Category Archives: Educational Technology

Educational Technology, Elementary Mathematics, Geometry, Math Software

Exploring Triangle Area with Custom-Built Tools

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With Web Sketchpad, it's easy to craft tools that are tailor made for the task at hand. I was reminded of this flexibility several weeks ago when creating an interactive model for the elementary curriculum Everyday Mathematics. My goal was to design a lesson focusing on the triangle area formula, A … Continue Reading ››
Educational Technology, Geometry, Math Software

Constructing Equal-Area Triangles

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The origins of this week's Web Sketchpad model date back to the  Connected Geometry curriculum from the mid 1990s. I was one of the co-authors of the curriculum, working at Education Development Center with a  wonderful team of math educators (Al Cuoco, … Continue Reading ››
Educational Technology, Geometric Functions, Math Software

Reflecting on the Annual NCTM Meeting

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This Thursday, Scott Steketee and I will be presenting two sessions at the NCTM 2015 Annual Meting in Boston: Functions as Dances: Experience Variation and Relative Rate of Change

Session 52 on Thursday, April 16, 2015: 8:00 AM-9:15 AM in 157 B/C (BCEC)

How better to explore rate of change than as independent and … Continue Reading ››

Educational Technology, Elementary Mathematics, Math Software

Solving Simultaneous Equations with Common Sense

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Simultaneous equations belong in elementary-school mathematics curricula. That's been my mantra for many years, and I want to examine it now in the context of an interactive Web Sketchpad activity. When I say that elementary-age students should encounter simultaneous equations, I don't mean that they should be instructed in the standard algebraic procedure for solving pairs of equations … Continue Reading ››
Educational Technology, Geometry, Math Software

Hello Spring!

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Today's blog post features a sketch from Anna Nguyen, who's a 9th grade student. Anna observes, "Math is one of my favorite subjects. I'm not a genius or the smartest in my class, but I do enjoy dealing with letters and numbers, which is also why I like chemistry. I think GSP is the most … Continue Reading ››
Educational Technology, Geometry, Math Software

Constructing Morley Triangles

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By Adrienne Barrett This post is by guest blogger Adrienne Barrett, who's a senior mathematics and education dual major at Rowan University. She is currently student teaching and upon graduation in May, she hopes to find a full-time position teaching high-school mathematics. She's always loved math, and studying it in college has given her … Continue Reading ››
Advanced Mathematics, Educational Technology, Math Software

Pi Day 2015: Pieces of Pi

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For this year’s Pi Day post, I thought I’d continue our Web Sketchpad (WSP) construction theme. But rather than adapting the visualizations from last year’s Pi Day post to the new construction capabilities, I decided to take a different approach. Some time ago, I built a set of custom tools … Continue Reading ››
Advanced Mathematics, Educational Technology, Real-World Math

WCYDWT: A Ball, a Trash Can, and Web Sketchpad

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Dan Meyer has posted a number of "What Can You Do With This?" activities on his blog. (Activities is probably too prescriptive a word; they're more in the nature of prompts for student thinking, noticing, and wondering.) One of the first was the image below, which he made by superimposing frames from a … Continue Reading ››