Traversals and Angles.

Today I saw a picture on the Mathematics Education Google Plus group that made me realize students could use the same idea to create a slide show to explain the angles associated with a traversal.   

The top picture was created using the app Gloss by SAS while the bottom one was made using Geoboard.   The student can create one picture for Corresponding angles, Vertical Angles, Alternate Interior Angles, Alternate Exterior Angles, and Same Side Angles.  They import the pictures into Keynote or other presentation software/app, add voice over to it with transitions and the student has a lovely well done presentation.

There are quite a few topics that lend themselves to this type of activity.


 Other possible topics for a short presentation include:
Quadralaterals
Classifying Triangles
Congruent or Similar Triangles
Finding Area and Perimeter
Finding the measure of the interior angles of a polygon
Midpoint, altitude, etc.
Trigonometric ratios
The unit circle
Pythagorean identities
Cofunctions
Finding distance and midpoint.
Integers
Fractions

I know there are many other topics which could be used to create a presentation.

Semi-off topic but still related to math.

Someone I know told me I should read Dracula.  I've never read it, only seen the movie interpretations of it.  He said the original was superior to any media interpretation.  So my first thought was to download it.  So much has changed in the past few years with mobile devices.  We can download music, books and pdf's.  We can create books to upload and sell.  We can create podcasts, interactive books, presentations, documents, etc and place them on the web to share with others. We can find textbooks that have been digitized and are free.  We can set up our mobile devices to be our offices so we can sit on a beach and do our work.  Even printers are now small enough to put in a bag and take with us.  No you don't always need an electrical plug as you can buy those flashlights that you crank and they even allow you to charge your cell phones.  So  if the connection is the right type, you could power your printer.  With the increased improvement in phones, you can use the phone for your office.
I know there is a  push to integrate technology into the classroom but its hard because the textbook publishers are a bit behind the technology and most publishers do not have the digitized books.  Even the publishers who have books available, these books are not interactive because the interactive element adds to the file size.  This does not mean that you as the teacher could not down load a chapter, add links, etc so that students can annotate, make notes, etc and make the students more interactive readers.
Why couldn't we take examples from the books, create presentations so that when the students play them, the steps with explanations come on, one step at a time.  Make it with audio, with drawings etc.  I know it is common to make videos showing the steps etc but some students do not have a good connection so video is much harder to view while a presentation can often be used in the same situation.  I think it is important to create material using presentations, slide shows, audio podcasts, etc. 

Finally got a nearpod presentation done.

I learned a couple of very important things this weekend while I created a presentation for nearpod.  First, if you start with a power point presentation, you have to upload it and then clone it before you can do anything with it.  You cannot take the slide and make it interactive.  You have to create a new slide to set up to draw, create a poll, create a quiz, or add a open question or web link.  When I decided to add a draw on it slide, I had to take the original power point slide, convert it to jpg or png and then import it. 
Fortunately, I found a free website Zamzar who will convert files in one format to another and e-mail you the converted file.  Once I got the file back, I inserted it and I am ready.  The others are fairly easy to figure out and use as you just add a slide, determine which type of activity it is and get it set up.
Secondly you can build the presentation from scratch and just set up the slides as you need them.  I am not sure which method is easier but Nearpod is not too hard to use.  They do have a content tool user guide which helps tremendously.  It was due to the users guide I learned I needed to clone the presentation first. 
Tomorrow I will present this and see how it goes.  I would have done it today but we have an inservice.