The 10 Best Math Activity Pages
There are many great sites out there for better teaching students about math skills. Here are a few
of the best sites I’ve found and use on a regular basis. I must admit I have not visited all of the
math sites on the web, so to say they are the 10 Best Math Sites on the Web may be a stretch, but
they are the 10 Best Math Activity sites that I have found so far. If you have a site that you think
should be mentioned please leave a comment and share.
Enjoy the Ten Best Math activity pages!
- http://www.aplusmath.com/ - The A+ Math site helps students learn mathematics
interactively with a mathematics game room, flashcards, and practice sheets. - http://www.coolmath4kids.com/ - Coolmath4kids is a colorful Web site (how did they
make that dangly cursor?!) that has fun mathematics activities for children and adults age
3 and up. - http://www.edinformatics.com/kids_teens/kt_math.htm - Edinformatics: Information for
the Information Age offers many links to online mathematics sites for instruction, practice,
and games. Descriptors tell the age level (kids, teens, mature teens) of each site. - http://www.figurethis.org/index.html - Figure This! Math Challenges for Families has a
teacher’s kit complete with a PowerPoint presentation and blackline masters to introduce
this series of family problem-solving mathematics challenges to parents. The grade levels
of the activities range from grades 1 through 6. - http://www.kcw.org/reprek6.htm - This site has resource links for parents and educators
of children grades pre-K to 6. - http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/technology/babbitt_math_tips.html - This site
presents 10 tips for selecting mathematics instruction software for students with learning
disabilities. - http://mathforum.org/arithmetic/arith.software.html - The Math Forum @ Drexel Web
site offers arithmetic software or sites, some for purchase, some for downloading; other
lists of links; and descriptions of the programs. - http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/nav/index.html - This virtual library of interactive
manipulatives for interactive mathematics for pre-K to grade 12 comes from Utah State
University. - http://www.netn.net/14113.htm - This site has many interesting science, early education,
activity, and organization links for elementary school teachers and for parents of
elementary children. Some of the sites are free and some charge a fee for their materials. - http://www.kidsnumbers.com —The Exciting Math Website For Kids providesmath
skills development programs are research based, and seem to work well.
Conversion Calculator
http://www.worldwidemetric.com/Measurements.html
Have you ever wondered how many yards the 100 meter dash is, or wanted to figure out how many inches, or centimeters your 23 mile commute is. Well OK maybe I’m the only one interested in some of these trivial bits of information, but we often find it necessary to make conversions between different units of measurement. Worldwide Metric has made this process much easier with there easy online calculator. It includes conversions for length, weight, volume, pressure, and temperature.
GenTechReview
We have launched a new site called gentechreview.com. as I explore the internet and technology world I come across many cool thing. Often they are not valuable in the classroom but they are still fun. As a result I launched a site called Gen Tech Review to discuss and share information about technology for a general audience. At times the content may be the same because the software or web sites discussed are good for both general public and the classroom, but we also have new and interesting content, like todays post about the hidden Google Earth Flight simulator. I highly recommend to those who like this site to click on over and subscribe also to gentechreview.com
Pictoral Periodic Table!
http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Posters/Poster2.2000.low.JPG
This site has a very cool pictorial depiction of the periodic table. It’s amazing imagery makes learning the elements very fun. Although it’s not a replacement for a traditional periodical table due to it’s lack of information, it is still a interesting and fun resource.
The Best Word Processor for Teachers
Many years ago before the dawn of the internet age a company dominated the word processing market. Wordperfect was the standard in most businesses that used word processing. Then another powerhouse entered the market in 1995 and there was a significant shift in the business market to Microsoft Office. Quite honestly at that time Microsoft had a little better package available for business and Businesses converted in masses and never looked back. Should they? In the title wave of Microsoft dominance, Wordperfect now owned by Corel has been responding by pushing invasion to make a better product and reducing there price to make an office suite more affordable. Has all of this work been enough to catch up to Microsoft. Well in sales no, but when it comes to the quality and value of the product, I think they have.
I am reasonably adept at Microsoft Office, and personally love the enhancements in Office 2007. I have not used Wordperfect in 10 years, So I thought that I could not give a fair comparison to the products since Corel Wordperfect X3 is so new to me. I was wrong. Within 5 Minutes on Corel Wordperfect X3 I knew I was using a far superior tool than Microsoft Office 2007. I was doing advanced formating of a document with tables, photos, dynamic links, within 20 minutes without even referring to the help menu. I have used Corel Wordperfect X3 for about 4 days and can not ever see me going back to the miserable limitations of Microsoft word. Unfortunately my trial version runs out in about three weeks, and I’ll have to pay for my copy, but with the reasonable price point I have no problem with the change. There ya go Corel your market share just went up .00001% Another small step in the right direction.
Where can I get this Clock?
I stumbled across this image of a mathematical equation clock I would love to add to my classroom. If any of my readers know where to get one please post a comment to let me know.
Dapple is a great Geology Teaching Tool!
http://dapple.geosoft.com/default.asp
Dapple makes it easy to find and visualize massive quantities of geoscientific data available on the Internet.
