Fraction A Day - Day 13 - Randy's Polygon Challenge

Today we are lucky to have a guest Fraction from Randy Caton.  Randy has taught introductory and advanced physics courses and laboratories to classes ranging from 5 to 700 students and has used Peer Instruction and Just-In-Time-Teaching for 30 years. He has directed several science education programs for teachers and students from 1986 to 2008. He is currently retired and lives in northern Minnesota. Randy has used Etoys to develop web-based activities for NASA programs and physics courses.

Randy created a wonderful polygon challenge where kids modify a script and the number of vertices in a polygon to create and discover beautiful things.

Part of what I like about Randy's approach when designing lessons (at least what I can tell from seeing some of them), is that he has the kids discuss the ideas, predict what is going to happen, try it, then record what they observe.



Maria Droujkova of Natural Math joined us for our meeting today and had a wonderful idea to go along with this where the kids are the polygons.  She uses kids as vertices and yarn or rope as the sides.  See images of Maria in action with some parents and kids below:



Our goal is to come up with a set of materials so that teachers, parents and kids can use these activities to explore and learn.  One of the goals for the materials will be that "anyone" can use them, to run these activities and the fact that you are not a mathematician (Maria) or a rocket scientist (Randy worked with them) will not hinder you from using and getting a lot out of the materials and lessons.

Randy's project can be found here Polygon Challenge 1

Number Grids

This Etoy lets you play with number grids.  Kids can click on tiles to color them. For example kids could color every 2nd tile, or use the tiles to create the Sieve of Eratosthenes.  The grids start with zero, but we can modify to start with 1 as well.  The grids are contained inside a holder so that you can resize them to see different patterns.  Kids can use the feature that allows them to "color" the squares to document and report on the patterns they find.  They could also write scripts to color every N tiles or create their own Sieve of Eratosthenes algorithm. I think this project would work well on a SmartBoard or touch screen device.

What do you think? How can this be used to teach, to learn?  Do you have any links or ideas on lesson plans using a tool like this?  Please share your thoughts and links, comment below or blog about it and let me know.

Area Blocks - A Tool For Teachers (and Learners)

This post started as an OER Glue test (a promising new tool to "Gather content, stitch it together, and engage learners w/o reinventing the wheel.").  But I figured I'd add some educational content as well.

So (if you have Etoys installed) you should see an Etoy open up inside the page below. If you don't see it, get it, its free, its cool and its one of the best things I have found for creating educational content, letting kids learn, explore and express ideas.

Order of Operations (Beyond PEMDAS) - What to do first

OOO Tools

So in working on my Algebra course I needed to come up with a way to have the kids learn about the Order of Operations.   So my first attempt is to create some "playthinks" that kids can use to not only learn about, but also to communicate their understanding.  I created the playthinks in Etoys, as it allows the kids to manipulate and use the playthinks in a presentation to demonstrate their understanding (well that's the plan anyway ;)  Above is an image from my first effort.  Kids can create their own number pictures and use them as well. Any item dropped into a "variable box" will automatically resize to fit. You can even drop other operations into the "variable boxes".

Etoy Project Here

Please let me know what you think and any ideas for improvements.

Etoys Minute - Curtain Math

Kids can create their own math problems for each other and for younger sibling using the Curtain Math Etoy.

Launch if you have Etoys
If not download here

Here is a video demonstrating how to use it:


Suggestions and feedback always welcome.  If you have a request for a new Etoy Minute or a new Etoy project you can use in your classroom, simply post a comment here and I will get back to you.

Thanks,
Mr. Steve