Trig

In my advanced math class, my students are studying trigonometry.  Last week I showed a short video on the unit circle itself from teachertube.  It did a really nice job of showing how the values are found.  Today I showed a video on how to use the unit circle to find values of various problems such as sin 270 degrees.  It laid a good foundation for how the values relate to sin, cos, tan, csc, sec, and cot.  Tomorrow, I have an activity to reinforce the other ways of looking at tan, csc, sec and cot using only sin and cos. Finished off using a free app for Trig to reinforce the basic identities of the 6 basic ratios.  The app icon is blue with a red X^r on it and trig 1 under it.  The kids are having fun practicing the basic ratios
If I could, I would have students watch the videos at home so I'd have a more flipped classroom but so many of my students do not have internet or limited bandwidth so it is really impractical to do it. 

First full day of iPad integration.

Overall, it went quite well.  I had the students come in and scan a QR code after getting their iPads.  They actually sat down and did the warm-up nicely.  Once we'd gotten over the beginning part of class,  I took time to let the students explore the apps, Gloss and my script calculator.  This took about 10 min out of the period but it was worth it because we then worked on doing one word problem.  We started by listing what we know, what do we have to find and what do we have to think about to answer this question.  It was awesome the way the students worked when I said they had to work in pairs and use one or the other or both apps to solve it.  I saw some really awesome discussion.  I have one period that went to a site to take a test I created and then they read up on-line about square roots.  Tomorrow, all students will be watching a video on the material they are learning.  I see some great things happening with the iPads in my classroom. I did have one student who thought the iPad was a wonderful toy because he took 135 photos during class and he'll discover he'll have a problem tomorrow when we use the iPads......LOL

Algebra Equation Builder app

Stumbled across this nice app.  It has 4 levels which increase in difficulty and requires people to take four terms and arrange them with two terms on each side of the equal sign so the equation itself is true.  Level one only uses numbers and when done, you move to the next level which includes a variable and tells you the answer.  Thus as students move through the levels, the difficulty increases until you have to come up with some rather complex problems.  I found some of the problems to be rather challenging and I think this game would give students a chance to practice without it being too easy.
Change of subject.  I got trained in Apple configurater so that next week I can start getting my iPads and the elementary school mini's set up and running.  So my prep periods will be spent getting the iPads up and running so I can actually begin using them in the classroom.

Origami

I sometimes include Origami folding in my geometry class for two reasons.  First, it makes students pay attention to the directions and second it uses angles, bisectors, triangles, and other such geometric shapes and terms.  I found a nice app called animal origami and downloaded it.  It has several different animals that  you can make following the step by step directions.  I picked it up the day it was being offered for free.  I did a quick check and there are several free to very low cost origami apps which show how to fold the paper step by step.
The ways I work origami folding into Geometry is to have students:
a.  follow directions and then write a paper  on all the geometric shapes and figures they used in the process.
b.  unfold their creation to use a protractor to measure the angles of all the folds off of certain lines.
c.  label and identify geometric shapes and figures on the paper itself.
d.  Write a set of directions on making the figure.

After they've had some practice with fun shapes, I pull out the origami book I have for geometry and have them follow directions for specific items such as their own specialized angle reader. 

Including literacy

I have been working on figuring out how to include more literacy activities in my Mathematics classrooms and integrate the iPad at the same time.  I found some graphic organizers that can be used such as an anticipation set of comments/questions, a summery writing chart, a semantic map, possible sentences and a reading log.  I know I can scan these and use them via an app like subtext but I am wondering if I want to have students do all of these graphic organizers on the iPad.  The pros include the students sending finished work directly to me via e-mail, the typing is more legible than their handwriting, they do not loose the paper and they do not need to have a writing implement.  In addition, it uses less paper at the copy machines.  The con's is that they have to type the answer rather than write, the iPad can sometimes be more awkward to use than a paper and pencil.
This is something I have to work out and make a decision on.  I suspect I will end up splitting the times I use the iPad and have them write things out. 

This and That

I am back at school doing the inservice training.  Since my school needs to work on literacy that will be the focal point this year.  They are having us create a thermatic unit for the high school and we chose navigation so I am starting to research navigation apps that could be used on the iPad during the unit.  We are going to do it at the end of the year after testing.  I found one plan2nav that is a marine navigation app that allows people to plan journeys, look at high resolution photos of harbor entrances and, check tides and currents.  I will run this by one of our teachers in the high school who used to work as a boat captain for fisherman.  He is willing to work with both the science teacher and myself. 
I think I'll download this app tonight and run it by him tomorrow and we'll see what he says. If anyone knows how decent this one is or has used others, I'd love to hear from you.

• Plan voyages on the fly, chart your route, set waypoints and measure the distance for each leg of your journey.
• Check tides and currents and the weather with our free weather service for forecasts up to five days out.
• View high-resolution photos of harbor entrances, see your charts with shaded depth areas and detailed depth contours.

