Kids+These+Days

Kids these days, well I say kids, however, I am not much older than the generation of students I will be teaching. As a 21 year old, I am in tune to most of the gadgets and trinkets that most high school students are playing will. Kids these days are bombarded with various technologies that take their focus off of academics, such as mp3 players, cell phones, iPhones, etc. It is a constant daily battle to try and maintain students' attention for longer than 15 minutes without being interrupted by one of the above. I am hoping to try and incorporate some of the above into my classroom since //their// generation is also //my// generation. For example, when I am teaching the students about averages I could give the students a song choice in which they must listen to the song (on their iPod, MP3, or one I provide) and count how many times the singer/rapper/vocalist says the word "the" and have the students figure out the average per minute (or something to that effect). It is important to take the technologies of today and fuse them into our lessons instead of persist in this constant battle. Kids these days also want to do the least amount of work possible, yet still "earn" a passing grade. In knowing this, we must choose worthwhile tasks for our students. We must not bog them down with meaningless busy work. Students will sense this and be more apt to not complete the task at hand. If you are interested in what it looks like to create a "worthwhile mathematical task" check out the link. http://www.onlineguide.learnalberta.ca/content-og/mewa/html/other/posingworthwhile.html