Luckily, Sander Huisman enjoyed his pasta as well and was curious about the particular shapes and if a mathematical equation could be built to explain or model them. Turns out Huisman isn’t the only scientist with an interest in the mathematical properties of pasta – you can take a look at some popular pasta shapes alongside their mathematical explanations thanks to a great article and accompanying slideshow from the New York Times, “Pasta Graduates From Alphabet Soup to Advanced Geometry.”

About the Author: Rita Rogers grew up in the PNW and despite her “low-tech” houseboat upbringing, went on to complete her Master’s of Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington in 2010. She is passionate about the convergence of education and technology, educational gaming, and outer space.

If your student or child comes to you asking about re-doing an activity in Math-Whizz the first thing to do is log into either you parent or teacher account and view the report for the necessary student. Once you are in the reports view select the History tab near the top of the page. Now you can easily browse through their exercise and exam history to see if they have any available for review. Look down through the “Mark” column and see if you notice any small red circles with a “!” in the middle. That “!” indicates that the exercise (or exam) is available for review – hover over it and you’ll notice instructions for how to review this particular exercise with your student.

At Math-Whizz we think it’s features like these that create space for wonderful teachable moments. In some instances, a child might just not have performed very well on a lesson because they didn’t understand the mechanics of it – this allows you to walk through it with them. Equally important, this allows the student to share their knowledge with you, or ask specific questions about a certain problem or method. While the original mark the student received will not change due to reviewing it, this process allows both the student and teacher or parent to have a dialogue, one we’re hoping is enriching for both parties!

One more thing… we recently added another subject to our Math Pages, so if you or someone you know has yet to learn all about how Math-Whizz spreads happiness in numbers send them over to review some examples of how we teach Geometry for students K-8.

About the Author: Rita Rogers grew up in the PNW and despite her “low-tech” houseboat upbringing, went on to complete her Master’s of Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington in 2010. She is passionate about the convergence of education and technology, educational gaming, and outer space.

Math-Whizz caters to special education students by providing:

• Initial Diagnostic Assessment which identifies a student’s Math Age™ and prescribes a learning path specifically for the student.
• Online lessons are engaging, interactive and aligned to the TEKS.
• Real-Time reports allow teachers to gain insight into students proficiency while providing the data needed for Progress Monitoring.
• Promotes mental strategy, constructive response and immediate feedback with instruction using multiple teaching strategies.
• Students are motivated and challenged to earn credits to engage in fun, online activities.

Math-Whizz is the leading online responsive learning environment that is guaranteed to raise math achievement. To learn more about Math-Whizz visit our Math Pages.

Winner of the 2011 National Parenting Center Award

Not going to TCASE, but want to know more about Math-Whizz?  We will be attending Region 4 Cornerstones for Success Conference January 21st.

All caught up? Perfect, let’s start this weeks post off with a link to something quite useful – a website dedicated to those who use math in their careers. We Use Math is a great way to quiet those pesky “but when will I use this?” complaints. This site is full of information and unexpected finds, reminding us that it’s not only mathematicians using math on a daily basis.

If you are lucky enough to be in the City of Light in the near future make sure you check out the exhibition “Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere.” Hervé Chandès, General Director of the Foundation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, writes that the show “is a geometric, algebraic, artistic and cinematographic mosaic that gives everyone a chance to experience fragments of mathematical beauty.” For those of us not in Paris this winter, we’ll have to just rely on the website which, thankfully, gives us plenty to contemplate.

View of the exhibition Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere Photo © Olivier Ouadah

Now let’s take a look at this past week’s Math Monday post from Make. George Hart begins the post by posing this question: “How can you slice a bagel into thirteen pieces with just three simultaneous planar cuts? This is a classic problem of recreational mathematics, made famous by Martin Gardner.” Figured it out yet? Personally, my bagel closely resembles that of croutons … ok I give up! Thankfully, there are a number of photos to go along with the solution and now you know how to cut a bagel into 13 pieces using just three cuts!

Finally, I’ll leave you with some exercises that show you how we here at Math-Whizz make geometry fun and exciting for our students – be sure to check out just a few of our interactive lessons right here.

About the Author: Rita Rogers grew up in the PNW and despite her “low-tech” houseboat upbringing, went on to complete her Master’s of Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington in 2010. She is passionate about the convergence of education and technology, educational gaming, and outer space.

The first comes from a new blog called Social Dimension written by Samuel Arbesman, who promises to write “a blog devoted to the math behind understanding society and civilization.” We are, not surprisingly, quite intrigued. Thus far Arbesman has produced some great reads – and just today has posted “The Mathematics of Lego,” a must read for any self identifying geek (perhaps not coincidentally, our colleagues in the UK had Maths-Whizz days at Legoland this past summer)! Arbesman describes a paper by Mark Changizi in which Lego sets are examined as systems unto themselves, and also explains how lego pieces relate to power law. It’s not exactly elementary material, but it wouldn’t take much to create a great hands on math activity for elementary students using Lego or wooden colored blocks. Here is a link to some ideas to get you started.

