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Equation Persuasion

Want a free (open-source) equation editor that'll allow you to drop your finished equation into written documents and/or webpages? Get to MathCast fast!

Think Math Is Boring?

Think Again!

Looking For Converts?

Try Online Conversion. :-)

Middle & High School Math Teachers: Graphing Software

If you want a FREE (well, free for a month--but you can do a lot in that time!) resource to help your students graph equations, look at Graphmatica. The site license is very reasonable.

A Different Kind of Accelerated Math: Overclocking the TI Calculator

Hotrod math teachers take heart--you can tinker with your TI and bump up the speed. After a few adjustments you should see speeds approaching 12 MHz (older models) to 20 MHz (newer models). I found this nifty item via BoingBoing.

Math: Why It Sometimes Pays To Pay

As part of a grant-funded project, I'm working with math teachers from different elementary schools. The project aims to increase student understanding of and academic performance in math. I've been trying to demonstrate how technology integration can help the teachers. Thankfully, the participants are open to new ideas and have been intrigued with the possibilities of adding a few new tricks to their teaching repertoire. Although I try to mention as many free resources as possible, I've also been making suggestions as to how they might spend some of their supply money. For example, anyone working with technology resources, teacher or students, will benefit from having and using a portable data storage device such as a USB flash drive. A flash drive isn't free but is a wise use of funds. In addition to hardware, online subscription services are also a prudent use of money. The Math Forum's Active Problem Library eventually discloses that a paid membership gets you some nifty goodies. At the high school level, ExploreLearning has tons of Gizmos that are well worth the cost to use. If teachers are planning on incorporating digital video or audio into instruction, investing in a library of music or  other multimedia resources is also worth consideration.

Everything's Bigger in Texas--Even The Math

The Lone Star state's reputation for excess is well-known. There's more of everything in Texas. Just look at this "little" collection of math resources housed at Sam Houston State University. Yee-haw!

Math In Everyday Life

Recently, I've had the great fortune of working with two schools ( Screven County Elementary in Screven County and Screven Elementary School in Wayne County) that are participating in a grant-funded project that explores how technology integration in math can improve student performance. The participants have been wonderful. They've tolerated my discussions on why we're using the Understanding By Design model of lesson creation. They're learning new skills and strategies for teaching math with technology resources such as math websites like the NCTM's incredible Illuminations Math Tools site as well as the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives and interactive whiteboards like Promethean's ACTIVBoard and the SmartBoard. As part of the training, I'm advocating that the participants look for ways that math is used in an authentic manner because students invariably ask, "When am I going to use this stuff in real life?"

How Do We Do It? Volume! Volume! Volume!

Winona, from Screven Elementary School in Sylvania, asked me if I knew of any useful technology-driven volume related resources. Here you go, Winona... ABE Volume Calculator Page is like one stop shopping in terms of volume calculation. Why not have students apply volume calculation in a real-life manner, say estimating the volume of a concrete object (like a slab, wall, or column) or a fish pond or an aquarium?

Integrator Integration

Wolfram's Integrator--you've got to see it to believe it.