iPad App - Mathspace

As I mentioned in my last blog, it is not very easy to find math apps for high school students. Thinking it would be more difficult the second time around, I was surprised with how quickly I found an amazing app. The app I came across is called Mathspace.

What is Mathspace?
Mathspace is an online tutoring program that provides instant feedback and helpful hints along the way for students. Offered in a range of topics, Mathspace is great for guided lessons that students can work on at their own pace. In this app, users are given a series of questions that they can work out on their own and submit for feedback. Mathspace tracks your progress and gives you recommendations based off of your learning profile. I have been playing around with the app, so now when I go to start a new worksheet, they recommend modules for me to do based on what I have learned.

On the right, you can see a screenshot of the recommendations pop-up on Mathspace. Based on my learning profile, it is suggesting that I work with Algebraic terms and factoring. If I feel comfortable in these topics, it gives me the option to choose my own from a multitude of choices. In these modules, it tracks your progress and gives you points for the day's work.

How Does it Work?
To begin, you start off by creating an account. You can create a free account as a student and join with a class code or create a teacher account and receive a free 7-day trial to view Mathspace from a student's perspective. Once your account is activated, you can explore all of the content Mathspace has to offer. From a teacher's perspective, they can create problems for their students to work on and provide instant feedback to each student. Teachers can track a student's progress and even can communicate directly with the student's parents about their progress.

Upon download, I was instantly hooked. Though this app is more of an online tutoring service than a game, I am so addicted to using it. I first started playing around with the app to test its features and see what it can do, but I ended up really enjoying doing the math problems. I'm a math major, so I enjoy doing math for fun. I like to do the different Algebra worksheets to test my memory on the content.

Part of the reason why I enjoy this app so much is because it allows you to draw out your solutions. As you can see in the picture on the left, there is room for scratch work. So, in the blue and red writing, I worked out the factoring of the problem. Then below in black, you write your solution and Mathspace changes it into typed writing for you to submit. Also in the lower submission space, you can scratch out your writing if you made a mistake or need to start over. Based on how you're progressing, Mathspace will tell you your strengths and weaknesses.

Features of the App

From playing with this app the last couple of days, I have certainly run into more good things than I have bad things. One great feature of this app is that it makes you submit your answers in their simplest form. For example, if you look at the picture on the right, you'll see that the first answer I submitted has a yellow check next to it. This means that the answer is correct, but it can be simplified further. Once a student sees the yellow check, they know their answer is correct, but they now have to work further to simplify. The answer below it has a green check. This means it is in its simplest form. This feature is great for students because it will get them in the practice of submitting all of their work in the simplest form, which is something that all math teachers love.

What is quite possibly the best feature of this app is the hint feature. If students are stuck on a problem, they can click hint to receive a little tip on how to solve the problem. So, say I was stuck on the problem above. I could click hint, and Mathspace would tell me to cancel out the common factors from the numerator and the denominator. This feature is great because if you are working on these on your own at home, it is just like asking the teacher in class.

The only negative I have found from Mathspace is that there is not a lot of advanced content. The content on Mathspace is great for average level students, but there is little to no content for advanced or gifted students. Perhaps in an update on the app, they could add some word problems to trigger more intellectual reasoning rather than computational work.

How can I use Mathspace in the Classroom?
As mentioned earlier, teachers can use Mathspace to create online lessons for their students. As a future teacher, I could assign homework for the class as completing a certain amount of online worksheets and marking their progress. This will work great for students because they can work at their own pace and receive instant feedback.

In my future classroom, I plan to encourage all of my students to download this app and to tell their parents about it. Their parents can encourage to do extra math work on their own time to better their knowledge.

I can also use Mathspace as a token economy and reward students if they score a certain amount of points for the week. This will motivate students to want to use the app and train them to see math exercises as a way of leisure and learning.

Reviews
In the App Store, Mathspace is rated 4.5/5 stars. Most of the reviews for the app are positive, saying things like it is great for building student's confidence in math. Being able to work at their own pace and receiving hints along the way allows for students to want to persevere through tough problems.

Overall, Mathspace is something I will certainly use in the future. I see it as a great tool for fostering learning and allowing students knowledge to expand. I recommend this all to all students and all math teachers.

References
Mathspace. (2011-2016). Mathspace. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/product-reviews/mathspace-product

Mathspace Pty Ltd. (2016). Mathspace. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mathspace/id586612052?mt=8

Mathspace Pty Ltd. (2016). Mathspace. Retrieved from https://mathspace.co

iPad App - EzyTrig

In my search for a useful app, I wanted to find an app that I could picture myself using. Knowing that I wanted to find an app for math, I searched for something that was easy to use, yet beneficial for students. At first I struggled to find an app that fit what I was looking for. I kept coming across different math games, but I wanted to find an app that high school students would use. Some of the math games were cool apps, but I couldn't picture using it as a high school student. I continued my search and then I came across EzyTrig.

What is EzyTrig?
EzyTrig is a user-friendly app designed to help students understand Trigonometry. Free in the App Store, EzyTrig focuses on the use of the Unit Circle, which students are able to access easily. In this app, students are given the image of a unit circle and can rotate the angle to show the relationship between different angles. The app is interactive because the user is allowed to set the circle at any angle they want in order to see the corresponding value. There is a wide variety of settings that students can adjust to create exactly what they need in order to help them solve trigonometric problems. EzyTrig is a great tool for the classroom because students can can always have access to the Unit Circle at their fingertips.

Why is EzyTrig Useful?

For the readers who are unfamiliar with Trigonometry, the Unit Circle is a vital tool for assessing relationships between radians, degrees, sine, cosine, and tangent. As seen to the right, the Unit Circle is used as an easy way to compare angles of a triangle. Many teachers will want their students to memorize the Unit Circle because it simplifies problem solving in Trigonometry, but in reality, the entire Unit Circle is too complex to memorize. That is where EzyTrig comes in handy, because it offers an accessible and interactive view of the Unit Circle for students.

Features of the App
Below, you can see two screenshots taken directly from the app. On the left, you see the main feature of the app, the Unit Circle. Here is where you can rotate the angle that the circle is set at. So, if a problem on your homework asks for tan(45), you can set EzyTrig to 45 degress, as seen below, then you can notice that the answer is 1.

Another great feature on EzyTrig is the ability to toggle settings between radians and degrees. For everyone who has ever taken Trigonometry, you recall constantly switching between degrees and radians. So, on this app, students can easily adjust which format they need to be in.

In the upper left hand corner of the app, there is a chart of the common trigonometric values that constantly come into play in Trigonometry. This feature can be seen above on the right. This will be very useful for students when they need to quickly look up certain values.

Out of all the great features of this app, there is one thing that this feature is missing. While there is an option on the main screen to toggle between radians and degrees, the Exact Values chart leaves out the corresponding radian values to the degrees on the chart. In order to find the radian value, students would have to know which degree is equivalent to the radian value they want to look up. Other than that, this app seems to have everything a student could need while taking Trigonometry.

For a deeper understanding of the features of this app, watch this tutorial video below.

How can I use EzyTrig in my classroom?

When I took Trigonometry in high school, it never crossed my mind to download an app to help me with the material. Nowadays technology is so much more relevant in the classroom, so many teachers are leaning towards incorporating measures of instruction, such as apps, that students can relate to.

As a future teacher, I plan to encourage all of my students to download this app. Whether they are on their own or in the classroom working on problems, they will be able to access this app. This app will allow them to further their understanding of Trigonometry by viewing first hand the relationship of the Unit Circle. Students can enjoy playing around with the app and testing its features, while simultaneously learning the functions of the Unit Circle.

Reviews

In the App Store, EzyTrig is rated 5/5 stars. All of the reviews say it has a nice representation of the Unit Circle and that it is great for visual learners. I find this to be a great app that will be very useful to high school students. They can use it at their leisure to better their understanding of Trigonometry.

I would have liked having this app when I was in high school because I tried to memorize the Unit Circle and that proved to be very difficult. I tried coming up with little memorization tricks but there were just too many values to keep track of. With this app, I could've manipulated the angle on the circle to correspond with my homework problems to allow for an easy assistance to solve problems. Overall, EzyTrig will be huge time-saver for students and very beneficial to the growth of their learning. 

References

Bourne, M. (2010, Sept. 23). Unit Circle: an Introduction. Retrieved from http://www.intmath.com/blog/mathematics/unit-circle-an-introduction-5166

Dill, W. (2016, Apr. 27). Explain Everything: EzyTrig [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNzW9l3v9E8

KGiants, (2016). Ezy Trigonometry. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ezy-trigonometry/id654848143?mt=8

[Untitled image of a Unit Circle]. Retrieved September 10, 2016 from http://teachers.henrico.k12.va.us/math/ito_08/07BasicTrig/7-1angles.html

Social Media in the Classroom

Technology is rapidly growing these days as everybody tries to catch up. With everything becoming electronic, businesses and schools are doing their best to incorporate technology into their everyday routine.

