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"Prior to any digital learning experience, test-drive the entire operation in advance to work out all the kinks so that valuable learning time is not wasted. "

Vega, V. (2015, December 1). Technology integration research review. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-research-learning-outcomes

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Login or sign up for free on Socrative - your assessment partner for real-time assessments and instant insights.

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Host interactive online meetings | Poll Everywhere

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"Assessing student understanding in real time can be accomplished without technology -- by a show of hands or paper-and-pencil quizzes -- but electronic feedback systems help to accelerate the process, allowing the teacher to gather and respond to data about what students are understanding more quickly and accurately."

Vega, V. (2015, December 1). Technology integration research review. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-research-learning-outcomes

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Fourth Grade Math Skill Builders - interactive sites that reinforce geometry, graphs, data analysis, computation

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Practice skills for 4th grade standardized math tests; resources for number relations, data analysis, graphs, problem solving, computation, geometry, symmetry, fractions, time, money

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When I implement technology, I want to make sure my students are learning and it is truly beneficial.  Which websites for student learning stations will give me the most "bang for my buck?"
When working at learning stations will students have more of an opportunity to play or go on websites that are  inappropriate because I won't be right next to them?
How will I test this in my classroom since I am teaching a split class next year?

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"Access to videos, animations, diagrams, and more make it easy for us to show students what we are talking about instead of just explaining it.  If utilized properly, teachers today have an entire world of tools to engage and involve our students in learning that no other educators in the history of education have ever had.  What a great time to be a teacher!"

Mathis, M. (2015). Technology in the classroom: 5 undeniable reasons to embrace it. Retrieved from http://www.teachhub.com/5-undeniable-reasons-why-educators-should-embrace-technology-classroom

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I plan on studying ways to integrate technology into my 4th grade math curriculum. I want to know if integrating technology will affect my  student achievement. I also want to know how to integrate technology into my math curriculum and the best websites/apps to use.

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Here's how nearly one million teachers use Prodigy in the classroom at no cost!

Help students master math standards with a fun and engaging gameplay experience

Adjust and align Prodigy's in-game math content with your lesson plans

Track student development to decide where to best spend your time

No trial period, no hidden costs for educators. Our optional parent memberships ensure Prodigy stays free for all teachers.

Prodigy for Teachers

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Here's how nearly one million teachers use Prodigy in the classroom at no cost! Help students master math standards with a fun and engaging gameplay experience Adjust and align Prodigy's in-game math content with your lesson plans Track student development to decide where to best spend your time No trial period, no hidden costs for educators.

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A required part of this site couldn’t load. This may be due to a browser extension, network issues, or browser settings. Please check your connection, disable any ad blockers, or try using a different browser.

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Your guide to the best sites for kids on the web.

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Really Good Teachers™ Blog and Forum | A Really Good Stuff® Community

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Math centers are a lot more fun when games are involved. Let your students explore the fun and educational math skills games on these 11 free websites. They encourage practice with everything from sorting and counting to tessellations and fractions. Be sure to print out the free downloadable at the end with all of the sites listed. It is a great resource to hang by your students' computers.
Be sure to check out 11 Free Reading Websites for Kids and 11 Free Science Websites for Kids too!

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Math centers are a lot more fun when games are involved. Let your students explore the fun and educational math skills games on these 11 free websites. They encourage practice with everything from sorting and counting to tessellations and fractions. Be sure to print out the free downloadable at the end with all of the sites listed.

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Educational Hip-Hop Songs & Videos for All Subjects, K-12

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Flocabulary is a library of songs, videos and activities for K-12 online learning. Hundreds of thousands of teachers use Flocabulary’s educational raps and teaching lesson plans to supplement their instruction and engage students. Our team of artists and educators is not only committed to raising test scores, but also to fostering a love of learning in every child.

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"Education is designed to prepare children for the world of college and then on into a career," he said. "The notion that we're going to do that without using technology is pretty crazy."

Linik, J. (2015, September 25). Integrating technology in the classroom. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2015-09-technology-classroom.html

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Ways to use Technology to Improve Learning!

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Ways to use Technology to Improve Learning!

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Teachers are at the forefront of kids' educational experiences, and it's now incumbent on them, as well as parents and school administrators, to provide children with the guidance and technical skills they need to succeed in their connected future. Through the use of technology as both a learning tool and a subject matter discipline in and of itself, there are a number of new ways that teachers can inspire kids to learn. Here are 10 ways to use education technology to promote enhanced classroom learning:

Embrace Connected Learning - The concept of "Connected Learning" is at the center of a new theory that champions say "is a model of learning that holds out the possibility of re-imagining the experience of education in the Information Age" that draws on "the power of today's technology to fuse young people's interests, friendships and academic achievement." According to Dr. Mizuko Ito, a leader in the field of Connected Learning and a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and cultural anthropologist of technology use, examples of Connected Learning are when a teacher may ask a student to do a report on their favorite video game, or if a kid who likes to draw on the computer creates the signs and banners for a classroom party.

Share Content Online - Whether it's posting videos to a private channel for class members and parents to see, using Google Docs to share materials so students can collaborate on a shared project, or posting homework assignments to a class website for everyone to access, using technology as a tool demands a base level of proficiency from students that they'll need to continue to build on.

Have Fun with Twitter - For classes with kids over 13, consider using Twitter to contact well-known personalities or to create hashtags about a relevant classroom topic and see if you can spawn participation from external parties. You may be surprised at just how much support and interest your students can garner from the community at large, or who's happy to hear from them - all of which reveal how the power to make valuable new contacts and influence the world is often waiting just one click away.

Use Video Chats - Use videoconferencing solutions such as Skype to connect with faraway experts or other classrooms for an online meeting via webcam, letting children share their experiences, make new friends around the world, and engage in distance learning. All provide opportunities to teach your kids basic rules and etiquette for teleconferencing online, such as when and how it's okay to connect, as well as how to act when you're on camera, especially if sessions are being taped or recorded.

Create a Class Blog or Wiki - Encourage kids to respond to in-class lessons or current events and topics, and devise a system for posting thoughts, news or impressions of them to a class blog or Wiki. Kids will love improving their creative writing skills and seeing their work appear online, and parents will love being able to feel more connected to the classroom. As the school year progresses, it's often great fun to watch a class' page fill up with posts and discussions, and see kids, parents, and educators engage in more frequent and ongoing dialogue.

Put Together a Podcast - Have your class take turns reading passages from a book, or schedule and record a discussion point based on your curriculum or a specific topic. Not only will you show kids how easy it is to broadcast thoughts to the world, but also provide handy references - e.g. recordings of recent lessons - if they or future students would ever like to go back and review them.

Use Pinterest - Create a private board on Pinterest to share snapshots of classroom activities, projects, and field trips, or encourage parents to connect and find ways to help show their support for the classroom. Pinterest is a great, visual medium with lots of creative ideas that can encourage kids to share insights into their world and try new projects, and give parents an easy way to share recipes, photos, and other fun pick-me-ups or supplements to current class projects.

Create Interactive Maps - Whether it's marking locations of family trips, tracking the progress of Flat Stanley with the official App or simply identifying state capitals, consider using an interactive map to which children can pin their thoughts or exploits. These tools may also offer multimedia elements such as photos, videos and street-level views, so kids can discover fun facts about faraway places or get an up-close look at distant locales discussed during geography lessons.

Harness the Power of Excel - If working with kids on a mathematical or budgeting exercise, have them work with a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel to promote understanding of both simple and complex calculations, as well as how such tools can be used to enhance productivity. You may be surprised at how well basic financial planning concepts take when you focus on real-world scenarios - e.g. saving for desirable items like iPads or new cars - and break down what level of earning, savings, and credit it may take to purchase each using formulas that kids help create.

Promote Greater Good - If there's an international, national or even local need for charitable donations or disaster relief, classrooms can use online tools to solicit and track charitable donations, or spread awareness for these causes. Sites like FirstGiving or Pledgie can help teachers use technology as a complement to cause-based learning. Helping kids create social awareness, all show how high-tech solutions can be used as a tool for kindness, understanding, and good.

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Technology for Teaching: 10 Ways to Improve Classroom Learning

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Teachers are at the forefront of kids' educational experiences, and it's now incumbent on them, as well as parents and school administrators, to provide children with the guidance and technical skills they need to succeed in their connected future.

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"Most educational technology experts agree, however, that technology should be integrated, not as a separate subject or as a once-in-a-while project, but as a tool to promote and extend student learning on a daily basis. The challenge, of course, is in finding ways to use technology -- and to help students use it -- that don't take time away from core subjects."

Starr, L (2016). Integrating technology in the classroom: it takes more than just having computers. Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech146.shtml

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"This is such a dynamic class," Ms. Furman says of her 21st-century classroom. "I really hope it works."

Hope and enthusiasm are soaring here. But not test scores.

Since 2005, scores in reading and math have stagnated in Kyrene, even as statewide scores have risen.

To be sure, test scores can go up or down for many reasons. But to many education experts, something is not adding up - here and across the country. In a nutshell: schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning.

This conundrum calls into question one of the most significant contemporary educational movements. Advocates for giving schools a major technological upgrade - which include powerful educators, Silicon Valley titans and White House appointees - say digital devices let students learn at their own pace, teach skills needed in a modern economy and hold the attention of a generation weaned on gadgets.

Some backers of this idea say standardized tests, the most widely used measure of student performance, don't capture the breadth of skills that computers can help develop. But they also concede that for now there is no better way to gauge the educational value of expensive technology investments.

"The data is pretty weak. It's very difficult when we're pressed to come up with convincing data," said Tom Vander Ark, the former executive director for education at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and an investor in educational technology companies. When it comes to showing results, he said, "We better put up or shut up."

And yet, in virtually the same breath, he said change of a historic magnitude is inevitably coming to classrooms this decade: "It's one of the three or four biggest things happening in the world today."

Critics counter that, absent clear proof, schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills - like using PowerPoint and multimedia tools - at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals. They say the technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later.

The spending push comes as schools face tough financial choices. In Kyrene, for example, even as technology spending has grown, the rest of the district's budget has shrunk, leading to bigger classes and fewer periods of music, art and physical education.

At the same time, the district's use of technology has earned it widespread praise. It is upheld as a model of success by the National School Boards Association, which in 2008 organized a visit by 100 educators from 17 states who came to see how the district was innovating.

And the district has banked its future and reputation on technology. Kyrene, which serves 18,000 kindergarten to eighth-grade students, mostly from the cities of Tempe, Phoenix and Chandler, uses its computer-centric classes as a way to attract children from around the region, shoring up enrollment as its local student population shrinks. More students mean more state dollars.

The issue of tech investment will reach a critical point in November. The district plans to go back to local voters for approval of $46.3 million more in taxes over seven years to allow it to keep investing in technology. That represents around 3.5 percent of the district's annual spending, five times what it spends on textbooks.

The district leaders' position is that technology has inspired students and helped them grow, but that there is no good way to quantify those achievements - putting them in a tough spot with voters deciding whether to bankroll this approach again.

"My gut is telling me we've had growth," said David K. Schauer, the superintendent here. "But we have to have some measure that is valid, and we don't have that."

It gives him pause.

"We've jumped on bandwagons for different eras without knowing fully what we're doing. This might just be the new bandwagon," he said. "I hope not."
A Dearth of Proof
The pressure to push technology into the classroom without proof of its value has deep roots.

In 1997, a science and technology committee assembled by President Clinton issued an urgent call about the need to equip schools with technology.

If such spending was not increased by billions of dollars, American competitiveness could suffer, according to the committee, whose members included educators like Charles M. Vest, then president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and business executives like John A. Young, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard.

To support its conclusion, the committee's report cited the successes of individual schools that embraced computers and saw test scores rise or dropout rates fall. But while acknowledging that the research on technology's impact was inadequate, the committee urged schools to adopt it anyhow.

The report's final sentence read: "The panel does not, however, recommend that the deployment of technology within America's schools be deferred pending the completion of such research."

Since then, the ambitions of those who champion educational technology have grown - from merely equipping schools with computers and instructional software, to putting technology at the center of the classroom and building the teaching around it.

