I have updated the original post on Physics Gizmo with the details regarding version 2.0.
There are 3 new ways to collect data and a refined user interface.
Here is the link to download it from Google Play.
Please let me know on the original post if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions and if you like Physics Gizmo, please rate it in the market. Thanks and I hope this enables you and your students to DO science like never before!
The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
FRC 2012 Game Rebound Rumble - The Year Minds Change
If you had a full night of sleep last night, you are not likely involved in the FIRST Robotics Competition. This year's build season is underway with Rebound Rumble and as always the game designers did a great job sparking innovation and coopertition. Check out the video below for a quick overview of the game:
Robotics has a cult like following with teams staying up late into the night for weeks on end to create the best robot while learning skills and gaining knowledge usually withheld until university and beyond. Students have just a few short weeks to create robots capable moving across a field and accurately launching basketballs into a hoop, a feat overwhelming even without time, money, and engineering constraints.
For over 20 years, robotics has made a positive and powerful impact on students and the engineering community, but the wrong lesson to take from this is that we should have robotics teams in every school and require engineering for everyone. Sure, I would love to see a team in every school so the opportunity is open to people who want it, but top down standardization would kill the spirit and fun. Robotics' appeal comes from its grassroots underground and playful nature.
I claim 2012 to be the year "minds change" because I believe the momentum has come to a head with all of the opportunities for students to learn and society's perception of their potential. Those who watched the kickoff event saw engineers, CEOs, celebrities, presidents and more come out to support the students. What the world is realizing is, students are capable of doing anything with the right resources and motivation. Educators are determined to give their students more than a lecture and a worksheet. Robots are a great example of this, but students are having an impact in every aspect of society.
Go to a robotics competition and be inspired and hooked. Mentor a robotics team or any program that fits your passions. There is nothing like an after school program to change a student's life.
To all of the teams out there competiting: good luck, have fun, and remember the learning is the prize!
To the mentors: may your coffee cups be full, your pizza be plentiful, and your joy abundant!
To everyone else, go find a team and check out the amazing work being done at schools all over the world!
Subscribe to the BrokenAirplane blog to keep up to date with all things awesome in education!
Robotics has a cult like following with teams staying up late into the night for weeks on end to create the best robot while learning skills and gaining knowledge usually withheld until university and beyond. Students have just a few short weeks to create robots capable moving across a field and accurately launching basketballs into a hoop, a feat overwhelming even without time, money, and engineering constraints.
For over 20 years, robotics has made a positive and powerful impact on students and the engineering community, but the wrong lesson to take from this is that we should have robotics teams in every school and require engineering for everyone. Sure, I would love to see a team in every school so the opportunity is open to people who want it, but top down standardization would kill the spirit and fun. Robotics' appeal comes from its grassroots underground and playful nature.
I claim 2012 to be the year "minds change" because I believe the momentum has come to a head with all of the opportunities for students to learn and society's perception of their potential. Those who watched the kickoff event saw engineers, CEOs, celebrities, presidents and more come out to support the students. What the world is realizing is, students are capable of doing anything with the right resources and motivation. Educators are determined to give their students more than a lecture and a worksheet. Robots are a great example of this, but students are having an impact in every aspect of society.
Go to a robotics competition and be inspired and hooked. Mentor a robotics team or any program that fits your passions. There is nothing like an after school program to change a student's life.
To all of the teams out there competiting: good luck, have fun, and remember the learning is the prize!
To the mentors: may your coffee cups be full, your pizza be plentiful, and your joy abundant!
To everyone else, go find a team and check out the amazing work being done at schools all over the world!
Subscribe to the BrokenAirplane blog to keep up to date with all things awesome in education!
YouTube for Schools Opens Resources Up to the Classroom
You're sitting at home, planning a lesson when suddenly you come across the most incredible video to supplement what you are trying to convey. Unfortunately, YouTube is blocked in your school and this is not option. I have encountered this situation numerous times or when I am in the classroom working with students and a question comes up that would be perfectly illustrated with a video.
It's a shame that so much great content is blocked. The justification makes sense, students might get distracted and some of the content online might be inappropriate. Thankfully YouTube has developed a way that we can have the best of both worlds. With YouTube for Schools, it is now possible for schools to unblock and access the large amount of content on YouTubeEdu safely as potentially offensive related videos and comments are disabled.
I am so honored to have worked with the YouTube team on this project. I knew it would make a huge difference in student's opportunities to learn from all of the excellent quality out there.
One great feature of YouTube for Schools are the hundreds of teacher curated videos aleady aligned with the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics. For Science the National Science Education Standards were used and for History/Social Studies the videos were aligned to the California State Standards. Now you can easily find videos to supplement whatever you are working on.
With all of the great content available on YouTube, you would think all of the best videos have already been uploaded right? Think again. Every one of you has a great video, lesson, experiment, project, story to share and now you can.
Here is my favorite part: schools can add their own videos to their personal unblocked playlists. If you would like to suggest your own playlist to add to YouTube for Schools, submit it to YouTube.com/Teachers where you can see all the playlists without a login.
With this new tool to support student learning, some examples of how you could use videos in the classroom are:
1) Show a visual representation of a concept after a lesson.
2) Record an important lecture or activity so students can review it later (especially if they were absent).
3) Create a video for when you are absent to help the students and substitute know what to do.
4) Flip your classroom.
The last one, is really exciting. Upload a video and ask students to watch it at home. Then when they come to class, your time is free to go deeper into the subject, do an experiment or project, and all of the other things you wished you could do if you had more time.
Don't stop there, use the tools on the web to support your students and have them support each other.
However you do it, now students have a way to give specific feedback at their leisure (not constrained to class schedule or intimidated by peer pressure). You can refine the video if it was confusing to a lot of students and explain it better the next day in class. This kind of feedback might be difficult to obtain in class but now you have a way to assess student's learning and understanding as often as you would like.
YouTube for Schools opens your classroom up to the resources of the world. Teachers are empowered to supplement their lessons as well as share the amazing things they do with everyone.
Original Link from YouTube Blog - Opening Up a World of Educational Content with YouTube for Schools.
Subscribe to the BrokenAirplane blog to keep up to date with all things awesome in education!
It's a shame that so much great content is blocked. The justification makes sense, students might get distracted and some of the content online might be inappropriate. Thankfully YouTube has developed a way that we can have the best of both worlds. With YouTube for Schools, it is now possible for schools to unblock and access the large amount of content on YouTubeEdu safely as potentially offensive related videos and comments are disabled.
I am so honored to have worked with the YouTube team on this project. I knew it would make a huge difference in student's opportunities to learn from all of the excellent quality out there.
One great feature of YouTube for Schools are the hundreds of teacher curated videos aleady aligned with the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics. For Science the National Science Education Standards were used and for History/Social Studies the videos were aligned to the California State Standards. Now you can easily find videos to supplement whatever you are working on.
With all of the great content available on YouTube, you would think all of the best videos have already been uploaded right? Think again. Every one of you has a great video, lesson, experiment, project, story to share and now you can.
Here is my favorite part: schools can add their own videos to their personal unblocked playlists. If you would like to suggest your own playlist to add to YouTube for Schools, submit it to YouTube.com/Teachers where you can see all the playlists without a login.
With this new tool to support student learning, some examples of how you could use videos in the classroom are:
1) Show a visual representation of a concept after a lesson.
2) Record an important lecture or activity so students can review it later (especially if they were absent).
3) Create a video for when you are absent to help the students and substitute know what to do.
4) Flip your classroom.
The last one, is really exciting. Upload a video and ask students to watch it at home. Then when they come to class, your time is free to go deeper into the subject, do an experiment or project, and all of the other things you wished you could do if you had more time.
Don't stop there, use the tools on the web to support your students and have them support each other.
- With Google+ Hangouts, your students could form a study group and watch the video together to discuss.
- Have students add comments to a Google Spreadsheet that can be reviewed the next day (example), its really easy to make a column filled with times.
- Type 0:00:00 into Cell A2 and 0:00:01 in Cell A3 (or 0:00:05 to skip by 5 seconds, etc).
- Highlight both cells then grab-and-drag the blue box in the corner.
- Use Google Moderator to take questions just like the president.
- Another option is to use a Google Form and collect data that way.
YouTube for Schools opens your classroom up to the resources of the world. Teachers are empowered to supplement their lessons as well as share the amazing things they do with everyone.
Original Link from YouTube Blog - Opening Up a World of Educational Content with YouTube for Schools.
Subscribe to the BrokenAirplane blog to keep up to date with all things awesome in education!
Keeping Plates Spinning is The Best Part of The Job
A couple of years ago, someone asked me if Robotics could be done in a hybrid learning environment. Could we do a hands-on project with a combination of virtual meetings as well as physical meetings. At the time, I didn't have a great answer because I had no reason to explore the possibility. I was running my robotics team and focusing on doing everything possible to help the team do well.
That changed this year when I decided to take a year to go work for Google. My student robotics president looked at me with horror as I told her the news that I would not be there next year. Then after a minute of thought she said, "Oh wait, never mind we'll be fine." It was a fulfillment of something I tell my leadership team all of the time, "I will have done my job when you no longer need me."
This was the ultimate test, could they succeed without their teacher being there with them everyday? Let me start by defining success for my team. I know many mentors who's goal in life is for their robotics team to win, win, win! I want the best robot our team can possibly make but that is not my only focus as their mentor. My goal is to help them fulfill their goals and make their dreams possible.
That looks different for each student and it is my job to help them find it and then work with intense fervor to make it possible for them. Mentoring each student individually is what I call it keeping plates spinning because it is exciting, requires one to see the big picture, and also focus on each individual. Some of my students want to go into a STEM related job, but others want to be businesspeople, graphic designers, teachers, and the list goes on. If you visit my team there are many different projects going on at once. That is because if I find someone who I think I can mentor I find a niche for them on the team because it is not just about building robots, it is about building people.
I am so grateful that Lisa Davis is able to serve as the physical mentor watching out for the well being of the team while also helping them explore and grow in marketing, entrepreneurship, and service learning. If she was not willing to take on the additional responsibilities this year, there would be no team. It would have been impossible for me to virtually mentor the team a few years ago but with daily emails and weekly Google+ Hangouts I can talk to my team and support the individuals.
That changed this year when I decided to take a year to go work for Google. My student robotics president looked at me with horror as I told her the news that I would not be there next year. Then after a minute of thought she said, "Oh wait, never mind we'll be fine." It was a fulfillment of something I tell my leadership team all of the time, "I will have done my job when you no longer need me."
This was the ultimate test, could they succeed without their teacher being there with them everyday? Let me start by defining success for my team. I know many mentors who's goal in life is for their robotics team to win, win, win! I want the best robot our team can possibly make but that is not my only focus as their mentor. My goal is to help them fulfill their goals and make their dreams possible.
That looks different for each student and it is my job to help them find it and then work with intense fervor to make it possible for them. Mentoring each student individually is what I call it keeping plates spinning because it is exciting, requires one to see the big picture, and also focus on each individual. Some of my students want to go into a STEM related job, but others want to be businesspeople, graphic designers, teachers, and the list goes on. If you visit my team there are many different projects going on at once. That is because if I find someone who I think I can mentor I find a niche for them on the team because it is not just about building robots, it is about building people.
I am so grateful that Lisa Davis is able to serve as the physical mentor watching out for the well being of the team while also helping them explore and grow in marketing, entrepreneurship, and service learning. If she was not willing to take on the additional responsibilities this year, there would be no team. It would have been impossible for me to virtually mentor the team a few years ago but with daily emails and weekly Google+ Hangouts I can talk to my team and support the individuals.
All year long I am looking at students to see where they have areas to grow. My decisions on who should lead our team are not necessarily based on who is a "leader" on the team but who could become a leader. Each of my presidents have been shocked when I asked them to step up but each time they have exceeded all expectations.
Presidents are chosen in their Sophomore year. I let the current president know who I have chosen and they usually disagree with me. That's ok, I have expected and planned for this. I don't select for talent but potential.
The reason the student is chosen in the Sophomore year is so they can serve as President in their Junior year while being mentored by the previous President who's now in their Senior year. When others teams chose their seniors to be leaders, the skills and lessons are lost each year. With this process, the previous President can spend the whole year reflecting on the experience helping the new President through their struggles.
The reason the student is chosen in the Sophomore year is so they can serve as President in their Junior year while being mentored by the previous President who's now in their Senior year. When others teams chose their seniors to be leaders, the skills and lessons are lost each year. With this process, the previous President can spend the whole year reflecting on the experience helping the new President through their struggles.
This has resulted in an ever increasing improvement in our team and what it is able to achieve. I also select Presidents based upon what they are able to learn from the outgoing President and vice versa. Sometimes it is humility, or organization skills, maybe public speaking skills. I have the luxury of focusing on helping people grow.
Could we not do this with mainstream education? Teachers are repeating themselves multiple times a day, and again each year for 40+ years. This is horribly inefficient, let students teach students and have the teacher support the process. The inexperienced students will learn more easily from their peers and the teacher can look for ways to challenge the tutors and grow in their own understanding. Imagine advanced classes happening concurrently with regular classes within the same classroom!
Subscribe to the BrokenAirplane blog to keep up to date with all things awesome in education!
Subscribe to the BrokenAirplane blog to keep up to date with all things awesome in education!
TED Videos with Computational Thinking
Cross posted on the Exploring Computational Thinking Forum:
A colleague of mine wanted to understand more about one of the projects I am working on at Google. He is an Artist and felt that Computational Thinking was something he used everyday but still a little unsure. I decided to send him a bunch of TED videos showing how much we use and rely upon Computational Thinking everyday.
When I began to look through the TED Videos, I was amazed at how many of them relate to computational thinking in some way or another and that is why these videos amaze us. TED videos showcase people doing extraordinary things and seeing the possibilities when we look at the big picture.
See if you can find the 4 aspects of Computational Thinking in each video:
Whether you are an artist, scientist, Engineer at Google, or student, Computational Thinking is present and makes possible the world we see. I hope these videos are equally useful to you in explaining to others what Computational Thinking is:
How Algorithms Shape Our World - If you thought Algorithms were only used by computer scientists, think again.
The Best Stats You've Ever Seen - Hans Rosling shows how big data and patterns can tell humanity's story. Al Gore did something similar with big data to show humanity's impact upon the planet.
Making a Car for the Blind - You may have heard of Google's Autonomous Car but what about a car that allows the blind to drive?
Synthetic Life - Craig Venter started the human genome project and they used that information to make the ultimate algorithm, a synthetic cell
What We Learned from 5 Million Books - Hilarious as well as inspiring as we see what happens when we start looking for patterns in our books. This is the power behind Google Translate.
Nature in Architecture - Many of our most useful innovations have come from emulating nature.
Teaching Kids Real Math with Computers - In this viral video, Conrad Wolfram says that math > calculation and with Computational Thinking we can teach students far more than we ever thought.
Computing a Theory of Everything - Stephen Wolfram, shows how knowledge is related and can be used to better understand the universe.
The End of Theory - Not a video, but a revealing article about why students need to learn how to work with data and statistical analysis.
Connect with BrokenAirplane to stay up to date with all of the latest in Education and Technology
A colleague of mine wanted to understand more about one of the projects I am working on at Google. He is an Artist and felt that Computational Thinking was something he used everyday but still a little unsure. I decided to send him a bunch of TED videos showing how much we use and rely upon Computational Thinking everyday.
When I began to look through the TED Videos, I was amazed at how many of them relate to computational thinking in some way or another and that is why these videos amaze us. TED videos showcase people doing extraordinary things and seeing the possibilities when we look at the big picture.See if you can find the 4 aspects of Computational Thinking in each video:
- Decomposition - Breaking down the data
- Finding the patterns in the data
- Generalizing your findings and discovering the big idea
- Turning them into a set of instructions that others can reproduce
Whether you are an artist, scientist, Engineer at Google, or student, Computational Thinking is present and makes possible the world we see. I hope these videos are equally useful to you in explaining to others what Computational Thinking is:
How Algorithms Shape Our World - If you thought Algorithms were only used by computer scientists, think again.
The Best Stats You've Ever Seen - Hans Rosling shows how big data and patterns can tell humanity's story. Al Gore did something similar with big data to show humanity's impact upon the planet.
Making a Car for the Blind - You may have heard of Google's Autonomous Car but what about a car that allows the blind to drive?
Synthetic Life - Craig Venter started the human genome project and they used that information to make the ultimate algorithm, a synthetic cell
What We Learned from 5 Million Books - Hilarious as well as inspiring as we see what happens when we start looking for patterns in our books. This is the power behind Google Translate.
Nature in Architecture - Many of our most useful innovations have come from emulating nature.
Teaching Kids Real Math with Computers - In this viral video, Conrad Wolfram says that math > calculation and with Computational Thinking we can teach students far more than we ever thought.
Computing a Theory of Everything - Stephen Wolfram, shows how knowledge is related and can be used to better understand the universe.
The End of Theory - Not a video, but a revealing article about why students need to learn how to work with data and statistical analysis.
Connect with BrokenAirplane to stay up to date with all of the latest in Education and Technology
Stop Saying I Don't Know to Student's Questions
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Albert Einstein
The above quote is the challenge of every science teacher. My professor once told me that Einstein would walk up to people on the street to tell them about his theories and if he was unable to explain it to them or answer their questions sufficiently, then he felt he did not understand it well enough himself.
I am a big fan of the Mythbusters as well as books like There Are No Electrons which show us when our conceptual models are too limiting to our understanding. So when David Rudel, editor of the excellent ExploreLearning site (home of the awesome science Gizmos) asked me to review his book Science Myths Unmasked, I couldn't wait to check it out. I have to say I was not disappointed, in fact I would have written this review sooner but I was enjoying the book too much to stop.
Science Myths Unmasked takes the most common experiments and models that every middle and high school student encounters. In Vol 1: Earth and Life Science, Rudel challenges some of the big questions that teachers encounter every day from students.
If you have ever had students question the genetics and evolution curriculum they are right to do so. Textbooks ask students to go from Mendel's pea pods and variation within the species to evolution into new species which leaves them wondering how Dominant and Recessive genes can accomplish this. With clarity and research to back it up, the book explains how evolution can occur as well as the modern viewpoints on the mechanism for evolution.
There are many other topics covered in the book like:
I especially enjoyed Vol 2: Physical Science, having spent time as a 8th grade physical science teacher. Students are wonderfully skeptical and with encouragement will have no problem speaking out about it. When something doesn't match their view of reality they must ask WHY?
Unfortunately, our textbooks in an attempt to make things simpler often omit or erroneously explain natural phenomena. I have reviewed most of the textbooks out there and there is always one or two places where I reread a paragraph over and over because it just doesn't seem right.
I must admit there were a couple of times in Rudel's book where I thought, "Oh that's why, that never made sense before!" I too have misconceptions that I have explained away and it has been a great week to reaffirm and test my own understanding of Physics.
Some of the explanations include:
If you go to the book's website, you can download sample chapters. At the price these books are being offered, they make a great gift for the science teacher in your life.
Connect with BrokenAirplane on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.
The above quote is the challenge of every science teacher. My professor once told me that Einstein would walk up to people on the street to tell them about his theories and if he was unable to explain it to them or answer their questions sufficiently, then he felt he did not understand it well enough himself.
I am a big fan of the Mythbusters as well as books like There Are No Electrons which show us when our conceptual models are too limiting to our understanding. So when David Rudel, editor of the excellent ExploreLearning site (home of the awesome science Gizmos) asked me to review his book Science Myths Unmasked, I couldn't wait to check it out. I have to say I was not disappointed, in fact I would have written this review sooner but I was enjoying the book too much to stop.
Science Myths Unmasked takes the most common experiments and models that every middle and high school student encounters. In Vol 1: Earth and Life Science, Rudel challenges some of the big questions that teachers encounter every day from students.If you have ever had students question the genetics and evolution curriculum they are right to do so. Textbooks ask students to go from Mendel's pea pods and variation within the species to evolution into new species which leaves them wondering how Dominant and Recessive genes can accomplish this. With clarity and research to back it up, the book explains how evolution can occur as well as the modern viewpoints on the mechanism for evolution.
There are many other topics covered in the book like:
- How do clouds form?
- Why do my veins appear to be blue?
- What is the "greenhouse effect"
I especially enjoyed Vol 2: Physical Science, having spent time as a 8th grade physical science teacher. Students are wonderfully skeptical and with encouragement will have no problem speaking out about it. When something doesn't match their view of reality they must ask WHY?
Unfortunately, our textbooks in an attempt to make things simpler often omit or erroneously explain natural phenomena. I have reviewed most of the textbooks out there and there is always one or two places where I reread a paragraph over and over because it just doesn't seem right.
I must admit there were a couple of times in Rudel's book where I thought, "Oh that's why, that never made sense before!" I too have misconceptions that I have explained away and it has been a great week to reaffirm and test my own understanding of Physics.
Some of the explanations include:
- Why does the water in an overturned jar rise when the candle inside burns out?
- Does electricity only flow in a "closed circuit"?
- What do we mean when we say a wave of light and why do we draw a sine wave to describe it?
If you go to the book's website, you can download sample chapters. At the price these books are being offered, they make a great gift for the science teacher in your life.
Connect with BrokenAirplane on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.
Sage Removes Barriers for Technology in Math Classrooms
If you are not yet using programming with your math and science students, you might have a couple of excuses why.
1) I don't have the time to learn (give me 30 minutes)
2) My school won't let me install the software.
Technology in schools is difficult especially if you are working with older hardware or infrastructure. Many schools will only install new software at the beginning of the year, but if you are going to start programming you'll want to get started now.
Sage makes programming more convenient than ever while adding in some powerful math packages. You might see your graphing calculator's packaging saying it can carry you through college, Sage will take you from elementary math to your PhD and beyond. Created by William Stein with the intention of being a powerful free and open source alternative to technology like Mathematica.
You might wonder how Sage changes anything. Well Sage contains multiple programming languages so you are not constrained to one, but more importantly the Sage Notebook provides the ability to program in the cloud. While there are other options out there, Sage makes it really easy and puts it all together in a dead simple interface.
Let's explore the Sage Notebook (the cloud based version).
There are so many options for logging in, you can create a Sage Notebook account, use your Google/Yahoo/OpenID credentials or you can browse the worksheets without logging in.
Much like Geogebra, you can browse the public worksheets of other people in the community of users.
Click New Worksheet. Once in the worksheet, you can click on the drop down menu that says Sage and see how many options you have for languages. This covers the many programming languages one would need. If you are just starting out, you may want to use Sage, Python, or R (statistics).
If you read this blog, you know I love Python for its simple syntax and ease of use. With Sage you don't have to give that up, the syntax is essentially the same.
To see what really makes Sage a great fit for math try entering a fraction and hitting Shift+Enter. In Sage, fractions are treated like an actual object. You can multiply it, add two fractions, and all of the other manipulations you would do on paper.
This is just meant to whet your appetite, there are so many different ways this can be used, especially when you consider all of the different functionality and the ability to work online and save/share your work. The documentation is very helpful and there are numerous tutorials created by the community to help you learn. Take a look at Sage's tour for more examples of what is possible.
You will not be disappointed as this is no toy but a powerful full mathematical suite. Student will love this for the same reason they love Geogebra. It takes abstract concepts and manipulation of symbols, variables, and functions and treats them like objects in a game. Now you can play with the math as opposed just focusing on calculating.
Being able to quickly see the effects of an equation or its graph means students can draw conclusions faster rather than being unnecessarily distracted by the arithmetic or plotting of points. I hope you will take me up on this invitation to use this free tool. The hard work that the Sage community has put into making this available to all should not be in vain.
If you are already using Sage (and I know many of you are) be sure to share in the comments or on Google+ how you are using it.
Stay connected and check out the other tutorials on BrokenAirplane by following the links on the top and the most popular posts on the sidebar.
1) I don't have the time to learn (give me 30 minutes)
2) My school won't let me install the software.
Technology in schools is difficult especially if you are working with older hardware or infrastructure. Many schools will only install new software at the beginning of the year, but if you are going to start programming you'll want to get started now.Sage makes programming more convenient than ever while adding in some powerful math packages. You might see your graphing calculator's packaging saying it can carry you through college, Sage will take you from elementary math to your PhD and beyond. Created by William Stein with the intention of being a powerful free and open source alternative to technology like Mathematica.
You might wonder how Sage changes anything. Well Sage contains multiple programming languages so you are not constrained to one, but more importantly the Sage Notebook provides the ability to program in the cloud. While there are other options out there, Sage makes it really easy and puts it all together in a dead simple interface.
Let's explore the Sage Notebook (the cloud based version).
There are so many options for logging in, you can create a Sage Notebook account, use your Google/Yahoo/OpenID credentials or you can browse the worksheets without logging in.
Much like Geogebra, you can browse the public worksheets of other people in the community of users.
If you read this blog, you know I love Python for its simple syntax and ease of use. With Sage you don't have to give that up, the syntax is essentially the same.
To see what really makes Sage a great fit for math try entering a fraction and hitting Shift+Enter. In Sage, fractions are treated like an actual object. You can multiply it, add two fractions, and all of the other manipulations you would do on paper.
A feature very popular in Wolfram|Alpha is the equation solver. Try this out in Sage:
It couldn't be easier to graph:
Once you have a worksheet you can share it with people so they can interact with it or publish it for viewing. In fact most of the examples in this post can be seen here. Just click on the buttons in the upper right of the workbook.
You will not be disappointed as this is no toy but a powerful full mathematical suite. Student will love this for the same reason they love Geogebra. It takes abstract concepts and manipulation of symbols, variables, and functions and treats them like objects in a game. Now you can play with the math as opposed just focusing on calculating.
Being able to quickly see the effects of an equation or its graph means students can draw conclusions faster rather than being unnecessarily distracted by the arithmetic or plotting of points. I hope you will take me up on this invitation to use this free tool. The hard work that the Sage community has put into making this available to all should not be in vain.
If you are already using Sage (and I know many of you are) be sure to share in the comments or on Google+ how you are using it.
Stay connected and check out the other tutorials on BrokenAirplane by following the links on the top and the most popular posts on the sidebar.
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