Our thanks to Dr. Garofalo for speaking to us about this fascinating application of technology in mathematics teacher education. To help carry-on the discussion on this blog, I pose the following questions:

• Why were students able to understand math better using these software applications than with more traditional methods?
• What was it about the technology that facilitated the learning, beyond improved math pedagogy?

We had discussed this a bit during the Colloquium, but now that we’ve had more time to think about it, perhaps some of you have more to say.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their input during the IT Colloquium earlier today. Your feedback, suggestions, and comments helped to provide a stimulating and engaging conversation about early childhood education and, more specifically, the MyTeachingPartner project. I’d like to invite everyone to continue our discussion about ECE, furthering our conversation via the blog below. I’ll get the ball rolling by presenting the last question that we did not get a chance to thoroughly discuss during class.

Here is the question: What are some of the main obstacles (holes in our boat, if you will) that you think the project team may encounter when implementing the MTP project into the classroom?

It may also be easier to initiate the conversation by trying to contextualize some of the topics that we’ve already discussed in class ( i.e., standards, assessment, technology, professional development concerns) as potential speed bumps to the project. Or you may have an idea or topic that you’d like to discuss that was not covered in the discussion already. Blog away!