100+ Math in “Real Life” Lessons
I’m taking the week off to do a bunch of fun things with my kids. While I’m away the most popular posts of the year so far will reappear. Math in Real Life is a series of 167 TED-Ed lessons and TED Talks. The “real life” context in these lessons isn’t things like “how calculating […]
How to Measure Perimeter and Area in Google Earth
As I mentioned in this week’s Practical Ed Tech Newsletter, Google Earth and digital mapping is an area of ed tech that I still get excited about after all these years. Google Earth is a tool that people often think of as being something that’s only useful for social studies lessons. However, there are many […]
A Round-up of Pi Day Resources
Pi Day is on Tuesday. Last week I shared a few resources for teaching and learning about pi. This post is a summary of those resources and a few more.
Pi Day Printable Art Activity from Drawings Of…
Yesterday morning I shared some physical education activities for Pi Day along with some video lessons for Pi Day. Today, I have another Pi Day resource to share with you. This one comes from Lillie Marshall’s Drawings Of… website that I reviewed a couple of months ago. On Drawings Of… Lillie Marshall is offering three […]
167 Math In “Real Life” Lessons
Math in Real Life is a series of 167 TED-Ed lessons and TED Talks. The “real life” context in these lessons isn’t things like “how calculating percentages helps you be a frugal shopper.” The “real life” context found in the videos in the Math in Real Life series is broad in nature. For example, you will […]
Math and Geography
Over the weekend a Tweet from Thomas Petra reminded me of a great Google Earth resource that he developed years ago. That resource is Real World Math. And though he stopped updating it a couple of years ago, there are still many Google Earth files on it that you can download to use as the […]
How to Create PDFs in Google Classroom
Last weekend a reader reached out to me to ask if I could create a video about the relatively new option to create PDFs in Google Classroom. I was happy to oblige. In this new video I demonstrate how to use the Google Classroom mobile apps to create PDFs from scratch. As I demonstrate in […]
PrepFactory’s New Online Algebra Program Features 100 Interactive Lessons
Disclosure: PrepFactory is an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com PrepFactory is a popular platform for online ACT and SAT prep. I covered it for the first time back in 2015 and again when it transitioned from video-based lessons to truly interactive SAT and ACT prep activities. This fall PrepFactory is using that interactive technology to help students […]
Make Math Flashcards on Canva
Canva is my go-to recommendation whenever someone asks me for help with anything requiring a bit of an eye for design. So on Wednesday when a reader asked me for a tool to create printable flashcards Canva was my recommendation. There are more than 300 flashcard templates in Canva’s design gallery. In that gallery you’ll […]
NBA Math Hoops – An App for Practicing Math Facts
NBA Math Hoops is a free iPad and Android app for practicing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills. The app can be used by students who don’t have email addresses. There is also an option to create an account to save games in progress. NBA Math Hoops pits players against NBA and WNBA players in […]
Five Ideas for Using Google Earth & Maps for More Than Social Studies Lessons
Later this week I’m conducting an online professional development workshop about Google Earth and Maps. One of my goals for the workshop is to help participants develop ideas for using Google Earth and Google Maps for more than just geography and history lessons. To that end I’ve put together a short list of ideas and […]
A Timeline of Mathematics and Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem
This week TED-Ed published a new video about Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem. This is the latest in a long list of mathematics video lessons produced by TED-Ed. The timing of the video was perfect for me as I had planned on writing about Mathigon’s Timeline of Mathematics this week. That timeline includes an entry about Gödel’s […]
Three Places to Find Fun and Interesting Math Problems
Giving students some clever math problems that tie-in a “real world” situation or topic can go a long way toward helping them see how math skills are skills they’ll use for a lifetime. The following three websites all provide good math challenges to use with your students. Would You Rather? is a website maintained by John […]
Math Learning Center Apps Now Include Sharing Options
Math Learning Center offers twelve free apps that are designed for teaching elementary school mathematics lessons. All of the apps are available in versions as free iPad apps and as web apps. Last week I visited the Math Learning Center for the first time in a while and noticed that the apps now have a sharing function. […]
Five Sources of Summer Math Activities for Elementary School Students
If you’re like me and you still have another week or two until summer break, you might be looking for some resources to share with students and their parents to help prevent summer slide. In fact, a few readers emailed me this week looking for suggestions for math activities to share with parents of elementary school students. […]
A Math and Map Challenge
This evening while recording Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions & Share Cool Stuff I was reminded of a neat math and map challenge activity from Mathigon. Here’s what I wrote about it last year. Mathigon’s map coloring challenge is to use as few colors as possible to color in all 50 U.S. states without the […]
Braingenie is Shutting Down – Transition to CK-12
Braingenie is a service that the CK-12 Foundation has offered for free for many years. It provided online practice activities addressing concepts in math and science for elementary school, middle school, and high school students. Unfortunately, CK-12 is ending the Braingenie service. However, there is some good news. Many of the practice activities and services […]
MathQuiz.io – A Simple Game to Practice Math Skills
MathQuiz.io is a new math game developed by a student. It’s a relatively simple site that presents you with a series of math problems to solve in your head then enter an answer. The problems are presented in sets of ten consecutive questions. You can play in an “easy” mode which is mostly simple addition, […]
Some of my Favorites – Geocaching!
