Archive for Math Projects

Creating INTERACTIVE activities with HyperStudio5!

April 13, 2011 Algebra, education, HyperStudio, Interactive Projects, Math Projects, Mathcast, Teaching Online, TechFriends(Geeks) 2 comments

Link to the official Hyperstudio website

In my spare time (ha ha) I have been playing with Roger Wagner’s Hyperstudio 5.   (Luckily Roger Wagner himself has been helping me!!)  What a fun program!    My goal is to create more INTERACTIVE activities and tutorials/videos for my students, without all the work of Flash.   Hyperstudio fits that goal amazingly well!   It is similar to PowerPoint, but far more incredible in my book!

I “finished” my first final draft (I keep “fixing it” so it is forever in draft mode) of an interactive tutorial on introducing combinations and counting, and posted the project on a new area of my website with the button “HyperStudio Projects”.

Before clicking on the link below that will take you to the Hyperstudio stack, you must first make sure you are using either Safari or Internet Explorer, because these are the only browsers that have the Hyperstudio web-brower add-on for now.   To get the browser add-on, go to:  http://www.mackiev.com/support_hs.html , click on the proper computer type, then get the browser add-in for either Safari or Internet Explorer, then you will be able to view and PLAY WITH the activity.

Here is the direct link to my first project: http://www.tech4mathed.com/HyperStudio/IceCream_SG.html

If you have the browser add-on correctly installed you should see the following screen:

Once the stack is finished loading, the screen should look like:

Now you are ready to click on “go to STORY”.

I created the story like a video, and I narrated every screen, so you can  hear the narration if you click on the button. The audio level needs some work, some of the narration is too quiet and I will need to redo those sections.  The most fun part of it, however, is the INTERACTIVITY that was easy to create!

In this activity, I created an Ice Cream Playground, where you can actually move around all the objects on the page to explore and find the answer before viewing the explanation of the solution.  My 14 year old son did all of the artwork for me!   It is wonderful having a live-in artist on hand!

Please give it a try and let me know what I can do to make it more interesting for my students.   I also need to know if you are able to view it on a Mac and on a Windows machine.  Some Windows machines can view it and some cannot, so I am trying to trouble-shoot which versions of Windows have difficulty to help find a fix for that.

I am excited to make more projects and play with Hyperstudio!

 

 

I Made My First Interactive GeoGebra Applet!

December 29, 2010 Algebra, education, GeoGebra, Math Projects, online tools, Software, Teaching Online, TechFriends(Geeks), Technology 4 comments

Logo taken from the GeoGebra website – holiday version!

I have met several people in the past year (some only virtually) who have convinced me that learning GeoGebra would be a great addition to my tech tools for teaching mathematics. Since GeoGebra is FREE, it makes it an even better resource as a teacher and tech ed consultant, and also for student projects as well! Geometry is one of my favorite subjects to teach;  in the past I used Geometer’s Sketchpad, but in the future I plan on using GeoGebra!

I believe WordPress is not allowing me to directly embed the <applet> Javascript code for my first GeoGebra applet, so I created a new set of webpages on my Tech4MathEd site where I will be posting all of the GeoGebra applets I create.   I am just learning, so there is only 1 there now 🙂

To see my first interactive GeoGebra applet, which helps students understand graphing a line using the slope-intercept form of the line by interacting with the graph, go to  Slope Intercept GeoGebra Applet.

I am really looking forward to using GeoGebra, not only to create interactive applets for my Algebra students, but also to help my Math For Elementary Teacher classes learn more about Geometry!

To download  and start playing with GeoGebra, go to:  download GeoGebra

Image of my interactive applet:

 

A Leading Teaching/Technology Blog and Google

November 25, 2010 Google, Math Projects, Mathcast, online tools, Teaching, Technology One comment

One of my favorite blogs to follow is Free Technology For Teachers.  I have followed Richard Byrne’s blog for over a year now and have found many fantastic, not to mention FREE tools for teachers.

I was there again yesterday looking for some information about Google Apps (I really do go to his blog first when looking for information about teaching with technology!)  and I found exactly what I was looking for!   He has given me permission to share his tutorials with you on my blog.   He has created several fantastic resources about using Google for Teachers, and Richard is a Google Certified Teacher.

Here are a few of the Google Tutorials he has built.  You can download them for free on his website at the following link:   Google Tutorials

Google for Teachers – Google for Teachers II – Beyond Google –

Richard Byrne keeps up on the lastest free technology out there, and has quite a few Free Downloads on his website!

If you are looking for information on how to create blogs, website or videos, his blog is perfect for that as well!   His blog was awarded Edublog’s ” Best Resource Sharing” and “Best Individual” award in 2009.

Check out his blog at   www.freetech4teachers.com/


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Amazing Student Glogs!

September 19, 2010 Glogster, Math Projects, Mathcast 2 comments

My Math For Elementary Teachers classes finished their first set of projects last week.   I got permission to post some of their work on my blog.  I think you will be as excited about their work as I am.  One of the projects was to write a 30 minute classroom activity, based on one of the lessons from class.  They were to use the free online program called Glogster:

Here is the link to the Glog

Here is a link to this Glog

I am having a great time grading these!

 

My Latest Article for Livescribe: From Traditional to Innovative

September 9, 2010 CPS Clickers, Flash, Flash, Livescribe, Livescribe, Lumens DC265 Ladibug document camera, Math Projects, Mathcast, Mobi One comment

I was asked recently to write an article for Livescribe about the Math Foundations workshops  that were created by the team I was a part of this summer at Mesa Community College.    To read about the transformation of Mesa Community College’s Arithmetic course, the article I wrote is posted on the Livescribe Education Blog

The article contains a link to the new Math Foundations website that houses links to all the Livescribe pencasts, Flash animations and workshop handouts created by the team this past summer.   Check it out and let me know what you think!


