Friday, June 28, 2019

Math Links for Week Ending Jun. 28th, 2019

Featured Links
New updates on the Mathies Pattern Blocks app. That is, they have added some new shapes. The dart, the kite and the right angle are all part of the 21st Century Pattern blocks found on the Talking Math with your Kids site. Now there are a pile of options when you have your kids build with the pattern blocks. This is just the development version so I'm not sure when you will see it in the public version but you can play right now with the link below.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://mathclips.ca/swfPlayer.html?swfURL=tools/PatternBlocks21.swf&title=Pattern%20Blocks%2B%20Dev
Resource Links
When we were at #NCTM2019 in San Diego this year the funnest way to get around the city was on these electric scooters. Well @MrOrr_Geek with the help of @mathletepearce has created a 3Act Math task. Watch a video to pique students interests. The video shows a split or POV riding with the app screen. Then you can use linear relations tools to figure out the total cost of the trip.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P
https://mrorr-isageek.com/no-bikes-allowed/

Have your kids give this a try. Take the parabola y=x2 and pick two points on the parabola. Multiply the x values of the points and the product turns out to be the y intersection of the line connecting the two points. Why not try to investigate why this works?
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MCR3U
https://twitter.com/jamestanton/status/1142412028176244743

Video Links
Have you heard of the Tribonacci sequence? How about the Rauzy fractal? Well I can say that I have played with the tiles that @Gelada shows here but I didn't know all the other stuff. So fun
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMJflV_GUpU


Image Links
Here is a great way to gain some empathy with your ESL students
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/Trianglemancsd/status/1143264051654549505




Friday, June 21, 2019

Math Links for Week Ending Jun. 21st, 2019

Featured Links
I always love when @AlexOverwijk shows these time lapse videos of his classroom. In this case, it's the final exam for Calculus. Part of the exam was done in groups (on VNPS) and the rest was individual. I know that people like the idea of these collaborative classes, but often abandon those ideas for more traditional experiences once students get to the higher grades. So it is great to see that students can thrive and succeed in these senior math classes with these more progressive types of assessments.
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U, All
Resource Links
Do you want a wealth of fraction resources that conceptualize the ideas of what fractions are all the way from their meaning and representations to operations. All research based and well documented.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
Do you want to have some fun with square numbers? Then @mathgarden has your back. Last week I included this image as a single Tweet but now he's turned it into a full post on Medium. Whether you look at it from the patterning view as created by sums of odd numbers or geometric view as the area of a square with whole numbered sides, there is something here for you.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8

I have said it before, I like self checking activities for practice. Though this isn't exactly a self checking activity, the design of it makes it easy to check. Basically it's four questions and their answers are to be summed and put in the centre. As the teacher, you need only check the sum to see if it's correct. Download all five sets from @marybourassa's blog
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D

Registration has opened up for this year's @OAMEcounts Leadership conference. This year it's incoming president @Paul_math's turn to organize the event and it looks like he's got a great line up. With @NatBanting, @MrAspinal, @EmDelSordo, @NHenryFundi, @marian_small, @hirenbmistry1 ‏and @dduff77, More details at the link
Curriculum Tags: All

Video/Audio Links
I seriously can't get enough of the Numberphile podcast. Brady is such a good interviewer and where else can you get @stevenstrogatz crying about mathematics. Even though this is primarily about calculus, I think this could easily be applicable to general mathematics.
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U


Image Links
It turns out that June 17th is World Tessellation Day (in honour of MC Escher's Birthday - I know that thanks to @MSBJacobs)
Curriculum Tags: Gr7
In honour of World Tessellation day I reposted my dynamic Escher-esque tessellation
Curriculum Tags: Gr7
And finally for World Tessellation day, this series of Tweets from @Simon_Gregg that starts with some simple work with triangles then ends with a very cool tiling pattern. Be sure to follow the whole string of Tweets
Curriculum Tags: Gr7


Friday, June 14, 2019

Math Links for Week Ending Jun. 14th, 2019

Featured Links
A couple of new releases from Mathies.ca. First, the Algebra Tiles app which has been in beta for a while is finally out. Check out all the tips and tricks here. The other new app is the representation match game with fractions. The nice thing about this game is that you can play it on any device (since it's built with HTML5). And if electronic matching games are not your thing, then they have also made available printable cards to physically play the match. You can get those here
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P, MPM2D, MFM2P

Resource Links
How about some dynamic cube nets
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/GHSMaths/status/1138552885313036288

Here's a great Desmos activity (based on an activity by @MrOrr_Geek) for introducing the concept of systems of equations. It has some nice features in the first few slides and then finishes off with a Challenge Creator for students to create there own then practice on each others.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/56d139907e51c4ed1014b51f

The new features keep coming from @Desmos. Recently they introduced new statistics tools and most recently they have added some random functions to to add to the strength of the tool. Check out this simple use from @Dandersod and then start playing on your own.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://twitter.com/dandersod/status/1138205863615897602

Some research about the benefits of removing numbers from questions. I like the idea of numberless word problems and the research says so should you.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/ddmeyer/status/1137089334044008448
Do you have a story about a time when you used some teaching method that, as you look back, you may be embarrassed about now? We all started somewhere and did things that makes us cringe now. To me, that's called progression. Well, if you are up for it, @Mr_stadel is looking for you for his new podcast "Math Confessions". It's coming out in the fall but if you would like to be part of it, you can make your math confession, just contact Andrew.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/mr_stadel/status/1137043290283491330
Article Links
Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that The Toronto Raptors won the NBA Championship this week. Here you can read about the numbers guy behind the team. Thanks to @KMarkPet for pointing this one out
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/londoner-karl-toulous-toronto-raptors-statistician-1.5174519

Video/Audio Links
If you were not sure about the power of numbers in the above article, in this episode of The Indicator they explain "Hoopinomics" and especially why the 3-point shot has become the mark of a championship team.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/10/731408726/hooponomics

Here's a fun problem for dealing with logs. As it turns out Log(1 + 2 + 3) = Log(1) + Log(2) + Log(3). It shouldn't be true but it is. Find out why
Curriculum Tags: MHF4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcTMBrUutfk


Image Links
Here is a nice visual proof. Good for patterns and or finite series. 
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MCR3U


Friday, June 7, 2019

Math Links for Week Ending Jun. 7th, 2019

Featured Links
I like being able to show student work easily and this week I found a new way to do that using @getRocketbook and @Wipebook. If you don't know what a Rocketbook is, it's a reusable notebook. That is simplifying it greatly but you can watch this video to get the idea. It turns out you can download some free Rocketbook templates directly from their website and if you want to capture student work that they have put on Wipebook sheets, then all that is required is that you enlarge the QR code and symbols at the bottom of the Rocketbook sheet and the natural black boarder of the Wipebook sheet becomes a large Rocketbook sheet. Great, I think, for saving work from a vertical non permanent surface session. Below is how you could do it. And thanks to @MathisVisual for pointing out that Wipebook already has their own app to do something similar. Check it out here.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OluiiYYhS_I

Resource Links
Looking for some Geometry based activities? Here @teachmathtorr has shared almost 90 activities. Enjoy.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/Teachmathtorr/status/1135381510285144064

So any whole number can be written as the sum of three triangular numbers. Want to check this? Then Tweet any number to @3_triangles and this bot will send back a visual representation (where possible) of the three numbers. Here's one that I did. Thanks to @divbyzero for this one
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/divbyzero/status/1136255191869734914
Here's an idea for a lesson on percents thanks to @approx_normal. Take a look at your favourite rewards/loyalty program and calculate the percent return. For example, with me, it's buy 7 coke slurpies and get 1 free. Check out the article below
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MFM1P
https://www.tripofalifestyle.com/money/are-rewards-programs-worth-your-time/




Article Links
In times like these this doesn't surprise me. I thought it was a joke at first but, it turns out, nope, this is legit. More than half the people who responded to this survey say that we shouldn't teach Arabic numerals in schools.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.live5news.com/2019/05/19/should-arabic-numerals-be-taught-schools-most-americans-say-no/

Opinion Links
In response to some recent calls to get rid of Algebra in math class, @MathGarden posts this response
Curriculum Tags: All
https://medium.com/@sunilsingh_42118/the-bridge-between-arithmetic-and-algebra-is-broken-which-means-math-education-is-broken-62f68ec12c76

Video Links
Based on a prompt from @ecokrisb I fell down the YouTube rabbit hole and found these three videos on the history of algebra from @ProfKeithDevlin
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL6tFHUNTPE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR99o8C_zD4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q_Qvr9zFp0





Image Links
Here is a nice probability context
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MDM4U
https://twitter.com/howie_hua/status/1136096737884483584