The subject, in a basic math/elementary algebra course, was
reviewing decimal computation through an applications approach. The idea,
which I was trying out for the first time, was to have each member of the
class access eBay (http://www.eBay.com) and answer a series of questions
about the bids.
For the uninitiated, eBay is the major auction on the Web. It
receives some 1.5 _BILLION_ hits a month, and nearly 3 million items are
for sale at any time. So the scope of the auction is mindboggling.
Incidentally, eBay was in the news a week or so ago for the
bidding on a human kidney, which was stopped by the police at which time
the highest bid was in the millions of dollars.
There was nothing special about the questions I posed, which tapped
the students' computational ability, number sense, and problem-solving
skills. Each person examined the sale of items in which they were
interested, and studied the pattern of bids, increments, amountof money
which they had after making pretended purchases, etc.
In a class of about 22, only 3 of the students had used the Web
before. None of them had ever seen a Web auction before. So the
experience offered value in fostering computer literacy
It was hard to get the students to leave after the class should
have ended. It's nice when things work (:-).
Geoffrey Akst
Title III/Mathematics Department
Manhattan Community College
199 Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007
(voice) 212/346-8530
(fax) 419/730-1127
(e-mail) akst@idt.net
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