I enjoy using manipulatives during math lessons. The students are engaged and think it is fun. They do not realize how many connections they are making and that they are developing a deeper understanding of math. Unfortunately, the problem comes when there are not enough manipulatives in the classrom. When I taught elementary school, this was a problem for me. I had to use manipulatives in center activities, or I had to have students work with partners. That was fine; however, there are some students who will sit idle while the other partner does all of the work. When I use manipulatives in middle school, I have not encountered the problem of not having enough. We have large manipulative kits with 20-25 sets in each; however, most of the teachers do not touch these kits, so I have two in my classroom. So far this year, I have used fraction bars, unifix cubes, and base-10 blocks from the kit. I have upcoming units planned that use geoboards and tangrams. There is a set of algeblocks for each student in my kit, but I am not familiar enough with these to use them. I personally have a set of pattern blocks at home; I enjoy making designs on the coffee table with them.
As for the second abstract, I will be comparing Mac versus PC laptops. This should yeild much more information than software. It is also a topic that will be useful to all of us for school and home purposes.
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