About

Welcome!

This blog is made up of students, teachers, parents, and anyone else who wants to be a part of the Precalculus Functions course discussion.  We are from Mason, MI and this course is offered for students who intend on taking AP Calculus or who want a mathematical challenge.  

What is a blog?

Our blog is:

• a journal of what’s going on in our classroom

• a way to showcase what we're learning

• a place for students to individually express themselves (appropriately)

• a collection of links to other sites to support our learning

• a  place to talk about our learning with each other, our family and students around the world

How to Leave a Comment on Our Blog
Students, teachers, friends and family are encouraged to leave comments in our blog. In order to leave a comment just click the “Post a Comment” link after the piece of writing.  You’ll see a text field to type your comment.  You'll need to set-up a Blogger account through Google (student) if you want to post a comment or choose one of the other options in the drop down menu.  

For Parents...

Why educators use blogs

The main reasons why educators use blogs include:

• Share information and class news with parents, family and caregivers.
• Provide students with a way to access assignments, homework, resources and information about their class online.
• For global collaboration and authentic audience.
• To inspire and motivate students.

The benefits of class blogging include:

• Blogging opens up the possibilities of audience in new ways. When students are writing or publishing for an audience other the teacher, it impacts how they view what they doing and the intrinsic motivation they have.
• Students love seeing their work on the Internet and adore getting comments from people. It motivates them to write as it gives them an audience that is real.  The blog opens up a whole new world of people who can offer encouragement and feedback.
• The blogging experience forces the students to do more reflection on their learning and allows them to showcase products they have produced with online tools.
•  Blogging provides an authentic educational experience, where what they write is not only seen and commented on by their teacher, but by their peers and the “public.” For most students, it’s a bit of extra motivation knowing their peers will see their work.
• There is an authentic audience – a global audience – one that is willing to connect, share, challenge, discuss and communicate with classes. This audience can provide further information, opinions, suggest resources, seek answers to questions and so on which pushes blogging further.
• Blogging develops a learning network. Exercise books etc need not be pushed and crumpled in school lockers only to be placed in the rubbish bins at the end of the school year, but student work is out there for their school lives.

Benefits from class blogging summarized from The State of Educational blogging in 2012.

Six Reasons why kids should blog by Tina Barseghian

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