maths – Page 6 – iLearn Technology

Crypto Kids

June 18, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments4975 views

What it is: Crypto Kids is a website created by the National Security Agency all about creating and breaking codes. This is a fantastic critical thinking website that also taps into math, linguistics, engineering, and analyzing skills. I found Crypto Kids while I was hunting for an activity for students to learn more about codes as part of our Treasures reading series. Crypto Kids turns out to be an excellent site for all elementary classrooms. Students learn all about cryptology, the National Security Agency, and ciphers. Students get the chance to meet the characters of Crypto Kids which include: Crypto Cat, Decipher Dog, Rosetta Stone, Slate, Joules, T. Top, and the leader CSS Sam. Students can play logic games to test out their code breaking skills. There are three levels of game play beginner, intermediate, and advanced. As students play games, they will learn Morse Code, complete brainteasers that involve math and logic, create their own cipher machines, crack Yardleygrams and cryptograms, and learn some words in different languages. Students can then learn more about careers that use cryptograms and code breaking at the National Security Agency.

How to integrate Crypto Kids into the classroom: Crypto Kids is packed full of thinking and logic games and activities, many of which involve mathematical problem solving. Crypto Kids games and activities are a great way to get your students thinking critically before math class. Put one of the brain teasers up on the projector connected computer or interactive whiteboard for students to solve as a warm up activity. Crypto Kids games are short enough that they could be used as a math center activity on classroom computers. Students can visit the center in pairs or small groups and work on solving cryptograms together. The Yardleygrams are stories that must be solved, these are fun to solve as a whole class.

Since I was using this site to build background knowledge about codes with my students, we focused on what secret codes were, how they were used, and cracked some codes for practice. As an extension activity, I had students read the descriptions of the characters on Crypto Kids and write a short story about the character. These turned out great! Students have to use the character qualities that are written and craft a story about the character, paying attention to how they think the character would act and what special skills they could use to solve a problem.

Tips: Check out the Teacher/Parent section of the site for some additional resources.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Crypto Kids in your classroom.

Math Doesn’t Suck

May 24, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2716 views

What it is: Danica McKellar (also known as Winnie Cooper of The Wonder Years) has written a book called Math Doesn’t Suck. Danica makes her love for math contagious and helps middle school girls to realize that Math Doesn’t Suck. On the Math Doesn’t Suck website, students can take a fun quiz called “Do You Hide Your Smarts (especially around guys)”, access a full solution guide to accompany the Math Doesn’t Suck book, learn more about the book, and get news and book signings.

How to integrate Math Doesn’t Suck into the classroom: There is a large population of girls (particularly in middle school) who believe that they are no good at math, they have already convinced themselves that girls are not as good at math as boys. They may believe that it isn’t cool or fashionable to be good at math. Danica aims to change these perceptions with her fun book Math Doesn’t Suck. If you teach girls in middle school math, start the year off with the “Do You Hide Your Smarts” quiz. It could give you great insight to what your girls believe about themselves in relation to math. Start a book club or assign Math Doesn’t Suck as reading to start your year. The book is a fun read that girls will connect with. Help transform your students perceptions of math and begin the year with girls who believe that they can be successful and good at math. The book includes

A unique Troubleshooting Guide to help students get “unstuck” and overcome their biggest challenges
True stories from Danica’s own life as a terrified math student, confident actress, and everything in between
A math horoscope, math personality quizzes, real-life testimonials, and more!

Tips: In the trouble shooting section, students will find solutions to these common math problems:

“Math bores me to death.”
“When it’s time to do Math, I get scared and try to avoid it.”
“I get confused and lost during class.”
“I think I understand something, but then I get the wrong answer in my homework.”
“At test time, I freeze up and can’t remember anything.”

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Math Doesn’t Suck in your classroom.

Math-A-Thon

May 24, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3186 views

What it is: Math-A-Thon is an excellent math site with a good cause. “Math-A-Thon is a volunteer-based fundraising program for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The program includes a free math curriculum supplement for grades K-8 that students complete after obtaining sponsorships from family and friends.” Students work on math and comprehension skills, age appropriate math problems while building empathy and character. By practicing math, students can raise money and awareness for St. Jude patients who are battling cancer and various other childhood diseases. In addition to the free curriculum and math fun books, Math-A-Thon has entertaining online math games and math character profiles. The Numerators are a math superhero team that is made up of Minus, Symmetry, Octagon and Fraction. The characters have math super powers that will help students as they solve problems in their Funbook and work at defeating evil robots. Each character has a fantastic character description (these remind me of the characters on Grammaropolis). Games on Math-A-Thon include Add Like Mad, Subtraction Action, and Bubble Bugs. Bubble Bugs is an enchanting game where students catch bugs inside bubbles, they practice counting, mouse control, and fine motor skills.

How to integrate Math-A-Thon into the classroom: Math-A-Thon is a website that will help get your students fired up and excited about math and helping others. The games are available for play whether or not you sign up for the full Math-A-Thon challenge. Students in kindergarten through eighth grade can work together to help other kids by working on their math skills. Challenge your class or whole school to raise money for other kids using math as the vehicle. Add Like Mad and Subtraction Action would be fun games for a math center on classroom computers or as a whole class game using an interactive whiteboard. To play either game with the whole class, divide your students into two (or more) teams. Team 1 lines up at the IWB, the first person in the line completes the first problem and then passes play to the next student in line relay style. Teams try to clear the tiles in the least amount of time. After Team 1 has a final time, Team 2 tries to beat it. My students love this kind of friendly competition.

Use the Numerators team characters to learn about math concepts and vocabulary. There are four members of the current team, encourage your students to add to the superhero team with additional math team members. Students can create character profiles and back stories about their math operation superhero. Students could create individual baseball trading cards of their math superhero team member.

Tips: Download a free Funbook sample, these are high quality math workbooks that will have your students problem solving and having fun with math.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Math-A-Thon in your classroom.

Edistorm

May 18, 2010May 18, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments4445 views

What it is: The name Edistorm is a mash-up of the name Thomas Edison and brainstorm, it is inspired by Edison’s idea factories. Edistorm is an incredible brainstorming and collaboration tool that, on the surface, reminds me of Wallwisher. Edistorm has some additional features and abilities that make it very useful in the classroom. Just like Wallwisher, you brainstorm and collaborate using virtual sticky notes. Edistorm gives you a place to organize ideas in a real-time interactive wall. Virtual sticky notes can teach have their own color and can be organized in vertical or horizontal groupings. Edistorms can be created independently or with others in a collaborative effort. Edistorm features an idea bot that works at the bottom of the screen offering suggested ideas based on what students add to the sticky notes in the work space. There are a variety of bots including a rhyming bot, thesaurus, and related words. Public and solo Edistorms are free to create, premium accounts are available for private Edistorms.

How to integrate Edistorm into the classroom: Edistorm offers an exceptional opportunity for students to brainstorm, collaborate, and group ideas. Students can use Edistorm to brainstorm ideas for writing, research, for grouping ideas, and collaborating on group projects. Create an Edistorm for your students and ask them to group like ideas, sort, and expand on thoughts. This could be done for any historical event, literature, science concept, and even phonics. Students could practice spelling by typing out their spelling words along with a sentence or synonyms on sticky notes. Then, they can group words by spelling pattern or common phoneme blends. Create an Edistorm of sticky notes with English words and sticky notes with a foreign language word on them. Students can work together to group words with their meanings. In math, create Edistorms with word problems on one color of sticky note and answers on another set of sticky notes. Students can work to create groups of problems and their solutions. Edistorm can be used for whole class activities using an interactive whiteboard, the class can brainstorm together and collect ideas or use the grouping feature in an activity created by the teacher or students.

