Re: Introduction
Suzanne Alejandre (salejan@e2.empirenet.com)
Tue, 1 Apr 1997 08:55:13 -0800
Good morning, Don,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to all of my questions! I
am in a real reading mode...so...no, I did not slip into my frenetic
method for reading the newspaper! :) I thoroughly enjoyed reading
about you and your project. In reading it
(1) I started thinking (of course) of what I have done at my site
successfully with technology
and
(2) I started thinking of how we (the library media specialist
and I and others) can use your experiences to improve!
So, you see, your time was well spent!
The most important point that I feel I got in reading your story is
that change takes time and must come in small doses. If we work to
change using projects that we truly believe in with small groups of
people to learn with as we are working....then with time those
projects will be picked up by others and we will have started the
ripple or the wave :) !
A lot of the work that I have done as the computer teacher at
my school has not really filtered out in to the curriculum as
I had hoped....maybe because of the failure on my part to really
work with the teachers. I had the hope that by working with the
students and giving them skills in creating projects with HyperCard
that the teachers would then encourage the students to use HyperCard
as an option for reports and such....but....it just hasn't happened.
IF our library media specialist, however, took up the task and
served as the intermediary (since he does not have assigned classes)
then....maybe we might get farther. Both he and I have already started
talking about possible projects. This is his first year as a library
media specialist and he has already managed to get a mini lab going
so....we have great prospects! It is exciting.
In my other life, however, as a Math Forum Teacher Associate :)
I think the pages that I have written at the Math Forum are serving
that purpose...that is to say...they are having a ripple effect.
I say this based on the email that I get from teachers and students
all over! ...and that is probably why I am campaigning to teach
more math next year. Teaching one section of Math 8 this year has
been wonderful because everything that I do for the Math Forum
is reinforced as I am teaching mathematics and vice versa! It is a
fun combination.
Yesterday I got this message out of the blue:
_______________________
>Hi--My name is Jen. I am in 9th grade and I am doing a project on
>Polyhedra. I found it very helpful to read what other students had to
>say on the subject, and I want to thank you for thinking of all the
>people it would help doing so. Thanks again, and it was a great idea.
>---Jen
_______________________
Actually I wrote the Polyhedra pages
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/alejandre/workshops/unit14.html
to use with my own math students...and it also was an easy way for me
to remember what I had done for that unit this year so that I could build
on it next year! I still have Units 15 (on distance, time and rate),
Unit 16 (on patterns) and Unit 17 (on fractals) to write this summer.
Another message I got a few days ago came from a teacher who I have
been corresponding with for quite awhile - in fact she was the first
teacher who asked if I would display her students' work in the
Tessellation Tutorial pages! Anyway, she had asked me earlier to
explain fractals to her and after lots of conversation of that topic
she asked me this:
_______________________
>Here's another thought....what's the relationship of a Kaleidescope to
>geometry? more tessellated or a fractal? or no relationship at all?
>
>Just wondering?
_______________________
What I find really neat is that she is such a LEARNER! She is brave
to ask such questions and I love trying to figure out an answer! I
went surfing and found out all kinds of things about kaleidoscopes
that I would never have found out about if she hadn't asked me. Silly
is that she thinks I might know the answer! I always remind her that
I haven't the foggiest...but...I will see what is out there and then
give her my opinion. It is that feeling of learning together that
is so fun....and a good model for me to use with my students!
One last message to share is one from a high school teacher who last
month wrote to me (again out of the blue) to ask how her students
could post Student Samples on the Tessellation Tutorials pages
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/sum95/suzanne/tess.intro.html
and now that we have started this was her latest message:
_______________________
>Suzanne,
>I can't wait to get back to school to show my students their published work!
>I may have to email a few of them to let them know early. I'll send you
>more tomorrow, I have to run into school to get some of their disks.
>Ann Bergen
_______________________
Very fun!
Hopefully this, too, is not more than you wanted to know! We will have
a great starting point to continue our discussions in Pittsburgh.
And.....Yes, I am very interested in learning more about your specific
project!
Sincerely,
Suzanne