1 year Anniversary

RealWorldMath.org is celebrating its first year anniversary this month. I was surprised and greatly pleased when the hit counter reached 10,000 in September. This number more than doubled in the next 6 months and is currently climbing towards 40,000. I never imagined it would reach so many people. Another surprise was the feedback I have been getting has been global with comments from Australia, Europe, and other places. Please keep sharing your RealWorldMath experiences with me so that I can know what is working and how I can improve the site.

My regret of the past year is that I haven't had as much time to add lessons to the site as I would like to. Summers are golden for teachers so I hope to do more in a few months. Also, I have not received any lesson submissions or ideas from users. I was hoping that the site would become a community effort, so the lack of this disappoints me. Please try your hand at designing your own Google Earth math lessons or activities and share them with the rest of us.

What does the future hold? I have already added a lesson that uses Vocaroo audio recordings in the placemarks. I am currently working with Xtranormal movie animations and plan on including this in the future as well - perhaps in a set of Google Earth tutorials. So, combining other web tools with Google Earth is the direction I am heading. I am also planning on adding lessons that are more simplified, as some of those currently available may be too complex for the casual user.

Again, thanks for your interest in RealWorldMath. Keep the comments coming. With your involvement, the site can truly grow and evolve into something special.

Video Games vs. Education

While teachers and schools struggle to bring technology into the classroom, children seem to have no shortage of cash or time when it comes to video games. Computer and video games are a multi-billion dollar industry that produces hundreds of new games each year. No doubt, the best and brightest minds are spent in this endeavor so I wonder how it compares to education? How many technology professionals are producing educational software each year? How much money goes towards designing educational products?

No doubt, the video cards are stacked against us. There's no money in education, right? These companies have every right to profit from children and their parents for entertainment dollars. The problem is that our society doesn't put a premium dollar towards education. We have plenty of money for movie tickets, ballgames, amusement parks, DVD's, flat panel TV's, and video games, etc. etc. ... but not enough to spend on a tax increase that would benefit education?

One game, Grand Theft Auto IV, reportedly cost around $100 million to make. Over a thousand people contributed to its creation. If RealWorldMath.org has any redeemable qualities and it was something I could make, then I wonder what the gaming industry could produce?

Below are some facts taken from the Entertainment Software Industry website.

• Sixty-five percent of American households play computer or video games.
• U.S. computer and video game software sales grew six percent in 2007 to $9.5 billion – more than tripling industry software sales since 1996.
• The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing games for 13 years.
• Thirty-six percent of heads of households play games on a wireless device, such as a cell phone or PDA, up from 20 percent in 2002.
• Eighty-five percent of all games sold in 2007 were rated "E" for Everyone, "T" for Teen, or "E10+" for Everyone 10+.
• Ninety-four percent of game players under the age of 18 report that their parents are present when they purchase or rent games.
• Sixty-three percent of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives.

PacMan image taken from http://www.zethama.com/onlinegames/arcade.php

Sail the Seven Seas

Lorraine from Classroom 2.0 has suggested an interesting web activity for students.

Hello,
On the ninth of November, 30 skippers from seven different countries will embark on an epic singlehanded voyage around the world. Skipper Rich Wilson will be the only US sailor in this race. One of his primary purposes of his voyage will be to connect with students and teachers around the world to share this learning experience with them via his http://www.sitesalive.com website where he will post blog entries, photos and videos I have followed Rich on 3 of his previous voyages with my students. The energy and excitement of coming 'on board' for the race has been an incredible learning experience for my students and me. Vincent Mespoulet has set up a Ning so that teachers can join and follow this voyage from across the planet. I invite you to join the Ning and share in the excitement of the Vendee Globe with our teacher at sea, and students and teachers across the globe.
http://horslesmurs.ning.com/group/vendeglobe2008

This event would work nicely with Google Earth. Consider having students plot the skipper's course as he sails around the world!


Skipper Rich Wilson

RWM Tops 10,000

As a person new to web publishing, I am excited and encouraged that the Real World Math website had 10,000+ hits over the summer. While this number may not seem large in relation to other sites, I am pleased that so many people have viewed it in its first four months. I hope a large portion of those visitors are now actually implementing the lessons in their classrooms. As always, any feedback on the website or lesson materials is greatly appreciated.