Tips: Edistorm requires an email address for sign up. If you teach younger students, you may want to create classroom Edistorm sessions that you have control over.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Edistorm in your classroom.

Chess Kid

May 17, 2010May 17, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3024 views

What it is: Chess Kid is a fantastic way for kids to learn to play the game of chess and then practice their game against kids from around the world. The Chess Kid environment is safe and secure for kids, students have no contact with strangers. A parent or a teacher manages all access and friendships online and can easily monitor all activity. On Chess Kid students learn the rules and strategies of chess and work to improve their game, memorization skills, patience, and sportsmanship. Students can train with tactic puzzles and exercises, view video lessons, practice tactic against the computer, or read chess articles. Chess games can be played online against other kids from around the world, in online tournaments, blitz chess, or against the computer.

How to integrate Chess Kid into the classroom: Chess is a great game that is packed full of skills that help students in other disciplines such as math. Students must use problem solving, decision making, critical thinking, deductive and inductive reasoning, and the ability to make accurate judgments and estimates as they play. Chess makes for a great mental workout and develops skills necessary for solving other problems. Chess Kid is a place where students can learn how to play the game of chess, and then practice through play with kids from around the world or the computer. Chess Kid can be used with the whole class for lessons and learning the how-to aspect of chess on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Students can then play on classroom computers, as a math center, or individually in a computer lab setting.

Tips: The American Chess Foundation published that chess can improve a child’s visual memory, attention span, spatial reasoning skills, capacity to predict and anticipate consequences, and the ability to use criteria to drive decision making and evaluate alternatives.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Chess Kid in your classroom.

Stage’d

May 4, 2010May 4, 2010Kelly Tenkely10 Comments4443 views

What it is: I am constantly learning about cool new website tools for the classroom from my PLN (Personal Learning Network), today I learned about an animated comic creator called Stage’d from fellow Blogging Alliance member @MrR0gers. Stage’d is a tool that helps students to tell digital stories in a new 3-d way. Students can create a stage full of characters and dialogue as if they are directing their own digital play. They can choose characters, costumes, animations, set design and provide characters with dialog. When the 3-d comic has been saved, it can be emailed or linked to with a unique url. Stage’d is perfect for use in any classroom, to save a comic requires no personal identifying information or even an email address. All students have to do is type in the name of the director (first name only or a pseudonym).

How to integrate Stage’d into the classroom: Stage’d is a seriously fun creation tool, students are going to love directing their own 3-d comic plays. Stage’d makes a great digital story telling tool.

Students can:

Publish their own fiction (or non-fiction) writing pieces as a 3-d play
Re-tell a story to demonstrate comprehension
Illustrate vocabulary words
Illustrate historical events
Create mock public service announcements
Create mocumentaries
“Interview” an important person of interest
Create short persuasive video commercials
Illustrate story problems in math
Practice a foreign language dialogue and vocabulary

Stage’d is very easy to use and the results are absolutely fantastic. Create your own Stage’d creations to introduce a new topic or concept to your students. This is a fun introduction that will grab their attention in a hurry.

Tips: The creators of Stage’d are constantly adding new features and options so check back often.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Stage’d in your classroom.

The Zimmer Twins

March 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4996 views

What it is: Who are the Zimmer Twins, you might ask? Edgar and Eva Zimmer are 12 year old twins who appear normal but have developed psychic powers. Strange things began to happen when the twins adopted a black cat named 13. On the Zimmer Twins website, students can create their own cartoon movie endings to a story starter or create their own animated movie from scratch. Students can create and edit movies solo or “Collab-o-write” and work together creating a collaborative movie. Zimmer Twins runs well in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari making it easy to get to and use in any classroom setting. You will need Flash 8 (or higher) installed for the Zimmer Twins to work properly.

