MathsClass

In 2009, Year 9 got their DER netbooks and now they are in Year 10. This year’s Year 9 does not have their netbooks yet, and so this gives teachers a little time to get their heads around the inclusion of netbooks into the classroom. This year, I’m teaching a 5.2 pathway Year 10 class (and a Year 9 5.2 class).

For NSW DET teachers, I’m sure you know of TaLe, and hopefully have seen some of the resources for the DER that have been published there. One category of resources has been called Laptop Wraps (they are also available publicly).

I just posted on my personal blog about how I use the web, looking at how the various technologies (RSS) and tools (Google Reader, Delicious, Twitter) fit together.

Reading blogs and networking on Twitter seem an obvious part of being a teacher. Yet when I take in to school a shiny new resource that I’ve received through one of these means, I usually get asked “where did you find this?”. The person behind the question is often thinking that I spend copious hours sitting at home in front of a computer “web surfing” or trying endless combinations of search terms in Google.

Some chocolate discussion starters for looking at bar graphs: a series of chocolate bar graphs.

Despite every Year 9 student having a laptop for a few weeks, the topics we’ve been covering haven’t lent themselves to full laptop lessons. To end the term, though, we’re reviewing graphs.

A lesson for Year 9 students with DER laptops, or anyone really.

I think that each student using a netbook/laptop in your class presents some slightly different issues in Maths.

This is an amusing video to introduce probability… some of my Year 8s found it hilarious.

As I mentioned, the DER roll-out hit my classroom as we were in the midst of Algebra. Due to a tight program and exams shortly, I had to stick with a couple of topics which don’t really allow for “play” on the laptops as much as I would have liked.

A lot of the Algebra taught at the Stage 4 level is technique, and so matching activities work particularly well to practise and review skills.

Here’s a review of some of the ways I’ve found to make matching activities for use on the laptops.

Not really maths related, but handy if you’re looking at a web-site that will be used on a Netbook.

Week 1 is over, and I need to reflect on what happen when I introduced laptops into my classroom.

A Digital Education Revolution (DER) laptop in the hands of all Year 9 students changes everything… or does it?

Year 9 got their DER netbooks just before the end of Term 3. The first week of Term 4 will be the first time they have them in class, so I wanted to start term with some introductory activities, with a Maths focus.

This post is a work in progress, check back for updates.

20 Oct 2009: Go to update

Brad Bennett, a student at a NSW DET Public High School, has made a site called DERNSW Tutorials – Tutorials for students and teachers using NSWDER laptops.