bigmaggie

[bigmaggie]

BA in Math with physics minor
BS in Science Teaching (Primary area math, supporting area physics)

1 year experience teaching math at a state 2-year technical college

2 years experience teaching math at an inner city charter school that operated under the "Accelerated School" model. At this school I used interactive, tablet PC based digital "blackboard" program, called Dyknow. Through this I gained understanding of some effective uses of digital media and interactive technology in the classroom. I became the "resident Dyknow expert" at this school, teaching other teachers how to apply the technology to their classes. I had a bit of a "leg up" on the other faculty, because by coincidence, the technology was developed at the college I attended, while I was attending, by a professor I was acquainted with and with the help of several students I was friends with. This technology also has interesting applications to distance learning.

1 year experience teaching high school physics at a large suburban high school (this is my current position, the start of my 2nd year teaching physics). In my first year at this school I experimented with using Myspace as a means of motivating and connecting with my students. I have a Myspace page that I maintain for my students. Through it I have been able to encourage outside, independent learning by my students through various contests. (Students that answer my challenge questions get a spot on my top friends. Amazingly, this prize, worth nothing in the "real world", is sufficient to motivate many students, who are not necessarily naturally inclined toward the study of science, to spend some of their free time researching different content related questions.) I have also found Myspace to be an effective way to: allow students with course related questions to contact me outside of school hours, inform students of course related information, share digital content developed by students in one class with all my other classes, and generally get to know my students better. I have students who use myspace in some very interesting and sophisticated ways. For example: one student who is an aspiring writer who as "published" portions of the books he as written on myspace to share with his friends, several students who use the high school's forums on myspace to engage in interesting political debates and discussions, and several students who have a myspace page where they share short films they have created.

My main interests, in relation to this grant competition, are in the pedagogical applications and implications of digital media and social networking sites. It has been fascinating to teach those in the first generation of "native" internet users. For my generation the "language" of the internet is a second language that we started to pick up in high school and college and the internet as a whole is a foreign country, one that we've lived in for some time and become quite accustomed to, but still somewhat foreign none-the-less. For kids today, this is their native environment, and the "language" of the internet is a primary language for them. Finding ways to tap into and further develop this fluency that our students have now, is, I think, a paramount task for educators today.