This week in math we viewed Tinkerplots. I liked seeing a version of Fathom that I could use with the primary grades. As I was watching the introduction video on the different ways to view the data on cats, I could imagine my kids getting so excited and wanting to see what would happen when you compared age and gender (for example).
I felt so old when we looked at wolframalpha.com. I had no idea there was anything like this out there. I quickly typed in my name and saw that the name Janelle was popular in the early '80s and that the average age of women named Janelle is 31, and since I'll be 29 next week it's fitting. Come to think of it I haven't met a Janelle who is older than 40 and I now I know why!
I liked the activity where we were measuring the rectangle with different units. I was one of the people who got hung up on the fact that the units were different and how could the possible be put on the same graph?! I was so concerned about our graph being accurate. After completing the activity I understand how the points made a line, but during the activity I thought it was coincidence. The first part of this activity could be used with almost any grade, but the last part with y=mx+b would narrow the grades that could use this activity. How could I modify it?
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