A Graphing Calculator for Less than $1.00!

The PI83 Graphing Calculator is an iPhone app designed to replace the Texas Instruments TI83 graphing calculator. With over 100 math functions, it makes expensive and bulky graphing calculators a thing of the past. One of 10 “Best Apps” from eSchool News. With over 100 math functions, the graphing calculator is a clone of the TI-83 without the $70 price tag!

If your students already have smartphones, this app is a cost effective solution to their calculator needs!

Does anyone know of a great graphing calculator app for the Android platform?

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,000 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Ruler Game

Occaisonally I get the opportunity to work with CTE teachers on imbedding higher-level mathematics into their content. Their biggest complaint is that students do not know how to read a ruler.

A colleague of mine (Leslie Carson of SREB) told me about a CTE teacher who made the claim that every student knows how to read a ruler by the second day of his class. To accomplish this he has a policy that students will not be able to begin working in the “lab” until they score 1,000 points on The Ruler Game (at various levels). The Ruler Game is a great little online applet for students of all ages.

By implementing this policy, every student except for one earned the necessary points to enter the lab by the end of the first day of class. The one exception earned his 1,000 points within the first 5 minutes of day two!

Have You “Flipped” Your Math Classroom Today?

Have you “flipped” your math classroom? Students in a flipped classroom (sometimes referred to as reverse instruction) view the “content delivery” / lecture before class. Students and teachers then use their valuable class time to explore and to practice mathematical ideas and concepts. In the flipped classroom the teacher truly becomes a facilitator as students are able to work in groups and take charge of their learning. Flipping the classroom also allows for differentiation and give the teacher time to work with students who are struggling (either individually or in small groups).

Parents are quickly becoming fans of the flipped classroom. How many times have parents told you that they don’t understand their child’s math well enough to help them? Now parents can view their child’s “homework” with them…allowing learning to become a family affair!

Here are a few articles and blog posts on the flipped classroom:

• How the Flipped Classroom Is Radically Transforming Learning
• The Flipped Classroom (video)
• 3 Keys to a Flipped Classroom
• The Flipped Classroom (recorded webinar)
• The Flipped Class Blog (by the concept pioneers)

Now that you have decided to flip your math class, you will need some video resources that will become a part of your content delivery. Here are three of my favorites:

• Khan Academy – This is the mother lode of brief instructional math videos. Here you will find everything from basic addition to Partial Derivatives of Vector-Valued
  Functions. There are also many non-math subjects on Khan Academy so be sure to share with your non-math colleagues!
• The Math Dude – Mike DeGraba IS the Math Dude and he has produced a series of engaging math video clips that follow the Montgomery County Public School’s (MD) Algebra 1 curriculum.
• TED Ideas Worth Spreading – There are a few nice math videos here and many wonderful, inspirational and motivational videos in this collection. This is another good one to share with your non-math Brethren!

So I have to ask (POLL):

How much would it cost to send my teen off to Hogwarts?

This awesome infographic was Tweeted this week:

Click here to access the original page.

I bet some fun mathematics could be conjured from this data!

Can’t Go Wrong with Harry Wong!

Wow! That was a really short summer! I sent my kids and husband (an 8th grade teacher) back to school this week and I am now getting back into the swing of my work.

When I was a classroom teacher, one of my favorite resources was The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher by Harry K. Wong. It does not matter if this will be your first or 31st year of teaching or if you teach kindergardeners or high school seniors–this book is full of great ideas that will make for a smooth year and improved student achievement and behavior!

Teachers.net also publishes a free monthly column by Mr. Wong and his wife Rosemary.

Good luck and I hope all of you have a fantastic year!

Summer Rejuvenation Guide for Teachers

Independence Day is almost upon us so most teachers are already well into their summer break. To help make the most of this time off, the folks at Edutopia have 10 great tips to help teachers relax, reflect, and recharge over the summer.

Happy summer!

Summer Math Reading

Here are a few recently published, non-traditional books on math. Happy reading!

• “The Mathematics of Life”: Ian Stewart explains how mathematicians and biologists are working together on some of the most difficult problems the human race has ever tackled — including the unraveling of the genome, the structure of viruses, the spread of disease, the interaction of environmental factors and the origin of life itself.
• “One, Two, Three: Absolutely Elementary Mathematics”: David Berlinski goes back to basics and explains the foundation of arithmetic, right down to the origins of the plus and minus signs. But don’t get the idea that Berlinski is dumbing down the subject: This book touches upon the contributions by David Hilbert, Giuseppe Peano, Bertrand Russell and other brainy people through the ages.
• “Loving + Hating Mathematics: Challenging the Myths of Mathematical Life”: Reuben Hersh and Vera John-Steiner delve into the lifestyles of the not-necessarily-rich but famous mathematicians, in an effort to explain “why the most rational of human endeavors is at the same time one of the most emotional.”

Synposes via msnbc.com

 

 

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The Twitter “Print Effect”

Have you ever wondered how long it would take for you to print out your entire Twitter timeline? I Tweet as @pgraiser and here is an infographic of my Twitter data:
http://www.cartridgesave.co.uk/printeffect/embedded/stats/pgraiser

Created by Cartridge Save, providers of laser toner cartridges

You can create your own Twitter Print Effect infographic by clicking here.

A Statistics Poem

 

A Contribution to Statistics

Out of a hundred people

those who always know better
— fifty-two

 

doubting every step
— nearly all the rest,

 

glad to lend a hand
if it doesn’t take too long
— as high as forty-nine,

 

always good
because they can’t be otherwise
— four, well maybe five,

 

able to admire without envy
— eighteen,

 

suffering illusions
induced by fleeting youth
— sixty, give or take a few,

 

not to be taken lightly
— forty and four,

 

living in constant fear
of someone or something
— seventy-seven,

 

capable of happiness
— twenty-something tops,

 

harmless singly, savage in crowds
— half at least,

 

cruel
when forced by circumstances
— better not to know
even ballpark figures,

 

wise after the fact
— just a couple more
than wise before it,

 

taking only things from life
— thirty
(I wish I were wrong),

 

hunched in pain,
no flashlight in the dark
— eighty-three
sooner or later,

 

righteous
— thirty-five, which is a lot,

 

righteous
and understanding
— three,

 

worthy of compassion
— ninety-nine,

 

mortal
— a hundred out of a hundred.
Thus far this figure still remains unchanged.

 

 

by Wislawa Szymborska

from Poems: New and Selected,
trans. by S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh