GeoGebra has just received the prestigious Tech Award

by Bill Lombard on 1 December, 2009

Markus Hohenwarter receiving the Tech Award in Education for GeoGebra

Markus Hohenwarter receiving the Tech Award in Education for GeoGebra

More kudos for GeoGebra; I continue to share this wonderful open-source software program with others and watch them experience the joy as they see mathematics come alive with power and creativity. My students experience this on a regular basis.

From the Tech Awards website: http://techawards.org/

“The Tech Awards program inspires global engagement in applying technology to humanity’s most pressing problems by recognizing the best of those who are utilizing innovative technology solutions to address the most urgent critical issues facing our planet. People all over the world are profoundly improving the human condition in the areas of education, equality, environment, health, and economic development through the use of technology. It is the goal of The Tech Awards to showcase their compelling stories and reward their brilliant accomplishments.

The Tech Awards is an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity.

GeoGebra is open-source software available for free through the Web that enables users to dynamically experiment with mathematical concepts.

Technology can play an important role in learning mathematics. Teachers and students alike often depend on interactive technology to learn about and experiment with math.

The dynamic mathematics software GeoGebra addresses all levels of education by joining arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and calculus. It features a very clean, easy-to-use interface. Since the tool is open source, a large user community has emerged to create interactive online materials for specific subject matters or a particular educational level. Having been translated into over 45 languages, it continues to expand to offer equal information access across the globe.”

Download GeoGebra and share with others at: http://www.geogebra.org/cms/

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20 Free Resources for High School Math Teachers

by Bill Lombard on 1 December, 2009

Karen Schweitzer

Karen Schweitzer

The following is a Guest Post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online colleges for OnlineColleges.net.

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Are you looking for new ways to present advanced mathematical concepts to your high school students? The Internet offers many free online resources for lessons, games, activities, and interactive whiteboards that math teachers can use to engage students and enhance teaching. Here is a list of 20 free resources for high school math teachers to explore:

NCTM – NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) offers lessons, practice problems, and teaching tips for high school math teachers. Teachers can also find professional development resources, journals, books, and news for educational mathematics.

TeAchnology – This comprehensive online teacher’s warehouse offers free lesson plans for use in high school math. TeAchnology also features worksheets and rubrics.

The Math Forum – The Math Forum is a huge math site that provides math resources for teachers of all grades. The site can be used by high school teachers to find lesson plans, activities, games, manipulatives, books, calculators, and more.

Math-Videos-Online.com – Teachers can use this site to find educational teaching videos for explaining difficult concepts in algebra, geometry, probability, and more.

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives – The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives offers web-based concept tutorials to help with math teaching. These concept tutorials or virtual manipulatives allow your student to actually work with and visualize relationships.

Illuminations – Illuminations is an excellent site for finding activities, lessons, and standards for your math classroom. The site also features links to more than 700 math resources on the web.

Mathematics Lesson Plans – This lesson plan site features downloadable lesson plans for K-12 students. The lesson plans for high school math cover geometry and algebra.

FREE – FREE (Federal Resources for Educational Excellence) offers over 100 resources for teaching algebra, geometry, data analysis, and number operations. Within this site, you will find activities, modules, lesson plans, advanced methods, and instructional units.

TheTeachersCorner.net – TheTeachersCorner.net provides math lesson plans, games, and worksheets for high school math. Teachers can also use this site to connect with others through message boards, bulletin boards, and a teacher’s lounge.

BGFL – This interactive whiteboard site features activities for high school teachers to use in their classroom. Just a few of the resources listed are Angle Estimator, Graph Generator, and Explore Co-ordinates.

Topmarks – Topmarks provides free online interactive whiteboard resources for use in algebra, statistics, geometry, and measures. Through this site, teachers can also find resources for K-12 literacy, science, biology, history, religious studies, geography, art, and music.

MathSwap – Just as the name states, MathSwap is a free place for math teachers to swap lesson plans and activities. The lessons are presented in downloadable PDFs and cover grades 7-12.

Awesome Library – The Awesome Library offers discussions, games, lesson plans, projects, and worksheets for high school math. Within the pages of this site, you can find resources for algebra, calculus, data analysis, graphing, and trigonometry.

Education World – Education World features over 400 lesson plans, activities, games, and more for advanced math. Just a few of the math concepts featured on this site are algebra, trigonometry, geometry, probability, and statistics.

Interactivate – The Interactivate site is a good place to find free online lessons for your high school math classroom. The site features 98 different lessons for numbers and operations, geometry, algebra, statistics, probability, and more.

Mathway – With over a million problems already solved, Mathway offers a way for your students to compare and understand solutions to difficult math problems. Within this free beta site you can find solutions and graphs for basic math, pre-algebra, algebra, trigonometry, pre-calculus, and calculus.

Math-Play.com – Math-Play.com features free online math games for algebra and geometry. This site also provides interactive, logic, and elementary games.

Wired Math – Wired Math offers free online games, exercises, and answers that teachers can use with their freshman students. The games are provided for number sense and numeration, linear relations, geometry, and algebra.

Wolfram Mathworld – The Wolfram Mathworld site is a comprehensive mathematics resource for teachers to find examples of concepts in algebra, calculus, geometry, probability and statistics, and topology.

Math.com – Although this site was designed for students, there are plenty of free resources for math teachers including worksheets, lesson plans, and formulas.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree programs for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

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Karen has also written the following guest posts for Mr. L’s Math:

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Games and Puzzles that Reach the Kids and Teach the Standards

by Bill Lombard on 27 November, 2009

NeighborsThe title of this post is from a conference session at the California Math Council conference at Asilomar in December, 2009. You may download the handout through the following link:

Games and Puzzles that Reach the Kids and Teach the Standards

Here’s the handout with instructions for some activities:

Games and Puzzles that Reach the Kids and Teach the Standards – download file

Puzzles and Games are a great way to build enthusiasm, excitement, and skills in a math classroom. When these are used properly, there is always an underlying mathematical theme that is being explored or reinforced. Students learn the value of logical thinking, proper planning, and long-term focus.

Mathematical games can develop a lot of creativity and number sense in students. Many times a game or puzzle at first looks overwhelming, but becomes manageable after focusing on the key concept. Motivation is almost always inherent in a game or puzzle; this creates conceptual emotion which is a key to successful learning.

Opportunities for transitioning from number sense to algebra thinking abound with puzzles. Number properties show their strength in supporting algebra throughout puzzle activities. It’s always a pleasure to watch the enthusiasm and skills grow in students!

Some of these activities are from Teacher to Teacher Press books:

Simply Great Math Games

Simply Great Math Activities:  Algebra Readiness

Simply Great Math Activities:  Number Sense

Put these activities, puzzles, games, and ideas into regular practice, you will find increased skills and motivation in your students and more joy in your teaching.

Best wishes,

Bill Lombard (a.k.a. Mr. L)

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Algebra Activities that Reach the Kids and Teach the Standards

by Bill Lombard on 5 November, 2009

cmc_logo_redI will be presenting a session at the California Math Council’s conference in southern California on 7 November, 2009 with the title of this blog article. I’ve included a link below to the conference presentation.

This session will cover several pedagogical topics that have made my students successful learners, including Conceptual Layering, as well as snippets of three popular Teacher to Teacher Press activities that illustrate these topics.

I’ll also be presenting another session about GeoGebra, the free open-source software program that is gaining wide acceptance across the country; this session will focus on addressing mathematics standards.

Here’s the link to the Algebra Activities file:

Algebra Activities that Reach the Kids and Teach the Standards

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George Polya, Master Problem Solver – a Model for All Math Teachers

27 October 2009

George Polya was a master of problem solving, and his effect on other teachers has been extraordinary. His most popular book, How to Solve It, has sold over a million copies. As is the case with many great books, Polya had been turned down by three publishers before finding one to publish the English version [...]

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Martin Gardner – For Decades, Puzzling People With Mathematics

25 October 2009

Martin Gardner has published over 70 books and is the chief person responsible for the widespread interest in recreational mathematics. He turned 95 on 21 October, 2009 and celebrated by publishing another book. He authored the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American for 25 years. He quite possibly has introduced more people to the fun [...]

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First North American GeoGebra Conference – Ithaca, New York

4 October 2009

The First North American GeoGebra Conference will be held 27-28 July, 2010 at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York.
I’ve been honored to be a part of the Scientific Committee for this conference. This committee has the responsibility of reviewing conference proposals. I’m looking forward to an interesting experience seeing how others use the powerful program, [...]

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20 Free Online Math Games for Students

26 August 2009

The following is a Guest Post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online colleges for OnlineColleges.net.
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Interactive math games can make it easier for students to grasp some of the more difficult or tedious concepts in math. The Internet is a good source of [...]

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Combo Class Crushes California Competition

23 August 2009

The California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Test results have been posted. The Combo classes at Foothill High School have raised the achievement bar once again. Statewide in California at the freshman level, 2% of students taking the STAR test in Algebra 1 score at the Advanced Level.
Three years ago 52% of FHS 9th grade [...]

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GeoGebra Has New Features – Even More of a Good Thing

12 August 2009

GeoGebra, the award-winning free software that math teachers are raving about, now has even more neat features:

A Spreadsheet – numbers in a different view!
Automatic animation – your graphs come to life!
Statistics functions and graphs!
Matrix and complex number support!
. . . and more!

Find out about all the details in the GeoGebra 3.2 Release Notes.
All new features [...]

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