Cre8ate maths is a fantastic set of rich mathematical activities developed by the Centre for Science Education (CSE) with the mathematics lead from the Mathematics Education Centre (MEC), of Sheffield Hallam University. They have been created to support schools in Yorkshire & Humberside, and are focussed on the 12 priority industry sectors of the area. Activities are based around the chemical industry, food production, childcare and many others.
Sharing Resources
January 25, 2009 By 9 Comments
Like most teachers I have collected masses of resources over the years and created masses more. Lots of my resources which I believe to be free of copyright are stored online and catalogued with the excellent www.delicious.com.
As I’m sure most readers are aware Delicious.com is a great social bookmarking website. It’s a place to save all of your bookmarks online, so that they are accessible from any computer with an Internet connection. If you’re new to Delicious then this Common Craft video sums it up best:
I have tagged numerous web based resources along with the specific urls of lots of Word/Excel/Powerpoint/Activstudio files. The files are all stored on the excellent www.getdropbox.com.
Dropbox gives you 2Gb of free online storage space. Dropbox works best when you install the client on your computer (Windows/Mac/Linux compatible). The installer creates a ‘My Dropbox’ folder on your computer. Anything that you store in this folder is automatically replicated on the Web and on any other machine you install Dropbox on. This makes it great for synchronising files between different machines.
I have stored all of the resources that I want to share in the ‘Public’ Dropbox folder, this one is viewable by all.
To catalogue a file in Delicious, go to the file, click ‘Copy Public url’ and paste this into a new bookmark on Delicious.
Dropbox Copy url
Delicious.com save new bookmark
This bookmark is then tagged with as many descriptive words as possible.
These bookmarks include numerous pdf files from the National Strategies site which I have cut up into manageable parts. I hope that the National Strategies are happy with this educational use of their, at times, excellent resources. If any person feels I am sharing material to which they own copyright, or who would like full credit given, please contact me and I will amend it to your wishes immediately.
I have included the tag msow in all of my bookmarks. I did this as I wanted to be able to differentiate these as bookmarks for teaching purposes (msow originally stood for ‘maths scheme of work’ as there are Delicious links at the bottom of each page of my online scheme of work).
If there are other Maths teachers out there with existing Delicious accounts can I suggest we all agree on a common tag such as this? It would make searching for resources more focussed. A search for ‘Data‘ brings up too many links unsuitable for teaching, but one for ‘Data+msow‘ would just bring up ours.
So if you’d like to join my network, follow the link below. If you’d like to follow the idea of a common tag for Maths teaching resources then please leave a comment.
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MyMaths.co.uk – A Review
March 8, 2008 By 13 Comments
I have introduced a fantastic resource into both of my recent schools over the last 2 years. It continues to impress me to this day and it’s about time I wrote a glowing review of it!
MyMaths.co.uk has been around for a couple of years now and continues to grow. When I originally bought it for my previous school it consisted of a series of excellent lessons with interactive elements for use on the IWB or a pupil’s individual computer.
Sample lesson:
There are also a wealth of excellent games focussing on all manner of mathematical skills. These are tremendously popular with pupils and work brilliantly on IWBs. A particular highlight of these are the leaderboards, showing the highest score of the day and of all time for all users. It’s a great incentive trying to beat other schools!
Over the last year online homeworks have been introduced. Each pupil is given an individual login so that their progress can be tracked. All of your class and pupil details can be uploaded with a simple csv file. This gives you the ability to set whole classes homework tasks and to monitor their progress online – no marking required! These combine with the excellent ‘Booster Packs’ designed to move pupils on to KS3 Levels 4 and 6, and GCSE levels C, B & A*.
The Management Console where you can assign tasks etc:
Pupil Feedback:
Overall MyMaths is a comprehensive suite of lessons, games, homeworks and other tools that covers the entire UK National Curriculum for Maths. The resources are well written and of a much higher standard than alternatives such as SAM Learning, it is also much easier to navigate than many of its competitors. Our pupils now complete more homework than they used to and have been spotted playing on the games in spare time during other subjects! A considerable number of pupils come back to the department during their lunchtimes to work through the Boosters. I must add that this includes a number of pupils who were not greatly engaged with Maths previously and who are now excelling.
At a cost of £400 per year, MyMaths represents excellent value for money. I am expecting to get much more use out of it now that I have taken delivery of 6 eeePCs for my classroom. Initial tests show that the site scales well to the size of the screen and I expect pupils will use it in the majority of my lessons.
So a gushing review, but one that is deserved, well done to the team behind it and long may the improvements keep coming.
me elsewhere