This week is school vacation week here in Maine. I usually take this week off to go ice fishing on Moosehead Lake. Unfortunately, that’s not happening this year. Instead I’ll be “staycationing” and working on some projects around home. While on my staycation I’ll be sharing some of my personal favorite tools. Geocaching is one […]
The Growth of Mount Everest – A Math and Geology Lesson
Mount Everest is nearly a meter taller than it was a day ago. No, it didn’t actually grow a meter overnight. China and Nepal have agreed on a new measurement for the height of Mount Everest. There are at least two lessons that can be developed out of this news. One of the reasons for […]
The Geometry of Castles – A Math Lesson in Google Earth
In the web browser version of Google Earth there is a section called Voyager. Within the Voyager section you’ll find lots of pre-made tours, quizzes, and activities. One of those activities is called The Geometry of Castles. The Geometry of Castles is a Google Earth Voyage that you can use to teach short lessons on […]
Robocompass – A Robotic Geometry Box
Robocompass is described by its developer as robotic geometry box on 3D. Not being a math teacher and not having taken a math course since the Clinton administration, I wasn’t exactly sure what “robotic geometry box” meant at first. So I gave it try and quickly realized that it is an online tool for graphing […]
How to Use the Math Manipulatives in SeeSaw
Just in time for the annual ISTE conference SeeSaw introduced a handful of new tools for students to use in the creation of their digital portfolios. One of those new tools is a whiteboard interface onto which students can drag and drop math manipulatives. Students can use freehand drawing tools along with the manipulatives to […]
How to Set Answer Requirements on Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms is a good tool for creating online surveys and quizzes. Setting answer restrictions is one of the overlooked features of Microsoft Forms. Creating answer restrictions allows you to specify the type of input that you’ll accept in response to a question. As you can see in my new video, setting answer restrictions can […]
Google Earth and Maps Lessons for Five Subject Areas
Google Earth and Google Maps are two of my favorite educational technology tools that often are seen as only being useful for geography or history lessons. While they are good for lessons in those subjects, Google Earth and Google Maps can be used for lessons in other subject areas. Here are some ideas and resources […]
How to Measure Distance in Google Earth
Last year Google added a measuring tool to the web browser version of Google Earth (the desktop version always had one). While it worked, it didn’t have as many options as the measuring tool in the desktop version. Since then Google has added some more options for measuring distance in the browser version of Google […]
Three Pi Day Video Lessons
Today is Pi Day! March 14 or 3/14. Six years ago Numberphile published a couple of good videos about Pi. I shared them then and I think it’s time to share them again. Pi with real pies is a three minutes and fourteen seconds video that explains Pi and how it can be calculated. After showing the […]
Three Hands-on Pi Day Lessons
Tomorrow is Pi Day. If you’re looking from some Pi Day activities to do with your students, take a look at the following three activities available on Exploratorium’s Science Snacks site. I have provided brief summaries of each activity below. Click the links for the activities to read the full directions and materials list for […]
Teaching Math With Storyboards
When I’ve hosted webinars about using storyboards the vast majority of attendees expressed interest in using storyboards for in language arts or social studies lessons. That makes sense because storyboards are a natural fit in language arts and social studies classes. Storyboards can be used for math and science lessons too. In fact, Storyboard That […]
Measuring Mountains – A Math Lesson
A few years ago I read Mount Everest, The Reconnaissance 1921 which I downloaded for free from Google Books. In the introduction there is a three page explanation of the methods used to measure the height of Mount Everest. An explanation of the differences in measurements is also provided in the introduction. Part of that explanation includes differences […]
Math in Real Life – Why Airlines Overbook Flights
I’m currently flying home the ESC-20 Library Resource Roundup in San Antonio, Texas. Before I boarded the flight the gate agent was looking for volunteers to take an alternate flight due to overbooking. This seems like a good time to share the TED-Ed lesson Why Do Airlines Sell Too Many Tickets? In Why Do Airlines […]
Share Math Playground Activities to Google Classroom
