Every week, I will be posting at least one post with my top "Finds of the Week." These could be websites for use in your classroom that have been passed on through my Professional Learning Network (PLN), submitted by fellow teachers at school, or found at a conference. There might be articles with a best practice or suggestions for things that work to help raise the level of thinking in your classrooms.
1. Algebra Lab - This is a site for the math people. This link will take you to a collection of sample math problems for both you and your students to use. It allows for students to try out problems of various skill levels. If you click on "Absolute Value," you will notice it gives sample problems at both the Algebra I and Algebra II level. Provide a direct link for your students to go and practice. When completed, some of the problem sets will even get some feedback.
Beyond the sample problems, you will also notice that there are connections to lessons for the topics, as well as a breakdown of careers that use math and word problems that could be transformed into open ended questions.
Areas of use: Math, science
2. Trebuchet Challenge - This is an interactive web applet that allows for some trial and error in an exploration of how a trebuchet works. Students can apply what they know about projectile motion, potential energy, kinetic energy, and gravity to adjust the distance, power, and accuracy of a trebuchet. Points are tallied on the activity. Have students take and submit a screenshot of their best scores as a competition.
Areas of use: Science, math, world history
3. Penn Manor Blog Site - Have you thought about using blogging in your classroom? Take a look at how Penn Manor High School in Millersville, PA is using blogging with their students to get them to increase their critical thinking and writing skills. There are many blogging platforms out there for use. Penn Manor hosts their own using WordPress. This blog is hosted through Google's blogging service Blogger. If you are thinking of using blogging, set up a meeting with me and we can discuss options.
Areas of use: Writing across the curriculum
4. White House Speeches on iTunes - While it is true that the White House has its own YouTube channel, it is difficult for schools to easily get to the channel, depending on filtering protocols from district to district. In our school, YouTube is blocked. There are still other ways to obtain the videos from YouTube, but I don't see any way that's as easy as going to iTunes and either showing a given speech, subscribing to the feed, or just downloading particular speeches. The 2010 State of the Union address is up. So is President Obama's Inaugural Speech. What better way to get your students more connected to politics?
Areas of use: Social Studies, speech
5. Noteflight - Here's a great one for the music theory classes, or even for anyone who would like to try their hand at writing some music. It takes a little bit of working with to get down how the interface works, but once you get it down, you can be writing your own sheet music (and hearing it!) in minutes!
Areas of use: Music
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
7.02.2008
On the Shoulders of Technology
As I walked into this session, the presenter Frank Sobierajski had a video of a first date between and pi, which was interesting. He then showed us how he modeled a problem using Geometer's Sketchpad, where you could determine the minimum and maximum distance to place drinks on the edge of a pool, where the distance is determined on where the two friends are in the pool. It was quite neat.
Frank talked about how he was going to show us many interesting things that we may not know. He begins by showing how to create a scroll bar to adjust values in cells in Excel. He mentions that most of what he is showing he learned by playing around, including noticing that if you change the b value in a standard form equation, the vertex traces another parabola! There are many uses of sliders in Excel. He also shows how they can be used with functions to compare graphs.
He next moves into Geometer's Sketchpad and show sliders as well. This is truly amazing stuff. He started from scratch and ended up with sliders that graph a line in slope-intercept form.
Moving on to Word, we look at putting a grid in and make a triangle in it. In the end, we will have a fractal. From there, he follows the 3 r's of fractals: Reduce, replicate, repeat. Back in Sketchpad, he moves to Sierpinski's Triangle. He breezes through creating it, and it's flooring me. This is such a great constructivist session. With tools like this, you can definitely imagine having more explorations into fractals in today's classrooms. I am so glad that Frank says that we're going to get this information at the end of the session.
I'm sitting next to Pat from West Shore (he didn't even see me when he sat down), and we're constantly turning to each other and saying "Wow!" I wonder how many non-math teachers are in this session. It would be great to get their reactions.
Next is The Chaos Game, back in Excel. Basically, you plot three points to form a triangle. Then, generate (randomly) a fourth point, then plot points that are between there, finding out that if you plot enough points, you see Sierpinski's again.
Next, we see stop signs in Sketchpad. Starting with a square, give the students a chance to turn it into a stop sign, letting them explore how to do so, without previous knowledge of the details.
Moving on, we see finding the angle of descent on Millennium Force, again with Sketchpad. Following that, we see some interesting signing in hotels, schools, and hospitals. Who does this? Obviously not mathematicians!
Next, we see great ways to include photography into math lessons. Take pictures of water coming out of hoses or water fountains and have kids fit curves to it. You can even do it with so many everyday objects and apply so many different mathematical concepts to them. Why don't we all do more of this? If you want to talk about getting the real-world connections for your students, this is how.
