Over the past six months or so, I have, as Ianqui describes it, been trying to reduce the size of my footprint on the earth. I started by reducing my speed to 55 mph on the expressway. (Yes, I am the annoying slow lady in the right hand lane.) I've also been turning off the lights when I leave a room. I got out of the habit of this after leaving home: I hate dim lighting, and so long as electricity is cheap, I figured I would leave my rooms brightened. I need to buy bulk more often. I try not to buy my daughter many toys, and the ones that I do buy tend toward the wooden heirloom rather than the plastic Playskool.
So my dilemma is this: I am teaching a mathematics course this quarter. Hence no digital presentations. Those of you who teach math understand why. But I really really hate chalk dust. I mean I really hate it. Instead, I use vis-a-vis markers and write-on transparencies. Do I wash and recycle my transparencies or just pitch them?
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
you know, now that I think of it, I think all of my high school math teachers used markers and transparencies to teach with. And i believe they all washed and reused them. So I would say yes to that.
I also try to subscribe to the "less is more" approach to consumption for various reasons. But, I would also be blowing past you on the highway, so you may take this for what it is worth.
Transparencies? Are you going to do that course again any time soon? Use those endless transparency-rolls and you'll never have to write again, using that transparency.
(I personally don't like transparencies, but that's a matter of style presumably)
I'm not sure buying another toy will lower your footprint, but last year I purchased a Tablet PC. I've never lectured with it (I hate chalk, but my university has all whiteboards, except those recalcitrant mathematicians who won't give up their chalk!) However, you could use it with a computer projector and write on the "notepad." There are some added bonuses here -- you've got color pens, and you've got an electronic copy of exactly what you did in lecture.
I've loved the tablet PC since it puts all my handwritten notes in one place, instead of the 20 notepads scattered around the office. But I've never lectured from it, except that dreaded Powerpoint at conferences (I'll never lecture with it).
Check out "Motion Computing" - one of the few CPU companies that specialize in this kind of computer.
We can sympathize with the footprint issue. A few more things. Compost. We also refuse to water our lawn, in fact, my wife dug up most of the front lawn this year (by shovel!) and has relandscaped it with mulch and plants. We also only flush the toilet when someone goes "#2" except when it smells or people are visiting -- it seems to bother some people, like my mother.
Can you find dry erase markers that are fine-tipped enough for your writing preference? Should make it easier to clean the transparencies.
Advantage of transparencies: you get to keep an eye on the class.
martin, the reason why you (I) couldn't reuse the roll is the same reason why I can't use a digital presentation. Math really needs to be written out. I can't justify that, but maybe another math teacher can.
vito, I use beamer for my other classes. I love it. Writing on the glass is an interesting alternative, but you're sort of screwed when a student says, "Could you go back to that last transparency?"
professor staff, I've thought about a tablet. I'll look into it. We compost too, and our lawn is going next year.
Becky, I think your suggestion is the simplest to implement immediately. I'll have to hunt down something finer than the vis-a-vis markers.
Sell the transparencies to students who want hard copies of the slides but don't want to copy them down themselves. Or give them to Kinkos to bind/make your own note slides. Then you don't have to deal with it, and you've given the lazy students one less thing to whine about.
Nothing beats a good chalkboard math talk for sheer artistry, but I agree that the dust is really irritating.
Do your classroom OHPs have those endless rolls? I know that at my Uni those are periodically changed and cleaned by the AV staff. They have a specialized washing machine. It is probably not the greenest process, but you have to weigh that against you buying more slides, cleaning them yourself somehow, etc.
Kith, but not kin, to the subject at hand.
You could replace your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. (My wife, also, really likes brightly lit rooms.) With cf bulbs, she can have a lot of lumens with only about a fifth of the wattage being used. You could consider this to be a your own little EPA "trade-off" program and pitch the old trasparencies with a clear conscience.
Well, you could leave a portable whiteboard in the classroom...But those things don't usually stay around if they're not pinned down. So then I guess the wiping off of transparencies is your best, and perhaps only, option.
And I appreciate that you're doing your part...
I use chalk (or whiteboard, depending on what's in the room) for most things, but transparencies for some things, especially when I will use the same basic information again and again, and also want to be able to take notes on them. My department can copy stuff (like my typed text) onto the transparency, and then I can use colored pens to write other stuff.
They're only a little messy to wash, and the typed stuff seems to stay on for at least several years.
The one change I would make is to put the typed stuff in a bigger font.
Perhaps the combo would work for math, at least when you're doing the same basic kind of equations as you move through the term?
Post a Comment