Two new Learning Tools available

The Ministry Digital Resources Development team is delighted to announce that two new apps, Money by Mathies and Notepad by Mathies, are now available at the App Store, the Google Play Store and for Desktop.  

Please visit www.mathies.ca/LearningTools.php to access them.  

There is also an email list that you can subscribe to if you would like to receive updates about new resources.  Visit http://oame.on.ca/CLIPS/WhatsNewEmailList.html or click the link at the top of the What’s New dialog inside http://mathclips.ca .

The Money by Mathies app allows students to represent values using realistic coin and bill images provided by the Royal Canadian Mint and the Bank of Canada.

  

The Notepad by Mathies app allows annotations to be made on top of blank, lined, isometric or grid backgrounds.

Supports, including wiki pages with sample screen shots, can be accessed using the i button in each app or from http://mathclips.wikispaces.com/MathCLIPS+Tools . 

Literacy, Student Engagement, Images and TED

Jesse Brown, host of TVO's Search Engine podcast, spoke at the recent TEDxOntarioEd event in London. It is kind of ironic that I listened to this talk on Rodd Lucier's Clever iPod app, given its heavy reliance on visuals. I did this on the same day that I received word that one of our innovative teachers, Lynda Marshall was awarded a Literacy prize from Nipissing University, in part for her work with graphic novels.

One of my former students, David Kennedy, has been working on Bitstrips as well. Bitstrips for Schools is licensed by the Ministry of Education for Ontario's publicly-funded schools.

Enjoy!

Oh Carina

I have been involved with introducing educators to Web 2.0 and have tried to write compelling, serious reasons why they should care about it - and I think those reasons are right. But, a good part of my enjoyment of the web is the finding something delightful that exhibits the best of the human spirit - something remarkably creative or intelligent or funny.

It happened to me this morning just as I was about to delete a post by David Pogue about iPhone apps. I don't own an iPhone. Luckily, I scrolled down. David was writing about the iPhone apps store where users can download apps for $1. His example was an app by Smule called Ocarina. It turns your iPhone into a wind instrument. You blow into the microphone, finger the screen and the speakers play. Here's the demonstration that he mentions:



Not only that, but there is social aspect. Like Wikipedia Vision, you can view a map of the world and listen in on people playing their music anywhere in the world. You can even record your work and view sheet music for the Ocarina.

As a math educator, I get excited about students bringing their Mobile Internet device to school and having access to a wealth of resources and tools (like a CAS graphing calculator!!!). I hadn't really thought about the device giving them a $1 musical instrument to play. There is something oddly full-circle-ish about this. Computers putting stage musicians out of business and then turning everyone into amateur musicians.

I was thinking of this song from Danny Marks, of CBC Radio's Basic Black's feature called the Hum Line, when I wrote the post's title. I was way more excited to meet him last year at Jeff Healey's Roadhouse than he was to meet me.