First Impressions of Class

Well, we are three classes into the intercession and I have to say that my first impressions are/were pretty accurate. Given the description of the class, I had a feeling that it would be different than most classes I have taken. The idea of doing everything electronically is quite agreeable with me as I like to think that I am environmentally conscious; not needing to print everything out is one less stress in my life (and realistically, we are in the 21st century eh? If we have the electronic resources and skills at our disposal to preserve our world's limited resources, why not?). I may be a bit of a hippie, having gone to college in the Pacific Northwest, but hey, I love the environment.

In terms of the content, I was very skeptical as a math teacher at how this class would be applicable to my own content area. I have been pleasantly surprised at some of my more recent explorations, however. One big resource that was not necessarily mentioned in class, but is "electronic community" - oriented is the use of list serves. Definitely not an island in the scheme of things, I have enjoyed joining particular list serves, one for general high school math teachers and one for calculus teachers, and obtaining years and years of expertise in the comfort of my own email box. I have come to realize that there are sooooo many blogs where mathematicians and even high school math students are discussing their work and helping each other out (in fact, another math teacher in my hallway flirted with the idea of having her kids upkeep a class blog the whole semester summarizing each day's work; seemingly impossible to her, I may have realized how easy this could be).

Lastly, I had a feeling this class would be a bit overwhelming...after all, having to cover a semester's worth of material in three weeks is a bit of an "information overload." But making our classrooms more oriented towards the growing electronic communities out there is of paramount importance. Particularly in Baltimore City, too many children get caught up in the smaller world of their city, even more specifically their neighborhoods, and either lose sight of or never had sight of a vision of being a citizen of the world. Why work with the limited resources you have in your community (you should use these after all, but why not go beyond that) when there is a plethora of resources just a click away?