1. Name of the Tool
WolframAlpha
2. URL of the Tool
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
3. Please select the one, primary category for this tool:
Critical Thinking/Problem Solving Tool and Presentation Tool
4. Please describe this tool in your own words in about 150-250 words.
Wolfram is a resourceful website for teachers and students.
For teachers, WolframAlpha provides:
a. Interactive visuals in almost every discipline. I used one of these interactive projects (visuals) to create a computer based activity (see attachment below # 10)
b. Interactive visuals, graphs, and other information can be used as links on power points.
c. WolframAlpha provides notes related to the topic you select, in my case I selected acceleration. I can use these notes as a reading selection to my students. Along with the reading selection, I can make my own list of questions and ask the students to answer.
d. Lesson Plans
The neat thing about Wolfram is that you can pick the level of the class. In my situation I selected High School Physics rather than College Physics.
For students, Wolfram provides the following:
a. Resource of information, as dictionary, encyclopedia, and even more a good example will be that for the term wave. When I typed the word wave, in addition to definitions as nouns and verbs I got phrases, other notable uses, movies, internet domains, crossword puzzle clues.
And I got word frequency history, inflected forms and narrower terms.
a. It provides formulas, sample problems, notes and interactive visuals to observe the difference between accelerated motion and constant velocity.
a. Wolfram provides a forum where students can ask questions and have discussions with other students using the forum
5. What do you need to know before using this tool? (What skills do you need to have?)
Basic knowledge of how to use computers and how to search the net
6. What do you need to have before using this tool? (Resources)
The user needs an internet connection and a computer, in order to save your portfolio your need a pro-membership for $4.99/month
7. How do you use this tool? (Write the basic steps using a numbered list)
8. If applicable, please create an example with this tool and either embed it in your blog or submit the URL if the example is located on another website.
9. Include screenshots, audio podcasts, screencasts, or other multimedia elements that help describe the tool and how you used it. (Please indicate what program you used for this task.)
To answer the questions 7 through 9, I prepared a slide show using the “Smilebox” Tool. These slides include screenshots and captions. Below is the link to the SmileBox slide show
10. Please describe a scenario of how you might use this tool in a teaching environment (150-250 words).
A. assignment from the Wolfram lesson plans
http://www.wolframalpha.com/educators/lessonplans/Gravitational_Acceleration.pdf
Helpful information and specific measurements are provided in the diagram below.
1 meter = 3.2808399 feet (3 feet 3⅜ inches)
Basket Ball Court Design (I hour/ in class or computer lab activity)
Application Activity
Pre-requisites: Students should have been introduced to :
1. Gravitational acceleration
2. Air Resistance
3. Net Force
4. Basic Algebra
Materials:
Computer stations or Laptops with internet Connection
Calculators, pencils and activity sheet
Problem:
Pretend to be a resident in a colony on the moon! The residents decided to build a basket ball court, and assigned you to design the court. The design included:
a. The length and width of the court
b. The height of the hoop
Consider in you design the difference in the gravitational acceleration (gravity).
Use the Interactive Demonstration to help you in your design.
Interactive Demonstration link:
11. What are the advantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
The advantage of this tool is the rich pool of resources that are presented in differentiated methods and levels.
12. What are the disadvantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
The only disadvantage is that I did not see a link to add students. The students need to buy their own membership which is $2.99/month
No comments:
Post a Comment