My Thoughts This Morning

Earlier this week, I was sitting in on an honors Pre-Calculus class at Hardin Valley Academy and was amazed by the technology that was used in the Math classroom!  Before I came to UT, I had never seen smart boards used in the classroom, and up until this week, never in a Math classroom.  This teacher had prepared a presentation ahead of time, but during the lesson, she used the different color pens to solve the problems with the students and labeled each step in the coordinating color next to the problem.  She also had a program on her smart board that displayed a giant functioning graphing calculator on the board so students could see her typing in the problems on the calculator.  She then would drag the graph from the calculator screen into her presentation so a picture of the graph was next to the function.  At the conclusion of the lesson, she compiled the work she did on the smart board that day into a pdf that she uploaded to her course website.  This is just a few of the examples of the technology she used in her classroom, and it may not seem impressive to a teacher of any other subject, but I think in high school Mathematics it has not been very common for teachers to use any type of technology in their lessons.

On another note, I think Valentine's Day is a really lame holiday, and I don't even like chocolate.  Who really thinks that a good way to express love is by giving someone a bunch of sugary calories that will lead to obesity or diabetes?  Why do you have to wait for this one day to come around each year to show the people you love that you appreciate them anyways?  Why are stuffed animals considered children's toys 364 days of the year but are an acceptable gift for grown women on this day?  If you really want to show someone you love them, cook them a healthy meal that won't clog their arteries and go for a hike in the mountains.  Exercise is a wonderful gift--it says I like you enough to keep you healthy so you'll be around longer.