Math Links for Week Ending Jan. 24th, 2014

Why do (some) people hate math? That is what Numberphile asked and the answer is pretty good. Honestly I felt they could stop at the painting the fence analogy.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yexc19j3TjE

So last week I posted another video from Numberphile that has generated a lot of mathematical discussion. Of the rebuttals, I think this was the fairest. If you haven't seen the video yet, click here.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/18/follow_up_the_infinite_series_and_the_mind_blowing_result.html

Among the things that got a make over with the relaunch of the Math Gains site last week was the CLIPS flash object. Some new tabs that include some of the new games that have appeared on the Mathies.ca site as well as one for tools (though that one seems redundant since the wrench icon will also take you there).
Tags: All
http://oame.on.ca/clips/

I really love this pattern recently found on the Math With Bad Drawings blog. The thing that is great is that you could use this pattern as is in grade 7 or 8 but then you could use it as an intro to multiplying binomials and on the blog I love the visual proof as well.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM2P
http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2014/01/13/undiscovered-math/


I really like this very comprehensive post from Dan Meyer on what piques curiosity in students. Lots of examples from various grade levels and reference to research along the way.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=18314







It's no secret that I am a fan of Desmos, This week, in preparation of the Superbowl, Yummy math has a data set about Superbowl ads that is dynamic and spans linear, quadratic and exponential models. Perfect for MCR3U and MHF4U.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U
http://www.yummymath.com/2014/how-has-the-cost-of-a-super-bowl-ad-changed-3/

I love this geometry construction game. You start with two points, and you can construct either a line segment or a circle based on those points. Any intersections create new points and you are given figures to create (Eg a triangle inscribed in a circle). Its actually a little addictive. Give it to your students who need something extra to do.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://sciencevsmagic.net/geo/

What do you call a group of mathematicians? Thanks to the fine folks at the American Mathematical Society you can follow this link and find out.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/2014/01/14/collective-noun-for-mathematicians/

Do you need a "real world" video to help you teach systems of equations. Of course you do. Here is an activity from Emergent Math that uses this cool video from an MLB promotion. He cuts the video at first so you don't see the end and can have those good conversations with kids. And if you want to lead to something more dynamic then pull up this Gizmo to play with the situation. Also don't forget to take a look at the alternat 3Act version at the When Math Happens blog. Well done.

Curriculum Tags: MFM1P, MPM1D, MFM2P, MPM2D

http://emergentmath.com/2014/01/22/guy-racing-another-guy-in-a-squirrel-costume-obviously-a-systems-problem/

Somebody from Make Magazine was at the Joint Mathematics Meeting and took a bunch of pictures and video from the floor. Some neat images
Curriculum Tags: All
http://makezine.com/2014/01/21/making-with-math/

Math Links for Week Ending Dec. 6, 2013

OK, so I am not going to say much about the features of Math Disk except to say watch the video below and try not to be impressed with all it does. Ok, so maybe I will mention some of the features. Algebraic and numerical calculations, function and statistical plots, probability, dynamic geometry and 3D vector plots (amazing stuff ripe for MCV4U) and even physics simulations (you can actually play angry birds). There is an iPad version as well. Though it doesn't have all the functionality, by creating an account on your computer, you can open and manipulate any files on the iPad. That being said, because it does so much, there will be a bit of a learning curve to figure out how to use it. There are a number of support articles and of course there are a pile of how to videos. My only complaint about these is that there doesn't seem to be any verbal instructions. They just show you how to do things. So when I was trying to make a dynamic plot, I found it hard to just watch what they were doing and mimic it on my screen without watching a few times. But once I got the gist of what to do the graphs and sketches started to flow. And its totally free. Go ahead, try to not be impressed by this. Thanks to Free Technology for Teachers for pointing this out.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.mathdisk.com/

The second of two graphing applets today is called Plotly. Now I know in Ontario we have both Fathom and Tinkerplots to use freely at home or school and many of us also have Excel and possibly Google Docs now but this package does just about every type of graph relatively easily. That is something that none of the above mentioned can do. Excel is pretty good at making line, bar and circle graphs (same with Google Docs) and Fathom and Tinker plots are great for graphing microdata (scatter plots, histograms, box plots and dot plots). But Plotly does them all. Histograms, box plots, bar graphs, line graphs and my new favourite: heat maps among others. I do find it interesting that circle plots are curiously omitted (probably a nod to those statistics folks who think they are among the most misused and awful types of graphs). All of the graphs have mouse over features and can be customized. As an added bonus it seems to work fine on an iPad (sans mouse over features) and you can even import your data from Dropbox or Google Drive. I suggest looking gallery to see the scope of what can be done and at the tutorials to master any of the idiosyncratic features of making these graphs. And of course, don't forget to create an account to save all of your graphs.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://plot.ly/

Depending on how anal you are about pseudo random generators (purists among you will no doubt harp that any electronic random generator is not, in fact, random - and you would probably be right), you may think this is cool or useless. Flip a day has one purpose. To flip a real coin once per day and post the result. That's it. As of today they are at 220 flips. You can follow them on Twitter and download the csv file as well.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://flipaday.co/

If you haven't used Dragon Box, I think you are missing out. I truly believe it is one of the best games out there that actually teaches a math concept. It runs on multi platforms and isn't that expensive. But how would you actually use it in a classroom to teach solving equations? Thanks to Tap into Teen Minds you are one step closer to figuring that out. Thanks Kyle
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P, MPM2D, MFM2P
http://tapintoteenminds.com/2013/11/24/how-to-effectively-use-dragonbox-in-your-solving-equations-lesson/


Do you need an example of something big to give some meaning to number sense calculations? Well how about info around the largest container ship ever built? Here are some stats over 1600ft long (longer than the Empire State Building is tall), 600 000 tonnes. It is basically a floating liquifying natural gas (FLNG) facility that mines, processes and can store up to 3.9 million tonnes of liquid natural gas each year. To get a sense of how much use out of that gas consider that the average family might use about 2000-3000 cubic metres of natural gas during the year (in gaseous form - click here to help convert that)
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/12/worlds-largest-ship/

I love this "proof without words" of the area of the circle and how it can be connected to the area of a triangle. You probably could even get into some calculus talk in terms of infinitesimal slices of a circle to I guess
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whYqhpc6S6g

Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 18th, 2013

Here is a really fun look at distributions via animals and an animation
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://vimeo.com/75089338

Although the actual activity in this post at first seems like it is more for middle school. It quickly moves into polynomials and could easily be adapted up to grade 11 with rational functions. So you might have (x) (6/x) = 6 (or something more complex)
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MFM1P, MPM1D, MCR3U, MCF3M
http://squarerootofnegativeoneteachmath.blogspot.ca/2013/09/this-lesson-cost-me-1.html






As someone who is a fan of Rock, Paper, Scissors as an activity for teaching math, I love that there is an applet for playing against a robot. Especially since you can bring in the research and the Rock Paper Scissors World championship (or regional). And while you are in the vicinity, don't forget Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock and its now famed Big Bang Theory reference. Thanks to Dan Meyer for this one.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://mathcoachblog.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/rock-paper-scissors-and-2-way-tables/

Any time you can do an activity that involves toys and scatter plots, I say go for it. This time its with friction driven cars.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, MDM4U, MAP4C
http://fawnnguyen.com/2013/10/10/vroom-vroom.aspx


The age old question, "do professional teams that spend the most on their payrolls win more?" From Yummy Math here are stats from the big four professional sports to help answer the question. Let your scatter plots go wild. And if that is not enough for you then take a look at this dynamic view of professional baseball with this cool series of visualizations from Ben Fry.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.yummymath.com/2013/do-teams-that-spend-a-lot-win-a-lot/

Why does the number 1729 show up so often in the show Futurama? I will give you a hint, it has something to do with taxicabs and the fact that there were a large proportion of math majors writing for the show. A perfect starter if you are talking about powers of numbers, specifically cubes.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://io9.com/why-does-the-number-1729-show-up-in-so-many-futurama-ep-1445512975

This could be a good starter for a talk about budgets in an locally developed or workplace math class. Thanks to Corrie Silva for this one.
Curriculum Tags: MAT1L, MAT2L, MEL3E, MEL4E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pQJxGIFzdo

I have seen a better version of this clip but for the life of me couldn't find it. Still a neat answer to the question "What is any of this good for? When would we ever use it?" from Person of Interest. The idea is that everything we ever know is hidden in the digits of Pi. Thanks to Kimberly Gibson for this one. Thanks also to @ChrisHunter36 for the better version of this
Curriculum Tags: All
http://vimeo.com/58436405

Here is a neat Flikr group Geometric Images in Real Life. Over 700 images of things that relate to geometry. This could be really helpful when trying to make those connections between geometry and real life.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
http://www.flickr.com/groups/geometryinreallife/

Math links for Week Ending May 24th, 2013

New twitter feeds I'm following @Whatifnumbers and @WolframFunFacts. What if Numbers is the twitter feed of the blog What if where they take a way out concept and do the physics based on it. The feed is all the numbers that he discovers along the way of creating each post. Some neat stuff. The Wolfram Fun Facts are tweets strictly about interesting searches on Wolfram Alpha. For example check out this one about how many times the characters show up in Antony and Cleopatra.
https://twitter.com/WolframFunFacts
https://twitter.com/whatifnumbers
Curriculum Tags: All

The idea of comment only grading is something that Dylan Wiliam talks about. It is very intriguing as a lot of the research seems to suggest that you get the most gains in student performance from comments
rather than grades. John Schammel does a good job of reminding us of this practice with this blog post.
http://thescamdog.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/comment-only-marking/
Curriculum Tags: All

A tricky combinatorics problem. How many ways can 8 horses cross the finish line if you include ties. The thing that makes this tricky is that ties are included.
One thing I like about this post is the idea of first trying a simpler problem
http://samjshah.com/2013/05/14/an-animal-problem/
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U


Need some multiplication practice for your students. There are many online games out there. Try this one out. I dare you to do so on the Impossible level. Thanks to Mark Esping for this one
http://www.imathgame.com/ChromeMultiplication.php
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8

Need some big numbers about the fast food industry? Try this video from the YouTube channel The Infographics Show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyVFGpg17hw
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U

You can never have enough infographics. This one actually takes famous movie quotes and turns them into graphics. 

http://flowingdata.com/2010/03/08/data-underload-12-famous-movie-quotes/

Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MDM4U, MBF3C

Math Links for Week Ending May 17th, 2013

MATH CAMP 2013 has been announced for this year. Though I think the format has changed. For one its not called MATH CAMPPP anymore. This year the focus is on creation of better facilitators. Let me back track a bit first. Math Camp is for K-12 teachers of mathematics. They come together for 5 days of intense immersion into a chosen mathematics topic and leave totally drained having had an intense but rewarding experience and bringing with them tonnes of resources ready to go for the classroom (here are the past years of resources). Usually there is a curriculum theme for each year. However, this year the theme seems to be revolving around facilitators. So if you give PD (or want to give PD) in mathematics in Ontario then this all expense paid activity is for you. Here is the sign up form. Space is very limited so sign up early to ensure a spot.
Curriculum Tags: All

I really like this video. Sure its one of those list videos but when you are doing a unit that involves measurement conversion then I think it would be interesting for kids to know that their are some pretty odd units out there. Who knew that a pinch was an actual measurement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8qQolqkTU0
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MFM2P

Last week I posted a video of Dan Meyer talking about how to use his 3Act math tasks. That was Act 1. This week Dan has posted videos for Act 2 and Act 3. All great resources for implementing these great activities in your classes.
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=17006
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=17024
Curriculum Tags: All

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Math For Grown Ups has a nice post a
bout how the FBI uses math to profile suspects in acts of this nature. There is not a lot of specific info here but it is good to remind kids that math is important in a lot of ways that may not be obvious
http://www.mathforgrownups.com/boston-marathon-how-fbi-profilers-use-math/
Curriculum Tags: All

I like this review of online videos on confidence intervals. These are actually pretty hard to explain (). But here are some examples of good (a few) and bad (a lot) of these vids. The one below is my favourite
http://learnandteachstatistics.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/youtubevideos/
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

You can't vote anymore but you can see who the winners were in this contest for students to come up with the best video about mathematics. There is some good stuff here. I think just about any school could do the same sort of thing within their building and it would be a good way to promote mathematics in a fun and engaging way. Below is the winner but you can see them all here:

http://www.math-o-vision.com/

Curriculum Tags: All

Belated but still always good with the graphs. I think seeing these types of videos is good for elementary students to inspire them to create interesting graphs when doing their data management units.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKAFS_L9o9I
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8

Math Links for Week Ending Apr 12th, 2013

Making decisions based on information known may not always be as easy as you think. Our current belief system can stand in the way of new knowledge due to our own biases. To help that let Bayes theorem step in. The go to theorem of probability kings especially when conditional probability is necessary. Find out more here.
http://io9.com/how-bayes-rule-can-make-you-a-better-thinker-471233405
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

Thanks to Liz Darocy for reminding me of the WSHS Rap video collection. Here is the latest instalment on graphing y = mx + b
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BHzXItkByU
Be sure to check out their other videos on their youtube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/WSHSmath?feature=watch
Curriculum Tags: MFM1D, MPM2P

Comparing incandescent to compact fluorescent bulbs gives a nice activity for systems of equations. Check it out here.

http://emergentmath.com/2013/03/31/evaluating-energy-efficiency-claims/
Curriculum Tags: MFM2D, MPM2P










I thought this was a neat activity that used stations for doing limits. I like the aspect of covering up the area in question as part of the activity
http://bowmandickson.com/2011/09/29/students-identifying-misconceptions-instead-of-me/
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U



I really like using tree diagrams for probability. Especially in gr 12 Data Management. Here is a site that has created a game using tree diagrams that would be perfect for any gr 12 class.
http://mathfour.com/finite-math/probability-tree-diagrams-as-puzzles
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U




Even more stuff for Data Management. I like this simple twist on the outcomes when rolling two standard dice. This time with non standard faces.
http://musingmathematically.blogspot.ca/2013/03/fair-dice-task.html
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

I thought it would be nice to have a category that highlighted a particularly good discussion on something in the math world of relevance. This first one comes from Dan Meyer comparing doing math  practice to training for wrestling (or any sport of your choice). There are opinions all over the block here starting with Dan's favourite whipping boy Sal Khan.

http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=16842#comment-778278

Curriculum Tags: All

Here is a nice commercial from Prudential that will help show the idea of what a dot plot is. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3qj88J7-jA

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

Some humorous pix here. Some you may have seen before. I have not seen the Kitten series before this though.

http://www.mathforgrownups.com/find-the-funny-in-algebra/

Curriculum Tags: All

Baseball season has started and what is baseball season without some stats on salaries. Here is a nice infographic of all of Major League Baseball. For a more interactive version of this check out Ben Fry's work. Here is his 2005 analysis (don't forget to move the slider to get the full effect). And don't forget to click to get the next few years analysis (up to 2010)

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7228992512/hDB53C64A/

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U