Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 30, 2015

Desmos continues to add to the reasons I like them. First they make a damn fine graphing calculator, then they add activities on Teacher.desmos.com, then they let us create our own Polygraphs and then they create the Desmos Activity Builder. But now they have added a new piece to the Activity Builder site: A community. Last two weeks ago I shared a grass roots portal where teachers could share Desmos activities. Now Desmos has officially done it by allowing anyone who uses Desmos Activity Builder to make their creations public. So now when you go to teacher.desmos.com and you use the search at the top, you will get results from Desmos and results from the community. And one thing I like about this, at least for now, is that even though you might make your activity public, they are not available on the community search until the fine folks at Desmos have looked at it and "polished" it up. So unlike a lot of sharing sites, this is curated. Things are of the standard you would expect from Desmos. So take a look at the Desmos post on it (which includes the terms of service).
Curriculum Tags: All
http://blog.desmos.com/post/132174749632/the-desmos-activity-builder-community

Of course it is Halloween this weekend and what is Halloween without exploding punpkins in the form of a throwback post from @mrorr_geek from last Halloween. Then he posted an activity based on trying to cut a pumpkin in half using elastic bands. Well he collected all kinds of data from classes from all over. And now you can use that data in your own classes. Probably best for any class dealing with linear regression.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, MDM4U, MAP4C
http://mrorr-isageek.com/pumpkin-time-bomb-activity/

So there was a bit of a chain to get to this next activity. It is a card sorting activity for boxplots and histograms. I saw reference to it first on the Math = Love blog who referenced the the Teaching Stats blog who found the activity. So still not sure who made it but the Teaching stats blog is new to me so that makes this a double find.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://campus....../Matching%20cards%20activity.pdf


And speaking of the Math = Love blog, I really like this simple visual for the five number summary. That is, make it a five finger summary.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://mathequalslove.blogspot.ca/2015/10/5-number-summary-5-finger-summary.html







I really like this investigation into the online movie site Fandango. They do a very good job of breaking down how Fandango's ratings come in consistently higher than every other movie rating site. I especially like the bit about how they constantly rounded up to the nearest half point (so 4.1 would round to 4.5). Read the article for all the details or listen to the What's the Point podcast for the interview with the writer. It's a really good example of using data to tell a story.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fandango-movies-ratings/
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/rating-subjective-experiences-is-hard-but-fandango-is-really-bad-at-it/

Want to lock down your iPads so that students can only use one app. Here are instructions that will let you do just that. Recently Desmos created a version of their app that would do just that, basically shut down the iPad to anything else (Internet included). But as it turns out, you can do this for any app. Check out this post to find out how.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://musingmathematically.blogspot.ca/2015/06/teacher-hack-ipads-in-exams.html?m=1

I like this post from @MrSoclassroom where he talks about what it means to be a teacher. I especially like the bit about there being more to teaching then just telling kids what to do. Have a look at the full post here

Curriculum Tags: All
http://mrsoclassroom.blogspot.ca/2015/10/what-does-it-mean-to-be-teacher.html

Having done a couple of these, I am a bit partial to Ignite talks. This one is from @mr_stadel and starts out by asking "What are the most forgettable parts of your math class" and the rest I will leave for you to find out. Though I do like the bit about "would you want your own kids in your math class" It's only 5 minutes, take a look
Curriculum Tags: All
http://mr-stadel.blogspot.ca/2015/10/2015-ignite-at-nwmc.html

Cannot get enough of people making music from the digits of Pi
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bri_-x-ZMMA

And another one from @mr_stadel's Estimation 180 site. How many cheeseballs with cover the plate. Click through to the site for the video answer.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
http://mr-stadel.blogspot.ca/2015/10/cheeseball-estimation-180.html

Some data on when you should stop trick or treating. They ask when should you and when did you. Could be good when talking about surveying.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/heres-when-you-should-stop-trick-or-treating/

I saw this and thought it looked like geometric breathing
Curriculum Tags: All
http://33.media.tumblr.com/b1406ea40336dc68e5404b380c391d96/tumblr_nr5kks2QoA1tkg9nqo1_500.gif

OK, some of these I've seen but others I haven't. The ones I liked are below (but more at the link)

Curriculum Tags: All

http://www.sciencedump.com/content/6-pictures-showing-math-can-be-your-best-friend

Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 23rd, 2015

I have finally got around to making my first Desmos Polygraph. If you are not sure what that is, check out their description here. The best way I have to describe it is by comparing it to the game Guess Who? You get 16 choices, you pick one and your partner has to ask yes or no questions to try to guess which one you picked. And because Desmos allows for anyone to create their own Custom Polygraph, I made this one for Distance time graphs.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P
http://engaging-math.blogspot.ca/2015/10/polygraph-distance-time-graphs.html

This week I was surprised when I found that some students had not been familiar with making patterns with toothpicks. So it seemed like perfect timing that @mathletepearce created a 3Act task with patterning using toothpicks. Check out the whole thing here
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://tapintoteenminds.com/3act-math/placing-toothpicks-part4/

I like that collaboration that happens over the Interwebs. @alexoverwijk posts something on this activity about sucking lolly pops. Then @mrorr_Geek adapts it for his class and posts his results . Check out all of the analysis. Reminds me of the classic tootsie roll commercial. And you can definitely adapt it for anything from a grade 9-12 class.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, MHF4U, MCT4C
http://mhf4uoverwijk.blogspot.ca/2014/10/sucker-rates.html
http://mrorr-isageek.com/lollipop-lollipop-oh-la-la-lollipop-rates-of-change/

And further sharing between teachers with @mrorr_Geek having a nice activity that starts with something from Would You Rather then develops the distance formula for points and the finished with homework developed from @marybourassa. Keep the sharing coming.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D
http://mrorr-isageek.com/distance-formula-without-the-formula/

I thought I would start a new section to the Math Links blog here. Many teachers blog about their ideas of various topics in math and normally I just focus on things you could use explicitly in class but this week I saw that @paul_math started his first blog with a post about the categories and problem solving with a great focus on Ontario math and thought maybe it's time to start featuring some of these types of posts. And I also loved the throwback image from curriculum documents from the past. Take a look
Curriculum Tags: All
http://mathsoxlearner.blogspot.ca/2015/10/my-first-blog-post-its-thinking-stuped.html

I love Benford's Law and spoiler alert, as it turns out, it's buried in the digits of powers of 2. So awesome. I really think this is great for the idea of hidden data (For MDM4U) as well as modelling exponential functions (for MCT4U and MHF4U)

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U, MCT4U, MHF4U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKwsPBeSiOc

Some great combinatorics and probability stuff here with a change in the UK lottery.

"The new winners of the UK lottery are mathematicians "

I love the work on really looking at how the change affects the probability of winning

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOx_daJT_8c

We had an election here in Canada. It was of course mathematical. I really liked watching the results come in on the CBC Canada Votes site and noticed that once it was all set and done, there was a proportionality question in the results. Take a look
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P

There is probably a lesson on proportionality here. Maybe not, perhaps just civics #mathchat pic.twitter.com/dDeTRzeWVv

— David Petro (@davidpetro314) October 20, 2015

Found on Facebook
Curriculum Tags: All
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xat1/v/t1.0-9/12096438_778764618915921_2854790237181509565_n.jpg?oh=c57c37015f81a051882680706ff1d065&oe=5692E286

And also on Facebook from Paula Maurovic for this one

Curriculum Tags: All

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xat1/v/t1.0-9/12108048_1030534373665265_8800846192369512804_n.jpg?oh=75e9d06a9925ef88d6181dc828ab520c&oe=56C247E5

Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 16th, 2015

So Desmos seems to continue to take the math world by storm. The fact that they have created a primo graphing calculator wasn't enough but you have seen it here that they have used their API engine to create the Teacher.desmos.com activity site but then not stop there. One of those activities is Custom Polygraphs, the "Guess Who" like game and more recently they have also created the Desmos Activity builder. Both of these last two are fully editable by teachers and I am happy to say that teachers are both building and sharing these activities. So for example, @marybourassa has just shared one created (or more specifically two) on activity builder dealing with quadratic transformations. These are basically interactive (via Desmos) slideshows that teach a concept.
And as a testament to that sharing Mary has pointed out the Desmos Activity Bank where anyone can share their Desmos based activities. This is a searchable database that has over 130 activities already. I had a quick look and there is some cool stuff there. Like this one from Tony Riehl and John Larsen where they have somehow incorporated a feature where the entire graph is blocked out except where a moveable magnifying glass to reveal any part. Very cool.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://marybourassa.blogspot.ca/2015/10/quadratic-transformations.html

And if that wasn't enough @mjfenton just built this awesome Polygraph for characteristics of histograms. This didn't look easy to build as histograms are not a common graph made with Desmos but clearly with a bit of effort and ingenuity, it is possible (at least for these purposes). To me this is the great thing about how people share. Here Michael has just saved anyone who uses this a tonne of time by building this. Nicely done and perfect for any data management class. 

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

http://reasonandwonder.com/hello-again-and-histograms/

I have posted a couple of older Geometer's Sketchpad files this week. The first one is a really simple file for practicing the concept of the line of best fit. The file generates a random set of closely linear points and you have to drag a line to represent the line of best fit. You can click a button to randomize the points for a new set and there are Easy, Medium and Hard settings. And remember that if you don't have a copy of GSP but have an iPad, the GSP app is free and it works fine.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, MDM4U, MAP4C

The second one is one of my very first "big" sketches. It is multipage sketch that has students first describing one dimensional motion the showing how several motions in one dimension can combine to create motions in two dimensions (this time circular). It incorporates vectors and even some changing rates of change.
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U

And another one of those "problem that stumped the world" posts that show up on your Facebook feeds. This time it's that optimization problem from Calculus of what is the quickest path when you have to cross water and land.
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U
http://gizmodo.com/can-you-solve-the-math-problem-that-stumped-most-scotti-1735604246

I love Ironman Triathlon and I love large data sets. So this is the best of both worlds. Last week was the World Championships and you can get all of the results in one large spreadsheet here. They have done their own analysis but best of all they have made the entire data file available for anyone else to look at. You can get a flavour of the types of analysis you could do but I would start with averages, dot plots, hisograms and box plots on the times for the various sections of the race.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.coachcox.co.uk/2015/10/11/ironman-world-championship-2015-results-and-analysis/

Some nice teaching videos and explanations here about types of data, and single variable analysis of data. Several videos and good written explanations of issues on the blog post.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://learnandteachstatistics.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/boxplots/

This may seem obvious to a math teacher but maybe not to the lay person. And Martin Gardner really showed it was true. That is, recreation mathematics is good for us.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/opinion/the-importance-of-recreational-math.html?_r=0

I finally had a chance to watch this and although it is not super dynamic, there are a lot of interesting ideas and examples of problem solving tasks. At the very least, the title alone is intriguing: Developing Mathematical Reasoning and Problem Solving. I like the bit at about 33 minutes about how students think about comment only grading. Thanks to Michele Cooper for this one.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://vimeo.com/118396639

Professor Malcolm Swan (University of Nottingham): Developing mathematical reasoning and problem solving from Mathematics for Life on Vimeo.

"FOILed Again!!!" Can't get enough of a good meme. Thanks to Mark Esping for this one
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P
https://www.facebook.com/PiMathAddicts/photos/a.318224865041690.1073741828.318220011708842/410220642508778/?type=3&theater

Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 9, 2015

If you have been following some of what @ddmeyer has been saying then you know about his whole "if ______ is the headache then ______ is the aspirin". That is, math is the aspirin but we have to create a reason for students to use it. Well @mrorr_geek has a nice twist on that: MAGIC :-)
With our Ontario curriculum we are supposed to introduce trig ratios via investigation and I love how he does it. Start with kids creating their own triangles and measuring the slope of the slant (connecting to grade 9) and then end with you magically guessing their slope given only their angle. That's the Reader's Digest version. Check out the link below for the full lesson.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P
http://mrorr-isageek.com/introducing-trig-through-slope/

It's an older post but still fun stuff from @fivethirtyeight around the data of names. Good analysis and I have always loved the the Baby Name App. Thanks to Michael Lieff for this one
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U, MAP4C
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-tell-someones-age-when-all-you-know-is-her-name/




And the magic continues. This time on the I Speak Math blog where they use the classic "mystery number" approach to algebra. I love this every time I see it.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://ispeakmath.org/2015/09/11/literal-equations-number-magic-and-group-speed-dating/




Also on I Speak Math is a Desmos Activity Builder activity on solving systems of equations. I love the Desmos app and also love when teachers share the things they have built.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P
http://ispeakmath.org/2015/09/11/desmos-teacher-activity-builder-systems-of-equations-review/



If you think that data visualizations are a new thing then you would be wrong. Here's proof. This 1939 book Graphical Presentation is entirely online for you to see and some of the representations are pretty cool. With multiple colours and multiple representations, this book goes through virtually every type of visualization and it is available.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://flowingdata.com/2015/09/24/classic-1939-book-on-graphs-in-its-entirety/

Everyone has opinions on why kids don't like math, can't do math, hate math etc etc. In this article the context is about why even our smartest kids can't do math. One of the things that resonated with me from this article was this quote: "that math required more than rote learning — it required creativity, ". Thanks to @mathletepearce for this one
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/why-americas-smartest-students-fail-math/

I am always a sucker for different ways to approximate Pi. I never new this one that comes from the Mandelbrot set. Be beyond that there is some cool stuff you could do here with recurring sequences. Curriculum Tags: MCR3U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0vY0CKYhPY

A documentary about math? Bring the popcorn. I think Nova is contractually obligated to do one of these every couple of years
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gd-gUlBv_s

And the Facebook "only geniuses can do this" meme of posts continue. This one deals with order of operations.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8