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The last two weeks of class…

So, I’ve been debating with myself what to do with the last two weeks of class. We’ve dabbled in a lot of things (more than usual), but haven’t spent much time on any one software resource or math topic. My feeling for what’s going to be most useful is for us to spend most of the end of the semester going back and making a good set of notes on things we have already seen and worked with once. I’d like your feedback. There’s always more out there that we haven’t done yet. Put your thoughts in the comments, and vote for what you think would be most useful for you.

2010 04 06 LaurelLangford Uncategorized Comments (1) Permalink

More teaching with CAS

In a lesson a bit like LeeAnn’s, Mr Sweeny describes a lesson on exponent rules using Wolfram Alpha. If you browse through his site, you’ll also find that he describes the study method he teaches to his college-bound juniors and seniors. If you, like me, aren’t very self aware about how you study, you might find this useful to share with your future students.

2010 04 06 LaurelLangford Uncategorized Comments (1) Permalink

Copy and paste into SMART Notebook

When you are copying and pasting something from Word into Notebook, you may notice that embedded graphics (including some formulas) don’t paste in. What’s going on is that you can paste text or you can paste graphics, but not both at the same time, so past the text, and then past the graphics, and all will be well.

2010 04 06 LaurelLangford Uncategorized Comments (1) Permalink

SMART goofs

So, there are a few other blogs on my own personal list, that I read occasionally. One of them, the math Curmudgeon, is, as you will see, not a fan of SMART boards. However, regardless of any differences of opinion we might have about SMART boards being useful, I think you’ll also look at the goof he found and go: wow. I know a few of you played with this app in SMART Notebook a few weeks ago: it lets you make some right triangles, and tells you the side lengths and the angles. The only problem is that it’s wrong! The side lengths and angles are incompatible (try making a trig function with it, and it will become apparent how far off it is). He’s got a description here (and a few uncomplimentary words) along with a screen shot.

(It’s these sorts of things you don’t notice about a new textbook or a new piece of software until you’re in the middle of it, and everything is goofed up–glad I haven’t tried using that one in a class!)

2010 03 24 LaurelLangford Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Life Path Number

“John Lennon thought that the number 9 brought him luck…most days.  John was born on October 9th 1940 in Liverpool.( 9 letters) Discovered on Nov 9th 1961, on Ed Sullivan Feb 9th.  The Beatles called it quit after 9 year. Met Yoko Ono on Nov 9th 1966, they had a son Sean, born 9 year later, on John’s birthday Oct. 9th.  In 1980 John Lennon was shot to death, 9 years after he moved to New York.  He was pronounced dead at 11:07(1+1+7=9) pm on December 8th.  Not the 9th, but the date in Liverpool where he was born was… December 9th… do do voodoo”

The above information was taken from a blog regarding E!’s show on 13 Hollywood curses.  At the beginning of the segment regarding John Lennon, it mentioned something about a “life path number.”  Obviously being a math person, numbers have always interested me and I have always been interested in astrology and how outside aspects affect our everyday lives.  I googled “life path number” and this website came up explaining how to find yours and then it had a few paragraphs explaining what it meant to have your number as a life path number and what type of person you can be because of it.  My number is 7 and I was honestly creeped out by how accurate the description was.

I thought all of you would be interested in this also and might like to find yours.

2010 03 24 k_deboer Uncategorized Comments (2) Permalink

Cellular Devices in the Classroom

St. Croix Central High School seems to be technology friendly in more than one aspect; the cell phones friendliness of the school is what took me, personally, by surprise.

My copperating teacher, Tricia Rogers, thinks that cell phones can be used to the students’ and teachers’ advantage in the classroom.  Most of the studnets in the classroom have their cell phones in their pockets.  Tricia was not opposed to them using their cell phones as a resource during projects (like scavenger hunts) or during homework time.

The most interesting observation I made about this cell phone topic is the usage by the students; they don’t try to hide their cell phones from teachers or other staff.  Because St. Croix Central does not frown upon cell phones usage in general, the students feel comfortable having them and faculty doesn’t worry about the kids abusing them.

2010 03 24 lindsey.johnson Uncategorized Comments (2) Permalink

CPM

Riley Lark over at Point of Inflection has been trying out CPM. He mostly loves it (except of course where he doesn’t). Check out his perspectives in these 3 posts.

Why CPM is killing my blog

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

What do you mean, “relevant”?

2010 03 24 LaurelLangford Uncategorized Comments (2) Permalink

Manipulatives

We talk a lot about using manipulatives in the classroom and I stumbled across these prime number manipulatives that a teacher came up with. He used Scrabble tiles and wrote on the back of them. He admitted to runing about 5 Scrabble games in the process, but you can always use them in the game again. He used these tiles to show up on a document camera and the students used paper ones that looked like them. I thought it was a cool way to show prime factorizations of numbers then using them to find the GCF and LCM of two numbers. It just shows us that if you are creative, you can think of your own cheap manipulatives to use in your classroom.

2010 03 23 lroubal Uncategorized Comments (2) Permalink

Teacher Tube

I personally love youtube.  It can give you short clips that can be nice to use as hooks or to develope problems.  However, some of the information may not be correct and some of the posts may be inappropriate for the school setting.  That is why Teacher Tube is nice.  There are a variety of videos and even some activities.  So the next time you are in need of some ideas, check out this website and you may just come across an idea that will work for you.   However, make sure you still use your judgement on the videos.  Enjoy!

2010 03 22 wirkusk Uncategorized Comments (1) Permalink

Accuracy vs. Precision

I have been doing some searching on the terms we were discussing in class today.  I thought the definitions were not cleared up for everyone but this is what I tried to display on the board.  I found the mathematical definitions on dictionary.com:

accuracy

Mathematics. the degree of correctness of a quantity, expression, etc.Compare precision (def. 5).

precision

Mathematics. the degree to which the correctness of a quantity is expressed.Compare accuracy (def. 3).
I also thought it was interesting that they have comparison links to each other.  I hope this helps!
2010 03 22 casciuwrf Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink