RESOURCES AND IDEAS

The Internet offers many math-teaching resources in several areas. The limiting factors in making good use of the Internet are: 1) identifying areas of instruction and teacher work that can benefit from the right Web sites; and 2) your time. Who has time to winnow through hundreds of Web sites looking for something useful, appropriate, and well designed? In this article, I hope to give you a head start and suggest several different aspects of math teaching that can be supported by Internet-based resources.

Possible uses of these sites include support for you in developing curricula and generating materials; enrichment for advanced students; remediation for students having difficulty; and team investigations of new topics. The possibilities are many. With the best of these sites, the option to have several students engaged in an educational self-monitored activity can be a great asset as you work with a group on another topic. As with any other educational material, you'll want to try them yourself to check for ability level and presentation, to make sure that they will be effective for your students.

In order to be fully interactive with your students, many of these sites take advantage of scripting techniques that only work with up-to-date browsers (generally Netscape Navigator 3+ and Internet Explorer 4+). To avoid frustration, you or a student helper (using the computer your students will be using) should do a "dry run" through each recommended site.

BASIC SKILLS PRACTICE
When psychologist B. F. Skinner proposed the idea of "teaching machines" in the 1940s, he anticipated that machines could be used for all teaching tasks. While we now understand that learning mathematics involves much higher levels of cognition and meaning-making, Skinner's machine lives on in basic skills programs and Web sites.

Consider saving paper and grading time and increasing student interest in basic skills practice with some of the following resources.

A+ Math (grades 2-5)
A+ Math offers computation skills games, flash cards, and the "Homework Helper": an interactive calculator with problems formatted much as they are on standard worksheets, allowing students to check their own work.
http://www.aplusmath.com/

Fun Brain's Math Baseball (grades 1-5)
Designed in the "computation exercise should be fun" school, Math Baseball offers computation practice at different levels with a baseball game metaphor. Students must enter the correct answer to advance their runners and score runs. Mistakes hurt as the students' batters strike out. Attractive graphics and a clear interface make this worth putting on your list for computation practice.
http://www.funbrain.com/math/

ONLINE TUTORIALS
Every math teacher is challenged by the wide ability levels of students in the classroom. While some topics can be effectively taught in a whole-class setting, it is often necessary to divide into smaller groups so that each student can receive the appropriate content and support. Thus, the challenge: there is only one of you!

Some well designed Web sites are now coming close to offering the services of a math tutor online. These sites take one step beyond the usual offering of educational information, exercises, and tips. In the sites described below, students will have integrated educational experiences in which they interact with the Web site to hone their understanding of topics in mathematics. As always with the Internet, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and several of these sites include links to other good math and math tutorial sites.

Math-abundance (grades 9-12)
A ThinkQuest site (see Contests and Public Forums below) designed by high school students, this witty site offers tutorials on topics from pre-Algebra through Calculus. The designers sum up the intention of their site this way: "First, a little background. As we worked our way through various math classes throughout the years, we often became confused or lost. At first we decided it might have been all the sleeping and talking we did during class, but we knew it couldn't be that simple. We figured that it was probably just because we were morons. So for those of you who are 'morons like us,' here's a site that will help you understand math concepts better." Each topic includes well-written definitions, sample problems, and an interactive quiz. A nice feature is that the site explains the process for answering each missed problem on a quiz.
http://library.thinkquest.org/20991/home.html

Webmath (grades 3-12)
Classroom Connect partner Discovery.com offers this impressive math site set up to provide computerized step-by-step tutorials on most individual problems in almost any math topic. While not designed as a tutorial on whole topics, the interactive power of its sophisticated math problem-solving program will entrance students. The goal of the creators of Webmath is "to give a student immediate help over the Internet with the particular math problem they are on." Consider giving students a set of exercises to type into the appropriate section of Webmath and then learn how to solve them. Then assess what students have learned with another set to do on their own.
http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/webmath/

TEACHING MATERIALS AND CURRICULUM
Looking for new ideas? Avoid reinventing the wheel by using Internet resources both in your own curriculum planning and for interactive student activities. Web sites that are strong on integration between math and other topics are particularly useful.

Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators Another Classroom Connect favorite, this innovative educator has assembled an amazing resource to guide you more quickly to useful math resources. Now sponsored by Discovery.com, Kathy's guide just keeps getting better.
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/math.html

AskERIC (grades K-12)
An ongoing project of the U.S. Department of Education, AskERIC has just been redesigned, making this huge archive of lesson plans more useful. Access a multitude of lesson plans designed by teachers for teachers. The index is divided by general math concept, specific concept, then further by grade level.
http://askeric.org/Virtual/Lessons/

PBS Mathline (grades K-12)
This site from PBS links lesson plans and curricula ideas directly to the NCTM standards. A very well organized site, each lesson includes video clips from real classrooms where the lesson was taught!
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/math.htm

The Awesome Library
Originally funded by a federal grant, the Awesome Library lives up to its name. Click on "Materials Search," then explore the Worksheets section. You can usually quickly find free, high quality handouts and worksheets in just a few minutes. The Lesson Plans section is very well organized by subject and math standards. Unlike some index sites, all of the listings are carefully reviewed and quality is generally excellent.
http://www.awesomelibrary.org/Library/Library.html

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
From participating in professional organizations, to using online math tutorials to brush up on your skills, to making contact with like-minded colleagues throughout the world, the Internet offers you many professional development options.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
The nation's largest math teachers' association has assembled a superb site. From current information on NCTM meetings and professional development opportunities, to their large catalog of books and instructional materials, to online activities and free publications such as Student Math Notes, this site is a good starting place. http://www.nctm.org/

Math Teacher Link
Math Teacher Link provides professional development and classroom resources to teachers at the high school and beginning college levels. Try interactive tutorials from algebra to calculus. Each module contains a classroom unit. The active teachers' message board provides a way to exchange ideas with other math teachers.
http://mtl.math.uiuc.edu/

CONTESTS AND PUBLIC FORUMS
The true power of the Internet as a pedagogical tool is unleashed when it is used to upload as well as download. Students and student teams can be highly motivated by participation in the contests and forums listed here. Links between school, community, and home are also strengthened when student work is published on the Web.

ThinkQuest (grades 4-12) Since 1996, ThinkQuest has offered its popular contests. Teams of students with adult coaches are challenged to create innovative educational Web sites. (Many of the Web sites we recommend here at Classroom Connect were created as ThinkQuest projects.) The quality is high, the products inspiring, and the thrill of being published on ThinkQuest has motivated many student teams to excellence. Your students will need technical resources to create Web sites to take the ThinkQuest Internet Challenge (ages 12-19) or the ThinkQuest Junior Challenge (grades 4-6).
http://www.thinkquest.org

Ask Dr. Math (grades 2-12)
This is one of the finer ask-an-expert sites available. Working with Ask Dr. Math helps students with the key skill of developing and asking meaningful questions. You'll need to teach students how to search the archives of already answered questions. Then have the teams work together to ask Dr. Math a question!
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/

Aunty Math (grades K-5)
Every other week Aunty Math posts a new math challenge! Students are invited to submit answers and are encouraged to describe their strategy and document their problem-solving process. Comparing the approaches of different posted answers is an excellent opportunity to work on problem-solving skills.
http://www.dupagechildrensmuseum.org/aunty

CLASSROOM COLLABORATION
An exciting possibility, especially for smaller schools, is connecting with other classrooms over the Internet to collaborate on educational projects. Most Internet-based projects are multidisciplinary and on the well maintained lists below you will find several that include mathematics.

West Loogootee Elementary Website, Project List
http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/online/join.htm
The Project Center, Math Projects
http://www.eduplace.com/projects/mathproj.html
Classroom Connect's Classroom Collaboration Page
Classroom Collaboration

REAL-LIFE DATA
The NCTM Standards for school mathematics suggest that an "increased curricular emphasis on data analysis" is called for in all grades. To select and use appropriate methods to analyze data, it is important for students to have real-life, meaningful data. Here are a few Web sources for good data.

Math Forum's Exploring Data (grades K-12)
Part of the Drexel University's Math Forum, this site has well designed lessons with real-life data included and also lists many Web sites with data sources, software to use, and suggestions for skillful use of technology when teaching about the analysis of data. Don't miss the rest of this excellent site; click on the Home link at the bottom of the page to start exploring.
http://mathforum.org/workshops/usi/dataproject/usi.genwebsites.html

Susan Boone's GirlTECH Lessons (grades K-8)
Master teacher Susan Boone's lessons on population growth, race car speeds, house prices, and traffic are excellent examples of lessons utilizing Web-based data sources from federal agencies, real estate offices, and sports sites.
http://www.crpc.rice.edu/CRPC/GT/sboone/Lessons/

The Internet offers an incredible diversity of resources for math education. I hope the sections of this article and the sites listed will give you ideas and encourage you to make additional use of the Web in planning and delivering instruction.

One final tip: Just as you are always careful to keep your paper resources well organized, it's worth the effort to keep Internet bookmarks and favorites well organized, too. The interlinked nature of Web sites means that while exploring, you often find a useful but off-topic site that will come in handy later in the year. Take a minute to put a bookmark in a meaningful folder, or cut-and-paste the Web address into a word processor document. A good site is only useful to you if you can find it again when you need it!

by Tim Burnett tim@kingfisherconsulting.com

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