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The popular educational portal www.kidsworldfun.com is organizing a unique Little Champs Video Contest for preschoolers (3-6 years old) around the world. The contest intends to discover the very young bright stars around the world who are exceptional in a variety of activities such as reading, writing, singing, dancing, doing chores around home, playing with friends, gardening, and so on. Parents, who are interested, should make a video portfolio of their child, of about 3-5 minutes duration, stringing together the various activities he/she engages in at different times, in natural situations. The winners will be selected based on how well and happily the child engages in the task, how independently he/she is able to perform, how much effort is put in, and how skilled he/she is, in each activity engaged in. The terms and conditions of the contest are given at http://www.kidsworldfun.com/video-contest/ The Little Champs Video Contest is the second international contest that the KidsWorldFun is organizing, the first being the prestigious International Short Story Contest for School Children that debuted in 2016.

Have you ever wanted to create short "how to" video for your students to use for homework, remembering facts, and solving math problems. How often have your students stated, "I could not complete the homework assignment, because I could not remember the steps and no one could help me." Well the answer is to create a screencast or video for posting on your class wiki or blog for students to view at home or anywhere else they have web access.

How many times have you prepared an updated or new dynamic math or science PowerPoint or Keynote presentation for class and it would not open in school? Also, how many times has it happened to your students when it's time to give a class presentation? Now you need to postpone their presentation to another day, disrupting even the best planning.

Writing in math is an excellent way to determine if students' understand or do not understand the math they are learning about. Allowing students to explain how they solved a math problem, how they developed a formula to solve a problem, or how they applied a math concept requires critical thinking.

"Educational and developmental psychologists have tried to understand how skills and motivation are linked to academic achievement. While research supports ties between individuals' concepts of their abilities and their achievement, we lack a complete picture of how these relations develop from childhood to adolescence. A new longitudinal study looked at how youths' self-concepts are linked to their actual academic achievement in maths and reading from middle childhood to adolescence. The study found that students' self-concepts of their abilities in these two academic domains play an important role in motivating their achievements over time and across levels of achievement."

"Ever wondered how to make science or math flash cards for students to use with their mobile devices? This typically comes about because finding science and math flash cards specific to a particular concept, topic area, or unit is difficult. Often when appropriate flash cards are found, they are too expensive or need modification. Technological advances have uncomplicated the process of making tailor made free flash cards for students."

Mathematics has a reading protocol all its own, and just as we learn to read literature, we should learn to read mathematics. Students need to learn how to read mathematics, in the same way they learn how to read a novel or a poem, listen to music, or view a painting.

"126 page free downloadable PDF book for grade 4-7 teachers showing how KenKen puzzles can turn mathematical problem solving into fun and how student motivation can be dramatically increased. About"

"Italian psychologist Geatano Kanizsa first described this optical illusion in 1955 as a subjective or illusory contour illusion. The study of such optical illusions has led to an understanding of how the brain and eyes perceive optical information and has been used considerably by artists and designers alike. They show the power of human imagination in filling in the gaps to make implied constructions in our own minds. Kanizsa figures and similar illusions are a really useful way to encourage learners to 'say what they see' and to explain how they see it. It offers a chance for others to become aware of the different views available in a diagram and share their own thoughts without the 'danger' of being wrong; many people see different things."

From the abstract (full text requires subscription or purchase): "Though cooperative learning has been a topic of considerable interest in educational research, there has been little study specific to learning in the mathematics content area of geometry. This paper seeks to address that gap through a design experiment featuring a novel small-group computing environment for supporting student learning about quadrilaterals. In this design, each student controls a unique point in a shared geometric space, and those points are linked such that a group of four students collectively forms a quadrilateral. We first present results from pre- and post-measures to show how the students learned from the activities and developed in terms of geometric reasoning. We then present three episodes, elaborated with the notion of appropriation, to explain how students took up ways of using the technological tools and of talking about geometric concepts from one another in the interactive environment. Our study found that students achieved learning gains in this novel environment, that the environment provided rich opportunities for peer interaction around geometric objects, and that student learning opportunities and interactions were characterized by processes of appropriating ways of talking about and using software features."

LOGIN Wednesday February 15 at 3pm Eastern US time: http://tinyurl.com/math20event During the event, Dr. Keith Still of SaferCrowds.com will introduce his Crowd Sciences work and explain the relevance of mathematics in it: "If you don't do the maths, you could end up in court on a manslaughter charge!" All events in the Math Future weekly series: http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/events The recording will be at http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/CrowdSciences Pose questions and comments for Keith before the event Math Future wiki: http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/message/list/CrowdSciences LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=33207&type=member&item=94871153&qid=b29a6dbc-6474-425f-865a-b319bd33dcb9 Email group: http://groups.google.com/group/mathfuture/browse_thread/thread/931328aab6d87b03 How to join Follow this link at the time of the event: http://tinyurl.com/math20event Wednesday, February 15 2012 we will meet online at noon Pacific, 3 pm Eastern time. WorldClock for your time zone. Click "OK" and "Accept" several times as your browser installs the software. When you see Session Log-In, enter your name and click the "Login" button If this is your first time, come a few minutes earlier to check out the technology. Crowd Modelling + Crowd Monitoring + Crowd Management = Safer Crowds Crowd Modelling is the scientific approach to the development of safe, robust, crowd management plans. This can be achieved without the need for expensive, complex, time consuming computer simulations. In simple terms Crowd Modelling is understanding how, where, when and why crowds arrive, move around and leave an events/venues. The majority of this can be accomplished using tried, tested and simple to apply methodologies. "Keith Still is what I term an intuitive mathematician. He is one of the most creative and original thinkers that I know. He adds drive and determination, as well as considerable intellectual power to any group of which h

