Tweeting in Math

My students love to text.  They love to text to each other during class if they can sneak it in, between classes, after school or any other time they can manage.  I'm thinking of using Twitter in the classroom but I don't use a cell phone at school since as an adult I am trying to set a good example. The other thing is that my cell phone does not work at the school due to a different provider being the carrier there. 

Honestly, the school frowns upon using cell phones in school but I can take the premise of Twitter and use it in my classroom.  I like the 140 character length because you have to be concise.  Now with that in mind and the fact that my students would rather cut and paste material,  maybe I could apply the 140 character length to summaries,  to writing a problem based on a picture, or describing what is wrong with a problem.

I hope to increase student writing in the math class and most students hate to write so by using the 140 character limit, it might make them willing to write if they know they have to write a bit.

Of course, this is where their being concise comes in.  They won't be able to use fluff to fill it out and it might improve their over all writing.   We'll see how it works when school starts.

ARadiclalSimp app

ARadicalSimp by Walter Kissach is a free app that has both an instructional part and a calculator to help students learn to simplify radicals. This app covers both radicals and quadratic equations in detail.  Each section comes with a guide which is actually an indepth explanation of the material that is presented in small chunks. 

Each sub section has examples and a calculator that breaks down the radical into its exact answer with the radical sign rather than giving a decimal approximation. 

I like this because it reinforces the idea of using radicals.  Yes, I know people are using decimals more and more but I keep trying to have my students understand that most radicals are irrational and not rational


The calculator shows the actual break down from beginning to end.  This is a way of reinforcing the material.  I know my students are going to pretty much just copy the answer down but I plan to require them to include a small write up explaining the process.  It might look something like this

"124 is 4 times 31.  You can take the square root of 4 and it is 2 so it moves outside the radical sign and the answer is 2 times the square root of 31."  I hope this makes them slow down and actually look at the material.

 The quadratic section gives students a nice explanation and covers just about covers all the basics so it could be used as a way of introducing or building on prior knowledge or used to scaffold a students knowledge.  I have four of his free apps and I plan to check them all out.  Right now, it looks like much of the material in three overlaps but I'll know more.  I did review one of these apps earlier and when I review the next, I'll try to add a link to it and this one.

3D Math Racing Free

There are two versions of 3D Math Racing, one is free and the other is paid.  The free version has only the 4 operations which is good if you are using this app to scaffold or provide practice for your students.

First of all, you set the parameters of the math problems.  Although this app is geared for a younger crowd, it does allow students to practice multiplication or division problems.  In addition to selection the operation the student needs to practice, they can choose the digits involved such as 1's, 4's 10's etc and the difficulty level such as easy, hard or insane.

I chose multiplication with the 1's and 4's with a difficulty level of hard.  It even shows an example of the type of problem the student does.   The student also has choice of letting the app steer the vehicle using auto-steer or it can be turned off.  If the auto-steer is turned off the student has to both steer the truck and answer questions so it increases the difficulty level.

Once everything is set, the race begins.  As far as I can tell, your position and time is determined by the number of problems answered correctly during the race.  

At the end, there is a board which lists the first 6 finishers for the games the student plays.

I don't know how my Pre-Algebra students will respond to this game.  I often think that a game is cool and they would love it and they go "This is boring!"  Once they've determined it is boring, they don't want to play it. 

I think I will use this with a couple other apps so they have a choice of which app to use for practicing their multiplication and division.  Students prefer choice and are more willing to do an assignment if they feel they have some power.

Geometry Pad

Today while looking through the app store, I discovered a nice little app, Geometry Pro, that can be used in both Algebra I and Geometry.  It is nice as it covers two and three dimensional shapes and solid to points and line, circles, polygons, and proofs. 

Each topic has information, video's, calculators depending on the topic selected.  I see this as a quick reference for students as they are working through each topic.  This way, they do not have to search the textbook to find the exact material they want.  It is there in a nice encapsulated form.

