ESC
Region 16
June 9, 2005
Amarillo, Texas
learninginhand.com/notes
 Workshop
Description: There are so many great activities for third
through fifth graders that help students learn important math and
reasoning skills and use Palm Powered handheld computers. Tony demonstrates
a sample lesson where students not only practice addition facts,
they focus on problem-solving and strategic thinking. Also take
a trip through Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy by learning about
several cool activities you can easily do in your own classroom.
The journey begins with digital flash cards for the Knowledge level
of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The trip also includes activities for
teaching the Order of Operations, algebra concepts, spreadsheets,
Roman numerals, and more. After sampling activities from a full
array of thinking skills, teachers will have numerous ideas for
teaching differentiated math lessons using handhelds!
Sample
Lesson: Adding & Thinking
Addition
Facts
Students practice their addition "fact
power" using the free flashcard program TimerMathFacts.
See how many addition problems students can answer in two minutes.
Do this several times to get students to instantly recall these
facts.
www.freewarepalm.com/educational/timermathfacts.shtml
Hexplode
Introduce
students to the two-player strategy game Hexplode. The
object of the game is to take over all of your opponent's hexagons
by building up your own. Once the number on a hexgon is equal
to the number of sides of that hexagon that touches another hexgon,
it explodes. All touching hexagons are now turned to the player's
color and have 1 more number added to them. Because of this, most
players win by causing a "chain reaction" of exploding
hexagons to take over the game board. Be sure to use Hexplode's
Help menu for all of the game's rules.
www.palmblvd.com/software/pc/Hexplode-2001-3-5-palm-pc.html
 Summing
The
"fact power" students got from TimerMathFacts
combined with the strategic thinking from Hexplode
are both needed to play Summing. Summing is
a one-player game. The object is to clear the screen of all tiles.
You clear the screen by placing the next tile in a blank spot.
If a tile is placed in a postion where the number on that tile
is equal to the digit in the one's place of the sum of all tiles
that are touching it, all of those tiles are cleared from the
screen. (Touching includes sharing a side or corner.)
Summing is very challenging! The current lowest score
ever reported to Tony is 18.
www.freewarepalm.com/games/summing.shtml
Take
a Trip Through Bloom's Taxonomy
Benjamin
Bloom ranked thinking skills from simple to complex:
http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm
http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/program/hndouts/bloom.html
Knowledge
Level: Flash Cards
MathCard
is a very simple application where students can practice addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and/or division. Under the Setting
menu, the user can choose the "Maximum Operand," which
is the highest number used in any problem (not the highest
possible answer, however). There are some fun ways students can
use MathCard:
- Time
themselves to figure out how many problems they can do in five
minutes.
-
See if they can reach a score of 100 out of 100. If a student
misses a problem, he or she resets his or her score and tries
again.
- Play
with a friend by taking turns answering questions on the same
handheld.
- Use
two handhelds and race against a friend. See who can get the
highest score in five minutes.
www.freewarepalm.com/educational/mathcard.shtml
Comprehension
Level: Lightning Distance
Using
the fact that lightning and thunder travel at different speeds,
FlashBoom! calculates the distance you are from a storm.
To use FlashBoom! tap the screen when you see the flash
and tap the screen again when you hear the boom. FlashBoom!
will give the distance you are from the storm in miles or
kilometers. Students can work backwards by experimenting with
FlashBoom! to discover the mathematical formula it uses
for its calculations using this
worksheet. A great literature connection to this lesson is
Thunder
Cake by Patricia Polocco.
http://www.freewarepalm.com/calculator/flashboom.shtml
Application
Level: Order of Operations
 MathWiz
gives students four numbers and a target number. MathWiz
has students answer the question, "How would you use the
given numbers to achieve the target number?" In order to
solve the problem, students must use the Order of Operations (commonly
referred to as "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" for
Parenthese, Exponents, Multiplication & Division, and Addition
& Subtraction). If you want to have some fun, have student
try some MathWiz problems without telling them
about the Order of Operations. They will be frustrated. But, then
when you do teach the Order of Operation, they will understand
why they are important and want to try MathWiz again.