Kyrene had the same sense of urgency as President Clinton's committee when, in November 2005, it asked voters for an initial $46.3 million for laptops, classroom projectors, networking gear and other technology for teachers and administrators.

Before that, the district had given 300 elementary school teachers five laptops each. Students and teachers used them with great enthusiasm, said Mark Share, the district's 64-year-old director of technology, a white-bearded former teacher from the Bronx with an iPhone clipped to his belt.

"If we know something works, why wait?" Mr. Share told The Arizona Republic the month before the vote. The district's pitch was based not on the idea that test scores would rise, but that technology represented the future.

The measure, which faced no organized opposition, passed overwhelmingly. It means that property owners in the dry, sprawling flatlands here, who live in apartment complexes, cookie-cutter suburban homes and salmon-hued mini-mansions, pay on average $75 more a year in taxes, depending on the assessed value of their homes, according to the district.

But the proof sought by President Clinton's committee remains elusive even today, though researchers have been seeking answers.

Many studies have found that technology has helped individual classrooms, schools or districts. For instance, researchers found that writing scores improved for eighth-graders in Maine after they were all issued laptops in 2002. The same researchers, from the University of Southern Maine, found that math performance picked up among seventh- and eighth-graders after teachers in the state were trained in using the laptops to teach.

A question plaguing many education researchers is how to draw broader inferences from such case studies, which can have serious limitations. For instance, in the Maine math study, it is hard to separate the effect of the laptops from the effect of the teacher training.

Educators would like to see major trials years in length that clearly demonstrate technology's effect. But such trials are extraordinarily difficult to conduct when classes and schools can be so different, and technology is changing so quickly.

And often the smaller studies produce conflicting results. Some classroom studies show that math scores rise among students using instructional software, while others show that scores actually fall. The high-level analyses that sum up these various studies, not surprisingly, give researchers pause about whether big investments in technology make sense.

One broad analysis of laptop programs like the one in Maine, for example, found that such programs are not a major factor in student performance.

"Rather than being a cure-all or silver bullet, one-to-one laptop programs may simply amplify what's already occurring - for better or worse," wrote Bryan Goodwin, spokesman for Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, a nonpartisan group that did the study, in an essay. Good teachers, he said, can make good use of computers, while bad teachers won't, and they and their students could wind up becoming distracted by the technology.

A review by the Education Department in 2009 of research on online courses - which more than one million K-12 students are taking - found that few rigorous studies had been done and that policy makers "lack scientific evidence" of their effectiveness.. A division of the Education Department that rates classroom curriculums has found that much educational software is not an improvement over textbooks.

Larry Cuban, an education professor emeritus at Stanford University, said the research did not justify big investments by districts.

"There is insufficient evidence to spend that kind of money. Period, period, period," he said. "There is no body of evidence that shows a trend line."

Some advocates for technology disagree.

Karen Cator, director of the office of educational technology in the United States Department of Education, said standardized test scores were an inadequate measure of the value of technology in schools. Ms. Cator, a former executive at Apple Computer, said that better measurement tools were needed but, in the meantime, schools knew what students needed.

"In places where we've had a large implementing of technology and scores are flat, I see that as great," she said. "Test scores are the same, but look at all the other things students are doing: learning to use the Internet to research, learning to organize their work, learning to use professional writing tools, learning to collaborate with others."

For its part, Kyrene has become a model to many by training teachers to use technology and getting their ideas on what inspires them. As Mr. Share says in the signature file at the bottom of every e-mail he sends: "It's not the stuff that counts - it's what you do with it that matters."

So people here are not sure what to make of the stagnant test scores. Many of the district's schools, particularly those in more affluent areas, already had relatively high scores, making it a challenge to push them significantly higher. A jump in students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches was largely a result of the recession, not a shift in the population the district serves, said Nancy Dundenhoefer, its community relations manager.

Mr. Share, whose heavy influence on more than $7 million a year in technology spending has made him a power broker, said he did not think demographic changes were a good explanation.