How to integrate Zimmer Twins into the classroom: Your students are going to love this site! They can direct and produce their very own animated movies. The easiest way to start using Zimmer Twins in the classroom, is to use it as a story starter. Students can watch a “starter” video and finish the story however they would like. The first time you introduce the site, it might be fun to complete a video as a class. Then students can take over and create their own ending to a Zimmer Twins movie. These video clips make excellent story starters for journal writing even if you can’t take the time to make it into an actual video. To use as a story starter, show the beginning of the short animation to your students on an interactive whiteboard or projector, then let students take over on classroom computers, working together, or writing a journal entry. After your students are familiar with the Zimmer Twins website, they can start a story from scratch. Students could direct “screen plays” of their writing, as a way to publish their finished work. Zimmer Twins would make an excellent alternative to the traditional book report. Students could create a movie where the main character is being interviewed, the story is being summarized, or retold. Students could also create movies about historical events, describing a science experiment or concept, in math as a story problem, to demonstrate understanding of character education or for vocabulary practice. My students have really enjoyed creating movies to show what they have learned on any topic, it is always a sure winner! Are you looking for new ways to engage your students? Why not create a Zimmer Twins original yourself to introduce a new topic. If you are looking for more great ideas for using Zimmer Twins in your classroom, be sure to check out the lesson plans on the teacher page, there are some good ones.

Tips: Students can create a movie on Zimmer Twins without registering; however, they will not be able to save their creation. Creating an account requires an email address. If this presents a problem in your classroom you can do a few things: 1. create a classroom account that every student logs into and saves their videos on. Students will need to include their first name or a class number in the title of their video to differentiate it from others in the class. 2. Set up an account for each student using your email account. You will have to check this email account to provide your students with their passwords. 3. Ask parents to set up accounts for their kids to use at school.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Zimmer Twins in your classroom.

Google Street View Gallery

March 3, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments2749 views

What it is: Google Street Gallery is a must add bookmark for any classroom. This is a collection of Google Street views of famous landmarks, buildings, and art, sport, and entertainment venues from around the world. Landmarks includes places such as Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Space Needle, Gateway Arch, CN Tower, Tokyo Tower, Plaza de Cibeles, Eiffel Tower, Arthur’s Seat, The Colosseum, Arc de Triomphe, and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. In Famous Buildings students can see the street view of Westminster Abbey, City Hall, St. George’s Hall, Coventry Cathedral, Sydney Opera House, Sagrada Familia, Chateau de Chillon, Belem Tower, St. Peter’s Basilica, and Taipei 101. In Art, sport and entertainment students can tour Angel of the North, Coronation Street, Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth, Tate Britain, Wales Millennium Centre, Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, and The Louvre Museum. Not only can students explore the street view of all these places, they can also see users pictures embedded right in the street view. Each place can be viewed on Google Maps with the click of a button. Students can also quickly find more information about any of the landmarks by clicking “more information”. Students are taken to a Google Search that shows the location on a Google map, gives details, photos, videos, reviews, tells about nearby places, and gives more information about the place.

How to integrate Google Street View Gallery into the classroom: Google Street View Gallery makes it easy to whisk your students away on virtual adventures around the world. Bring your geography, history, and social studies lessons to life by letting students take a virtual field trip with Google Street Views. Using an interactive whiteboard or projector, your students will feel like they have visited landmarks around the world during class. Allow students to be the “tour guides” and navigate the street view and pictures associated. Make sure to view the Google Maps so that students can get a sense of where each landmark is located and practice their map skills. Google Street views can be used during math to study architecture shapes, angles, etc. in real world settings.

Display a Google Street View on your projector or interactive whiteboard and ask students to imagine they have just visited this landmark or building and write a story about what happened there. The street views make excellent writing prompts.

Tips: I love using Google Street Views with an interactive whiteboard. Students really get the sense of what it is like to stand on the street in the middle of Prague or London and take a look around. It is fun to imagine the stories that take place every day on those streets.

