Separating Prime Cuts of Educational Technology from Common “Mystery Meat”
I will be presenting this summer at the Summer Institute in Olympia, WA. During my session, Math & Technology in Today’s Classroom, I’ll show how I use technology such as the electronic whiteboard, student response systems, software, mathcasts and video projects to promote student learning and achievement and for assessment (both formative and summative).
At InterMath: Constructionary, users can obtain a list of constructions in Geometer’s Sketchpad. Clicking on a letter of the alphabet gives a list of constructions for that letter. When you chose a construction, clicking on the numbers shows the steps for that construction. Clicking on “Notes” at each step will give a brief description, and I do mean brief, so newbies may need additional help. This is not a stand-alone tutorial but definitely makes a great resource.
Here’s my Friday math joke. Yeah, it’s corny, but it made me laugh. 
For those who want to learn more about mathcasts, I’m pleased to announce that Tim Fahlberg along with a wonderful team of partners (including yours truly 
) will be conducting a session at NECC entitled Mathcast Spaces: Thinking, Doing, and Sharing Mathematics Out Loud.
Tagging, Tumbling, and Mathcasting posted by Paul Allison is a jam-packed thirty-nine minutes that explores the power of tagging, teachers using tumblogs, mathcasts, VoiceThreads in health, speech, history, math, music, technology, and EFL classes. This session includes an interview with my friend, Tim Fahlberg, on mathcasts. What’s a mathcast, you ask? Well, mathcasts are screencasts (screen movies) of writing with voice that focus on mathematics, and Tim is the pioneer in this field who got me and my students started 3 years ago.
Click here to learn more about mathcasts and to view mathcasts created by me and my students. You can also learn more about mathcasts by visiting Tim’s mathcast wiki at http://math247.pbwiki.com/.
If you’d like to begin creating mathcasts and you use a Windows PC, then FreeScreenCast can make screencasting simple for you.
Just install the screencast recorder, select the part of the screen you want to record, record it, upload your screencast, and then share it. Give it a try!
Pre Calculus students have finished their mathcasts of trigonometry involving right triangles.
Projects are now posted at Mathematics with Mrs. O’Flynn: Mathcasts under Pre Calculus, Periods 2 and 5, Ch 6 Triangle Trigonometry. Their next task is to evaluate their own movie using this checklist and feedback form and to get at least one other person (adult or student who is not a group member) to give them feedback.
My students would appreciate your feedback! Please send feedback to 
Students were randomly placed in groups using the “pick a student” feature in CPS and were then given a problem having to do with polynomials from an ExamView problem bank. Each group or pair then created a mathcast of their solution and their reasoning. Some groups still have to finish up tomorrow but several are now posted at Mathematics with Mrs. O’Flynn: Mathcasts under Periods 1 and 6, Ch 6 Polynomials. Their next task is to evaluate their own movie using this checklist and feedback form and to get at least one other person (adult or student who is not a group member) to give them feedback.
My students would appreciate your feedback! Please send feedback to
With Pi Day a little more than a month away, planning is underway for our annual celebration. Our celebration has been quite large some years with a variety of contests that students can enter and prizes donated by local businesses. This year, our celebration will be confined to my own classes with activities specifically designed for our particular content. I will post the particular activities for my Advanced Algebra, Pre Calculus, and AP Calculus classes soon.
During my search for new activities, I have come across a few resources that might help you plan your own Pi Day celebration or just have a little fun with the Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? theme. Enjoy!
Pam has taken pi-related math questions and put them into a PowerPoint with the format of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? She has 2 editions of the game available.
She has kindly built a web site at GeoCities (and a mirror Google site) to share these files and asks that you keep a couple of things in mind:
- Storage and hourly transfer size on the site are very limited.
So if you have trouble with the site, try again a little later. She did put up the second site to help with this problem.- She is a relative newbie at website construction, so there may be problems or errors; if you find any, please let her know.
- She would love to hear from you if you use any of her materials, just to see how much interest there is and how you might use the materials.
- She would appreciate your sharing any of your ideas for Pi Day.
Pam also has some links for Pi Day and other math resources on her portaportal page. Go to www.portaportal.com and type in pburke for the guest name. By the way, if you aren’t familiar with portaportal, it is a free online bookmark site. It’s easy to set up your own portal and access your favorites from any computer with internet access.
I received this one in an email from one of my students.
The Problem:
There are 7 girls on a bus.
Each girl has 7 backpacks.
In each backpack, there are 7 big cats.
For every big cat there are 7 little cats.
How many legs are there inside the bus?The number of legs is the password to unlock this Excel sheet. If you can open the spreadsheet, you’ll see it’s a very small list of people who have gotten the correct number. If you open it, please add your name and send it on to see who else can unlock it. You will notice that there are only a few names; interestingly, one of those names is Willy Nelson! Please leave a comment to let me know if you’ve solved it, but please don’t post the answer.
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