I am introducing RWM lessons to a new batch of students this year. So far, the students have reacted positively to any effort that takes them outside of their math textbooks. Unfortunately the first lessons normally turn out to be an exercise on synchronizing e-mail accounts. To anyone starting out there, I recommend having your students create a Gmail account specifically for the purpose of receiving and submitting school assignments. As mentioned in the previous post, I have taken the approach of teaching Google Earth skills as part of the first activities. The students have learned how to send Google Earth kmz files via e-mail, create and annotate folders, and draw paths. I am confident this preparation will help to eliminate problems in future lessons.

Good luck with the lessons and keep the hits coming!

Back to School!

Many of us are heading back to school now or soon will be. Hopefully you have been able to become better acquainted with the variety of lessons and activities available in the Real World Math website.

In the first week of school I have my students fill out a technology inventory. I will ask them if they have a computer they can use at home or if they have one they can bring to school. I ask them to rate their experience level with Internet tools such as blogs, wikis, Google Earth, social networks, and e-mail. I'll also ask for their e-mail addresses and give them an e-mail address I'll use for homework. They may want to do likewise and create a new gmail account for submitting their homework. It would be a good idea to test these addresses with a trial correspondence before the first assignment. Not all of the Real World Math lessons require e-mail communication with students - completed work can be submitted on a flash drive, for instance, but e-mail can come in handy for those students who find themselves in a jam.

Now would be a good time to plan out which Real World Math lessons you will be using and when. Personally, I use at least one Google Earth activity each quarter but it depends on the students' abilities. If your students haven't used Google Earth before then it will take some time to get them orientated. The following Real World Math lessons would be good introductory activities to teach beginners Google Earth skills:

• Line Patterns - using the Path tool
• Mazes and Labyrinths - navigating in Google Earth
  
• Estimating Distance - using the Ruler tool
  
• Sierpinski Triangle - managing folders, adding placemarks and drawing paths.

Also keep in mind some of the lessons lend themselves to cross-curricular activities. Coordinate extension activities with the Science, History, and English teachers on your team.

I would love to hear of your experience with the material throughout the year. Please give feedback - the good and the bad - by emailing 4realworldmath@gmail.com

Have a great year!

Updates & Corrections

The Updates page of Real World Math should have some lessons added to it this summer. I have some ideas to work on but I hope to get some of your creations as well. I teach math to middle school students and so most of the material on the website is appropriate for those grades, but I'm sure there's room to grow up and down. Any ideas?

I have used some of the RWM lessons with my students, but not all. I've reloaded some material to correct errors. Please feel free to point out any mistakes you come across - only, can I ask that you do that through the email address (4realworldmath@gmail.com) and not in the comments section of this blog. I'm also learning how to edit Google Earth annotations in html and so I'll be reformatting some of the lessons with that also. Check back to this blog and the Update page of Real World Math for new lessons and posts. Who says teachers have the summers off?

Update: All Google Earth Kmz files for Real World Math have been edited, re-formatted, and re-loaded. Please report any errors. 7/10/08

Genesis 2

One month ago I posted this blog entry on RealWorldMath.org

"Today I am officially throwing my hat in with the growing community of educators that use Instructional Technology. I hope this site will help bring a fresh approach to the way math is taught. Not to be forgotten is the technological skills students will learn and inevitably carry with them in the future. Please support these efforts by recommending the site to at least one other person. Math lessons needn’t be constrained by the pages of a text. I hope this site will show students that math is truly a subject of the real world."

The response to the website has been more than I had hoped for. To date, the site has been visited over 4,600 times and it has received favorable reviews in a number of blogs, webpages, and emails. As you may know, the one problem with the site has been the Community blog page. I built RealWorldMath with iWeb, and the template's blog page has not accepted outside comments. This has troubled me, as collaboration was intended to be an important feature of the site. And so...

The Community blog for RealWorldMath.org will be accomplished here using Blogger.

As always, please offer your comments, critiques, and suggestions in this Blog. If you would like to submit a Google Earth lesson please email it to 4realworldmath@gmail.com for consideration.