photo journal blogging

In a future lifetime I would love to a wildlife or travel photographer; never mind the fact that I have never taken a photography class and can't work a real camera.

Kids are into technology and cells phones and taking pictures of EVERYTHING these days. I wracked my brain trying to figure out how to work this into a learning environment. Finally in a flash of coherence and brain synapses it came to me!

For each SOL topic we cover in 6th grade, have students go out into the real world and find something they can take a picture of that relates. Then they can upload the picture and explain in a paragraph post how the picture relates to the math. This idea means they will have to reflect how their math can be used outside the classroom. It also gives them a reason to use technology for school.

My hope is that this will open students up to new career ideas and college choices they never would have considered before because "math is boring".

Over the summer

During the summer semester I created a lesson asking students to do something similar to the international grocery price activity. Each participating class would have been posting a page to a website about class size, diversity, supplies etc. Being able to do this with Web 2.0 would be even more ideal. Teachers is classrooms all over the world could start math blogs that are easily updated and followed.

Students could take turn writing a blog and posting about a classroom experience they wanted to share with all their followers and it could turn into a bloggin pen pal situation with comments.

Podcasts

The only podcast I listen to is not at all educational or appropriate, however it is entertaining and keeps me up to date on news from my home town. The radio show that I listen to has helped me think of podcasts in different ways. There are formal podcasts, discussion, interviews, etc... Sixth graders would have a great time creating interviews or doing discussions, they cannot be serious enough for formal podcasts and I wouldn't want them to be!

I envision having them pick one of our SOLs and discover the "founder".
They will research the topic and find the person responsible for discovering it. Then they would research the person and conduct an interview about the person's life and how their math is useful today. So not only are they discovering the history they are also searching for real world connections. I think I am going to develop this idea into my podcast lesson plan for class! Not often I get good ideas :)