"You could argue that test scores would be lower without the technology, but that's a copout," he said, adding that the district should be able to deliver some measure of what he considers its obvious success with technology. "It's a conundrum."

Results aside, it's easy to see why technology is such an easy sell here, given the enthusiasm surrounding it in some classrooms.
Engaging With Paper
"I start with pens and pencils," says Ms. Furman, 41, who is short and bubbly and devours young-adult novels to stay in touch with students. Her husband teaches eighth grade in the district, and their son and daughter are both students.

At the beginning of the school year, Ms. Furman tries to inspire her students at Aprende Middle School to write, a task she says becomes increasingly difficult when students reach the patently insecure middle-school years.

In one class in 2009 she had them draw a heart on a piece of paper. Inside the heart, she asked them to write the names of things and people dear to them. One girl started to cry, then another, as the class shared their stories.

It was something Ms. Furman doubted would have happened if the students had been using computers. "There is a connection between the physical hand on the paper and the words on the page," she said. "It's intimate."

But, she said, computers play an important role in helping students get their ideas down more easily, edit their work so they can see instant improvement, and share it with the class. She uses a document camera to display a student's paper at the front of the room for others to dissect.

Ms. Furman said the creative and editing tools, by inspiring students to make quick improvements to their writing, pay dividends in the form of higher-quality work. Last year, 14 of her students were chosen as finalists in a statewide essay contest that asked them how literature had affected their lives. "I was running down the hall, weeping, saying, 'Get these students together. We need to tell them they've won!' "

Other teachers say the technology is the only way to make this generation learn.

"They're inundated with 24/7 media, so they expect it," said Sharon Smith, 44, a gregarious seventh-grade social studies teacher whose classroom is down the hall from Ms. Furman's.

Minutes earlier, Ms. Smith had taught a Civil War lesson in a way unimaginable even 10 years ago. With the lights off, a screen at the front of the room posed a question: "Jefferson Davis was Commander of the Union Army: True or False?"

The 30 students in the classroom held wireless clickers into which they punched their answers. Seconds later, a pie chart appeared on the screen: 23 percent answered "True," 70 percent "False," and 6 percent didn't know.

The students hooted and hollered, reacting to the instant poll. Ms. Smith then drew the students into a conversation about the answers.

The enthusiasm underscores a key argument for investing in classroom technology: student engagement.

That idea is central to the National Education Technology Plan released by the White House last year, which calls for the "revolutionary transformation" of schools. The plan endorses bringing "state-of-the art technology into learning to enable, motivate and inspire all students."

But the research, what little there is of it, does not establish a clear link between computer-inspired engagement and learning, said Randy Yerrick, associate dean of educational technology at the University of Buffalo.

For him, the best educational uses of computers are those that have no good digital equivalent. As examples, he suggests using digital sensors in a science class to help students observe chemical or physical changes, or using multimedia tools to reach disabled children.

But he says engagement is a "fluffy term" that can slide past critical analysis. And Professor Cuban at Stanford argues that keeping children engaged requires an environment of constant novelty, which cannot be sustained.

"There is very little valid and reliable research that shows the engagement causes or leads to higher academic achievement," he said.
Instruct or Distract?
There are times in Kyrene when the technology seems to allow students to disengage from learning: They are left at computers to perform a task but wind up playing around, suggesting, as some researchers have found, that computers can distract and not instruct.

The 23 kindergartners in Christy Asta's class at Kyrene de las Brisas are broken into small groups, a common approach in Kyrene. A handful stand at desks, others sit at computers, typing up reports.

Xavier Diaz, 6, sits quietly, chair pulled close to his Dell laptop, playing "Alien Addition." In this math arcade game, Xavier controls a pod at the bottom of the screen that shoots at spaceships falling from the sky. Inside each ship is a pair of numbers. Xavier's goal is to shoot only the spaceship with numbers that are the sum of the number inside his pod.

But Xavier is just shooting every target in sight. Over and over. Periodically, the game gives him a message: "Try again." He tries again.

"Even if he doesn't get it right, it's getting him to think quicker," says the teacher, Ms. Asta. She leans down next to him: "Six plus one is seven. Click here." She helps him shoot the right target. "See, you shot him."

