Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Virtual manipulatives.

I am getting frustrated.  The only real free virtual manipulatives I've found as apps for the iPad is one for fractions, decimals and percents.  I found one free app that uses virtual manipulatives to show how to solve equations but it does not let them play in the way I"d like to see.  All the websites I've found do not work because they either require flash or java which does not work directly with the iPad.  In order to use them, I would have to use an app that sends the materials through another server which then sends the results back to the browser.  It is slow and sometimes doesn't work well. 
I think that due to the rapidly expanding nature of mobile devices, there are going to be areas that are behind.  I have even checked book publisher websites and their virtual manipulatives do not work.  This is rather frustrating in that I would like my students to use both real and virtual manipulatives. 
Oh well.
I gave a test and let students use the notes on their iPads and it went quite well.  I had them place the iPads on the side of the room and they could refer to their notes if they had questions.  The students did a good job and I think I will let them do it again. 
I have several students who regular snap pictures of my notes and examples so they have access to the problems without slowing down the class during lectures.  They are doing this to keep up and they enjoy it.

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