Hip-hop mathematics

The math conference on October 17,2008 in Eatonton, Georgia was great! I did not have a chance to see everything but hip hop math was one of many interesting technology that we can use in a mathematics classroom to help students learn. The speaker was from Emory University. He was blessed with musical talent and wrote many hip-hop tunes to teach his students math. The Pythagorean Theorem rap was one of my favorites. Another session I saw was practical mathematical projects where students create a graph of car prices vs. age to learn about regression line, slope, x-and y-intercepts and what they mean. For example, the x-intercept means the car is worthless. If the car lies on the line, it's right on the money. If the data point is above the line, the car is too expensive. If the data point is below the line, buying the car is a very good deal. Lessons or projects like so will probably help students retain the knowledge more than simple formulas of a^2 = b^2 + c^2 or m=(y1-y2)/(x1-x2). Did anyone else attend this session or similar sessions? Please share your ideas of using different technologies and projects that students can relate to in a math classroom.

Here are some related examples:

http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/projects/hiphopmath/

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=news/local&id=5366141

Would it be cool if we can get this guy to play a song to motivate some mission impossible lesson?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IXa2pNGVj8

Using technology in mathematics classroom

I still remember when the only way for teachers to teach is a blackboard and white chalk for all my classes. That was what I expect to see every school day. Every now and then we had a project where we had to write something on papers and glue them on a poster, but that was it. There was no variation in instruction method. In my math classes, for example, graphing calculator was the luxury item that not everyone can afford. We can only imagine what a surface look like but can't really visualize it unless there is some pre-made picture on the cover of a book. Now we have geometer's sketchpad, Mathematica, etc. Technology has changed dramatically from a simple calculator to different computer softwares and many interesting features on the internet. The possibilities are endless. I used Power Point to create a simple lesson on probability and I included the newly-learned inspiration concept mapping. The 9th graders in my Math I class loved it! I have never seen this class that I have been observing for about 5 weeks so engaged. There are so many good ideas out there on the internet to make my lessons interesting. I love technology!

A couple other things that I find intrigueing are white board, TI Inspire calculator, podcast, etc. Please reply to this blog and suggest some other technology that could be used to make math instruction more interesting and effective?

I've embedded 2 u-tube videoclips showing how to use Inspiration software and pasted the inspiration slide I used in my probability lesson. Enjoy!

Power-point slide using Inspiration:

HOW TO USE INSPIRATION U-TUBE CLIP 1

HOW TO USE INSPIRATION U-TUBE CLIP 2