fishing

 

Hopefully this works the way its supposed.  It was done in Keynote.  I added the image of a fish, animated it and saved it as a quick time movie.  The final step was to upload it as a video.  It worked earlier so we'll see if I got it uploaded properly.

 I don't think is working right.  Please let me know!

Gone Fishing!

Created using Keynote.  I copied a picture, pasted on a slide, added the text and exported as an image.

My Favorite Program/App.

  I have one app, I use all the time when I need something.  I use it for making recordings, animation, posters, videos, and anything else I can think of.  I can create a multi slide presentation or use just one slide.  What is this elixir of presentations?

It is keynote.   I absolutely adore Keynote because it does all those things and more.  I can do so much with it for my math class.


1.  Using My Script Math pad, I can create any and all math equations and then send them to dropbox or google and then bring it into keynote.  This is an app for my iPad that allows me to use my finger to write equations and it automatically turns the handwriting into text.  It is beautiful and so easy to use.

2.  Keynote itself allows me to create animated slides so I can show movement of numbers or of shapes. I made an animated slide showing congruence explained through translations.  I've put sound to it and it was cool.

3. I've imported short stop motion animation of nets that change from flat 2 dimensional to 3 dimensional shapes.

4.  I've imported pictures and put text onto the picture to make a poster with math terms.  I had fun exploring it.

5.  I can show how to solve equation step by step using bullets and special effects.

This is only a short list of what I can do with Keynote.  I'm using a different computer right now but I'm hoping to post an entry with examples of all of these things plus more.

Digital Interactive Notebooks

  Right now, I'm trying to use interactive notebooks using composition books.  They are nice but they also take quite a bit of space and the kids don't always keep up.  Since we have iPads in the classrooms, I need to learn how to create digital notebooks.

One article recommends using Book Creator because it allows a person to add audio, video, images and text to create an interactive notebook.  Although there is a free version of Book Creator, it only allows one book to be created.  If you have one to one iPads, that works but if you have a shared set of classroom iPads, you might want to buy the app so multiple books can be produced.

The same article suggested using Google with power point, keynote or google slide. Google allows you to set up a template so all the students have to do is fill in the appropriate information.  This article gives more information on doing it and has some nice information on creating interactive math notebooks using Ever Note.

This site starts with producing the material on the laptops before moving it to Book Creator.  They recommend using KeyNote to produce the slides complete with color and everything you want.  Once the slides are done, you move the material into Book Creator.  The instructions are really quite nice.

Finally, I looked at Holtthink for additional information on digital interactive notebooks.  This article looks at the typical hand written notebook and then provides step by step instructions for creating the notebook on iPads.  I like the over all picture it provides. 

Now off to figure out how to do it myself so I can start doing it in class.

Math in Film Making

  As long as I've been exploring math in music, I thought I'd check out information for film making.  Most of us have a student who love filming everything and turning it into the epic adventure. 

I'm not talking about the student who is always making selfie video to post on their site but the one who has  vision they create on film.  It turns out film making uses so much math.

The math goes from the producer keeping track of the budget to making sets, costumes, filming, and so much more  I found several sites that have wonderful information on the topic. 

A student online newspaper has a wonderful article on math in film making. The author discusses how the producer uses math in the cost of the film while the cinematographer must calculate the best angles for a shot.  We are told not to forget the sets and the costumes both of which involve quite a bit of math.  In addition, the author comments that animators use the most math and several types of math.

The Mathematical Association of America has a lovely piece on film making and math. They actually reference a paper about math and animation that goes into quite a bit of detail.

No Film School goes into specific detail about the golden ratio, the Fibonacci sequence, perspectives, the rule of thirds, and there are accompanying videos to show many of these. 

Plus Maths has a very technical article on mathematics and animation. This article takes the reader through the process step by step so the get an idea of how creatures and items are created.  There is talk about matricies, vetices and so many other mathematical material.  It is such a cool article.

Eveltio has a list of several articles with links, all dealing with math in film making.

To make it even more relevant, I found a few places that talk about the cost of making a movie from start to finish.  This puts the information of the previous articles into context. 

Investopedia has a great piece on the cost of making films.  They include information on the cost of marketing films.  Something many people don't think about.

Quora has a summary of a 75 page budget used for the movie the Village.  The final cost was over 71 Million for making it.  You see how much costumes, sets, lighting, visual effects, etc.  This ties in with what the producer keeps track of.

Digital Films has sample budgets for independent films to give approximate costs. 

Slide Share has a whole piece on when a film starts making money and many of the misconceptions involved in that process.  The article uses Spiderman 2 as its example.  I found out that there are huge costs involved in printing and distributing the film.  Something in the neighborhood of 50 to 100 million!

Just think what type of eye opener this kind of unit would make for our students!

The Math in Music

  We often hear that music and math are related but did you ever wonder how?  I always have that one student who is so into music that their lives revolve around it.  So I went and found information on this topic so I can snare one more student into the "Math is all around us" group.

Math Central out of Canada has a lovely article that talks about fractions used in music as time signatures.  Rather than being "part of the whole"  it tells how many notes per bar and the value of each note. It also explains where the Fibonacci sequence fits in. I learned something new today.

Plus Maths explores frequencies and pitches which are extremely important in music.  It even explains why certain notes work together while others do not.  This article is great for the mathematics involved in the notes.

Arts Edge from the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts has a short piece on ratios, fractions, counting and patterns found in music, all of which are math.  This is a great introduction to the topic and the pieces are short.

The Math Forum goes into detail about frequencies, ratios, etc and includes a connection to geometry in one part of the piece.

Finally, the American Mathematical Association has several videos that deal with this topic.  The videos range from "Music + Math: Symmetry" to "Geometry in Music" to "Symphonic Waves".  In addition there are lots of links and reference materials to help students learn how music uses math.

Math in the Music Industry?

  How many of us has someone who is going to be the next big name rapper like Eminem, or is going to be the next big record producer?  You know the one!  So know the question for them is "Do you know how math is used in the music industry besides making sure your manager is not ripping you off" when they tell you they don't need the math.

It turns out there is a fair amount of math contained in the music industry.  There are so many ways to make money with in the field.

There is a great article on Quartz that addresses some of the issues with radio vs spotify and the royalties involved.

This article from NPR which looks at what it costs to produce a record album for a singer such as Rihanna.  It starts with the cost of writing the songs all the way to the finished album and includes the studio time, the musicians, the backup vocalists.  Everything!  This is quite an eye opener for anyone who thinks it takes just a couple dollars to produce and market the song.  I was amazed!

The Wall Street Journal has a great explanations on how much royalty is payed every time a song is played.  It turns out it is very very little so most people are not going to make much on it.  Its a really good piece.

Then New York Entertainment has a wonderful piece showing the amount of money various bands are going to take home pay for three different bands.  The information includes the amount made off a CD, Itunes, spotify, merchandising, film, video, and other sources of income.  This can provide a real eye opener as to  what the costs are.

The Tech Dirt site has a wonderful infographic on how the money is split and it turns out the band makes the smallest chunk.  Apparently for every $1000 of music sold, the average musician makes only $23.40. That isn't much, is it?

Just think what kind of project kids can do with this information.  They could even follow up on the song mentioned in the NPR article to determine how many albums were sold, downloaded, etc to get a better idea of how much she makes in royalties for the song.  This is a topic the kids should enjoy exploring.