Dear Parents and Gaurdians,
As many of you may be aware, the district has supported the implementation of Second Life into your childrens' classrooms. You may have received memos from other teachers thus far informing you of the implementation into their classrooms. While we fully support the use of Second Life in the classroom, unfortunately we will not be bringing it into our Integrated Algebra classroom this quarter. The math department feels that Second Life has not be developed quite enough for our uses. While there is a dedicated math and science area called Exploratorium, it is a bit basic for our needs. We would like to see a richer environment before we bring your children into it. However, over the course of winter break, a team of teachers will be researching more ways to integrate Second Life into our algebra classrooms and possibly developing our own area to illustrate the application of mathematics in the real world. We feel that Second Life has its merits and could be very useful to us in the future. We will work our hardest to find a suitable virtual math environment to aid the education of your children.
Thank you for your support and understand,
Ms. Kiernan,
on behalf of the High School Math Department
I agree with you that the math connections are somewhat basic. I felt like much of the Exploratorium is made up of very specific topics, which may not even cover an entire lesson. I think Second Life definitely has its place in a classroom, but I agree that it is not the best idea for a math classroom.
ReplyDeleteWow, I feel special. I found stuff that would actually be useful in the chemistry classroom. I guess math loses again. :(
ReplyDeleteI also like the way you handled the administration.
Good letter. You don't put anyone down for using it but you make your argument and leave options for the future. Nice job.
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