Math Playground offers hundreds of free math games and interactive modules for elementary school students. I’m not sure if this is old news or not, but this morning I was looking at some of the games and noticed that you can share the games directly to Google Classroom. To share a Math Playground activity to […]
Virtual Manipulatives for Mathematics Lessons
Toy Theater is a website that offers a huge library of online games that students can play to hone their skills in language arts and mathematics. Toy Theater also offers a large library of virtual manipulatives that you can use in your mathematics lessons. Some of what you will find in Toy Theater’s library of […]
NRICH – Another Good Place to Find Math Activities
In response to yesterday’s post about MathsLinks a handful of folks reminded me via email and Facebook of another good place for teachers to find mathematics resources. That place is NRICH which I initially reviewed almost eight years ago and then again five years ago. Upon revisiting NRICH today I found that it is still […]
MathsLinks – A Good Place to Find Resources for Math Lessons
MathsLinks.net is a great site created by a mathematics teacher for mathematics teachers. On the site you will find collections of games, interactive demonstrations, and lesson ideas for use in elementary, middle, and high school mathematics lessons. The best way to get started on MathsLinks is to head to the Links section of MathsLinks and […]
Three Good PowerPoint Add-ins for Math Teachers
PowerPoint has many features that students and teachers often overlook. That’s bound to happen with any program that has been around as long as PowerPoint has and includes as many features as PowerPoint does. One of those overlooked features is found in the Add-ins available for PowerPoint. Browse through the gallery of Add-ins and you’ll […]
Scratchwork.io – A Video Whiteboard for Math Students
Scratchwork is a new online whiteboard and video conferencing tool designed with math students in mind. The platform works like many similar services as it provides you with a whiteboard on which you can draw, type, and import images to annotate. Scratchwork is a little different than other services because it includes a Latex editor […]
Free Math – A Free System for Grading Large Batches of Math Assignments
Free Math is an interesting new service that students can use to complete math problems and then submit to their teachers their solutions along with steps taken to arrive at the solution. Teachers can use the service to grade large batches of their students’ work. It took me a few tries to wrap my head […]
10 Good Resources for Math Teachers and Students
One of the things that I wish that I had done when started this blog was to build pages like Larry Ferlazzo’s “Best Resources for X” lists. Instead, I have relied on people using the search box on this blog to find the resources that they need. That’s why from time to time I will […]
ADA Project – An Open Multimedia Mathematics Textbook
Update: May 20, 2022 – This resource is now longer available. ADA Project is a great resource being developed by a mathematics teacher named Sam Powell. The ADA Project is an open multimedia mathematics textbook that covers everything from basic arithmetic through calculus. When you visit the ADA Project’s homescreen you can choose a category […]
XtraMath Helps Teachers Help Students Learn Math in Multiple Languages
XtraMath is a free service designed to help teachers and parents help their students learn basic mathematics. The service provides an online environment in which students complete practice activities that are recorded and shared with teachers and parents. Teachers can create classroom accounts in which each child has his or her own log-in credentials. Parents can […]
Where to Find and How to Use the New Kahoot Math Games
Earlier this week Kahoot launched a new featured called Kahoot Studio. Studio is a curated collection of math games made by Kahoot and aligned to Common Core standards. In the future Kahoot will be adding games for other subjects. I received a couple of emails from readers looking for more information about Kahoot Studio. In […]
Would You Rather? – Quick Math Challenges
Would You Rather? is a website maintained by John Stevens for the purpose of sharing quick and fun math challenges for students. Would You Rather? presents a picture with a mathematics problem that asks “would you rather?” Most of the questions have a financial aspect to them. One of my favorite examples is this challenge that asks […]
Math Vocabulary Cards in English and Spanish
One of the challenges that some students face in learning math is just understanding the vocabulary used in mathematics. Math Vocabulary Cards can help students overcome that challenge. Math Vocabulary Cards is a free iPad app designed for elementary school students. The app offers exactly what its name implies, a series of flashcards of mathematics […]
