The Life of a Mathematics Teacher

Mathematics Videos

2007-02-17T20:01:00.000-08:00

Why not spice up your Mahtematics lesson with a video or two. Check out these sites for some specifics:

http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/
http://homepage.smc.edu/nestler_andrew/SimpsonsMath.htm
http://www.mathsci.appstate.edu/~sjg/simpsonsmath/sums.html

However, it would be good to visit http://www.youtube.com/ search for "math" - yes it is American - and have a look at some of the videos. The MATHMAN ones look quite good!

Have fun and share it with your class!

Copyright ?

2007-02-06T02:38:00.000-08:00

It is hard to know when you are a teacher what you are and are not allowed to do - so, why not check out the source? Go to http://www.copyright.gov.au/ and particularly for teachers http://www.copyright.org.au/information/specialinterest/education.htm.

The important part of the legislation is that Copyright belongs to the creator except for "works created employees as part of their job". The difficult part comes in determining if you have created it as part of your job or not.

I believe that if you create it wholly in your own time, using your own equipment and do not use it at school, you're fine. The grey area is where you then use it at school.

Good Luck with Copyright!

Making Word Mathematically Friendly

2007-02-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

Ahh Holidays - Immediately after I began this blog, I went away for a last retreat before school returned and with the hectic week 1 term 1, have not yet addded more to this blog. Apologies.

Simon Job on http://mathsclass.net/ has written an intriguing article on "Maths Symbols in Word". I find this an interesting and useful article and pose a questions: When should we and when should we not use the equation editor/MathType in Word? I operate in a laptop school where staff and students have these laptop computers, which makes it incredibly difficult to use the ALT+ strategy that Simon has suggested, becauase we do not have a separate numeric keypad. Also, if I am writing many questions, I do not enjoy taping 5 keys ALT - 0186 to get one symbol. As a result of this, I have taken the other route to Simon and used INSERT > SYMBOL > select the symbol > "Autocorrect" & "Shortcut Key"

It is easy to quickly set up shortcuts in Word - both using the alt key, but also using the autocorrect function. I particularly like fractions that I have added in - writing 1/2 as a fraction in MathType, then making an autocorrect for it.

Do you ever hate how (c) automatically turns into ©? Well, in TOOLS > AUTOCORRECT you can find it and delete this fantastic autocorrect that Bill Gates has given us.

Most of my inspiration for this writing in Word came from a seminar at the MANSW conference at Brighton-le-sands. Douglas Butler made an excellent presentation on this particular topic and has written a paper explaining his thoughts - well worth a read!

He also commented that this is all stored in a file c:\documents and settings\USERNAME\application data\microsoft\templates\normal.dot and that you should take a backup of this file - even though I had done this, when I lost everything on my computer, the backup did not work -- this may have been my fault, not sure.

An Intro

2007-01-15T15:17:00.000-08:00

Given that I teach Mathematics, I thought any blog that I create would have to have a logical structure. Since there is going to be a logical structure, what better place to start than with a basic introduction.

I have just started my third year of teaching Mathematics and am in my second school. I have a keen interest in the development of Mathematics teachers and using technology to make our lives both in preparation and within the classroom easier.

This blog is somewhat inspired by a brief discussion on the AAMT-list, and the blog by Simon Job - http://mathsclass.net/ (Thanks Simon). My next blog will indeed be in response to one of Simon's.