Mathematical Miscellany #55

Featuring:

In Mathematical Miscellany #54 I featured two excellent resources from Curriculum for Wales; a third is now available, “The Foundations of Algebra” is suitable for progression step 3 of the new #CurriculumForWales (age 11). The workbook contains chapters on patterns, commutativity, distributivity & associativity.

Foundations of Algebra – Curriculum for Wales

I do like the above exercise which as the Teacher’s Guide acknowledges is based on Don Steward’s work, directed number arithmetic speed up and Chris McGrane’s Alternative representation of integers. A further useful resource for such an exercise is Jonathan Hall’s Directed Number MCQ Generator on MathsBot with which you can generate all the addition and subtraction multiple-choice questions you want; choose between Counters on or off.

Foundations of Algebra – Teacher’s Guide

As with the other two resources, a very comprehensive teacher’s guide is also available. You can see the contents here, this resource with its carefully chosen and varied activities and exercises will help students with the foundations of Algebra.


PhET Sims

On the subject of negative numbers, from PhET simulations we have another excellent resource in their latest addition to the Mathematics collection. To use the number line as a model for ordering real numbers and also to illustrate operations with negative numbers we can use the excellent, Number Line: Distance. Also available are Number Line: Integers, and Number Line: Operations. All are excellent for students to explore.

This resource has been added to my post on Negative Numbers which looks at some resources to develop understanding of operations with positive and negative integers and exercises for practice.


A popular post on this blog is on Venn Diagrams, first written in 2016 this has recently been checked and updated with some new resources including always excellent resources from Amanda Austin on Dr Austin Maths. Included in her Probability resources you will find an excellent section on Set Notation and Venns.

Dr Austin Maths

GeoGebra retweeted this from Javier Cayetano Rod

…the translation:

“Adding some leaves to the stem of a flower can be the perfect excuse to talk about translations and turns in space @debora_pereiro . Added to the flower generator in @geogebrahttps://geogebra.org/m/duqthjva

Which in turn led me to this amazing GeoGebra collection, Flowers 3D, Author: Deborah Pereiro Carbajo.

Have look at Flowers from Curves, simply brilliant!

Flowers from curves – Deborah Pereiro Carbajo

Explore the collection – you could be a while!

Complete Maths has made Robert Smith’s session “Web Autograph, a First Look” freely available


Highlight equivalence – Math Whiteboard

I wrote earlier this year on the excellent Math Whiteboard. This is completely free to use; If you create a whiteboard you can then get a link for that whiteboard which you can share. When I have created a whiteboard I then save a second copy so I can always return to the original.

With an individual subscription ( currently $15 for a year) it is possible to access all the features of Fluid Math including as an authoring tool for creating Math Whiteboard activities. It is also possible to save your activities.

A new feature is available – the ability to create answer boxes to check for correct answers. You can see examples using this feature here.

Tidying Up!

A break is always a good time for tidying up and reorganising things!

Continuing the Use of Technology series of pages, the PhET Simulations, Standards Unit Software and Wolfram Alpha pages have been added to the series.

Edexcel GCSE GeoGebra Resources

Added to the GeoGebra series is a new page, GeoGebra Resources-Edexcel so all the resources for GCSE and A level Maths and Further Maths are available in one place.

A recent addition to the top menu includes Updates where updates to popular posts are noted. A further new page added today is Popular Posts and Links, just a small number of currently popular posts and/or files. I see that the file of legacy coursework tasks from Edexcel has proved very popular this year as has The Workers of Zen.


GeoGebra

GeoGebra is astonishingly powerful and seems to keep just getting better. It works brilliantly on my phone and my tablet as well as on a desktop. I will be using it a great deal more in future with all the students I teach.

Time for some new pages on GeoGebra, this collection will grow, but I wanted to bookmark the tutorials and note also how to very simply use the Data Analysis tools. Sophisticated analysis is possible of course but in moments one can copy data from a spreadsheet application to GeoGebra’s spreadsheet view and see some charts.

GeoGebraThese Tutorials are an excellent place to start learning how to use GeoGebra. GeoGebra works not only on desktops but on phones and tablets as well.

The Manual is comprehensive and note the Quick Start tutorials which are very clear. You will also find manuals and much helpful documentation on the same page. The great thing about GeoGebra is that so much has already been written you can probably find what you need already online!

You can also use GeoGebra’s YouTube channel to watch demonstrations.

GeoGeoGebra is not just for Geometry, as mentioned above note how good it is for Statistics too, copy in those large data sets and get analysing! (GeoGebra Data Analysis as a pdf file or  PowerPoint: GeoGebra Data Analysis.)

The slides show the Classic application first which perhaps experienced users are most familiar with, followed by the newer Maths Calculators interface. If you are new to GeoGebra I would recommend using the Calculators which of course have the same functionality and more and will give consistency across the various platforms.
GeoGebra classic & Maths Calculators

So much is already written for GeoGebra you can use material already written. For example thinking try MEI’s very helpful advice on the Use of Technology, also on Integrating Technology into schemes of work for older students (UK A Level  age16-18). Note that tasks are also given by type of software including GeoGebra.
MEI Tasks AS

Another source where you will find GeoGebra used to help students understand and explore Mathematics is Underground Maths where many tasks have associated GeoGebra resources. An Underground Mathematics search on GeoGebra reveals the extent to which it has been made use of!

Note also some excellent examples from the ATM Conference 2017.

See also Use of Technology and Statistics in the A Level series of pages.

I would like to thank MEI for an inspirational (and free) conference recently. So many good sessions including the use of GeoGebra for statistical analysis.  A highlight had to be looking at the GeoGebra 3D graphics view with our 3D glasses!