When I recently did an M&M lab with my 8th Grade Math students, which was part of a lesson about changing between decimals, fractions, and percents, I thought about some of Bruce's comments to me after my presentation last Friday night. He acknowledged the challenge that math teachers face with developing good technology-based lessons, and mentioned that the best math lesson he ever personally witnessed did not make use of any modern technology whatsoever (I believed it involved doing geometry constructions). I feel that my M&M lab was a huge success, and it didn't involve any computers. I think it was the use of manipulatives (better yet- edible manipulatives), the experience of students collecting their own data, and they way they got to work in groups that made this lesson go so well. Although I am trying to think of more ways to integrate techonology into my exisiting lessons, I think this is one that is best kept as is. If we did something similar to this on computers, students would not be as excited because they would not get to EAT the M&M's at the end of the lab. I also feel that they benefit from actually touching, sorting, and counting the M&M's to collect and analyze their data.

I took some pictures of the students doing this lab on my cell phone, and and am trying to to figure out how to get them from my phone to my computer. I don't have pay for any mobile web useage in my phone plan, so I am not sure if I will be able to get the pictures to my computer without a cord (which I do not have). I tried using bluetooth, and even though my cell phone and laptop apparently read each ohter, it will not let me tranfer any files.  So much for adding pictures!