Animation

I'll admit it--I grew up watching and loving the Disney movies--and thoroughly enjoy Pixar films, Futurama, and other animated offerings.  I admit it--as film mediums, they are amazing, and a great source of entertainment.  For education, however, I'll be the first to admit that I don't really like them.  Perhaps its because too many websites seem to go overboard on their animations--and I've never seen a good one to help teach mathematics.

My third year of teaching, we piloted using a self-paced remedial math program that was designed around having each student help teach a purple alien mathematics.  While the program was mostly marketed to Elementary and Middle school-aged children, we were told it was appropriate for "early High School" students as well.  To a student, within three weeks, each student in our test group complained that the program was "juvenile," "silly," and/or "baby-ish."  Even though they legitimately needed the help the program would provide around the mathematics, they weren't willing to deal with the animated alien interface to get to the practice--and I can't blame them.

One of my pet peeve websites is www.coolmath.com.  When I first started using this website for enrichment and practice with students, it was a kaliedoscopic carnival of colors, flashing icons, and a custom cursor.  While it's been toned down a fair amount, it's sill not anywhere near a pleasant site to look at.  I guess my overexposure to bad animations--those "oh, look at me--I can create moving flashing lights!" sorts of interfaces has blinded me to any kinds of good animation on the web.  I'm still looking--but especially in thinking about working with high school age students and up, I wonder whether animation is ever more effective than live video.

Math TV

I'll admit it--I used this website, http://www.mathtv.com/, frequently in the classroom.  There's an amazing amount of work here that's been done not only creating individual videos aligned to specific topics AND specific question types...but also to create multiple solutions!  It's one of the things I love about math--while there may be a "standard process," there's almost always more than one correct way to solve a problem.  And by showing multiple solution strategies to students--that come from somewhere other than just me--I can help to highlight that facet of mathematics for them.  True, it often leads to someone someday using it as justification for an incorrect solution or one that only works by happenstance...but that just lets me discuss the difference between "multiple correct solutions" and "every solution is correct."  Ah, the nuances of mathematics!  I had a few students enjoy this website so much that they wanted to create their own version--unfortunately something that never quite took off--and others who developed favorite video creators who they'd try to find anytime they needed help.  While it wasn't always the first way I showed a student how to do something mathematically, this has been a fabulous resource for me.

Warning: Digital Natives?

I'm tired of hearing people say, "Students know how to use technology." I am!  While there are a multitude of statistics that imply that young adults--really anyone born after about 1980--use (and love) technology, too many individuals and organizations use this as a blanket statement.  It may be the majority of individuals--but I'd be hard pressed to agree that it was everyone.

For me, it's extremely dangerous to assume that because of someone's age, they are intuitively capable--or even interested--in technology.  Although many studies indicate that "digital natives" are more likely to be users of technology, the ways in which they are using technologies can be very different than the academic uses.  Being able to text and update Facebook, for example, are important skills for communicating--but often decidedly unhelpful when it comes to academic assignments.  No professor or teacher that I know would accept a formal essay written in texting style.  These differences between formal and informal uses of technology can often be barriers to learning with technology.  Identifying--and explicitly instructing on these issues--is often key in helping "digital natives" become successful in using technology in academic, and even career applications.

With each of these videos, I was instinctively apprehensive about the implicit conclusion that current students need to be taught with technology.  There are too many ways that technology can be used as a band-aid, rather than in appropriate pedagogical ways.  Videos like these--and indeed Prensky-ism in general--seems to be used as evidence that any technology is good technology.  And for me, using technology badly is worse than not using it at all.