Challenged by Darren Draper’s video last year which we shared with our faculty, our math teacher, Bob Witowski took the challenge to try using cell phones constructively in the classroom(his second year at doing this assignment).
As I was driving into work this morning, I overheard on the radio a student calling in to ask the DJ’s to work an algebra problem, and suddenly realized that that it was a student from our high school in Bob’s class.
As soon as I got in, I went to the room and watched as students got text messages and calls from classrooms down the hall, as well as from other states. His other classes got answers from Iraq, Sydney, London, etc.
As you might guess, the DJ’s were raving about what a great assignment that was, and how great that a teacher was helping students be enthusiastic about math in such a real way.
Bob charted the calls by farthest away, and closest(some down the hallway), as well as charting them on a map for students.
And the students were clearly engaged, challenged to think outside the box in terms of mining their network, and seeing that math is a shared experience globally.
Thanks to Robin Ellis for answering my text query, also!
