Technology in Your Classroom : Hot Websites :
Hot Websites January 2004
By Linda Lindroth
This month's math sites feature everything from calculator skills, homework help, digital pictures and mind-bending puzzles
Numbers and mathematics are parts of our everyday lives. This month's online resources will have your students investigating math as it relates to the world in which they live and help to answer the age-old question, "Why do we have to know how to do this?"
Cool Math 4 Kids
www.coolmath.com
"Cool" really is the word for this website! The "Amusement Park of Math and More" section is a math thrill your students won't want to miss. It includes a "Lemonade Stand" simulation, dozens of "Brain Benders" with topics ranging from alphabet soup to geometry and a variety of math games to challenge students from preschool to adult. Teachers will want to explore the "Calculators" activities. There's even a "Cool Math Algebra" area.
Digital Camera Uses
pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ucfcasio/qvmath.htm
The Casio Classroom provides excellent lessons for using digital cameras to "focus" on math concepts. Each lesson provides alternatives and follow-up activities to extend the concepts.
The "Digital Camera Walk" involves taking photos that demonstrate real-life geometry around your school or community. What a great way to reinforce geometry concepts! "Counting Big Book" encourages K-1 students to photograph items in their environment that represent the numbers 1-10. An extension has them comparing different patterns of items that represent the same number. The number books will make a great addition to your math center. The "How Do You Measure Up?" activity offers a different look at math when a photograph of the class in front of a brick wall (or other backdrop) provides an opportunity to discuss nontraditional measurement systems.
Hotmath.org
hotmath.com
This math tutorial site for middle school and above is correlated to popular math textbooks. The step-by-step approach offers support to help students solve problems on their own.
Students click the appropriate textbook icon and search for the homework page they're working on. Hotmath demonstrates how to work all odd-numbered problems. Content areas include Grades 6-8, Pre-algebra, Algebra I and II, Geometry, Pre-calculus and Calculus. A free trial is available online.
A site license begins at $150 for a school with 500 or fewer students; a school-year class subscription is $49 and a parent subscription for home use is $29.
ACTIVBoard -- Tech Spotlight
The ACTIVBoard Collaboration System from Promethean is more than an electronic whiteboard. The 4' x 6' electromagnetic board is mounted to the classroom wall and it works with a ceiling-mounted projector. Any web-based or cd-rom product can be run from the board.
The second system component is ACTIVStudio, which is a complete library of images, backgrounds and shapes that allow you to create lessons in which students can manipulate the data. Want to make it even more interactive? Add an ACTIVSlate, which students can hold in their lap, write on and see their words appear on the whiteboard screen.
ACTIVPrimary software for K-2 adds even more options. The software puts teacher tools at the top of the board and larger student tools on the bottom, where they're easy for little hands to reach.
Visit www.prometheanworld.com/uk or call 44-(0)-870-241-3194 for more information. The basic board with ACTIVStudio is $1,795; other components are modular. Call for pricing.
Linda K. Lindroth is Technology Editor and Web Coordinator for . She is also a Technology Resource Teacher in a K-5 computer lab in Lexington, KY.
January, 2004, Vol.34, No.4
