing that a third is less than a half yeah that’s important, but everybody who’s worked in a kitchen knows that." To see on more on this recent interview, visit the website at http://www.abc.net.au/sundayprofile/stories/s1144341.htm.

iPods Classroom Instruction

A rural Georgia school is using iPods to enhance education. More than 100 of the school's staff members use the digital music and video players as an education tool. This school is doing more than just downloading the class lectures to these iPods. One history teacher asks the students to download films to their devices so she can decrease the amount of unnecessary time in the classroom. They also use it as a way of catching up on missed classes. Here is the site http://ipod.gcsu.edu/zzzzMedia/Press_Articles/eSchoolNewsOnline001.pdf
Recent trends suggest that students have developed a fascination with iPods . The use of iPods allow teachers and students to create audio and video material. The combination of these two technologies has prompted a greater interest in learning than could have ever been expected. A school in Waco, TX is circulating iPods loaded with the course reserves for music classes. A music and fine arts librarian, notes that, "with the iPods, students can listen while walking between classes or at other times when being in the library or logged on to a computer would not be possible. Every iPod (40GB 4GL models) has all of the audio reserves for all of the music classes for the entire semester..."

Spreadsheets in the classroom

In Maryland, one school is using spreadsheets in the mathematics courses. They are hoping that the use of spreadsheets will meet certain goals. The one goal that I was interested in was the use of spreadsheets in order to replace graphing calculators. Another goal that was interesting to me was "Mathematics for Elementary School Teachers courses with spreadsheets and instruction on developing spreadsheets." The last goal that I liked was to be able to "upload all video to the Internet and copy all video for each course onto CD's for every student enrolled in each course."
Another website I found was http://futureofmath.misterteacher.com/spreadsheets.html. It informs the readers about the future potential of using spreadsheets to advance mathematics. The site defines spreadsheet as "Spreadsheet programs can be used to make calculations, organize data, make charts, and much more." And then it goes in to telling the readers how to use spreadsheets in the classroom, with the most common use being to organize data and create charts and graphs.