From MEI comes Ritangle, a competition for teams of students of A level Mathematics, Scottish Highers or the International Baccalaureate. This year’s Ritangle competition  launches Monday 2 October!

For the main competition, one question will be released daily for 21 consecutive weekdays, the first question will be released on 9th November 2017. I am looking forward to seeing the problems which I am sure will be of interest to many Mathematics students even if they are studying for alternative qualifications and cannot enter the competition.

Something which caught my eye is that Technology can help with some Ritangle questions which led me to some excellent Excel resources, which you can use whether or not you are participating in the competition.

Excel is a favourite for me – I use it in both my Mathematics teaching and in my Deputy Head role. Note from Nrich, we have many uses of Excel for Mathematical Investigation. I like this very clear illustration showing fraction multiplication.

Excel Interactive Resource – Fraction Multiplication

For teaching sequences, Interactive Number patterns will be useful.

Nrich – Interactive Number Patterns 2

…and one of my favourites – Happy Numbers! (For the Excel spreadsheet – Nrich investigation)

Talking of technology, the Excel fractions resources here reminded me to try fractions with Graspable Math. Having tried Graspable Math on the Interactive whiteboard recently I can confirm it works perfectly.

And finally, talking of Graspable Math, this led me recently to Dave Taylor’s excellent Increasingly Difficult Questions, a wonderful collection – and with an eye on the copying budget too!

Looking at the Graspable Math Teacher Resources, I see some of the Increasing Difficult Questions have been added to a canvas. Graspable Math lets you save your work so you can come back to it later or share it with others. Saving requires a google account. To share a file, use the share menu to get a link that gives others read access to a file. I decided I liked the idea of having a canvas ready for Simplifying Expressions, starting with IDQ-Simplifying Expressions 1, I opened it on my own canvas and adapted it slightly. I do like to keep all steps of the working displayed, so I have put the exercises on the left, creating a good space on the right.