blog it

I am sure it is just a coincidence that 'blog' is a four letter word with one vowel....

OK, then, now that we have that tidbit under our belts, here is what I thought about day 1.

I loved the factual info Joel presented today, but must confess I found some of the more philosophical claims by folks who were quoted less appealing. I always have have a hard time hearing how things could/should be when the common premise for some (at least) of the claims is based on an ideal learning environment.

The projects (getting comfortable enough using DYKNOW to effectively implement remote extra help sessions and enhancing exisitng Blackboard Notebook Journal notes by imbedding urls and MATHMATICA applets) seemed to be off to a reasonable start. The usual glitches and learning curve associated with any software aside, I was pleased to see that DYKNOW appears to be a soemthing I need to practice more than learn. While MATHMATICA has come a LONG way since I first encountered it years ago, I don't think fooling around with code in the lessons that have been created is in the works fir this week. However, there are some neat applets that will no doubt be helpful in Algebra 2 this year. At the very least, they will make graphing a lot more visual for students. The ability to incorporate lots of practice exercises (including but by no means limited to graphing) has real potential as well.

Amen