And for you music lovers out there I couldn’t resist sharing The Geek Playlist: Math Edition from Alex Knapp at Forbes, I hope your headphones are nearby! Finally, no post on math and fun would be complete without some reference to Angry Birds – so, in just over 9 minutes you can learn all about algebra and Angry Birds.

About the Author: Rita Rogers grew up in the PNW and despite her “low-tech” houseboat upbringing, went on to complete her Master’s of Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington in 2010. She is passionate about the convergence of education and technology, educational gaming, and outer space.

And if you are looking for ways in incorporate math into Christmas, look no further than Education.com which has 5 Ways to Calculate Christmas Fun, with ideas from our very own Kevin Judd. Also, don’t forget the Winter Adventure is in full swing! You can read all about it here. Have a great holiday season!

About the Author: Rita Rogers grew up in the PNW and despite her “low-tech” houseboat upbringing, went on to complete her Master’s of Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington in 2010. She is passionate about the convergence of education and technology, educational gaming, and outer space.

Each Winter Adventure activity needs to be unlocked –  these activities are locked and can be unlocked with stars. One star is equivalent to 30 credits, and these credits must be earned during the time the Winter Adventure is live. For those of you watching the clock, time spent in the Winter Adventure does not count towards the Usage you’ll see in reports.

Once you’ve entered the Winter Adventure, which is accessible through your Bedroom, you will see a screen much like the image above. Each window or door contains a different activity for you to try. 1 star activities will teach you all about different holiday celebrations around the world, while 2 star activities give you the chance to play a number of different arcade style games with a math twist!

All said there are six 2 star games and six 1 star games – certainly plenty to keep your little one busy this holiday season! So, go forth earn those credits, and unlock as much of the Winter Adventure before it melts away January 6, 2012! Happy Holidays!

About the Author: Rita Rogers grew up in the PNW and despite her “low-tech” houseboat upbringing, went on to complete her Master’s of Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington in 2010. She is passionate about the convergence of education and technology, educational gaming, and outer space.

Teachers can harness the myriad resources available within the Teachers’ Resource for whole class instruction that adapts to any lesson plan. No matter the topic, the Interactive Board has the tools needed for an exciting introduction to a new concept or to deliver an engaging lesson seamlessly on your school’s Interactive White Board. Introducing currency and simple addition problems dealing with change? The Interactive Board can help you introduce your students to the concept by visually showing them pennies, nickles and dimes (quarters too!) on your White Board to your whole class before breaking into small groups for further investigation.

This is of course just one component of the Teachers’ Resource, keep your eyes on our blog to learn more about how to effectively use this fantastic resource throughout your school. Psst… for fun math worksheets be sure to follow us on Twitter @MathWhizz!

About the Author: Rita Rogers grew up in the PNW and despite her “low-tech” houseboat upbringing, went on to complete her Master’s of Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington in 2010. She is passionate about the convergence of education and technology, educational gaming, and outer space.

“Our mission is to provide students with both the information and inspiration they need to succeed,” said Ben Keogh, CEO of Whizz Education in the United States. “We have no doubt that the Anchorage School District will see the same success from using Math-Whizz that schools all over the world have experienced.” You can read all about the implementation in Anchorage on eSchool News.

You can experience for yourself some of the content being delivered to students in Anchorage and throughout the world on our Math Topics pages complete with sample exercises. Are you a teacher or administer? You can quickly request a pilot for your students right here.

Sylwester begins the article by quoting Albert Einstein, “Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.” This quote epitomizes my view of the use of technology in the classroom, which can be summarized by the following points:

1. Computers are amazingly powerful machines that can personalize learning for a large number of students. They should be used to scale real-time best practices for a larger number of students than a single teacher could ever reach.

2. The power of a computer lies in diagnosing and prescribing content for students, anticipating where the problem lies with incorrect student responses and adapting the instruction to match the incorrect response. If a program does not perform these features, it is probably wasting student and teacher time and not likely to show any positive results.

3. According to available research, the strongest connection to student learning is the relationshipbetween the teacher and the student. A computer can never replace a teacher nor should ateacher ever view a computer as anything other than a powerful tool in the tool belt.

4. Utilizing a computer for a task that can be performed by a teacher is not only a waste of anexpensive machine, it actually gets in the way of the teacher–student relationship, which will ultimately hinder performance.

5. Using software for assessment purposes is fine, but don’t confuse asking students questions (assessment) with teaching students content (instruction) within the ultimate goal of student learning. There is no evidence that asking students questions on a computer will help them learn any more than weighing farm animals will help them gain weight. The focus MUST be instructional.

About the Author: Kevin Judd taught mathematics for 13 years before spending 5 years as a math specialist and curriculum administrator.  He holds a Master’s Degree in Educational Policy Studies and has also consulted with schools on ways to reform mathematics curriculum and instruction for students.  He is a frequent conference speaker on the topic of aligning math instruction to research on how students learn.