Instructional Unit

This is a GEOSS activity. Joanne Owen uses GIMP with her students for a project that involves enlarging and painting a monochromatic self-portrait. GIMP is an open source application for editing bit-mapped images. GIMP is available from: http://www.gimp.org

This is a GEOSS activity by Bjorn Berhendt. He used VUE, an open source application for concept mapping, to make a Family tree. VUE is available at, .

BJ wrote these documents in the .odt format, but VTcite would not load them, so they have been uploaded as .doc files. This had to be done in OpenOffice because Word will not open .odt documents. He also has a sample VUE document that could not be uploaded.

These attached documents are GEOSS activities, created to use open source software to teach to mathematics GEs. The activities were initially Logo activities. These were field tested. The activities have been adapted to use Scratch instead of Logo. The Scratch adaptations have not been field tested.

Scratch is available as a free download at the MIT website:

Geometry From Scratch is a classic activity that is normally done using Logo to draw and rotate a square. What's the Point has students use Cartesian Coordinates to draw shapes. Exploring Polygons From Scratch is an adaptation of the Logo program, Poly, that will draw any regular polygon.

If your looking for some lessons and projects for your students, to enhancer their student learning through technology check out some of the lesson plans from Microsoft by subject that cover grades K-12.
Geography
• Giants of the century
• Globalization comes to the table
• Life along the Ring of Fire
• Map reading in the 21st century
• Take a road trip
History
• Archaeological finds
• Current currencies
• History and culture through food
• The Olympics
• What is jazz?
Language arts
• A view from the top
• Bridging the generation gap
• Examining character traits
• Literary scavenger hunt
• Save a species
Mathematics
• Making money from lemons
• Identifying perfect numbers
• Investigating daylight
• Candy is dandy
• Track family water usage
Science and technology
• Acid rain in our state
• How do earthquakes affect buildings?
• Meteorologist for a day
• The Human Genome Project
• The story of milk
Social studies
• Around the world calendar
• Do you know the story of Pomp?
• Pita tortilla baguette
• Tell a totem story
• The life of a bill

This site serves as an annotated guide to the scholarly Shakespeare resources available on the Internet.

Some highlights of what's in this site includes: :
*A Shakespeare Timeline, which gives the key events of Shakespeare's life and work along with related documentary evidence. There are several supporting pages to the timeline:
*A Shakespeare genealogy. A chart showing the relevant family relationships and dates.
*A Shakespeare Timeline Summary Chart, showing the events of Shakespeare's life in outline along with important contemporary events and publications.
*A Shakespeare Biography Quiz. If you are brave enough, you may take the quiz before reading the timeline.
*The Shakespeare Canon.
*Great introductions to various editions of the Works of Shakespeare:
*Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare.

Science Social Studies Math and English all have exemplars that correspond to grades K-3, 4-6 ad 7-12
For example, there is a science example called Treasures@Sea for grades K-3
Social Studies for Grades 7-12 called The Underground Railroad: A New Deal Art Project Digital Story and for
English , 4-6 Aesop's Fables

I have a meeting today with some people from my Supervisory Union (related to tech assessment) and in preparing I reformatted the Tech GCE Instruction Guide. The copy attached is k-12 but I wanted it by each grade k,1,2,3.... and without the extraneous 'none' info. The result is much cleaner and shorter (I think more digestible for teachers.)

The 2nd document is a spreadsheet that shows in which grades a concept needs to be introduced, practiced, or assessed.

This site is a WebQuest for Educators in Vermont to Learn about WebQuests or to use with their students to determine the future of wolves in Vermont. It is an authentic assignment about a current issue that Vermonters must address. Wolves are currently in Quebec and there have been some sightings already reported in Vermont. Should they be allowed to remain? Should their numbers be controlled? What will their impact be on farmers? hunters? children? What are the facts about wolves and what are the fables?

Webquests are a technique to look at different perspectives on an issue, research information, discuss points of view and develop a consensus. Although this is identified as a "science" topic, look at the Teacher's page to see how mathematics, art, music, writing, history, geography are all integrated into this decision-making process.

Descriptors: coin toss, probability, theoretical probability, spinner, Maththematics, mathematical model

Title of resource: Spreadsheet Model of a Coin Toss or Binary Spinner

Author: Bob Sargent

Purpose: Enrichment of probability unit in MathThematics Book 2 demonstrating a mathematical model.

Audience: students grades 7-10

Resource Requirements: I have attached an excel spreadsheet.  You will need a compatible application.

Abstract:

Simulating coin tosses is a classic example of an educational computer program modeling an event.  The attached spreadsheet graphs simulated trials of some sort of 50/50 binary event, a coin flip or a spinner with two equal sides, using the random function.  I am not suggesting that students should not flip real coins or spin real spinners.  The lesson is about the mathematical model.  The question the students must answer is this; “In what ways does the model behave like what is being modeled, and how is it different?”  The lesson assumes the students already know about probability.  The model does not look like a coin flip or a spinner, yet it yields a similar table of results.  Getting students to articulate this, and elaborate on it, is the hoped for outcome of the lesson.  By repeatedly recalculating the spreadsheet (pressing F9 in Excel) it is possible to have many trials in rapid succession.  By comparing the graphs of 10 coins to the graphs of 100 coins in this way one can see that 100 coins more closely approximate the expected result of 50/50 more often than do 10 coins.  This is a graphic way to get at this idea.

Justification:

Mathematical modeling is one of the Vermont Standards that can be difficult to convey to students.  The spreadsheet is part of an enrichment exercise using a simple model of a simple event to illustrate the idea of mathematical modeling.  The spreadsheet could be part of a station among a group of stations in a unit on probability.  Coin flips and spinners is part of the curriculum in MathThematics, Book 2.  Probability and modeling are Vermont Standards.