hippa-potta.jamisbuck.org/mathwhiz/index.html
Analysis
Level: Tired of Tapping
To understand the great differences between
very large numbers, students try this estimation activity. Demonstrate
the Palm application People Counter. Demonstrate how
when you tap the screen, it adds one to the count. Ask students
how long they think it would take to tap 100 times. How long would
it take to tap 1,000 times? 100,000 times? 1 millions times? 1
billion times? Pass out a Tapping
Estimation Sheet to each student. They make an educated guess
about how long it would take to tap. The next step is to take
an actual 60 minute sample of tapping using People Counter.
Then enter that sample into the Tapping
Spreadsheet in Sheets To Go. Students can use the
spreadsheet to see that it will take a really, really, really
long time to tap one billion times!
appsbyaaron.tripod.com/peoplecounter.htm
Synthesis
Level: Geometry Forumla Spreadsheets
Using Sheets To Go, students
create their own spreadsheets for simple geometry forumals. Examples
include the area of a rectangle, circumference, area of a triangle,
volume of a cube, and surface area of a rectangular prism. Students
are inventive, so let them develop the spreadsheets on their own
after the teacher models how to make one. Here's a handout
for creating a spreadsheet for the area of a rectangle.
Evaluation
Level: Roman Numerals
By interacting with a calculator that
uses Roman numerals instead of the usual Arabic digits, students
learn about using Roman numerals. Students complete a worksheet
that walks them through their exploration of Roman numerals while
using the Palm application Numerus. To learn evern more,
students will read an eBook about Roman numerals. Finally, students
evaluate Romans numerals: Is it a system them would like to have
in place today? Why or why not?
Download Numerus: www.freewarepalm.com/calculator/numerus.shtml
Lesson Plan and Resources: learninginhand.com/lessonplans/romannumerals.html
Download the Roman Numerals eBook: learninginhand.com/ebooks/RomanNumerals.pdb
Grab
Bag
 Abacus
Move the beads and Abacus will tell the
value represented. Also, students can input a value and the abacus
will display that value. This is great for teaching place value.
www.palmgear.com
Angles
Estimate the measures of angles. For each round,
the user is presented with 10 angles. The difference between the
actual angle measurement and the user's guess is added to the
score. It's like golf where you want a low score.
www.schau.com/s/angles
 Crickometer
Calculate the temperature by counting chirps from
crickets. The application does this by averaging 50 samples together
and then tries to calculate how many chirps that is per minute.
The temperature in Fahrenheit is then calculated as Chirps/Minute
÷ 4 + 37.
www.freewarepalm.com/calculator/crickometer.shtml
Day
Trader
Buy and sell six different stocks to make money.
palmgear.com
Minefield
Flag the hidden mines to win this puzzle game.
www.freewarepalm.com/games/minefield.shtml
Mixed
Up
Practice converting fractions to mixed numbers
or mixed numbers to fractions.
www.schau.com/s/mixedup/index.html
 Simplify
Practice reducing fractions into simpliest form.
The size of denominator can be selected from the drop down menu.
www.schau.com/s/simplify/index.html
Solar
Wars
Buy and sell goods from different planets to make
as much money as you can in 60 days.
www.palmgear.com
Tessellation
Create tessellations! This gives students a great
visual of how shapes are changed so they can fit into a repeating
pattern without gaps or overlaps.
tesselation.sourceforge.net
Handheld
Computing Resources
Tony's
Website
learninginhand.com
 Handhelds
for Teachers & Administrators
by Janet Caughlin and Tony Vincent
www.tomsnyder.com/Products/product.asp?SKU=JANHAN
Teaching
Now! "Handhelds in Omaha" Video
teachingnow.org/watchTV.php?id=32
Tony's
Email
learninginhand@mac.com
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