Google Street View Gallery is not a comprehensive collection of available Google Street Views, it is a great collection of famous landmarks and buildings, grouped together for easy access.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Google Street View Gallery in your classroom.

NBC Olympics: Science of the Olympics

February 11, 2010Kelly Tenkely14 Comments2900 views

What it is: The winter Olympics start tomorrow and students around the world will be watching and rooting on their favorite Olympian, sport, or country. The Olympics offers some fun new learning opportunities to the classroom. Olympic Science is one such opportunity. NBC has several Olympic science videos in which students can learn about physics, motion, energy, biology, chemistry and math. Videos include Slapshot Physics, Aerial Physics, Figure Skating, Snowboarding, Alpine Skiing, Skates, Mathletes, Bobsled, Motion Inside the Body, Short Track, Modern Skis, Suit Up, Curling, Ski Jumping, Safety Gear, and The Internal Athlete. These videos walk students through the actual science that is taking place in the winter games.

How to integrate NBC Olympics- Olympic Science into the classroom: My students are always shocked to learn that there is a lot of math and science in athletics. These videos show students exactly how closely science and math are entwined in everyday life. Olympic Science videos are for students who are forever asking the question “how am I going to use this?” (and shouldn’t they all be asking this!). In the bottom right hand corner of the Olympic Science site you will find more science data. These are quick facts about the science in the sport. I really enjoy using video in the classroom, students can watch, rewind, pause, and re-think the concepts they are seeing. Combine the Olympic Science site with a Wallwisher where students describe the science in the sport, or create a Wordle with new science vocabulary that students learned.

Tips: The Science of the Olympic Games was produced by NBCLearn, part of NBC News that brings news, events, and issues into the classroom. There is a great video collection that includes Word Roots (an animated series that explores the roots of English words), Common Errors in English Usage (animated videos that uncover common errors in English grammar and usage), and Mini Documentaries (hundreds of 2-6 minute documentaries on American history, economics, culture, and political cartoons).

Please leave a comment and share how you are using NBC Olympics-Olympic Science in your classroom.

World Math Day 2010

February 3, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2712 views

What it is: Hooray!! It is World Math Day time! This year World Math Day will be held on March 3, 2010. For those of you who are unfamiliar with World Math Day, it is a day when students from around the world compete in an online environment in live games of mental arithmetic. Each game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play as many as 500 games, earning points for every correct answer. The students who answer the most questions show up in the Hall of Fame. This is an absolutely free event to take part in. Students can train for World Math Day every day leading up to March 3rd by participating in arithmetic competition. For those of you home school readers, World Math Day is also open and free to you! The competition is designed for students 5-18 years old. This year has a little bit of a new format (the change is fantastic!) with multi-levels for all groups. Teachers, parents and media are also invited to participate for the first time. Last year 2 million students from 204 countries participated and correctly answered more than 4 million questions!!

How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom: World Math Day is a fun competition to involve your students in. It helps build mental arithmetic and numeracy. Students from around the world compete in this competition to find out which country has the top mathematicians. Students have a great time working to get their country to the top (nothing like a little National pride!). My students beg to be involved in World Math Day each year. We spend extra time in the computer lab and on classroom computers preparing for the day. Students answer mental math questions appropriate to their age level. This is a phenomenal way to get some fact practice in!

We make a big deal out of World Math Day and let students have an extended math period to compete on March 3rd. You could use World Math Day as a Math Olympics for your class and have and opening and closing ceremony for your class, school, or representing your country.

Tie World Math Day into your social studies curriculum. As students compete against other students from around the world, the other student is represented by a flag. My students are always very curious to learn more about the other countries and cultures represented. It would also be fun to start a map in Google Earth where you put place markers on the countries that students have competed with.

The platform is open, register your students and start training today!

Tips: If you would like to find out more about past World Math Day competitions check out my posts 2009 here and 2008 here. There are rumors of a World Math Day iPod App coming soon, check back with the official site for more information.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using World Math Day in your classroom.