Summary: On Monday of this week I have a great honor of helping open this year’s Nebraska Association of teachers of mathematics conference in Kearney, Nebraska. I have to admit that I was more than all little nervous about standing in front of all those mathematics teachers. I have delivered lots of presentations and speeches before and I’m actually pretty good with math and I have always had wonderful math teachers. But, there’s something about math teachers that makes me nervous. I think it’s that I know how logical and smart they are. Math teachers don’t get caught up in all hype. So, I was nervous. What a relief it what is when I saw 200 plus smiling faces that seemed to be interested in what I had to say. My presentation was focused on making a connection about the potential of podcasting to enhance the experience of mathematics educators and mathematics students. After all, isn’t that what were really about? We don’t do what we do just for the sake of technology. We don’t spend hours producing, podcasts just to prove that we can do it. We are all working to find you applications for podcasting because we believe they can enhance the experience the student. I believe that when students create authentic products like podcasts, they’re getting a taste of what is like to be a creative professional. They’re exploring their voices, their ideas, and their understandings in order to fulfill and outside mission. I will admit that when I first learned about podcasting, math wasn’t the first subject I thought about. My mind actually went toward social studies, language arts, foreign language, business education, music, and even science. But math? As it turns out, there are whole lot of applications for podcasting in mathematics. One of the most exciting applications that we talked about was the use of a professional organization like NATM as a network of professionals who are all pulling together their best practice and their best ideas into a single channel as a distributed professional development channel. Another idea that I shared with the group was the idea of using smart board technology as basis of a video podcast. Smart boards allow teachers to record both their voice and writing on a smartboard as a movie. This approach will allow teachers to share the steps required to solve a problem or given the opportunity to describe a concept in both of verbal and a visual way. We also considered student created podcasts including examples of sports shows with a statistics focus, math exposés, math quiz shows, and podcast dramas with a math focus. I even got to meet one of our podcast drama winners from last spring, Angela Mosier of Westside Middle School in Omaha, Nebraska. Her students had produced a great set of podcast dramas that illustrated scientific notation and exponents. All in all, I’d calculate the day to be both productive and fun. :)
