Oct 21 2012

Some resources used in my classes….

Below I have given details of some resources I am currently using with my classes or have recommend to my students so they can explore examples further themselves.

Year 12 (age 16-17)
I want to talk about quadratic inequalities this week so I thought I’d use the Desmos graphing calculator to draw some pictures! Click on the image for the Desmos page and select ‘projector ‘ mode for display on the interactive whiteboard. Last week a student in this class asked where she could find some additional resources on polynomial division.
Note: I use the Desmos calculator so much I have decided it deserves a page of its own here (under Resources).

Year 13 (age 17-18)
Some students in a Further Maths class asked for some Polar coordinates resources to support their studies – so a post for them on my blog for students – these resources would also work well on the interactive whiteboard for use in class. As regular readers know I am a great fan of WolframAlpha and use it with all my classes (WolframAlpha now have a paid for service but it is still completely free to use to check answers for an unlimited number of queries, the free use limits step by step solutions to 3 a day). One of this class showed me that he has the WolframAlpha app on his phone.

Year 11 (age 15-16)

My Year 11 group are studying the AQA Level 2 Certificate in Further Mathematics (a course I am very much enjoying teaching) as well as completing their GCSE course this year. We have been studying calculus and I have found the Desmos graphing calculator very useful to illustrate problems we have been solving. This class have mock examinations coming up and I wanted to recommend some additional resources for them (we have various texts and the AQA support is excellent but the more the better and there is currently no textbook for the course); one site with some very useful resources for some parts of the course such as introductory Calculus is David Smith’s ‘The Maths Teacher.’

Year 8 (age 12-13)

I have a Year 8 class this year, none of whom I have taught before, we have been looking at surface area and volume. Math Open Ref has a rather nice animation which helps when looking at the surface area of a cylinder. (More on John Page’s Math Open Ref). I will also use this site when we look at constructions soon. Most had not seen WolframAlpha before so were quite impressed at how easy it is to check working! There are slideshows available for students showing the syntax for a selection of examples on my blog for students.

Oct 14 2012

Negative Numbers – Resources

Sometimes resources for younger students can be useful for lower secondary age students, see for example Mark Robinson’s Numberlines from the old Ambleside Primary School site which includes an option to display a number line from -5 to 5.

For another excellent number line resource see J Barrett’s Numberline Jump Maker on ictgames.com. I often recommend that students sketch a number line to help with addition and subtraction problems and very clear resources like these can really help. Teacher Resources on Line includes a Big Number Line under Basic Materials for display on a classroom wall

Games can be an excellent way to practise with negative numbers see for example games such as Connect 3 from Nrich and Tic Tac Go, a Wisweb applet.

Further resources include exercises from Trinity School in Nottingham (under Number) and Interactive Resources from CIMT (see unit 3, 3.3 on Negative Numbers and Unit 15, 15.1 and 15.2 for operations with negative numbers in the tutorials section).

There are many excellent resources on TES, the resource collections includes a section on Topic Specials which includes 10 of my favourite resources on Negative Numbers.

Oct 5 2012

Desmos Calculator Examples

Direct link to presentation on Slideshare. Download this pdf file: Assessment – Desmos illustrations – all pages link to a Desmos graph.

My Year 12 (age 16-17) students have been studying coordinate geometry recently. I have been advising them whilst they are studying this topic that it can be very helpful to see good diagrams. I created the above slideshow to provide them with diagrams for a set of questions assigned to them and also to show them examples of the syntax to use for the excellent Desmos graphing calculator. Clicking the image on each slide takes you to a Desmos page with the graphs.

Registering with Desmos (free) gives you the ability to create, save and share pages (Facebook, Twitter or permalink).

Several students have said how much this has helped them.

For further examples see this post.

Sep 30 2012

Nrich

The wonderful NRICH site from the University of Cambridge which offers outstanding free enrichment resources for teachers and students has a new look. (Old links still work.) I like the design of the new website – a clean and modern feel which seems simple to navigate. Simply choose the stage required from Teachers’ or Students’ menus on the front page.

Choosing Secondary under Teachers for example includes a link (under Collections) to an excellent stage 3 and 4 curriculum page which suggest NRICH activities by curriculum topic. Also, very usefully, activities are listed by mathematical processes such as Thinking Strategically and Working Systematically. Note also the link to the (updated) mapping document which is very valuable when searching for activities.

