Month: May 2015

Practice Solving Equations with Equate Board Game

Games and Puzzles, Teaching Tools

If you want your children or students practice equations and operations, you might want to try Equate: The Equation Thinking Game. Equate is a math board game that works like Scrabble. In Equate, instead of forming words, you can form equations. Younger children can choose an easy game which only consists of addition and subtraction, while older children can include multiplication and subtraction. Even more challenging is to include fractions!

Just like Scrabble, you can have double or triple scores in Equate. This can make players think of equations that yields a larger answers, while practicing their arithmetic.

Equate can be played 2-4 players ages 8 years old and above.

Although this game is challenging, it could also take a while to finish one game. Games which include fraction is expected to last up to 120 minutes.

One comment , ,

5 Free Math Software For Teaching and Learning Mathematics

Math Software, Teaching Tools

Years ago, I met a Japanese professor who eventually became my adviser during my one and a half year stay in Japan.  CRICED, the institute he was working also develops mathematics software in elementary and secondary schools. Below are 5 of the math software that they have developed.

1.) Grapes – a graphing software that allows users to draw most functions discussed in the secondary curriculum.

2.) Geometric Constructor –  a dynamic geometry software for teaching and learning geometry. Allows users to publish contents on the web.

3.) DbookPro – a tool for developing digital textbook. This can be done by scanning textbooks and or importing textbooks images. I have written two manuals of dbook (basic and advanced) and you can view the sample output of a dbook here.  You can download dbookPro here.

4.) Geometry Construction Language (GCL) Editor – an xml-based software used for creating educational materials in Flash.

5.) DGraph – Used for making and editing graphs from data and equation.

I have only tried 2 of these software (dbookPro and Grapes), but you might want to explore all of them.

Leave a comment , , ,

Understanding If-Then Statements

College Mathematics, High School Mathematics

If I get my bonus, then I will buy a car.
If I become 30, then I will get married.
If x \geq 3, then x^2 \geq 9.

The statements above are examples of an if-then statement. An if-then statement is also called a conditional statement. A conditional statement is of the form if p then q where p and q are statements and in which q follows from p. As shown above, conditional statements can be seen in real life or in mathematics.

In a conditional statement, the statement following if is called the antecedent (or hypothesis), while the statement following then is called the consequent (or conclusion).

Conditional statements have their truth values just like, and, or and not. To examine their truth values, let us consider the third conditional statement above. In this statement, we can assign p as x \geq 3  and q as x^2 \geq 9.  » Read more

Leave a comment , ,
1 2 3