Perhaps surprisingly given the way young people tend to gravitate toward gadgets, students here seem divided about whether they prefer learning on computers or through more traditional methods.

In a different class, Konray Yuan and Marisa Guisto, both 7, take turns touching letters on the interactive board on the wall. They are playing a spelling game, working together to spell the word "cool." Each finds one of the letters in a jumbled grid, touching them in the proper order.

Marisa says there isn't a difference between learning this way and learning on paper. Konray prefers paper, he says, because you get extra credit for good penmanship.

But others, particularly older students, say they enjoy using the technology tools. One of Ms. Furman's students, Julia Schroder, loved building a blog to write about Shakespeare's "As You Like It."

In another class, she and several classmates used a video camera to film a skit about Woodrow Wilson's 14-point speech during World War I - an approach she preferred to speaking directly to the class.

"I'd be pretty bummed if I had to do a live thing," she said. "It's nerve-racking."
Teachers vs. Tech
Even as students are getting more access to computers here, they are getting less access to teachers.

Reflecting budget cuts, class sizes have crept up in Kyrene, as they have in many places. For example, seventh-grade classes like Ms. Furman's that had 29 to 31 students grew to more like 31 to 33.

"You can't continue to be effective if you keep adding one student, then one student, then one student," Ms. Furman said. "I'm surprised parents aren't going into the classrooms saying 'Whoa.' "

Advocates of high-tech classrooms say computers are not intended to replace teachers. But they do see a fundamental change in the teacher's role. Their often-cited mantra is that teachers should go from being "a sage on the stage to a guide on the side."

And they say that, technology issues aside, class sizes can in fact afford to grow without hurting student performance.

Professor Cuban at Stanford said research showed that student performance did not improve significantly until classes fell under roughly 15 students, and did not get much worse unless they rose above 30.

At the same time, he says bigger classes can frustrate teachers, making it hard to attract and retain talented ones.

In Kyrene, growing class sizes reflect spending cuts; the district's maintenance and operation budget fell to $95 million this year from $106 million in 2008. The district cannot use the money designated for technology to pay for other things. And the teachers, who make roughly $33,000 to $57,000 a year, have not had a raise since 2008.

Many teachers have second jobs, some in restaurants and retail, said Erin Kirchoff, president of the Kyrene Education Association, the teacher's association. Teachers talk of being exhausted from teaching all day, then selling shoes at the mall.

Ms. Furman works during the summer at the Kyrene district offices. But that job is being eliminated in 2014, and she is worried about the income loss.

"Without it, we don't go on vacation," she said.

Money for other things in the district is short as well. Many teachers say they regularly bring in their own supplies, like construction paper.

"We have Smart Boards in every classroom but not enough money to buy copy paper, pencils and hand sanitizer," said Nicole Cates, a co-president of the Parent Teacher Organization at Kyrene de la Colina, an elementary school. "You don't go buy a new outfit when you don't have enough dinner to eat."

But she loves the fact that her two children, a fourth-grader and first-grader, are learning technology, including PowerPoint and educational games.

To some who favor high-tech classrooms, the resource squeeze presents an opportunity. Their thinking is that struggling schools will look for more efficient ways to get the job done, creating an impetus to rethink education entirely.

"Let's hope the fiscal crisis doesn't get better too soon. It'll slow down reform," said Tom Watkins, the former superintendent for the Michigan schools, and now a consultant to businesses in the education sector.

Clearly, the push for technology is to the benefit of one group: technology companies.
The Sellers
It is 4:30 a.m. on a Tuesday. Mr. Share, the director of technology at Kyrene and often an early riser, awakens to the hard sell. Awaiting him at his home computer are six pitches from technology companies.

It's just another day for the man with the checkbook.

"I get one pitch an hour," he said. He finds most of them useless and sometimes galling: "They're mostly car salesmen. I think they believe in the product they're selling, but they don't have a leg to stand on as to why the product is good or bad."

Mr. Share bases his buying decisions on two main factors: what his teachers tell him they need, and his experience. For instance, he said he resisted getting the interactive whiteboards sold as Smart Boards until, one day in 2008, he saw a teacher trying to mimic the product with a jury-rigged projector setup.

