Advanced Mathematics, Math Software

Wait for a Date

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Consider the following probability question: Two friends arrange for a lunch date between 12:00 and 1:00. A week later, however, neither of them remembers the exact meeting time. As a result, each person arrives at a random time between 12:00 and 1:00 and waits exactly 10 minutes for the other person. When the 10 minutes have passed, … Continue Reading ››
Educational Technology

What Is All the Fuss About Lines?

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Yesterday, I led a webinar that demonstrated how Sketchpad and Web Sketchpad can be a powerful tools for exploring Common Core algebra topics. My examples included solving for unknowns with a pan balance, exploring the slopes of lines, maximizing the area of a fixed-perimeter rectangle, and graphing trigonometric functions. I touched only briefly on each example during the … Continue Reading ››
Common Core, Educational Technology, Math Software

Discovery by Dragging

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A few days ago I led a webinar on the Common Core and Sketchpad for Sketchpad beginners, and I showed four Sketchpad activities aligned with both the Content Standards and the Standards for Mathematical Practice. I mixed it up a bit … Continue Reading ››
Geometry

The Dog Leash Investigation

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Today's guest post is from Marta Venturini, a PhD student in Mathematics Education at Simon Fraser University under a "Cotutelle Agreement" with the University of Bologna, where she's a PhD student in Mathematics. While looking for some tasks that would be suitable for Sketchpad,  I found the “dog leash” problem in a March 2007 Continue Reading ››
Uncategorized

The Wavy Wavy Bridge

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At the 2013 Baltimore Regional NCTM Meeting, I gave a presentation on Picturing Functions and Functions of Pictures. In the description of my presentation I’d promised to show how to use Sketchpad to create special effects, so when it came time to prepare, I figured I needed to deliver on my promise. So I wrote a … Continue Reading ››
Educational Technology, Math Software

Learn to Multiply Like No Bunny’s Business

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It started with an unassuming bunny that hopped along a number line. Jump AlongIn 2011, our team at KCP Technologies released Sketchpad Explorer for the iPad, making it possible for teachers and students to interact with desktop Sketchpad models on their iPads. We were thrilled to bring the iPad’s … Continue Reading ››
Math Software

Picturing Functions and Functions of Pictures

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I’m excited to be making my first presentation of the 2013-14 school year next week in Baltimore. Daniel Scher and I are presenting Picturing Functions and Functions of Pictures. We'll be discussing the connections between pictures and functions. These connections are even richer than I realized when I first began to work with pictures in Sketchpad. In the … Continue Reading ››
Math Software, Uncategorized

Collaborating on an Extension to a Little-Known Theorem

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[Today's post is from Steven Fuchs, with whom I recently corresponded and whose enthusiasm was sufficiently infectious that I pressed him to share it here. --Scott]

One day late last spring, while teaching at St. Thomas High School in Houston, I noticed in a book a figure demonstrating Monge’s Theorem. (Don't look this up … Continue Reading ››

The Web Sketchpad and Math Education Blog