Introduction

     Hello all.  My name is David Singleton.  I’m 39 years old.  I have a 16 year old son and an 18 year old daughter.  I grew up as a military brat, and then later joined the service myself.  So, I've pretty much lived all over the country from coast to coast.  I enlisted in the Navy at 18 where I spent the next few years as a nuclear reactor operator.  When I left the navy I transferred my technical expertise to the communications industry working for companies like MCI Worldcom.  In 2008 I enlisted in the army where I spent the next four years, deploying once to Iraq.  I’m now investing in my future, studying to be a high school math teacher.  I’m currently scheduled to graduate Fall 2015.  When I’m not studying my tail off, I typically spend my free hours reading fiction - most genres.

     My vision of educational technology is somewhat cloudy at the moment.  I’m not entirely sure what types of software exist that could be incorporated into my classroom.  I consider myself very tech savvy - I built my last computer from the base components.  I use my smart phone daily, and own both an Ipad and Kindle. I’ve also take several computer science classes.   I tend to try and take what I’m learning and translate it to a high school math class, though, and I haven’t yet found a good application of technology.  I did a brief web search to see how others are using technologies in math classes.  The results I found were predominantly for grade school applications.  I understand the importance of our children becoming technologically fluent.  Basic word processing, spreadsheet, and database applications should be familiar and comfortable by the time they graduate.  Beyond familiarity with technology I’m not sure I’ve been exposed to enough to really have a good answer right now.

     All that being said, my goals for this class are to gain a better understanding of the tools available to me.  Since I'm going to be teaching high school math, I specifically would like to find out if there is any technological aids I can implement in secondary math classes.  When I went through high school 20 years ago, technology in math classes didn't exist.  The same typically has held true for my college classes as well.  The only tech I can think of being used is a smart board.  So I'd like to build on that and fill my teaching tool box with anything else instructors have found useful.