Saturday, July 23, 2011

ToonDoo's and Don'ts

I’ve covered a lot of information about mathematical concepts over the last few weeks but today we’re going to cover some great tools and websites that students can use to get help when they need it!

The first tool is ToonDoo’s.  This is a great tool for creating cartoons. .



I really like the transformation cartoon.  I’ve discussed vocabulary as a very difficult aspect of geometry and other math concepts.  I think having many ways to present that information keeps it interesting and also helps with different learning styles.  More visual learners will benefit from the drawings and other visual aspects of the cartoons.

Another great resource for students is IXL.  The district I hope to teach in uses this site and it is incredible.  It aligns with each state academic standard and provides a great way for students to get the practice that is needed when dealing with technical subjects like math.  There are objectives to complete and when all are mastered the students get a gold medal for that subject.  There are also more in depth explanations for each problem and students can practice as much as they want.  The students in the fourth grade class my mentor teaches in loved the medals.

A great educational tool that has math questions (as well as other subjects) is freerice.com.  It’s basically a quiz site and for every correct answer the UN donates 10 grains of rice to needy people around the world.  I was skeptical initially but a professor from a previous class said it was a legitimate site.  The bowl of rice on the screen fills up as you answer questions and students really seem to respond to that.

All of the information in the world is great but not very helpful if it isn’t presented in a variety of ways; hopefully these sites come in handy!

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