mathematics – Page 7 – iLearn Technology

Math-A-Thon

May 24, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3225 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.

Chess Kid

May 17, 2010May 17, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3071 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 Comments4516 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 Comment5082 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 Comments2784 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.

Math Live

March 2, 2010Kelly Tenkely11 Comments3790 views

What it is: In honor of World Math Day (which takes place tomorrow 3/3/10) I decided to pass on a fantastic math website that I learned about from The Techie Classroom Blog (one of the amazing blogs taking part in the edublogger alliance). Math Live has a collection of animated cartoons that teach students math concepts. 3rd through 6th grade students can learn about numbers, patterns and relations, shape and space, and statistics and probability. These cartoons are extremely high quality and teach key math concepts through story. Students can watch videos on place value, multiples, factors, primes, proper fractions, equivalent fractions, comparing and ordering fractions, comparing and ordering decimals, addition and subtraction of decimals, multiplication of whole numbers, division of whole numbers, multiplication and division of decimals, patterns, area and perimeter, volume, time, triangles, polygons, sides, tessellations, ordered pairs, displaying data, probability and estimating. The videos show students real-world applications of math concepts. The videos are chunked really well and stop periodically so that students can think about and discuss their thoughts on the math concept. The videos have outstanding visuals that explain the concepts succinctly. Each video is accompanied by an Activity Sheet (read worksheet), an assessment, and Teacher/Parent Notes. The Teacher Notes include a great section with “Common mistakes students make” to help teachers avoid common pitfalls when teaching. They also include great ideas for additional practice of the concepts. Math Live gives students an excellent animated, interactive math glossary. As students are viewing a video lesson, they can access either the master glossary (with all of the sites vocabulary) or visit the lesson glossary (with only the vocabulary from the lesson). I am really impressed with the glossary.

How to integrate Math Live into the classroom: Math is a hard subject for many students. It can be difficult for students to understand how math relates to real life. Math Live videos are a great way to help students break down math into manageable pieces. It illustrates each concept very well. Students who struggle with math are going to LOVE this site. It allows them to pause, rewind, and revisit concepts as many times as they need to so that they can master a concept. These videos would be an excellent way to introduce new math concepts to the whole class using a projector or interactive whiteboard. They can also be used as a math center on classroom computers or individually in the computer lab. Keep Math Live handy for students struggling with these concepts or to quickly access math vocabulary in the glossary.

The list of concepts covered is limited, as an extension activity, have students create their own math movie using a tool like Xtranormal or Kerpoof Movie.

Tips: Send Math Live home to parents, these videos could be a tremendous help for homework time. Often parents struggle with explaining math to their children, this could be a big help!

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

NBC Olympics: Science of the Olympics

February 11, 2010Kelly Tenkely14 Comments2940 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 Comments2781 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.

Number Gossip

January 31, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments2294 views

What it is: Number Gossip is an outstanding math tool that I learned about from the excellent blog ZarcoEnglish-Tool of the Day. Number Gossip is a search engine for numbers only. Type in any number and you will learn “everything you wanted to know about it but were afraid to ask”. For example, when I search for the number 2 I learn: 2 is the smallest prime number, 2 is the only even prime number, the smallest field has 2 elements, for any polyhedron, 2 is the number of vertices plus the number of faces minus the number of edges. I can also learn the rare properties of two, and the common properties of two. Now that is pretty cool!

How to integrate Number Gossip into the classroom: Number Gossip makes an excellent introduction to math class. Call on a student to choose a new number each day and learn all about the number. New math vocabulary and concepts will be introduced every day. Number Gossip helps students understand numbers, their properties, and their relationship to one another. When students are studying new properties, they can search numbers that fulfill those properties and find out why.

Students could create a baseball type card for a favorite or lucky number, listing all of it’s stats on the back.

Tips: I just love the name of this site, Number Gossip, doesn’t it just make you want to know more? I think students will feel the same. When you search for a number, input the actual number (2) it doesn’t recognize (two).

P lease leave a comment and share how you are using Number Gossip in your classroom.

Carrot Sticks

January 11, 2010January 12, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2425 views

What it is: Carrot Sticks is another fun place for your students to practice math facts. Carrot Sticks is a fantastic place where your students can practice their math facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) for FREE! Students get to create their own Carrot Stick avatar to help them practice. Then they practice addition facts against an online opponent of their choosing. Carrot Sticks has students testing their math fact skills against other students from around the world in a completely safe environment (no personal information is shared and students can’t chat). Students earn math achievement certificates for reaching various goals. Note: To get your FREE Carrot Sticks account (available to educators for school/classroom use only) email support@carrotsticks.com.

How to integrate Carrot Sticks into the classroom: Use Carrot Sticks for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division math fact practice. Students love seeing how they stack up to their peers from around the world. Carrot Sticks also offers individual goals for students to reach. Not only are they competing against others, they are trying to improve their own best times. Carrot Sticks is a nice alternative to flash card practice. Students will enjoy the ability to create their own avatar and earn rewards for meeting goals. Carrot Sticks would make a good addition math fact practice center for students on classroom computers. Give students a set amount of time to practice their facts. Keep a running scoreboard by the center with the highest student score in 1 min, 2 min, or 5 min. Carrot sticks reminds me of World Math Day (which my students go crazy for) why not offer the Carrot Sticks website as a “training center” to prepare for World Math Day?

Tips: Send this link home to parents, they are often looking for new ways to practice math facts at home.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Carrot Sticks in your classroom.