MATH TOOLS NEWSLETTER - JANUARY 1, 2005 - No. 22 Happy New Year! We got a jump start on one of our new year's resolutions -- re-solving the problem some of you had when attempting to post to the discussions. To those of you who experienced a "hanging" browser that made it seem as though your post hadn't gone through, we thank you for your patience and are happy to report that we have resolved the problem. We are hoping that the new year brings many interesting discussions to Math Tools. Feel free to start a new discussion of your choice or join one of them already in progress. ***FEATURED DISCUSSION Midsegment of a rectangle? http://mathforum.org/mathtools/discuss.html?&do=m&thread=___disc_15621_g-1 Cynthia asks, "I remember having discussions with mathematicians that trapezoids should include the family of parallelograms. Do you agree? Then should it also include the family of triangles?" ***FEATURED DISCUSSION Upper middle schoolers that haven't yet mastered multiplication facts http://mathforum.org/mathtools/discuss.html?do=m&thread=_____ra-41 Bethy writes, "We have a number of students who, at 7th and 8th grade, still don't know 75% or more of the multiplication facts. What does the research indicate? Does anyone know of an effective method for equipping these students with a procedure so that they can move ahead?" ***FEATURED TOOL Tool: Colouring Sides 1 Freudenthal Institute http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/16727/ This tool presents a 3-d drawing along with four 2-d views. Choose the one 2-d figure that corresponds to the colored face on the 3-d figure. These exercises in spatial visualization become more challenging with each new set of drawings. ***FEATURED TOOL Tool: Zap it Game ExploreLearning http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/16740/ Commercial site with one free access per day. Students are given a set of points and are asked to "zap" as many points as possible. They can use either polynomial form or vertex form. Students can get a line by setting "a" equal to 0. New points can be displayed and then the student can try again. ***FEATURED TOOL Tool: Poisson Experiment Department of Mathematical Sciences University of Alabama at Huntsville http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/16460/ This applet allows the user to fix a rate and time interval for a Poisson process (counting the number of occurrences in a fixed time interval). Experimental and theoretical results, including expected value and standard deviation, are shown. ***FEATURED TOOL Tool: Addition Surprise Harcourt School Publishers http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/16242/ Students practice addition facts by dragging the given numbers onto the Fact Table to a box where the row and column add up to the given number. A free preview activity from Harcourt School Publishers. CHECK OUT THE MATH TOOLS SITE: Math Tools http://mathforum.org/mathtools/ Register http://mathforum.org/mathtools/register.html Discussions http://mathforum.org/mathtools/discuss.html Research Area http://mathforum.org/mathtools/research/ Developers Area http://mathforum.org/mathtools/developers/ Newsletter Archive http://mathforum.org/mathtools/newsletter/ \`. .--------------.___________) \ |//////////////|___________[ ] `--------------' ) ( '-' The Math Forum @ Drexel -- 1 January 2005