Jessica Michaelson
SLM 521
Using Key Pals and E-Pals in the Classroom
This
site contains ideas of how to use key pals and e-pals within a math classroom
for ages 5-10.
Teachers
can pick the activities that are most appropriate for the grade level that they
are teaching math to.
Activity #1
·
During the
first week or so of school, have a speaker come in from the community who uses
math constantly in their everyday job.
For example, a banker, a statistical analyst, or even a math teacher
from another school.
·
Have this
person discuss why math is so important, and why students would need this in
their everyday lives.
·
The person
can give out their email address, and become the class mathematician, who the
students can email complex math questions to throughout the year.
Activity #2
·
Become e-pals
with a class in another school. If you
are an intermediate class, team up with a primary class and vice versa.
·
Each student
gets their own partner in the other class.
·
Each week,
maybe more, students can email or IM each other with questions on basic facts
that must be answered that day. The
person must than check the answers and email their pal back with corrections,
and some sort of positive feedback.
Activity
#3
·
Partner up
with a class on the other side of the country or globe.
·
Each day,
email back and fourth one aspect of everyday life. For example, weather, how many students came
to school that day, etc.
·
Each week,
each class can be responsible for creating a different graph to display the
same data.
·
The graphs can be sent to each
other, and students can email comparisons between the two graphs from the two
different schools.
Activity
#4
·
Have one of the
classes monitor a school wide math initiative.
·
Have the
class set up an e-mail site
·
Each week,
they can email a problem to each class/grade level.
·
The classes
can then email back their responses, either as a class, or individually.
·
The class in
charge can keep track of how many correct answers are given.
·
The first
class to answer a certain amount of questions correctly can get some type of
prize.
Activity
#5
·
Have the
older students search around on “kid safe” search engines.
·
Encourage
them to write down sites and what they are about.
·
Next,
students can come up with an interactive scavenger hunt for younger students.
·
They can
suggest sites to go to, and ask them to find the amount of each item. For example, count how many plus signs you
see on an addition site.
·
Once the
scavenger hunt is done, the older students can review it, and give some type of
ribbon or award to the student that did the best searching.
Sites That are Easy to
Navigate and Find Ideas From
This site allows students below
the age of 18, (mostly) to ask questions about math. Dr. Math is very clear, that he is there to
not do homework, but simply to help. He
also allows students to browse through already asked questions for additional
advice. Date visited:
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/ask/
This site allows teacher
to find other classes around the world to communicate and do projects
with. It also gives link to newsletters,
games, and information on other relevant school topics. Date visited:
http://www.schoolworld.asn.au/keypals.html