"It was an 'Aha!' moment," he said, leading him to buy Smart Boards, made by a company called Smart Technologies.

He can make that kind of decision because he has money - and the vendors know it. Technology companies track which districts get federal funding and which have passed tax assessments for technology, like Kyrene.

This is big business. Sales of computer software to schools for classroom use were $1.89 billion in 2010. Spending on hardware is more difficult to measure, researchers say, but some put the figure at five times that amount.

The vendors relish their relationship with Kyrene.

"I joke I should have an office here, I'm here so often," said Will Dunham, a salesman for CCS Presentation Systems, a leading reseller of Smart Boards in Arizona.

Last summer, the district paid $500,000 to CCS to replace ceiling-hung projectors in 400 classrooms. The alternative was to spend $100,000 to replace their aging bulbs, which Mr. Share said were growing dimmer, causing teachers to sometimes have to turn down the lights to see a crisp image.

Mr. Dunham said the purchase made sense because new was better. "I could take a used car down to the mechanic and get it all fixed up and still have a used car."

But Ms. Kirchoff, the president of the teachers' association, is furious. "My projector works just fine," she said. "Give me Kleenex, Kleenex, Kleenex!"
The Parents
Last November, Kyrene went back to voters to ask them to pay for another seven years of technology spending in the district. The previous measure from 2005 will not expire for two years. But the district wanted to get ahead of the issue, and leave wiggle room just in case the new measure didn't pass.

It didn't. It lost by 96 votes out of nearly 50,000 cast. Mr. Share and others here said they attributed the failure to poor wording on the ballot that made it look like a new tax increase, rather than the continuation of one.

They say they will not make the same wording mistake this time. And they say the burden on taxpayers is modest.

"It's so much bang for the buck," said Jeremy Calles, Kyrene's interim chief financial officer. For a small investment, he said, "we get state-of-the-art technology."

Regardless, some taxpayers have already decided that they will not vote yes.

"When you look at the big picture, it's hard to say 'yes, spend more on technology' when class sizes increase," said Kameron Bybee, 34, who has two children in district schools. "The district has made up its mind to go forward with the technologically advanced path. Come hell or high water."

Other parents feel conflicted. Eduarda Schroder, 48, whose daughter Julia was in Ms. Furman's English class, worked on the political action committee last November to push through an extension of the technology tax. Computers, she says, can make learning more appealing. But she's also concerned that test scores haven't gone up.

She says she is starting to ask a basic question. "Do we really need technology to learn?" she said. "It's a very valid time to ask the question, right before this goes on the ballot."

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Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value

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"This is such a dynamic class," Ms. Furman says of her 21st-century classroom. "I really hope it works." Hope and enthusiasm are soaring here. But not test scores. Since 2005, scores in reading and math have stagnated in Kyrene, even as statewide scores have risen.

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Professional Development Guide to Implement Technology

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Professional Development Guide to Implement Technology

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Edutopia.org's Technology Integration professional development guide is meant for use either after completion of the Project-Based Learning Guide or with participants who are familiar with project-based learning. The guide is designed for a two- to three-hour class or session. It can be used in conjunction with trainings on technology used in classroom settings.

Part one is a guided process, designed to give participants a brief introduction to technology integration. It answers the questions "Why is technology integration important?" and "What is technology integration?"

The Resources for Tech Integration page includes a PowerPoint presentation (including presenter notes), which can be shown directly from the website or downloaded for use as a stand-alone slide show, and sample session schedules. You will also find recommended websites, books, and additional videos to learn more about technology integration in this section.

This guide was designed to address many of the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS), established by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

To find the specific standards for your state, visit this page at Education World that lists standards by academic subject and by state.

Continue to the next section of the guide, Why Do We Need to Integrate Technology?

Acknowledgments: This module was written by technology-integration specialist Marian Shaffner. The Foundation extends its thanks to the following people who reviewed this module for content and usability: Peggy Benton, PhD, professor, former PT3 grant director and adviser, Department of Instructional Technologies, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California; Patsy Lanclos, