Friday, October 10, 2014

Join as at AMTNYS 2014 in Syracuse

Attend my session at the AMTNYS (Association of Math Teachers of New York State) in Syracuse (Nov. 9-11) and you can find out how to make sketches like this, as well as see what I can show you about animations in GeoGebra. For conference details, visit the AMTNYS conference site here.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Animations that can be created for students and by students can be strong motivators for students. One does not need to be an expert to use GeoGebra, and it can be a tool for learning terminology and gaining appreciation for the written definitions. Instead of constantly trying to find "real world applications" in the classroom, use the world and its tools as "real world motivators".  This little sketch incorporated the concepts of coordinates, circles, rotations, triangles, angle bisectors, intersections. Keep in mind that there are simple ways to introduce such concepts, such as "splitting the angle in half" for angle bisector. (Note about the mathematics of this sketch below)
I have titled this one "A Heart As Good As Any" and it can be found (and downloaded and edited) here.


Circles with radii 1, 3, and 6, centered at the origin at 3 units below. Two points rotating counterclockwise at the same rotational speed, one clockwise at twice that speed. Those points are connected to form a triangle, and two angle bisectors shown. The trace shows the path of the point of intersection of those medians, the incenter.