Mathematics Bloggers

Today I saw a great collection of Mathematics bloggers. All of them not to miss type. Mathematics teachers/educators are using different techniques/tools/methods/strategies in their day to day teaching routines and sharing their reflections on their blog.

Edublog Awards 2009

I am glad to share here my nominations for Edublog Awards 2009. The list is endless...
Best Individual Blog Mathematicslearning
Best Teacher Blog Planet Infinity
Best Educational use of Social Network Mathematics24x7.ning.com
Best Resource sharing Blog Free Resources for education
Best Class Blog Planet Infinity
Best e learning blog Move2OS
Life time achievement Jane's e learning pick of the day

Best Wishes!

Learning through Video

I showed this video on History of Mathematics to my students . They were excited to see what they read in their textbooks. Visualisation plays an important role in explaining a concept . Through these knid of videos learning has become exciting . Students ask related questions leading to creative discussions .

Play Sudoku

Mathematics learning involves a blend of many skills. Be it calculative, logical , understanding , interpretation, analysis or application . There are a number of ways in which these skills can be inculcated. One way is playing games and solving puzzles.
Sudoku is an interesting addictive Mathematical puzzle .
How to Play?
Play Sudoku Online.
Mathematics of Sudoku.
Make your own puzzle using Sudoku Puzzle Maker (Free)

For teachers of India...

I am happy to share with you this new launch...
CII-Shiksha is happy to announce another free initiative on e-Teaching for school teachers of India, eShiksha Academy, http://www.eshikshaacademy.in/ .

Shiksha India Website
Shiksha India Portal

Math online HTML tool

I am happy to get these symbols here on my blog.
Thanks to this online formula generating tool. Just type in and you will get an HTML code. Use it to make your posts Mathematical.
symbol of triangle , square root ,Pi ... D , Ö,Õ

Mathematics 24x7..on Pi Day

Today is Pi Day. On this special Mathematical Day, I joined a special network of Math teachers "Mathematics 24x7" .I am happy to be a part of this network.

Mathematics 24x7 - There is no escape...believe it or not. Mathematics is everywhere. via kwout

Exploring Probability using Applets

Probability is one of my favourite area for exploration. I love to do probability experiment with my students of class 10. In my earlier years of teaching I used to actually experiment using a dice , a pair of die ,rolling them 200 times , 500 times. It was time consuming. But now, with the available applets on web, it has become easier and far more interesting . One may take as many readings on just clicking a mouse. Here is list of my favourite Applets.

• Birthday Applet - Try it... In a group of 23 (or more) randomly chosen people, there is more than 50% probability that some pair of them will have the same birthday. For 57 or more people, the probability is more than 99%, tending toward 100%.
• Tossing a coin Applet - Toss a coin as many times and calculate the probability of getting a Head or a Tail.
• Spinner Applet - An interesting one to experiment on probability of spinning.
• Racing Game with two dice
• Marbles Applet

ETeachers of India

I am glad to share about a new network of upcoming e teachers of India http://eteachersofindia.ning.com/ . Bringing e teaching is not so easy. Teachers have to learn all concepts in new ways...e ways. I believe if we learn and share together , any big project can be handled with ease.
I am proud to put this badge here.

Making a dice

Dice is an interesting tool for playing and learning as well. In my classroom, we use different types of dice. Students make their special dice using an online tool Dice Maker.

Then we do lot of dice based activities.

• Doing probability based experiments
• Games involving math calculations

Try making your own dice.

Puzzles- Puzzles

Puzzles solving is fun.
This is a good mathematics puzzle website.
From Passionate teachers network , I got to know about some puzzle making tools
1. Jigsaw puzzle creater , a freeware ,easily downloadable.
2.Jigsaw Planet ,an online puzzle maker.
3. Fun time , a link on a blog post
Have fun!

Quadratic equations solver

Recently,I came across this interesting quadratic equation solver which even explains the steps of solving a quadratic equation by completing the square method. I liked it very much, so sharing here. Students may cross check the answers from home.

Here is the link for quadratic equation solver.

This one is solving quadratic equations by using quadratic formula.

Thanks to al those who have created these resources.

Learning Symmetries e ways

The concept of symmetry plays an important role in learning mathematics. We in our routine teaching follow text book material for teaching this concept. This year, I tried a different approach for introducing students to mathematical symmetries. In my class, I used an interactive software programme http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/for creating beautiful symmetrical patterns called snowflakes. Through this programme, students created variety of mathematical designs. Working with this interactive tool is fun as we have a freedom to use a pair of scissors tool for cutting the paper. The best part of this software is ,once a flake is created you may e-mail it to a friend and save it as an image. My students created snowflakes at home and sent to me using e mail. Some of them used their creations as e-greeting cards .

BubbleShare: Share photos - Safe Toys

Making Mathematics Interesting

Some tips and tricks to make mathematics interesting...

