Monday, December 19, 2011

Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival 18

Welcome to Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival 18!


Before jumping into the blog posts, here are some Fun Facts about the number 18:
  • the only positive number that is double the sum of its digits
  • the third heptagonal number
  • a semiperfect number because 3 of its factors (3, 6, and 9) add up to 18...All multiples of semiperfect numbers are also semiperfect numbers.
  • the atomic number of Argon
  • the legal age for voting for most countries
  • Bobby Labonte's car number in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series when he won the 2000 Championship.
  • the number of chapters Ulysses, James Joyce's epic novel, was divided
  • 18:00 corresponds with 6:00 pm in military time
Now that we've enjoyed some trivia about the number 18, let's move on to some excellent blog posts related to mathematics teaching and learning.

Just for Fun:

Guillermo Bautista (founder of Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival) recently wrote a fun post titled 25 Signs You are a Future Mathematician.  You can check out more of Guillermo's posts at Mathematics and Multimedia.

15 Items or Less, an image posted by Dave Gale, is sure to get a laugh.  Dave's blog is Reflective Maths Teacher on Posterous.

Wild About Math sometimes reviews math related books.  Review: Magical Mathematics was a recent post featuring the book Magical Mathematics.


Articles Related to Teaching Mathematics:

In his post, Calculus and Kobe Bryant, Dave Martin uses a video clip with Kobe Bryant to engage students in problem solving.  Dave blog is Real Teaching Means Real Learning.


Back to Back Shape Describing Game, another post from Dave Gale at Reflective Maths Teacher, requires students to know and use math vocabulary in order to draw geometric figures.

Patrick Honner presents A Quadrilateral Challenge at Mr.Honner Math Appreciation.  He recently posted a creative solution to his original challenge.

What's your problem Part III, is the 3rd in a series of posts by David Coffey.  In this series, David explores assessment and evaluation.  David's blog is Delta Scape.

In Mixed Up Mixture Problems, David Cox uses Geogebra  created graphics to demonstrate how proportional reasoning can be used to solve these traditional algebra problems.  You can find more of David's posts at Questions? Trying to Make it Matter.


Technology Integration:

Colleen Young shares some of her favorite online resources for teaching mathematics in Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011.  You can find more resources from Colleen at Mathematics, Learning and Web 2.0.

Using Popplet in the Math Classroom is one of the most popular posts from this blog.

For Students:

Colleen Young recently started the blog, Mathematics/Learning Mathematics - Resources for StudentsA Variety of Online Resources is one of her latest posts in which she shares some useful applications for students.

Sanjay Gulati shares many ready to use Geogebra applets at Mathematics Academy. His latest applet demonstrates Adjacent Complementary Angles.

6 Supurb Universities Around the World to Study Math was recently posted on the Tripbaseblog

Well, that's it for Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival 18.  I hope you enjoy these articles as much as I enjoyed putting this Carnival together! 

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Zootool: A Visual Social Bookmarking Tool


Oct. 23 was a sad day for me because my favorite bookmarking tool, SimplyBox, closed to the public.  I liked SimplyBox because of it's ease of use, organization and functionality.  But, most of all, I liked that it was visual.  You could collect screen shots of the sites you wanted to bookmark.  So instead of just seeing the name of the site, you would also see the screenshot.  SimplyBox was such a excellent tool, that I wasn't surprised with their decision to focus on Enterprise and close to the public.

So, that sent me on my quest to find another visual bookmarking tool that also had the ease of use, organization and functionality that I wanted.  I came across several candidates in my search, but Zootool was by far the best for meeting my criteria.  When you save a bookmark in Zootool, it takes a screenshot of the website.  You can organize your bookmarks into categories, which Zootool refers to as Packs.  You can also organize your bookmarks with tags.  The only real drawback I've found with Zootool is that the application doesn't allow you share an entire Pack.  You can only share a single bookmark or Profile Page link, which gives someone access to your entire collection of bookmarks. 



You can share your bookmarks and follow other users with Zootool .  If you find a Zootool user you want to follow, you can follow them through the application and/or through RSS.  The RSS option for following a user is located at the bottom of the users Profile Page.  You can find my Zootool Profile Page here if you'd like to follow my bookmarks.  You can follow and add your comments to my bookmarks.

Zootool also offers an iPhone app.  I put the app on my iPad too!  There was a small fee for the iPhone app, but it's well worth it! The Zootool app ranks very high among my favorite apps.

Another feature of Note is that you can place bookmarks into multiple Packs.  The iPad app allows you to select multiple Packs at the time of bookmarking.  If you're bookmarking on a desktop or laptop, you can select one Pack at the time of bookmarking.  Once the site is bookmarked, you can simply drag it into as many Packs as you want.

Calling All Math Bloggers Round 2

I'm pleased to announce that the Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival is on its eighteenth edition and will be hosted here.  This is the second time I've had the privilege of hosting the Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival, and I'm looking forward to making it one to remember!  The Carnival will be posted on Monday, December 19, 2011.  The deadline of submission is Wednesday, December 14, 2011. You may submit your articles here.

To increase the chance of your article of being published, read the Mathematics and Multimedia Carnival’s Criteria for Selection of Articles. To view the list of previous carnivals click here.

Note:  As of now the Blog Carnival Submission System is down.  In the meantime, you may submit your articles directly to me at kristi.grande@gmail.com.  

I look forward to receiving your submissions!

If haven't seen it yet, the Math and Multimedia Carnival 17  is now live at Mathematics for Teaching