- See more at: http://smart-navigation.net/download-free-marine-navigation-app/?gclid=CPabjLOj_bgCFbF_QgodF2YA9Q#sthash.AL9ImCy8.dpuf

• Plan voyages on the fly, chart your route, set waypoints and measure the distance for each leg of your journey.
• Check tides and currents and the weather with our free weather service for forecasts up to five days out.
• View high-resolution photos of harbor entrances, see your charts with shaded depth areas and detailed depth contours.

- See more at: http://smart-navigation.net/download-free-marine-navigation-app/?gclid=CPabjLOj_bgCFbF_QgodF2YA9Q#sthash.AL9ImCy8.dpuf

Plan voyages on the fly, chart your route, set waypoints and measure the distance for each leg of your journey.

Check tides and currents and the weather with our free weather service for forecasts up to five days out.

View high-resolution photos of harbor entrances, see your charts with shaded depth areas and detailed depth contours.

- See more at: http://smart-navigation.net/download-free-marine-navigation-app/?gclid=CPabjLOj_bgCFbF_QgodF2YA9Q#sthash.AL9ImCy8.dpuf

• Plan voyages on the fly, chart your route, set waypoints and measure the distance for each leg of your journey.
• Check tides and currents and the weather with our free weather service for forecasts up to five days out.
• View high-resolution photos of harbor entrances, see your charts with shaded depth areas and detailed depth contours.

- See more at: http://smart-navigation.net/download-free-marine-navigation-app/?gclid=CPabjLOj_bgCFbF_QgodF2YA9Q#sthash.AL9ImCy8.dpuf

Equivalence tiles app and Which one does not belong?

I stumbled across this free app the other day and downloaded it to check it out.  Although  it is designed to be used by elementary students , it could be used by middle school students who need some help with fractions, decimals and percents.  It has blocks from 1/2 to 1/12 with the equivalent percents and decimals located below each fraction tile.  The space available is the whole unit so if you want students to see 1/2 + 1/3 they can do it but if you want 3/4 + 1/3, you have a problem.  I like that you can use any of the three representations but again it is designed for younger students so it is not an app I would use in the high school.
During warm-ups, I sometimes use a problem called "Which one does not belong?".  I give a list of 4 choices such as xy, x^2z, x^2y, xy^2.  Students then have to justify their choice.  For instance, they might say x^2z because it is the only one with the variable z or xy because neither of the variables is squared.  This gives them a way to justify why they made the choice they did.  The state tests here often have questions which require students to justify their answers and this gives them a way to practice while developing higher order thinking skills.

Math DJ into to Algebra app

I down loaded the free version.  Again the free version has only one chapter included with 30 problems to practice.  Each problem is for the most part a single step equation the student has to solve.  These problems are solved the same way as yesterday's app.  The student selects the correct number of bubbles with the letter so as to get the correct answer for the variable.  The problems start out easy but by problem 17 or so, they become much harder.  One example is 5G - 36 = -G which takes a bit more thought to solve.  If a student comes up with the wrong answer, it tells you that your answer is incorrect and to retry so a student must rework the problem till he gets it correct.  This app is one I could easily use in my lower  level algebra I class to help scaffold students who struggle with solving simple one step equations.  I much prefer this over the pre-algebra app for practice.

DJ Pre-Algebra Free

Found this program which is the free version of DJ Pre-Algebra.  It comes with only chapter 1 with 30 problems.  Chapter one only covers the basics of adding and subtracting signed numbers.  The student is given a problem such as E = 1 + 5  and the student chooses the number of bubbles with the letter E that corresponds with the correct answer.  This is not something I would use with my high school students.  I might consider using it for a much younger group of students who are just starting out with signed numbers.  The problems are a bit too easy and there  is no activity as a reward to make them want to strive towards something.  I think that having a number line on the side to help students see how signed numbers work might make it easier for students to really learn the material.  I would guess that this is good for 5th or 6th grade.

Algebra Tutorial app

I found this free app in the itunes store and it sounded quite good.  I opened it up and noted that it has lots of topics such as fractions, linear equations, inequalities, systems of equations, various equations for finding a line, circles, factoring, and quadratic equations.  I looked at a few topics such as systems of equations.  Each topic and subtopic shows examples of working problems with some written steps but the written step takes the place of actually showing the step visually so if you need to see the actual step, you are out of luck.  The app does provide the opportunity to look at more than one example. 
The other problem is that in some topics they only show one way of doing the work.  For instance, in systems of 2 equations, the app only provides examples for the elimination method.  I know that I will often tell students to use substitution if they can because it is a bit easier.  This app does not show substitution.
I am not sure this is an app I would use in class because the examples are not done as well as examples in a book.  I think this app is more for adults who are reviewing their algebra, rather than being used in class.  I have other apps, I can use to take examples out of the book, write questions for them to answer and have them submit the answers electronically. 

Barron's algebra app

This is the second app I found by Barron's but it is for algebra.  The first level is just reviewing the use of positive and negative numbers.  It has three. Quiz levels and you must get 80% in order to unlock the video game and move up to the next level.  Each level has 20 questions and again the program does not tell you which problems you missed.  This maybe due to not having a large base of questions to choose from.  

I think not telling students which problem they missed is not helpful but it does make them check all their work especially if they do not like figuring out where they made the mistake.  I see some positive uses for this app in my classroom.