Opinion Paper 2

How to Teach with Technology: Science and Math

When I read the title of this article, I immediately noticed the grouping of science and math. I teach eighth grade physical science which consists of physics and chemistry. These two areas incorporate much math, from formulas to word problems. Students in my advanced classes must be in the advanced math to be placed in my class due to the overwhelming amount of math included. Of course I am used to the age-old student response of “but this is science, not math.” I routinely have to remind them of the correlation between the two core subjects. I mention this to point out how I will not only use the science information from this article in my classes but also the math.
I liked this article because it opened my eyes to some technological ideas that I have yet to try. In the first couple of paragraphs two concerns were addressed with one science teacher’s project. In Bernard (2009) T. J. Fletcher had his students “conduct video interviews of local experts on a research topic of their choosing.” He addressed the issue of students not having video editing expertise, so he had others create tutorials for them. He also addressed the issue of available and sturdy cameras for his classroom. I liked the idea of having students do this video with two of my current projects that I do in my classroom…solar ovens and the Rube Goldberg project. Students could benefit from experts in these fields who use similar information in their everyday jobs.
I also found the article useful because when I visited some of the linked sites within the article, I found some interesting and useable material. I plan to use the Java Gaming site as a review at the end of chapters or units. The current movie idea for Newton’s laws of motion is also something I can work with in my science class when we study this. If I had an interactive whiteboard, such as a Smart Board, I would use that when teaching the math areas within my science units.

References
Bernard, S.(2009). How to Teach with Technology: Science and Math. Edutopia, Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-lesson-ideas.