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I Speak Math is an sidea-filled and informative blog from a math teacher currently at a project-based private school in North Carolina. Posts are updated often and include pictures of classroom projects along with links to resources used. Examples include a kinesthetic box and whisk-ers plot activity, foldables for functions and graphing, and reflections upon students grading their own tests. Explore the site further by viewing top posts through the link on the side bar. Search the site using the search box on the top of the page. Most posts include several tags. Click on a tag to find other posts with the same topic or click on popular tags located in the tag cloud on the side bar.

A beautifully made flash resource which explores polyhedrons 3D shapes. See their properties, nets and rotate the shape. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

During the live online event Saturday January 14th 2pm ET, Shad Moarif, the founder of Karismath, will lead brainstorming about mathematical videos and dynamic mathematics in general. Event challenge! What types of the Grid do you see from the pedagogical perspective? Discussions beginning before the event This wiki: discussion tab http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/message/list/Karismath LinkedIn: "Math, Math Education, Math Culture" group http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=33207&type=member&item=88774229&qid=00e42ab4-4f69-453e-8a79-0a181ab07bc9 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/karismath/posts/334691806549990 Math Future email group: http://groups.google.com/group/mathfuture/browse_thread/thread/071299f3319650cf# In a grid, there is an obvious connection between the product cell and the simultaneity of two bits of information coexisting within it. Shad is exploring ways of breaking this connection down into a sequence of transitional steps by distilling them visually. Shad has categorized the Grid into eleven types according to their uses for storing, sorting, and displaying numerical information (see below). What pedagogical types of the Grid come to your mind? How to join Follow this link at the time of the event: http://tinyurl.com/math20event

A fun, simple flash game exploring symmetry of shapes. Choose from three levels of difficulty. Play full screen at http://www.fuelthebrain.com/Game/swfs/patternBlockSymmetry.swf http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

"Kill Math is my umbrella project for techniques that enable people to model and solve meaningful problems of quantity using concrete representations and intuition-guided exploration. In the long term, I hope to develop a widely-usable, insight-generating alternative to symbolic math."

A group in New York City. "The School of Mathematics was founded to cultivate a natural and stress-free environment where anyone can study, discuss, explore, and experience mathematics. No prior knowledge is assumed. Whether you are an avid student of mathematics or have always shied away saying "math is not for me", you are welcome. " Features a Meetup page listing events and articles describing mathematical principles. See "The Power of Mathematics" http://pulse.me/s/3iW2A and A Mathematician's Lament http://thewe.net/math/lockhart.pdf

Exploration of a Fermat conjecture on prime numbers

"Why Learn It (WLI) aims to address the issue of motivation around learning math by helping students explore the beauty and relevance of what they would otherwise dismiss as inconsequential in school. Targeting late middle-school and early high-school students, WLI takes a hybrid approach to cultivat- ing motivation. It leverages the engagement value of short (approximately three-minute long) videos depicting real people talking about how math and computational thinking are critical to their successes in a number of professional areas. Students then complete a series of interactive exercises that help students explore an application area discussed in the video in more detail. These exercises, however, are not simply drill problems aimed at making students experts in a particular content area. Instead, they are multi-step assignments that require the students to draw upon both detailed mathematical knowledge and a big picture view of how this knowledge can be used to draw useful, meaningful conclusions. The exercises are focused on bridging the worlds of number, images, and sounds in or- der to help students build intuition around a particular topic. Therefore, while some questions have objectively correct responses, others require students to gather knowledge they have built through answering previous questions within the packet to draw new inferences. Hints are provided along the 1 way to ensure students receive assistance when necessary. Finally, WLI is housed online and is oered for free, signifying minimal barriers to usage by educators and students."

Relying on a comprehensive review of the research, Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood lays out the critical areas that should be the focus of young children's early mathematics education, explores the extent to which they are currently being incorporated in early childhood settings, and identifies the changes needed to improve the quality of mathematics experiences for young children.

A site/app which allows pupils to explore geometry & other maths on a digital geoboard.

Stimulating critical thinking using technology has the potential to create more in depth understanding of science and math content by students when engaged in learning activities which integrate in-class and on-line technology resources. Technology tools support stimulation of both inquiry-based and critical thinking skills by engaging students in exploring, thinking, reading, writing, researching, inventing, problem-solving, and experiencing the world outside their classroom. This is accomplished through learning content through the lens of video to multimedia to the internet (Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement, NCREL, 2005).

This slide show demonstrates some techniques that would be suitable for an experimental geometry project. The basic shapes of square and circle are explored using open source Geogebra and Dr Geo geometry software. The examples includes exercises in geometric construction, novel solutions and recursive (spiral) constructions. This is mathematics that can be done without algebra. There is some algebra on slide 18, to calculate the radius and area of a semicircle inscribed in a square.

Nice set of applets that let students explore fraction understanding from multiple perspectives and models. I love that they use a variety of models for fractional development, including bars (multiple versions), sets, and linear. From the site:  "Why Fractions? Fractions are one of the earliest stumbling blocks for students in math. Our goal is building conceptual understanding in fractions as a basis for comprehension in all later topics."

Here is where you'll find the course content for Spring, 2009. Assignments are here. Syllabus is here. GEOGEBRA: Throughout the notes, you will find many GeoGebra applets.  These are interactive Java applets.  To activate them, just click on them, and wait for the applet to load.  If you're using Internet Explorer, you may have to click on the "Allow ActiveX control" warning bar at the top of your browser, for the applet to load.  I encourage you to download GeoGebra yourself, or use the "Web Start" option, over at http://www.geogebra.org .  It's very easy to use, and a lot of fun!

Geometry explorer, worth downloading. Geared towards geometry constructions more so than Geogebra.

Students in grades 6+ explore linear equations and apply that knowledge to save a band of friendly aliens.

Project based learning using all or any of the three online resources offers a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges.

Northwestern University scientists created a model to explore food web dynamics towards species conservation. "The goal of this project, funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Mathematical Sciences, is to develop mathematical methods to study dynamical processes in complex networks. Although the specific application mentioned here may be useful in management of ecosystems, the mathematical foundation underlying the analysis is much more universal. The broad concept is innovative in the area of complex networks because it concludes that large-scale failures can be avoided by focusing on preventing the waves of failure that follow the initial event."

Online Communities of Enquiry in Mathematics Education. A free article in a conversational style with practical tips for online communications and learning. Colin McAllister and Rebecca Hanson ask: What is it like to take part in online discussions? How do moderators and contributors create active and successful conversations? How is the technology employed in the management of discussion forums evolving? What could be achieved through discussion forums in the future?

This has videos of rich math tasks being used in classrooms, and takes you through the preplanning, launch-explore-summarize of the lesson, and the reflection after the lesson. Student work samples from the actual videos are also available.   It's a great resource for coaches and teachers for professional development.