A Fun App for Learning to Add Fractions
This post originally appeared on one of my other blogs, iPadApps4School.com. Fraction Mash is a free iPad app that provides a fun way for students to learn about fractions. The app lets students insert two pictures then divide those pictures into grids, columns, pie slices, triangles, or rows. Once their pictures have been divided students […]
Expii Solve – Fun and Challenging Mathematics Exercises
Thanks to my friend Rushton Hurley, this evening I learned about a great new-to-me resource for mathematics teachers. Expii Solve is a series of more than fifty sets of mathematics word problems. Within each set there are five problems aligned to a theme. For example, there was recently a set of Thanksgiving themed problems. The problems […]
5 out of 5 of These Resources Can Help You Teach Fractions Lessons
In an earlier post I highlighted the Thinking Blocks tools included in Math Playground. Thinking Blocks offers a good way to introduce your students to fractions. Here are some other good resources for teaching fractions. Who Wants Pizza? is a fun online activity for learning about fractions. Who Wants Pizza was developed by Cynthia Lanius at Rice University. The activity […]
Magic Gopher – A Math Game
Magic Gopher is a fun little game in which students select a two digit number, add the digits together, subtract the new number from the original, then look up a symbol associated with the final number. The Magic Gopher the correctly “guesses” the final number symbol. Of course it’s not actually magic, but young students will […]
The Physics of Olympic Sports
The 2016 Olympics got underway over the weekend. I was thrilled to see the U.S. men win a second consecutive silver medal in archery on Saturday afternoon. Speaking of archery, CK-12 has a great set of physics simulations about archery and eleven other Olympic sports. The simulations are available to view in your web browser […]
ScratchMath – Great Ideas for Using Scratch in Elementary Math
Last month I received an email from Jeffery Gordon in which he shared with me an online binary calculator that he created for his students. When I asked him for more information about the calculator and what he was teaching in general, he shared another cool resource with me. That resource is ScratchMath. ScratchMath, written […]
CK-12 Brainflex is Back for 2016 – Keep Math Skills Sharp This Summer
Last year the CK-12 Foundation introduced the CK-12 Brainflex Summer Challenge. The challenge is a free program that students can use to keep their math and science skills sharp through the summer while also learning some new knowledge and gaining new skills. Students register for the program then track their skills review through the CK-12 Brainflex […]
GeoGebra Exam Mode Lets You Choose Which Tools Your Students Can Use During Tests
GeoGebra, a free mathematics modeling tool, seems to be continuously improving and in the process becoming more and more popular with teachers. Thanks to Guillermo at Math and Multimedia, last weekend I learned about GeoGebra’s exam mode. GeoGebra’s exam mode allows you to specify which GeoGebra tools can and cannot be used during an exam. […]
Why Are Airplane Engines So Big? – How Jet Engines Work #STEM
Minute Physics recently published a great new video about jet engines. In Why Are Airplane Engines So Big? viewers can learn why jet engines have gotten larger over time, why they biggest engines don’t always go on the biggest or fastest airplanes, and the basic principles of jet propulsion. The video briefly explains the mathematics […]
Riddle Me This – 7 TED-Ed Lessons Based on Riddles
Earlier this week I shared a playlist of TED-Ed lessons about how the human body works. In responses to that playlist Lisa Winer sent me the suggestion to check out a TED-Ed lesson that she contributed to creating. That lesson is the Locker Riddle. In that lesson students have to use mathematics and logical reasoning […]
XtraMath Helps Teachers Help Students Learn Math in ASL
XtraMath is a free service designed to help teachers and parents help their students learn basic mathematics skills. The service provides an online environment in which students complete practice activities that are recorded and shared with their teachers and parents. The lessons provided by XtraMath come in video format. Recently, XtraMath added support for ASL. […]
5 Dice – A Fun Math Activity on iPads
5 Dice is a nice iPad app designed to provide students with a place to practice and develop their understanding of the order of operations. The 5 Dice app presents students with a number that they have to write an equation for using all of the dice presented to them. When students think that they have […]