- View geoscience data, satellite imagery, remote sensing data, geology maps, geophysical data, and many other earth data sets of interest to geoscientists.
- Save an earth view and share your view with colleagues.
- Add new Geosoft DAP and WMS servers of interest.
- View GeoTIFF files.
Dapple is a great resource and product. It is fun to use, and interesting. Is it a replacement to Google Earth? well no. Google Earth has many capabilities that make it a powerful tool itself. Dapple is a great addition to Google Earth however, and is great for those that really want to get in to geology.
5 best Rubric Makers
Rubrics have become an essential part of teaching, because they provide a clear picture of student expectations. It is possible to create a rubric from scratch, but there are a variety of free and low cost tools that will help you create rubrics with ease. I looked at several products out there for this task and have narrowed it down to the five most notable solutions. They include free and paid web based solutions, as well as software based solution to meet ever rubric creation need.
http://rubistar.4teachers.orgRubistar is my pick as the best rubric site on the internet. There are a wide variety of rubrics to get you started, and they are very customizable. With a free account you can save all your custom rubrics and can access them wherever you have internet access.
http://landmark-project.com/rubric_builder/index.php
The Landmark Project Rubric Builder is a great easy tool to get you started in creating rubrics. In addition to a wide variety of public rubrics to get you started, it contains powerful creation and editing capabilities. It does require registration but it is free.
http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/
Teach-Nology has a wide variety of ready made rubrics. You can enter the title, school name, and teacher name, but that is the extent of customization available. The strength of the site is the sheer number of ready to go rubrics available. With a paid membership starting at $29.95 you gain access to a more powerful rubric engine with many more rubrics to choose from. Rubrics can also be exported to Word or PDF to further customize and save them.
Rubricator 5 is a software based solution. It is a great solution for those that don’t have constant access to the internet or simply want to have a solution that is always there when they need it. The software is easy to use and comes with many objectives built in, offering you draog and drop simplicity and efficiency. It is available for both PC and MAC and is $25.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates
For those of you that know exactly what they want. and want total control over the format and wording, Microsoft Office is a great tool. they do provide a template to get you going, but your options are truly endless. The downside is you have to do it start to finish. I would love to tell you that Iwork has a template for rubrics for my Mac using readers, but alas the selection of templates available for Iwork is pretty limited.
Honest Truth about I Work 08
Unfortunately when it comes to Mac Products and software you get reviews from wither Mac Haters, or Mac Lovers, and the reviews are biased as such. Hopefully this review will be a little fairer, and approach it from one who jumps between Macs and PC’s with the grace of a ballet dancer. On my first impression I like the new I Work 08 suite. The suite is made up of three different applications to meet your office needs. The first is a presentation program that has been around for a few years. Keynote is a well polished application that has few rivals on the market. It is far more adept than Power Point in many aspects. If I were a Professional Presenter, or doing presentations was a major part of my workday this application is very powerful. Early versions of the program were a little more difficult to get going, but in the 08 version of the program it is just as easy to use as power point, except with keynote your end result looks a lot better and you have more options. Pages is a very good and intuitive word processor and layout application. I like that these two great tools are tied together seamlessly in this program. It is very easy to get the layout you want quickly. If you are putting the word processor alone head to head with Microsoft Word, Word wins out with expanded features and ease of finding advanced features. When you combine the layout capabilities with Pages 08 it becomes a very powerful product that most users will be very happy with. If you are a Microsoft Word, or even Apple Works power user, you will likely be disappointed Pages 08. The newest addition to the I Work family is Numbers. I personally like Numbers for laying out documents that need basic spreadsheets for presentations. It is easy to lay out a page that looks great and makes your data stand out. When it comes to serious calculation, or data processing though numbers falls short. In my opinion it is a totally different tool than Excell. Excell is a serious tool that assists you in tracking vast amounts of data and performing complex calculations. Numbers at this stage of development does not meet that need at all. When it comes time to taking that data and presenting it in a clear and good looking way Excell does not hold a candle to numbers. I personally keep all of my data in Excell and export the data I need to numbers to create documents to present to people.
For most people the Apple IWork 08 suite is a great tool that will meet your needs, and wants very well. You can create great looking documents with little effort. For power office application users, at this point this product is not for you. It simply does not have the advanced features needed, with the exception of Keynote, which in my opinion is the best product in it’s field.
Lexia Early Success
Lexia software has been around for a while, but it is still one of the best reading programs available for schools and learning centers. I began testing the Lexia Early Reading program earlier this summer and have been very happy with the results. My 5 year old who is just entering Kindergarten next week will start his experience as a reader. The program self adjusts getting more difficult and easier based on a child’s performance. This is a huge advantage over programs like Reader Rabbit and Jump Start that basically force the child on whether they are successful or not. Other advantages include a very good student management system and reporting system. I believe this program is as good or better than some of the other big boys such as Waterford Reading, and Academy for Reading. but the pricing is much more affordable.