Geometer’s Sketchpad Essentials Series

Before I became a GeoGebra user, I had been a user of Geometer’s Sketchpad (GSP version 4.07) for quite some time. Although I am a great fan of GeoGebra, GSP requires more mathematical maturity to use, and in several aspects, has also its advantages. Sometimes, I am tempted to write a comparison between the two software, but I fear that I might be biased because I haven’t been using GSP very much nowadays.

This tutorial series will discuss the basics of GSP,  and is parallel to the GeoGebra Essentials Series.   The future topics  are as follows: » Read more

GeoGebra Essentials 6 – Sliders and Rhombuses

This is the sixth tutorial in the GeoGebra Essentials Series. If you are not familiar with GeoGebra, you may want to read the Introduction to GeoGebra post and earlier tutorials. They contain the pre-requisites of this tutorial.

In the tutorial below, menu commands, located in the menu bar, are in brown bold text, and submenus are denoted by the > symbol. For example, Options>Labeling> New Points Only means, click the Options menu, choose Labeling from the list, then select New Points Only. The tool texts are colored orange. For example, New Pointmeans the new point tool.

In this tutorial, we construct a rhombus using the slider tool.  A slider (see figure below) is a dynamic graphical representation of a number.  We have three types of sliders – number, angle and integer.  The angle and number sliders are shown below. Slider s is the side length of the rhombus ABCB’. Slider t on the other hand is the measure of angle A.

In doing the tutorial, we  learn the following:

  • Use the tools we have discussed in previous tutorials – Segment tool, Parallel Line tool,and Intersect tool
  • Learn how to use new tools including Angle with Given Size and Segment with Given Length from Point . » Read more

What’s New in Math and Multimedia?

We have learned a lot about mathematics and technology last year, and will learn more this year.  For students, I will concentrate on senior high school mathematics and other  middle school topics which we have not yet discussed.  For teachers, I will discuss tools that can help in teaching at the same time making most of the internet and Web 2.0 technologies.

The highlight this year will be on blogging using WordPress. I will teach you how to blog using WordPress, and I will also give you tips on how grow and promote it.  Here’s a sneak peek of what I have in mind. » Read more

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