Betty’s Instructional Technology Blog

Our technology and mathematics workshop will focus on 4 main areas:

1. Using spreadsheets (Microsoft Excel). We will share samples of activities in each grade level from 4 – 8
2. The new math view in Kidspiration 3
3. Bookmarking web sites using del.icio.us
4. Creating Mathcasts

The link to our presentation can be found at: http://www.gtps.k12.nj.us/technology/Tech_Math/_Tech_Math_files/frame.htm

If you are participating in the workshop, please leave a comments as your exit ticket by answering these questions:

1. Name 1 thing you learned
2. Name something you will try with your students
3. Ask a question, express a concern, leave a comment

As I continue my quest to find web 2.o tools that enhance teaching and learning, I  found Sketchcast, a site that allows you to create tutorials on any topic by simply using a mouse or a graphics tablet to draw as you speak. I thought this tool would be perfect for a blog project I am working on for my district involving creating math tutorials for students and parents. When we have it up and running, I’ll post a link. I hope to convince an upper grade teacher teach have his/her class create some content for us soon. 

On the Sketchcast site I came across an example for lattice mutliplication, a topic that eludes most parents since they learned to solve multiplication problems much differently.

I decided to sign up for a free account at http://www.sketchcast.com/ and created my own. It was pretty easy to do. I played with it for a couple of minutes. I couldn’t figure out how to change colors, but I will continue to explore. My sample shows a corny example for solving a problem using the Pythagorean Theorem. The link appears below:

http://sketchcast.com/swf/player.swf?id=ir80cNI

Thanks to Kevin Jarrett from Northfield schools for this one. The following site gives lots of great resources for LAL – many sample questions are given: http://rozauer.tripod.com/testprepla.htm

The following is the corresponding site for math: http://rozauer.tripod.com/testprepmath.htm

This site has been around for a while but was recently updated. It has lots of great interactive math tools for various grade levels:

http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/assessments

Spelling Site
I came across a cool spelling web site thanks to Kevin Jarrett from Northfield schools: www.spellingcity.com . The site allows you to type your own spelling words then have the computer quiz you and will allow you to play games with the words online.

 Math Project with Google Earth
Thanks to my wonderful new aggregator, I found an interesting project that uses Google Earth and mathematics from Mathlinics. They are asking people to take pictures, video, and/or audio clips of landmarks and to create a measurement question related to the landmark. Then the students will create a Google Earth tour of the landmarks. The site is:  http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dgzsrf4n_25fb89hvhf