Thanks to Jenny for hosting!
Present: Cam Fehr, Jenny Barker, Rachel Brookins, Ian
Noakes, Bridget, Cecilia Freer, Tabitha Steel, Lydia Hewitt (Swavesey), Sarah
Kupski, Sarah Denney (Ely), Agnes Davies (St Peter’s), Helen Harris (Newport),
Barbara Sterecki (Chesterton), Deborah Gordon (Longsands), Mark Dawes
(Comberton)
Notes by Mark Dawes
Focus: The
broad focus of the meeting was manipulating algebraic expressions.
Cam showed us the iPad app ‘Dragon Box 2’, where expressions and equations can be simplified. This looks good when projected using AppleTV
and also looks like it would be good for individuals to use.
Tabitha was excited about the possibilities afforded by
the software ‘Grid Algebra’, which
is available from ATM. http://www.atm.org.uk/shop/products/sof071.html
A site licence is £135 for members of ATM. Creating and simplifying complicated
expressions looked good. Tabitha
suggested that it was important to receive support from experts (she had seen
Dave Hewitt, the author, demonstrate it) initially.
Mark wondered about extending the negative numbers ideas
from last meeting (where +1 and -1 together formed a circle and equalled zero)
to include x and -x too. We discussed
the possibilities this could offer. This
could start with simplifying expressions, it could also include expanding
brackets and solving equations. It might
be useful to have card/laminated versions of the materials to act as manipulatives
too.
The National
Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM) requires Java, but has some
interesting ideas. http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html
We liked the ideas included in ‘Algebra Tiles’, but
wondered whether it would be better recreated on the IWB (although the facility
to change the size of the ‘x’ was useful).
We liked being able to factorise quadratics using this.
Sarah shared
a QR-code idea she had downloaded from TES.
http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/BIDMAS-BODMAS-QR-Code-Treasure-Hunt-6295093/
Posters are put up around the room and pupils use their
phones to get the next question. She
used this as a revision exercise.
To create your own QR codes: Google will do this
automatically (and will also act as a URL shortener).
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