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Mapping out my syllabus

August 2, 2010 Helping students, Math Projects, mindmapping, Software, Teaching Online One comment

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, I am having my students rotate through creating several visual online tools to help them learn to better organize information and share with others.  In preparation for having them create a mindmap, I created one using MindMeister of the syllabus for my course!



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Presenting….my syllabus!

August 1, 2010 CPS Clickers, Livescribe, Lumens DC265 Ladibug document camera, Math Projects, Mathcast, Mobi, Prezi One comment

I have been spending the past few weeks trying to think of better ways to get my future teachers to be more engaged in their learning. I have decided to model several ideas after a great friend of mine who writes the amazing Teaching College Math blog, Maria Andersen.

Not only am I going to use hands on manipulatives and technology (like I have been) to teach with, but to help my students organize their thoughts and the material for the course, I am going to have them create a Prezi, a Wiki, a Blog and a Mindmap. One fourth of the class will be doing each of these for every test. Each student will rotate through the 4 types of online tools for every test (but not in the same order as the rest of their group). All students will also create a google website to house links to all of their creations and any notes or other information they want to add, along with their service learning journal. The website will be private and they will only share viewing privileges with me. The other 4 online components will be public and shared with the rest of the class.

I am hoping that not only will they have a better feel for the material in each quarter of the course, but it will be theirs to keep online and reuse the ideas and links when they become teachers. It will be helpful for them to study for each test because all 4 types of models will be created by the class for each test, and they will be able to use one another’s to help them study.

I decided I would model some of the types for the students, by creating my syllabus as a Prezi, and also in a mindmap format. (I will write a new blog entry when I finish my mindmapped syllabus).

I thought it would not be as helpful to show them the syllabus in Blog format (they can see this blog for ideas), and my syllabus is already on a website (just not a free google one). I am still contemplating whether to show an example of my syllabus as a wiki.

Here is the first pass at my syllabus as a Prezi:

Math156syllabus on Prezi *the Prezi is now having issues viewing…try THIS LINK

Copy of Math156syllabus on Prezi

I think I have narrowed it down to have them use the following free online tools:

Prezi (for a free online presentation style of tool)
MindMeister (for a free online mindmapping tool)
Glogster (for a free online fun poster tool))
Wordpress or Blogger (for a free online blog)

Google website for their free online website

I hope they are as excited as I am to learn these great tools and put them into “action”!


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Fun creating a Flash Animation for a 3D image in 3D!

July 6, 2010 Flash, Flash, Jing, Math Projects, Mathcast One comment



Today I spent quite a few hours building “blocks” (cubes) from scratch in Flash and placing them into
3 dimensional space to fill a rectangular prism!

It was a visually interesting problem to try to figure out which cubes to put in first, and
which ones had to be on a higher layer in Flash then the other ones!

Plus I had to try to get them to “fit” into a geometric rectangular prism. (OK, I gave up, they didn’t fit exactly!)

The end product wasn’t too bad though! (this is a JING video taken of just part of the Flash animation)

 

My next technology journey!

April 24, 2010 HyperStudio, Lumens DC265 Ladibug document camera, Math Projects, Mathcast, Software 4 comments

I have been having several interesting conversations with Roger Wagner, the creator of HyperStudio, lately about teaching with technology.   He passed on some great teaching ideas!      It would be really fun to use my Lumens DC265 document camera and HyperStudio 5 to create a stop-action movie!   I could also record a “normal” movie and insert it into a HyperStudio stack to be part of a larger project for my students….the wheels are turning!   I sure wish there were more than 24 hours in a day!

To learn more about HyperStudio go to:  http://www.mackiev.com/hyperstudio/

Roger Wagner also has an area on Facebook for folks interested in sharing their ideas about how to use HyperStudio in education called HyperFest Central

If you use HyperStudio PLEASE send me some of your projects, I would LOVE to see them!  I am just re-learning HyperStudio after taking a long vacation.   When I create my first project I will be sure to share it here!

 

Students Having FUN with Math!

April 17, 2010 Animationish, Math Projects, Software One comment

My great friends at FableVision Learning introduced me to the most FUN program I have ever played with:  Animationish!

If you have read the children’s books “The Dot” or “Ish”, both written and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds, then this program will look quite familiar!  In his book, “Ish”, his goal is to teach children they don’t need to worry about drawing perfectly , just something  tree-ish, or boat-ish.  It is a wonderful story with a great message!  I love his illustrations as well!   Back to my point…Peter is also the founder of FableVision, the educational media company that created Animation-ish.   As you might have guessed, the program is used to easily teach children and adults to animate “ishly”.  All the button are whimsically drawn by Peter and the program helps even the most creativity-challenged become very creative!  Just ask my students!

For my Math For Elementary Teachers course, I always have the students write their own story problems.   This past year I took it one step further.  My 13 year old son came to my classes and taught my students to use Animationish.   They were very impressed that a 13 year old could easily teach them how to use it!     Their project was to write a story problem, create a story board, and then animate their story using the Free trail (15 day) of Animationish.  Their projects were AMAZING!!

This is the first time in my 23 years teaching that every single student (without exception) not only did the project, but did an amazing job on it!  Everyone actually earned 100%!   I got their permission to create a website to post their animations on the web.   Check them out!

I would HIGHLY recommend downloading their free trial and playing with it – you will love it, too!  The school my children go to has Animationish on every computer, where teachers use the program to make every subject more fun.   Kids are animating stories they write, math problems, scenes from history, biology cycles, etc.  The only limit is your imagination.

 
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