The regular polygon section includes finding information if you are given the radius, the side or the apothem.  Each of these subsections has a illustration, a small calculator, and the information for finding various formulas with explanations. For instance, if I use the attribute finder for a given side for an 8 sided figure that has sides of 4 units, I get the following information.

Name: Octagon
Angle x (1/2 of the central angle) = 22.5 degrees
Angle y (interior angle) = 135 degrees
Angle z (exterior angle) = 45 degrees
radius = 5.226
apothem = 4.828
Perimeter = 32
Area = 77.255

I like the way this is set up and I can have students use it to reinforce their learning and check their work.  This polygon calculator can be used for anything beginning with triangles and going to n-gons.

I like that it can be used for parallel lines, slope,  midpoint, distance and two lines or systems of linear equations for Algebra I, review for Algebra II and parts of Geometry.  The best thing of all, its free!

Space Exploration

I am attending a conference that focuses on space exploration and other topics of scinece.  There is a ton of math involved in that topic including calculations such as:
1.  Lift off
2. Angles for leaving the planet and heading for a planet.
3.  How much fuel is needed to get off the planet? 
4. How do they measure fuel for rockets.
5.  How fast is the speed of light?
6.  How fast is the speed of sound?

7.  How large a space ship would you need to take people to Mars?
8.  What would it weigh with people, supplies, etc?
9. Could you actually launch such a space ship?
10. Rate/Time/Distance to get to the Moon, Mars, etc.
11.  What are trajectories and how do they effect escaping the atmosphere.

These are just some of the question that could be explored in a cross curriculum unit.
In English, they could read a book such as to the Moon by Jules Verne while in Science they can look at astronomy and in Math they could do the calculations.

I realize that the way school is designed at the moment, it is often hard to create units like this due to the way the school admin applies the curriculum but just think how much more meaningful these topics might be if we could show that each topic is not a single entity but interrelated  in real life.

Literature in Math

Today while flying from Seattle to San Diego, I spent time thinking of Shakespeare, Jeopardy, and History.  There was a final Jeopardy question about the Ides of April.  I knew about the ides of March due to one of William Shakespeare's play about Julius Caesar but I have never heard of the Ides of April.  Have you?

After a bit of research, I discovered the Ides of April referred to specific time on the Roman Calendar.  It turns out that every month has an Ides but it is not always the 15th of the month as it is in March.

The ides is the day of the full moon in the month.  Since the calendar has changed, the date is no longer accurate.  This would be a good opportunity to discuss or research the Roman, Julian, and Gregorian calendars and how they differ.

Furthermore, students could create visual  presentations on the Ides, Nones, and Kalendes which are the major dates of the Roman Calendar or a compare and contrast of the three types of calenders.  I know we all have to meet certain standards but we are often pushed to create cross curricular thematic units and this is one that could be considered.

Bing.com

Earlier this year I learned that Bing.com always has lesson plans available to accompany the picture they have on the search page.   There is a small button at the bottom right hand side of the page labeled info.  When you click the info button it brings up a dialog box filled with a little information on the picture.





If you click on the dialogue box, a search web page comes up with full information on the picture.  At the bottom of the entry, is a lesson plan option.

Bing prepares daily lesson plans to accompany the photos.  They do not do Math, or English or Social Studies every single day but they do prepare 4 different sets of plans for grades K to 12.

On the lesson plans page to the left  there is a search engine available to help you find the subject and age group you want. For me,  I would click ages 14 to 18 and Mathematics (all) because I teach high school Math.

The search goes through all the lesson plans they've made over the past few years and only shows those that meet the criteria you've put in.

All that is left is for me to go through the various lessons to see if any are appropriate for my classroom.

The lesson provides indepth learning objectives, materials and just about every thing else you need to prepare the lesson.  At the very bottom is a power point presentation on the lesson.  Although these lessons are designed for use with the PC they can be adjusted.

I plan to utilize several of these activities in my classroom this fall.