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Featured Websites (past)
Just looking for some cool web resources? Try browsing the list.
Week of April 1, 2007: Flatland (the movie). Remember this little 96-page book by Edwin A. Abbott?
(costs $1.50 in Dover publication version). Well, it's going to be an animated movie (starring Martin Sheen as Arthur Square). See the trailer here by clicking on
"Trailer". Declare yourself an official geek if you got excited about this trailer! I showed the trailer in all my math classes this week. One class of students decided to
read the book in preparation for the movie release and we ordered copies from our bookstore. Sign up on the Flatland web site to receive more information as it becomes available.
Featured Website (April 8, 2007): LineRider Warning: This one's addictive.
This is a popular little computer game with roughly 16 million fans and over 11,000 online videos. The goal of the game is to try to create a curve (or series of curves) for the little guy on a sled to successfully ride. However, it is very mathematical - in order to truly be successful you must understand slopes, velocities,
and trajectories. Click play, draw a
curve, then click the triangular PLAY button to see how you did. If you really want to see what can be done (and find out what some people do with their free time) watch the movies
or go to www.youtube.com and search for "linerider" to see thousands of recorded movies. I have assigned this activity to my algebra classes when we've been studying slope. Also, the movies are nice to watch while we wait between classes for class to
start.
Featured Website (April 15, 2007): www.FlatlandTheFilm.com Believe it or not, about a week after
discovering the other Flatland web site, I discovered that another filmmaker produced a movie about Flatland in 2006. This is also an animated movie, and it looks a little more "true" to the book than the Hollywood version. This film IS available via DVD right now ($20) through the web site. I have
obtained a copy of the movie and
watched it - the filmmaking is very clever and I know you will enjoy it. If you click on the "Gallery" at the web site, you can view the video trailer and other clips from the film. I have corresponded with the filmmaker (Ladd P. Ehlinger Jr) and he is agreeable to viewings of his movie for educational purposes
- you should ask for permission first.
Featured Website (May 30, 2007): Science Friday I've always loved listening to Science Friday on
NPR, now you can search the archives for specific topics and listen to old shows on the Internet. That means, you can also send your students to listen to old shows as a homework assignment. You can see all the mathematics show topics here. There have not been a lot of math topics archived recently, but many of the science
topics do reference the use of mathematics models. Click here to be added to the once-a-week mailing list with a heads-up for Friday's topics. I don't always catch
the show on Friday, but if it sounds interesting, I can download the podcast or listen online when I do have the time. There is also a nice "books" link with many of the books that have been discussed on Science Friday. This might provide a good place to look for new
science books to include in an upper-level science course as required reading.
Featured Website (May 30, 2007): MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning
and Online Teaching)
This is a GREAT collection of searchable online resources for various subject. You do not have to be a member to use the site (only to rate or post materials yourself). Click on "Mathematics and Statistics" to browse the collection of more than 1,000
online resources for math and stats. If you don't know how create your own online animations and interactive materials, this is the site for you! Merlot gives a description of the site or
collection, a primary audience for the materials, and the technical requirements. Click on "go to material" to actually visit the Website where the material or resources are stored. See screen shots under "Publications" and "Online Math Education."
Featured Website (June 5, 2007): Wolfram Demonstrations Project (Using Mathematica to Illuminate Ideas).
The site describes itself as "An expanding collection of freely available, interactive Demonstrations in math, science, and many other areas - at all levels, from elementary education to front-line research. People always ask how I find these sites... I was searching for an interactive activity about polynomial long division
(which this site has, by the way). The coolest one that I immediately want to use, though, is the Graph of Inequalities (see picture below). There is also a nice interactive application about carbon dating. There are so many cool interactive math applications here that I could probably spend all day here. You
do need to download the FREE Mathematica Player in to use the live version of the demonstrations. There is a link on the
website.
  Be forewarned that the Mathematica Player is 80MB, so it could take a while to download. AFTER that, you can click on the "Download Live Version" links for any of the applications you would like to use and quickly save them, watch them, and use them on your
computer.
Featured Website (June 22, 2007): Doug Ensley's Discrete Math Resources (Flash-based interactive mathlets for discrete mathematics). There are some great mathlets on teaching induction and proofs on Doug's page. I am also including the website for the Flash workshop that I recently attended in Rhode Island because Doug and Barbara have put up a few neat examples of what kinds of stuff you can do with Flash
programming for mathematics.
Another Featured Website (June 22, 2007): Ted Talks is one of my favorite ways to spend my free time (if I
had any). TED stands for Technology Entertainment and Design, and the motto is "Ideas Worth Spreading." Every year they hold a conference with some really incredible speakers. The talks are posted hear and you can now watch hundreds of speakers from the tops of their fields speak about their ideas and where
they
see technology heading (James Watson, Jane Goodal, and Jeff Hawkins to name a few). The flash-based "visualization" interface on the TedTalks website is really cool. Forget television... Watch these!
Featured Website (August 22, 2007): NationMaster and StateMaster are huge data sources that compare various demographic and economic data amongst nations or states. You can generate graphs in a couple clicks by choosing topics from menus (all using real data).
Need a pie chart or a bar graph for your next algebra test? Try it out - this is way cool and so easy to use!
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