Another way to use photography in a math class is to have a scavenger hunt having kids find cases of math in their world. Logos also have many interesting mathematical characteristics, as well.
In the end, Frank gave us a handout with an email address to access to access his content from today. Send an email to fsobierajski@nrwcs.org with subject necc08, and an instant response will be sent to allow you to access the info.
If you know anyone who wants to include more technology in their mathematics, or even if you just want to wow some friends or colleagues, check out his material. You'll see what I mean.
Frank talked about how he was going to show us many interesting things that we may not know. He begins by showing how to create a scroll bar to adjust values in cells in Excel. He mentions that most of what he is showing he learned by playing around, including noticing that if you change the b value in a standard form equation, the vertex traces another parabola! There are many uses of sliders in Excel. He also shows how they can be used with functions to compare graphs.
He next moves into Geometer's Sketchpad and show sliders as well. This is truly amazing stuff. He started from scratch and ended up with sliders that graph a line in slope-intercept form.
Moving on to Word, we look at putting a grid in and make a triangle in it. In the end, we will have a fractal. From there, he follows the 3 r's of fractals: Reduce, replicate, repeat. Back in Sketchpad, he moves to Sierpinski's Triangle. He breezes through creating it, and it's flooring me. This is such a great constructivist session. With tools like this, you can definitely imagine having more explorations into fractals in today's classrooms. I am so glad that Frank says that we're going to get this information at the end of the session.
I'm sitting next to Pat from West Shore (he didn't even see me when he sat down), and we're constantly turning to each other and saying "Wow!" I wonder how many non-math teachers are in this session. It would be great to get their reactions.
Next is The Chaos Game, back in Excel. Basically, you plot three points to form a triangle. Then, generate (randomly) a fourth point, then plot points that are between there, finding out that if you plot enough points, you see Sierpinski's again.
Next, we see stop signs in Sketchpad. Starting with a square, give the students a chance to turn it into a stop sign, letting them explore how to do so, without previous knowledge of the details.
Moving on, we see finding the angle of descent on Millennium Force, again with Sketchpad. Following that, we see some interesting signing in hotels, schools, and hospitals. Who does this? Obviously not mathematicians!
Next, we see great ways to include photography into math lessons. Take pictures of water coming out of hoses or water fountains and have kids fit curves to it. You can even do it with so many everyday objects and apply so many different mathematical concepts to them. Why don't we all do more of this? If you want to talk about getting the real-world connections for your students, this is how.
Another way to use photography in a math class is to have a scavenger hunt having kids find cases of math in their world. Logos also have many interesting mathematical characteristics, as well.
In the end, Frank gave us a handout with an email address to access to access his content from today. Send an email to fsobierajski@nrwcs.org with subject necc08, and an instant response will be sent to allow you to access the info.
If you know anyone who wants to include more technology in their mathematics, or even if you just want to wow some friends or colleagues, check out his material. You'll see what I mean.
4.10.2008
Collaboration Day
I had the opportunity to speak at a math collaboration day at Gettysburg High School yesterday for teachers and CFF coaches in IU12. At first, I was just being asked to be there as a "veteran" CFF math teacher, being in the second year of the CFF grant. I say "veteran" due to the fact that I am still only in my fifth year as a teacher, and I still think that I have way too much growth to do to be called an expert.
Tuesday afternoon, I get an email asking if I could do a second presentation to the entire group. Sure, why not? I find it too hard to say no when I get a chance to speak about something I feel strongly about. So I stay up till who knows when working on finishing links, etc. for my presentation wiki and also on the Keynote for the group presentation.
It was amazing to be able to have an impact on the teachers that were there. After I spoke, a few came up to me with questions and ideas. I offered encouragement for the ideas, and had to still work on trying to convince those with questions about why we should make the switch.
The big thing to remember is that it won't happen immediately, and it's not something that should be toiled over. Take risks with your lessons and let the students start discovering. You might be amazed with what they can come up with. Isn't that how math was originally discovered?
Tuesday afternoon, I get an email asking if I could do a second presentation to the entire group. Sure, why not? I find it too hard to say no when I get a chance to speak about something I feel strongly about. So I stay up till who knows when working on finishing links, etc. for my presentation wiki and also on the Keynote for the group presentation.
It was amazing to be able to have an impact on the teachers that were there. After I spoke, a few came up to me with questions and ideas. I offered encouragement for the ideas, and had to still work on trying to convince those with questions about why we should make the switch.
The big thing to remember is that it won't happen immediately, and it's not something that should be toiled over. Take risks with your lessons and let the students start discovering. You might be amazed with what they can come up with. Isn't that how math was originally discovered?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