It is still possible to Search by topic if you wish. Activities organised by topics are also available on student pages. The Other Resources collection includes the excellent poster collection as well as a wealth of other resources.

The guides for Students and Teachers include links to register for newsletters.

This is such a valuable resource for teachers and students – thank you NRICH team!

Sep 23 2012

Recently I have used…

Jane Hart’s (Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies) list of Top 100 Tools 2012, based on contributions from learning professionals around the world:

So what have I used recently?

Evernote – an outstanding note-taking tool and something I use every day. I have a notebook for each of my classes to which I upload any resources I want for that class. I also note down any ideas for lessons or reminders relevant to that class. It is also a good way to share for example a list of websites with students – using a shared notebook.

WordPress – obviously – you are reading a WordPress blog right now! I have several other blogs, Games, Starters and Mathematics Tools for example. I find a blog such as this an excellent way to share information with colleagues and students. For students I have recently created a new blog and something I am very pleased with is a blog I use to give the details of homework for each of my classes. I created ‘What was that homework?’ as a result of a survey of students across several schools where many students said that they would like homework details online. No student can ever say to me that they didn’t know what their homework was! (The very first post on this WordPress blog – which includes some useful WordPress links).

Twitter – great for professional development – I have contacts in education all over the globe and have been led to many useful resources by my virtual colleagues! For Maths resources – I regularly check Craig Barton’s tweets @TESMaths, where he highlights excellent TES Resources. See for example these two recent tweets on an excellent presentation on negative numbers and a self checking spreadsheet on standard form; this would be excellent for students to use themselves at home.

YouTube – there are numerous videos useful for Mathematics teachers – perhaps to show in class or for students to use at home, for example the Math Centre videos or those from Khan Academy. (Videos page with many sources of Maths Videos). Other channels I subscribe to include Mrbartonmaths, TED-Ed (see this post for further information on Mathematics TED-Ed videos) and Desmosinc for videos on my favourite online graphing calculator.

Google Docs – I have used Google docs to collaborate on documents such as presentations with other teachers. Using Google Forms provides an excellent way to get feedback from a group of people, their responses are all returned to a single spreadsheet. A comprehensive manual can be downloaded here.
For an examples of forms see this one used to collect student self-assessments of their PLTS skills development in Mathematics and this to collect student feedback on their Mathematics experience at the end of their first year with us.

Moodle – I have a Moodle course for each year group in school; each course has links to any websites that we use in class so students can investigate further themselves if they wish. VLEs are sometimes criticised for being no more than ‘filing cabinets’; I would argue what useful filing cabinets they are – containing resources chosen by teachers for their students all in one organised place. For example prior to a recent GCSE Mathematics module the relevant Moodle course received hundreds of hits as everything students needed was available, not only syllabus information and papers but worked examples that we had uploaded. It is also of course possible to use forums and quizzes on a VLE. (Digital Tools blog page on Moodle).

Slideshare – it is very easy to upload presentations to this (free) presentation sharing site. Any PowerPoints for students could be uploaded for example. There are several examples on this site, such as the WolframAlpha slideshows.

Diigo – I have saved many hundreds of bookmarks using this social bookmarking / annotation tool; I can even find them again! There are numerous examples of Diigo lists on this site – see this list on Statistics and Probability for example; note that the green link takes you direct to the site. Always liking the idea of a backup plan – all my Diigo bookmarks are sent automatically to Evernote via ifttt (I also have Diigo set up to send the bookmarks to Delicious!)

Wikispaces– I have used wikis with Mathematics classes – for doing exercises together for a change, as journals for example where each student has a page; also for any collaborative projects as it is easy for a student or students to be responsible for a page of a project. (Digital Tools blog page on Wikis).

Screenr – when trying to type Mathematical text is too slow, a quick scribble on some kind of screencasting tool can be the answer (graphics tablet essential). (Blog post on Online Whiteboards – consistently one of the most popular posts here).

A choice of 10 is not actually enough for those tools I use all the time! I see that GeoGebra, Gmail, Excel, and Google calendar are all quite rightly on the 2011 list and WolframAlpha (mentioned above with Slideshare) nearly made it!

Update – Jane’s top 100 tools 2012:

The 2011 Top Tools: