Math Links for Week Ending Feb. 22nd, 2019

Featured Links
Here is a great dynamic bar graph that shows how the value of the largest companies of the world has changed since the year 2000. What do you think will come out on top by the end of 2018. But after seeing this video lead me to this site called Interbrand which is where they got the data. It has has all kinds of interactive graphs dealing with the popularity of brands. Thanks to @Robin_Grondin for pointing this one out.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MDM4U, MBF3C
https://www.interbrand.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQovQUga0VE

Resource Links
It seems that I am getting caught up on @mathequalslove's blog this week. You can always count on her to create activities that take the standard worksheet and turns it on its head to make things more engaging for students. In this case it's a puzzle worksheet for trig identities.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U
https://mathequalslove.blogspot.com/2019/02/trig-identity-group-challenge-reciting.html


This posts tackles the idea of dividing polynomials using long division or synthetic division but really it's about her activity to use box division using cards. She uses them in combination with her clear pockets to help students with this mechanical mathematical method.
Curriculum Tags: MHF4U
https://mathequalslove.blogspot.com/2019/02/dividing-polynomials-puzzle-using-box.html


In calculus we are always trying to conceptually convey what is happening when we are determining the derivative and finding the slope of the tangent. The main concept is that the slope of this curve is being measured using a straight line. That can be confusing to some students. To help that @DavidBulterUofA and @aknauft have built this Desmos sketch that "magnifies" any part to show that if you zoom in enough, any curve can be approximated as a straight line.
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U
https://blogs.adelaide.edu.au/maths-learning/2019/02/11/zooming-in-to-see-the-slope/

In the latest @Numberphile podcast episode, you can hear the interview with @SimonSingh and among other things, he talks about his new website that gives weekly challenge problems to math students. Students and teachers can create accounts on the site so they can "Be challenged, get curious, do maths. Stretch your brain every week."
Curriculum Tags: All
https://parallel.org.uk/




Opinion Links
There are certainly people that think that it's important for students to learn algorithms. In my opinion there is no problem with learning algorithms but it shouldn't be the first thing that students learn about a topic and it certainly should be the goal of the learning. In this post @MBurnsMath shows (through student conversations) that algorithms are certainly not enough
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.marilynburnsmathblog.com/algorithms-are-not-enough/

Video/Audio Links
Any data management or statistics teacher needs to look at all types of data representations. Heat maps are a neat way to look at data on a gradient and if you can also connect that to lat/long data to map that out. Here's how to do it with CODAP
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB2or9FkPRk

Here's a great interview with @JohnCUrshel a former NFL lineman turned MIT Ph.D math student.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.podcastone.com/episode/Whats-it-like-to-be-the-biggest-maths-geek-to-ever-play-in-the-NFL-the-big-questions







A new book from @Standupmaths is about errors in engineering and other areas and what effects those errors were. Here's a brief interview with him about the book.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07113q3



The boys @MakeMathMoments have been busy with their new podcast. They have been putting out quality episodes one a week since before the new year. There are your standard interview type episodes with people like @JamesTanton, @mathforlove and @JoBoaler but the ones that I like the most are the Mentoring Moments episodes where they talk to a teacher from somewhere in North America and try to help them with their particular teaching issue.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://makemathmoments.com/podcast/

We've been busy at the @OAMEtalks podcast with a new episode from @FawnPNguyen and a couple of episodes of previews of featured speakers for OAME 2019 ( @LLB_315, @jboninducharme, @gfletchy, @eluberoff, @carloliwitter, @NatBanting, @stoodle & @samjshah2). We have one more OAME 2019 preview episode planned to come out on Monday (with @davidcampbell, @TracyZager & @JenniferWilson) and our last regular podcast of the season coming out March 1st with @MarkChubb.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://sites.google.com/oame.on.ca/oame-talks


Image Links
Use your math skills to solve these mathematical movie puzzles
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U, MCV4U
https://twitter.com/MrOrr_geek/status/1096378665456275457

Can you figure our the names of these movies? Let's see what you've got! pic.twitter.com/XA14AgOvgZ

— Jon Orr (@MrOrr_geek) February 15, 2019

More mathart from @sumdumthum
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/SumDumThum/status/985602602086760448

recursive circle thing#matharthttps://t.co/5TVsRgzfF6 pic.twitter.com/jisXbkdSZN

— Andrew Osborne (@SumDumThum) April 15, 2018

This is really a standard problem but the tweak of making it physical will help students engage more into the work.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P
https://twitter.com/MrOrr_geek/status/1097979314077908992

Teach Through TASK! Some groups determined rope length and some groups found floor length! Some used similar triangle and some used the primary ratios. What tasks are you teaching through this week? #iTeachmath pic.twitter.com/9jlnVBKATe

— Jon Orr (@MrOrr_geek) February 19, 2019

Math Links for Week Ending Feb 15th, 2019

Featured Links

If you have never used Desmos Polygraph before then you are missing out. Kids play "Guess Who?" with mathematical images. You can see so many on the Activity Builder Website. That being said, this is just a great tool for any subject. To that end, I made a tutorial on how you can create versions for other subject areas. So you might want to send this out to your non math teacher friends. There is a full video on how to make them and several examples created from different subject areas.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://wecdsbit.blogspot.com/2019/02/creating-digital-guess-who-game.html

Resource Links

One of the things we are supposed to do in Ontario is develop the formula for the area of a circle. And my favourite method is to split a circle into triangular wedges and create a "parallelogram" from the pieces. In this activity @rnhung does just that (including a neat slide where he does the derivation step by step).
Curriculum Tags: Gr8
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/5a7f66d94bddb3422ca9e626

I really love this perimeter of an irregular shape problem shared by @dpscher as it starts out with hints that it's not solvable but, in fact, can be solved. I like the fact that you can confirm the answer with some concrete manipulation that could involve algebra or just plain strategic trial and error.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P

http://www.sineofthetimes.org/the-perimeter-problem/

Opinion Links
In his quest to help bring the joy back to mathematics @mathgarden posts his 100th article on Medium looking at various references to going beyond memorization and make math and play synonymous. It was nice to get a shout out as well for a term that I cannot claim as my own but often use in the context of how I want kids to interact with math: "tinker" and @BerkleyEverett's "dabble".
Curriculum Tags: All
https://medium.com/@sunilsingh_42118/dreaming-to-disrupt-mathematics-is-beginning-its-journey-back-home-de1761207985



Video/Audio Links
A new @numberphile video featuring @SimonSingh talking about two fun examples of maths (primes and binary) showing up in the TV show Futurama
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKwkX35bcdw

Another new @standupmaths video where he talks about how rounding issues can cause big problems.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X_Hqb7qkW4

Five videos from @JamesTanton the king of joyous math all for the sake of the National Math Festival.
Curriculum Tags: All
Finger Multiplication: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kSGW-BFfP8

90 Degree Rotations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6deBCaMso_A

Math Salute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLO9wA56Y8s

Weird Stretch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQH4bWP923Y

Rope Folding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB_sS7LUlwU

Image Links
I love this post from @MonaChilabi showing examples all types of graphs, can you name them all?
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MDM4U
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt1Fbbbn3GL/

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Can you name all of these chart types? I get to take over @designmuseum for the next two days so I've been thinking a lot about information design. I feel like the visual world around me has a lot of crap in it that either misinforms people or confuses them. I often use classic chart types as my base and then I illustrate the numbers by hand. I hope that when you look at my charts, you learn something but you also remember that flawed, biased humans are responsible for information design. Leave your quiz scores below (or not, maybe this is a bad idea?!)

A post shared by Mona Chalabi (@monachalabi) on Feb 13, 2019 at 8:56am PST

Math Links for Week Ending Feb 8th, 2019

Featured Links
If you haven't heard yet, Desmos has updated their graphing calculator and now it includes tools for analysis and visualizations of single variable statistics. In terms of visualizations, they've added dot plots, box plots and histograms. They also have probability and binomial distributions. They a work within the confines of the graphing calculator and are also available in Activity Builder. Check out some of the features at my post below and check out @boblock's how to video.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MDM4U, MAP4C
https://found-data.blogspot.com/2019/02/new-desmos-statistics-package.html

The second thing from Desmos is that they are currently accepting applications for the 4th cohort of their Desmos Fellows. I was a member of last year's 3rd cohort and it's been a pretty cool year seeing behind the curtain as to how things run. But really the best part is all the new colleagues I gained both from face to face meetings a Desmos HQ but online in their company Slack channel. And it was cool to have a tiny part in testing out some of the new stats features before they went live. So check out their post and consider applying.
https://blog.desmos.com/articles/friday-fave-for-february-8/

Resource Links
Are you looking for some discussion on diagnostic assessment in the intermediate years in math, then you might consider this series of webinars put on by @goslinK123. The first one is done and there is a recording of it but there are more to come. 
Curriculum Tags: All
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TjHnOjJARHTPZcGLEg71EEknXoG9LWnVhjHNW9IhwdM/edit






It looks like @MaryBourassa is dusting off the old Day by Day set of blog posts. In the past she's done it for MFM2P and MPM2D and now she's starting one for MPM1D. So if you are into teaching grade 9 academic you may want to follow her posts over the course of the semester. Here's the first one. 
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D
https://marybourassa.blogspot.com/2019/02/grade-9-academic-mpm1d-day-1.html




A few months ago @PaiMath posted a nice long post about taking notes in a thinking classroom. This week, he's following up with part 2 of that post. I know that the note taking aspect is one of the things I struggle with understanding the most so I appreciate this kind of long form treatment.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://intersectpai.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-thinking-classroom-note-taking-part.html

Here's a fun little Desmos Challenge Creator by @rilesblue dealing with equivalent ratios. It's pretty simple as it is just the challenge creator but here students choose their rivalry (eg Apple vs Android), create a fictitious comparison and then create some equivalent ratios. This becomes the challenge that the rest of the students in the class have to do. These Challenge Creators are an excellent way to get kids engaged in otherwise boring practice since they are creating the actual questions. 
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P, MAT1L, MAT2L
https://jennvadnais.com/2019/02/09/equivalent-ratios-challenge-creator/

Article Links
It turns out that bees can do addition and subtraction and even understand the concept of zero. Thanks to @kmarkpet for pointing out this one. 
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/even-with-their-tiny-brains-bees-can-do-additions-and-subtractions/
https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/honey-bees-can-understand-the-advanced-mathematical-concept-of-zero/

Video/Audio Links
Check out @MrOrr_Geek on Instagram. He's doing a bit of a video diary where he shows you 30 minutes of his classroom one minute at a time for 30 days. Check it out. 
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.instagram.com/mrorr_geek/?hl=en

View this post on Instagram

‪Starting #30Days30min on Monday. My aim is to share 1 min of my teaching day for 30 days in a row. My goal is to show and reflect on how challenging, rewarding, and awesome it is to teach math day to day. Wanna come along? #realclassroom #iteachmath #mtbos‬

A post shared by Jon Orr (@mrorr_geek) on Jan 31, 2019 at 7:15pm PST

I found these videos this week on interpretive dance representations of statistical concepts. 
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGfwj4GrUlA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFjaBh12C6s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fGu8hvdZ6s&

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr1DynUzjq0

Image Links
Do you have any skiers in your class? Then they may be interested in this data showing how Lyndsay Vonn is clearly a dominating force.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lindsey-vonn-is-the-greatest-american-skier-and-its-not-even-close/

Math Links for Week Ending Feb. 1st, 2019

Featured Links
We've been doing a lot of work in terms of conceptualizing fraction operations. This is the latest video developed by Gisele Jobin and I and the purpose of these (longish) videos are to help show teachers ways to conceptualize fraction operations by using a progression of examples. In this case, the idea is that fraction division can be done without using the standard algorithm if you just get common denominators (and then it because relatively trivial). Follow the link below for the entire playlist.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, Gr9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlJ1ZyAbSm0&list=PLre81yNdo4MzOC0ov1a5HDPaeBd7MpAEc

Resource Links

Do you want some insight as to how Uber decides how to charge it's riders. Well @RobertKaplinski has some insight. He does it with some great and detailed discussion of mathematical modelling. But even if you don't want to do some in depth analysis of you can just use the formula to give some context for students to use formulas for real world problems to practice doing calculations with order of operations.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MCR3U, MHF4U
https://robertkaplinsky.com/math-modeling-can-tell-uber-much-charge/

I really love this "remix" by @ChrisHunter36 of the standard problem: "Determine an equation of a quadratic function with vertex at (-5, 3), passing through the point (-7, 15).". Turn it into a step by step set of clues and sprinkle some appropriate use of technology in there to make it much more engaging for students with the same result. Get the downloads including the Desmos activities and powerpoint.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MCF3M, MCR3U, MBF3C, MAP4C
https://reflectionsinthewhy.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/wanted-parabola/

Need a progression for developing the ideas around Pythagorean Theorem? Well then @MathyCathy has your back. Some good ideas here that go well beyond just the standard formula. Especially since it doesn't start with the formula.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
http://www.mathycathy.com/blog/2019/01/mathresourceroundup-pythagorean-theorem/

Video/Audio Links
I like how this folksie song weaves in Andrew Wiles and Fermat's Last Theorem. Thanks to @jessrteach for pointing this one out.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPMRA4yFeeM

Seems like a simple problem but it does show the danger of trying to model with only two data points. Make sure you read the thread for the answer.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U
https://twitter.com/ddmeyer/status/1089929444494458883

Modeling Monday!

How long will the last set of dominos take to fall?

Closest answer without going over gets free Desmos socks and some class gear. #iteachmath pic.twitter.com/3JAKgOChZD

— Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) January 28, 2019

Image Links
Here's a pretty cool idea to do with any online graphing calculator
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U
https://twitter.com/PaulaKrieg/status/1090771516256604160

My problem was to find & graph a family of functions in @desmos that I could frame within a square, & that was easily, visually divided into 3 column. I traced it into a vector file, colored it, so I could use it to make an origami rectangular tray. Here's how it went. #GraphJam pic.twitter.com/jzAgbYRiWP

— Paula Beardell Krieg (@PaulaKrieg) January 31, 2019