I have been teaching the Math For Elementary Teachers course for about 8 years now. I love using manipulatives to help the students better understand WHY the “rules” work. When the class was over, however, they didn’t have anything to look back on to see the manipulatives we used in “action”. There were drawings and explanations in the textbook, but nothing that would simulate what we had done in class. So, several years ago I decided to learn Flash so I could create my own animated tutorials to help my students remember the REASON behind the math, and not just the rules!
I learned Dreamweaver at the same time so that I could create a website to house the animations. I decided to not only house the animations in their respective courses/chapters, but I decided that it would be beneficial to others if I created a separate website as well that housed the animations by topic.
Check out some of my arithmetic animations at: http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~glascoe/arithmetic/arithmeticindex.htm I am still in the process of creating many more. Eventually I will also create some that are interactive (where the students can move the objects around). I have so much technology on my plate right now that I have to keep moving back and forth between projects! I find it better to have too many passions in life, rather than too few!