There are plenty of calculator apps in Google Play, but IDEAL WebMath is different because it shows students how to solve a problem.  IDEAL WebMath can help students with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, comparing fractions, ratios, proportions, place values, and rounding.

Curious how social media might benefit you as a math teacher? Check out mathtwitterblogosphere, which encourages math teachers to tweet and blog in order to "get your own creative juices flowing" and participate in a "world-class faculty lounge with colleagues who care about what they do." Come see profiles of math teachers who use blogs and Twitter, learn about "how to take the leap" with those social media, and find recommendations of tweeps and bloggers to follow, categorized by academic level, or interests such as arts and craft in the math classroom games and gamification in math interdisciplinary Work modeling approach to teaching standard-based grading projects and rich tasks technology in the math classroom

An interactive White Board (IWB) or SMART Board has the potential to deliver content better than traditional methods of teaching. Why? Because it provides multi-media functional interaction across audio, video, and computer media. It is also ideal for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. These qualities of an IWB also promote the dynamic delivery of content (if used to its full potential) in an engaging manner, which allows students to interact with science or math content their self. Examples include: * data manipulation * responding to data * even creating data So with all these attributes - "How are interactive white boards unsuccessfully used in science and math classrooms?" For the most part - not effectively!

In this lesson, students learn how to measure the area of the tire footprint on a car and to find air pressure using a tire gauge. Students then find the weight of the car using their fraction multiplication skills. Learning Objectives   Students will: Estimate weight of a large object Use a ruler and a tire gauge to take measurements Collect and record data Review square units of measure Calculate area by multiplying fractions Materials   Strips of poster board Ruler Tire gauge How Much Does a Car Weigh? Activity Sheet Computer with internet connection Car Instructional Plan In preparation for this lesson, place a car in a safe lcation for the students to measure the tire footprints and pressure. In case of bad weather, find a covered location. Be sure to measure the tire footprint and the pressure (in PSI) of each tire ahead of time, so that you will be able check the accuracy of students' measurements. Also, check the accuracy of your calculation by comparing to it to the weight of the car listed on the sticker inside the driver's door or in the vehicle manual. By the end of the day, data may change because air has leaked out of the tires while students were using the tire gauge. For safety, check the tires before driving home.

Encouraging students to use critical thinking is more than an extension activity in science and math lessons, it is the basis of true learning. Teaching students how to think critically helps them move beyond basic comprehension and rote memorization. They shift to a new level of increased awareness when calculating, analyzing, problem solving, and evaluating.

"I often sit on a Thursday evening about 2000hrs and watch the ukedchat hashtag. This week it was about physical education. Although this is not one of my strong subjects in teaching (or even in real life) I was interested in the first question which asked how physical education could be related to literacy and/or mathematics. Just like a GSCE multiple choice essay question I chose to answer how it could be related to mathematics. You can see the full tweet chat conversation here - but I thought I would expand my response in this week's waffle."

From the abstract: "this study investigated how the perspectives of the non-computer science educators changed after learning game-programming and how it could be fitted into the K-12 curriculum. Fourteen non-computer science educators and/or administrators in the K - 16 educational systems who made up a cohort at Sam Houston State University, Master of Education/Instructional Technology Program participated in this study. The participants were required to learn two free Web 2.0 game-programming applications and reflect on an article related to reviving interest in math and science as part of their program. Qualitative data consisted of online reflections, and peer-review processes through Facebook. A quantitative component was added to the analysis. The findings indicated that: (a) the perspectives of the participants changed from negative to positive as they reflected on their own game-programming learning experiences; (b) participants came to understand how game programming could build up students' logical concepts and critical thinking skills improving performances in math, science, and other subjects; and (c) due to the benefits of logical concepts and critical thinking skills game programming could have immense benefits if built into the K-12 curriculum."

From the abstract: "Studies on creative mathematics conducted in the past decades revealed that the importance of creation of learning and teaching environment favourable to the identification and nurturing creativity in mathematics. Based on psychological, methodological and didactical models created by Krutetskii (2006), Shchedrovtiskii (2008), Brousseau (2007) and Sierpinska (2004), we have developed our challenging situation approach. During 5 years of field study in the elementary grade VII classroom, we collected sufficient amount of data that demonstrate how these challenging situations help to discover and to boost mathematical creativity in very young children, keeping and increasing their interest towards more advanced mathematics curriculum. This article is an humble attempt to present our model and illustrate how it works in the mixedability classroom. We will also discuss different roles that teachers and students might play in this kind of environment and how each side could benefit from it."