(Virtual) Scavenger Hunt – Pairs of Angles
October 19, 2010, 12:00 amI put together this quick six question activity that combines pairs of angles (complementary, supplementary, linear pairs, and vertical angles) and some basic algebra. The idea is that the students need to answer the question, then to get to the next problem they need to go to a webpage with the...
Car Talk Puzzler (Dance Party)
October 18, 2010, 12:00 amI don’t know if you listen to Car Talk, but maybe you should give it a try. Its a weekly radio show on NPR and podcasts are available. Essentially it is a call-in show for car questions and the hosts, Tom and Ray (aka Click and Clack), are very funny and their answers are pretty good too.
Anyway...
Knockoff Project: The Aftermath
October 15, 2010, 12:00 amThe first project that we did in Applied math was called the Knockoff Project. This was a brand new project meant to utilize the 21st century classroom and the Project Based Learning initiative that this class is now based on. The drive behind the project was to design a “knockoff” phone that im...
Spot the error.
October 4, 2010, 12:00 amHe is a birthday present from my sister in law. Awesome gift, I’m going to put it over the clock in my room (there would be rioting, but the kids can’t read an analogue clock anyway).
But can you spot the error?
Data Density
September 30, 2010, 12:00 amFollowing question driven by seeing a box of floppy discs in tech room.
Question: How large would the floppy disk have to be to hold a hard drive of content?
Facts:
- A floppy disk holds 1.44 MB
- The largest consumer hard drive is 2 TB
Size of a desk? room? building? field? town?
E...
Cake:Frosting (A look into a proper ratio of real math:cool tech)
September 29, 2010, 12:00 amWith all the new technology in the classroom (see this post), I’ve been interested in trying out the new toys. One of those toys is the 25 laptops (dell inspiron 11z, small and cheap) which are loaded up with some great software.
For the Intro to Geometry unit, we go through the definitions, sy...
Big Bad Wolf (a SBG tale)
September 23, 2010, 12:00 amI am the Big Bad Wolf.
The students are some mix of the three little pigs. 
They don’t know yet that I am the Big Bad Wolf, and they are building away at their houses. However this story is a bit different because I’m going to tell them which set of houses that I’m going to attempt t...
SMART Response (Clickers)
September 15, 2010, 12:00 amThese worked great. They integrate with the SMART notebook software, so they require a bit of tweaking when entering an assessment. SMART notebook, even with math tools, requires entering any equations again… even if they were imported from Word or a google Document.
Blah blah blah blah blah
September 14, 2010, 12:00 amFacts:
· Humans average 2 words per second when speaking.
· Humans average 60 minutes per day speaking.
How many words will you speak in your (average) life of 75 years?
(hint: break it down to smaller questions)
This is the question that the Applied Math guys worked on yes...
Track(ing) the tips
September 12, 2010, 12:00 amFor the past two summers, I’ve worked at the oldest horsetrack in the country, Saratoga Racetrack. I work as a mutuel teller and my job has me selling and cashing bets. It’s an okay job, the pay is not high, but it’s quite flexible and it’s totally different from teaching and so the break is nice....