Introduce a topic by relating it with daily life, narrate a story,involve students.
Demonstrate some examples and leave rest for students to explore,call children to help you in solving the questions,they will feel important and involved.
Arrange one day in a week, when you are sitting and students are taking up the lessons ,turn wise. It instill confidence in students.
Give home work involving investigation,exploration, not just question solving from the text book.
Allow students to speak, express and write mathematics. This way they will learn to read ,speak and write correct mathematics.
Arrange some sessions of motivating them to read stories ,anecdotes about famous mathematicians and their contributions.
Show them mathematics. Provide them opportunities to visualise mathematics either by hands-on or by showing them readymade resources like Shiksha content CD/EFK content or something prepared by you.
Talk to them about the power of web resources. Tell them to utilise them effectively. Prepare some guidelines so that they do not waste time in surfing the internet.You may prepare a topic wise list of useful websites for them .
Give them sufficient knowledge of web tools/open source software ,like GeoGebra for learning geometry/algebra ,so that they can learn the subject in an interactive manner.
Arrange class competitions for exploring hidden talent in students. It may be a group activity like organising games/puzzles/vedic math demonstration/play etc by the students.
Appreciate work done by students. It is a source of motivation.

A small effort made by a teacher can change the life of many students

Using pictures

Pictures/photographs/diagrams/figures etc play an important role when we are teaching. The schemetic diagrams, flowcharts, mind maps helps a student in remembring outline of the topic.
We may utilise this strategy of teaching through them, in the following way.
Select a photograph.Show it to the students.
Ask them to observe it and note down the observations. This will help in improving the writing skills as well.
You may initiate a discussion on the same, according to the subject's need. .This will improve their verbal skills.
In the subject like mathematics pictures/figures may be used for relating the subject to daily life, deriving information etc.
Through inspiring pictures ,students may learn moral education lessons too.

You may draw animated figure/diagram related to your subject using UnFREEz . Part of an image may be taken using Irfan View. There are other ways also. It is all need based. You may draw the image yourself also and then click its photograph.
I have started with this technique with my students. They try to explain the hidden concepts in their own way, thereby enhancing creative ability, logical thinking and analytical ability. It has helped the students for retaining a concept because of visualisation.

Example Consider the following figure.

The students may observe many mathematical facts from it.

These are concentric circles .(Circles having same centre)

For inspirational picture lessons ,I have created a blog http://inspiringpictures.blogspot.com/

Irfan view..a freeware

Today, I am going to share with all of you, how I used Irfan view in my classroom teaching of mathematics. The students were to perform a mathematics activity in class IX. In place of dictating them the procedure in steps, I showed them a slide show of pictures showing the steps. The students were asked to observe the slide show . Then I had a discussion with them , regarding the steps which were shown to them through pictures. They were able to tell the mathematical concept hidden in the pictures. This way, induced brainstorming and resulted in a better learning. During the class the students were deeply engrossed in watching the show. After this, they did hands on activity with the required material.

Know more about this software...You may download this software from

http://www.irfanview.com/

Fascinating technique

If you want to multiply any number with 9, 99, 999, so on

Consider the following examples
Example 1
99 X 42 = 4158

Procedure
Step 1 Subtract 1 from 42, we get 41
Step 2 Now, Subtract 41 from 99, we get 58

Answer is 4158

Example 2
999x343=342657

Procedure
Step 1 343 – 1 = 342
Step 2 9-3 = 6, 9-4 = 5, 9-2 = 7

Answer is 342657

Audacity...for voice recording

In mathematics it is mandatory for the students to make a project. This time ,with one of the groups, of my class IX students, I decided to gave them a podcasting project . They were asked to prepare a discussion on utility of mathematics in surroundings and record the same using Audacity.Since the students were not familiar of the software, firstly I trained them on how to use it.Then they recorded an interview (kind of a discussion) .It was an enriching experience for me and the students as well.
The students find it quite interesting.
I would like to thank CII Shiksha for training the teachers on using such tools which are helping us for creating a difference in the classroom

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds.

You may download it from

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Teaching fractions e way

Its a great pleasure sharing with you about a very interesting and useful content for the students of age group 5-12 years.

Teaching and learning about fractions is an integral part of mathematics. What if this topic is taught and learned in a different way i.e. e way. This topic is a part of EFK Content and it is explained so well that the students not only learnt the concept but also were talking about the presentation as well. The topic has been related to composing music using fractions. It is so interesting that while learning there is enjoyment and thrill involved. This way of teaching and learning has made mathematics learning very comfortable for the students of all types. There is incredible creativity involved. The link for the content is given on the Home page of CII Shiksha's e-portal www.eshikshaindia.in.

Magical 7 pieces

Tangram is a chinese puzzle, which has added a creative enhancement dimension to the learning of mathematics.

Mathematics is taught in the classroom ,having more focussed approach on textbook and the syllabus. A classroom learning scenario can be changed by adding more value to the learning of the subject through creative involvement of mathematics other than the textbooks. One such technique is using tangrams for teaching various mathematics concepts. I have explored tangrams and its utility in mathematics taeching.
Here I am sharing, how tangrams can be added to a classroom for teaching concepts like area of geometrical figures viz. square, right triangle, parallelogram etc.
I asked my students to make tangram pieces on a graph paper from the instructions given on the following link http://tangrams.ca/inner/makeset.htm

The students then calculated the area of each cut out shape by counting the complete squares and half squares method.

This way they learnt various properties of geometrical figures.

By paper folding tangram can be easily made. The instructions are explained on the following link http://mathforum.org/trscavo/tangrams/construct.html