Today’s generation of students are growing up with technology and social media, so teachers are doing the best they can to incorporate it into their classrooms.

A lot of times, social media gets a bad reputation. With that being said, schools are taking strict initiatives for setting guidelines for proper use of social media in the classroom.

One point that Guilford County Schools makes in their Social Media Guidelines, is that social media in the classroom in an extension of a physical classroom. What that means is that what is inappropriate in the classroom is inappropriate online.

Teachers also need to take caution on keeping their private life private, so they have to make sure to create separate accounts to use as an alternate to their everyday accounts. Though social media may seem like a risky approach to trying something new in the classroom, it really is a great tool to keep students engaged.

My area of interest for teaching in the future is high school mathematics, which is commonly the most disliked school subject for teenage students. Students often struggle understanding content, which makes them lose interest, thus leading them to not pay attention and instead browse through social media on their phones during class.

The best way to combat this problem is to give the students what they want: social media in the classroom.

More than 90% of teenagers have at least one social media account, so using it as a tool in the classroom would be beneficial to almost everyone.

In an effort to stay connected with her students, one teacher, mentioned in an article from Education Week, has an Instagram account for her class. Instagram is a social networking site used to post pictures and videos that your followers can comment on and like. Now in 2016, Instagram has surpassed Facebook in its relevance to teenagers. What this middle school math teacher does, is regularly posts updates on class notes, upcoming test dates, and homework assignments so her students can be reminded to do their homework or study for tests while they are out of class and scrolling through their news feed.

One student in her class says, “This is a good way to get students' attention and remind them in a relatable way about upcoming tests or homework.” Like this student says, this method of incorporating social media in the classroom is so effective because it is very relatable to students.

Aside from Instagram, one of the other most used social networking sites used by teens is Twitter. On Twitter, users are limited to 140 characters and up to 4 pictures or one 30-second video in one tweet. Users can like and retweet tweets, to share with other followers.

While most teens use Twitter as a platform to stay connected with friends or to share funny or relevant tweets, Twitter can also be very beneficial to use in the classroom.

Samantha Miller from Teach Hub writes about 50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom. She has many great ideas in her article, but these are the ones that stuck out to me most:

• Post Sample Materials
• Post Syllabus Changes
• Take a Poll
• Post Videos
• Post Math Puzzles

Of this list, my favorite is posting math puzzles on Twitter. Miller suggests that teachers post daily questions where students can reply with their answers.

Another idea that I had, is for teachers to post math problems on Twitter after school on content that will be taught the next day. Then, students can look in their textbooks to see how to solve the problem, then reply to the tweet or bring in their solution next class to receive extra credit. This offers a fun way for students to learn the material while also staying caught up on their social media feeds.

Another great example of social media being used in the classroom can be seen in this video below. The teacher in this video uses a Twitter hashtag for all the students to follow and post replies during class discussion.

Twitter serves as a great medium for discussion for students who don't like speaking in class. This way, students who don't like to vocally participate in class can share their opinions via Twitter.

Now after reading about all of the positive and beneficial ways social media can be used in the classroom, it opens my eyes to all the opportunities for changes in education in the future. One of my college professors uses Twitter to post her office hours, but now I see that Twitter can be used in much more profound ways. Going into my future as a teacher, I look forward to welcoming the opportunity for social media to change the way teens are educated.



References

Benmar, K. (2015, Apr. 21). My favorite teachers use social media: a student perspective. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/04/22/my-favorite-teachers-use-social-media-a.html

Guilford County Schools. Social media guidelines for faculty and staff. Retrieved January 27, 2016 from http://www1.gcsnc.com/boe/2011/3_24/Social%20Media%20Guidelines.pdf
Miller, S. (n.d). 50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom. TeachHub.com. Retrieved from http://www.teachhub.com/50-ways-use-twitter-classroom
[Untitled image of Instagram]. Retrieved February 3, 2016 from http://www.softicons.com/social-media-icons/free-social-media-icons-by-uiconstock/instagram-icon
[Untitled image of social media in classroom]. Retrieved January 27, 2016 from http://cjayneteach.com/blog/2013/08/27/social-media-your-classroom-more-involvement/
[Untitled image of twitter]. Retrieved February 3, 2016 from http://www.iconarchive.com/show/flat-gradient-social-icons-by-limav/Twitter-icon.html
WaterlooSchools. (2012, Nov. 6). Social media and technology in the classroom [video file]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaYIvdv4jFs