Tuesday, October 29, 2013

math world

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/

Math world is an website that I found. It is full of resources that can be used to teach math. It is definitely meant for a higher level, but I still like how much the website has to offer. Each tab on the left side of the page covers a different aspect of math: number theory, calculus, algebra etc. I think that the material found on the page will be great for teachers to use to learn math and to challenge students who may need it.

googlemaps.com

Google maps is a resource that is used for directions to various locations around the world. Google maps is frequently used on smart phones and GPS systems. I think that Google maps could also be used for math in the classroom. It would be a great way to teach students about distance. Students could calculate the distance from their home to school and then graph the results as a class to see who lives the furthest. They could also calculate the average distance traveled among their class mates.

Blendspace.com

Blendspace is a great resource for teachers. The website allows teachers to come up with lesson plans from, videos, clips, and other tools found on the internet. The website also allows users to create quizzes to check for understanding. I thought this website would be great to use for math because there a re so many resources that can help students how to solve math problems. I also thing that Have a lesson based on videos could be fairly engaging for students.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

ABCya!

ABCya.com is a website full of interactive tools that can be used for math. The tool that I took a close look at was the 100 number chart. The chart can be highlighted with 20 different colors. One way to use this in math would be to have students highlight all the even numbers in pink and all of the odd numbers in green. Also, higher elementary grades could use the chart to highlight all of the factors of a given number. 

link to the chart: http://www.abcya.com/interactive_100_number_chart.htm

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Visual Ranking Tool

The visual ranking tool is a resource that allows users to rank items, concepts, ideas etc. in order of importance. The example that was provided on the website asks students to rank a list of inventions and "evaluate the impact of these inventions." I like this tool because it encourages students to analyze information and share their opinions and understanding. The other great feature about this too is that students can be placed into teams to work on ranking items. I think that this is an engaging way to start a conversation among students. After teams rank items, they can then look at another team's rankings and compare them. I would use this with math by having groups of teams analyze math concepts that they have learned in school. They should rank the concepts that the they think would be most valuable in the real world. Hopefully the groups would come up with a variety of responses. After comparing results this would be a great way to start a discussion about how much math is connected to the world outside of the classroom.

The Intel visual ranking tool can be found at: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/education/k12/thinking-tools/visual-ranking/try-the-tool.html

Friday, September 13, 2013

Doodle

Doodle is a website that is perfect for those who have trouble finding a time to schedule a meeting or appointment. Doodle can also be used in conjunction with virtual calendars such as Google Calendar. This makes it very convenient to organizes other commitments that you may have. Additionally, Doodle has a feature that is special from other websites. Users can set a poll that can help determine the best time for two or more people to meet. Typically, one of the biggest worries that I have with group projects is finding an appropriate time to meet with the members in my group. I think that as a student this would be perfect for group projects and could ease some anxiety. This could be used with math to teach students how to plan and budget time effectively.

Linoit

I really liked Linoit.com. Lino it allows for users to share/upload files, images, and videos.  I think that this website has many possibilities and is perfect for math. Students could use this website to upload their assignments for class. It is more colorful an engaging than websites like turnitin.com. So assignments such as a personal math history could be shared for others to see. This also allows for users to make their page personal. They get to choose the organization of the sticky notes, and what content is included on the page. I think this would be a great way to check students' understanding on math concepts.  Students could possibly create a project on Lino it that includes the students' notes, ideas, and homework assignments. This would make easier for the teacher to check on the student's understanding of the material. Finally, Lino it is also a great organizational tool. Users can set due dates on their sticky notes for math assignments and projects.