Submitted by:
Cindy Carlson
Teacher
Math Department
Kearney High School
3610 Ave. 6
Kearney, NE 68847 USA
v: (308) 234-1720
e: ccarlson@nde.unl.edu
Categories:
Education, K12
Keywords:
Innovative or improved ways of doing things
Supporting Documentation (contact author for more information):
Documentation
The Story:
I teach math at Kearney High School, Kearney, NE and I have been using telecommunications, i.e.. Internet, quite extensively in my classes. In particular, I have been using Internet in a class labeled Consumer Math. This class is comprised of kids for whom the phrase “students at risk” was coined. The main objective of telecomputing in this class is to keep the students interested and to keep them in attendance.
These students have been actively corresponding with other students from across the US as well as from places as far away as Korea, fin land, Japan and Australia. Being a consumer class, incorporating specific objectives of the course has been quite simple since everyone, no matter where they are in the world, is a consumer. Of course, dialog has not been just about simple price comparisons and in some instances has become quite personal between writers, but the interest of these students has grown tremendously. Not only have they gained knowledge of other parts of the world but their writing skills have improved and most importantly, they have shown enthusiasm towards something good and worthwhile.
Since the beginning f second semester, I have not incorporated telecomputing in my consumer math class. There are two main reasons for this:
- My class doubled in size at semester and we do not have the facilities to accommodate that number of students in the telecomputing.
- It has become nearly impossible to access Internet within a reasonable time and at a reasonable time of the day. I do have access to a local number at Kearney, but because of the system set-up I do most of my work at home on my own PC and it is long- distance to utilize the Kearney number.
Occasionally, I present math problems taken from BB and data bases to my accounting classes, but I hope to be able to telecomute again with my consumer kids.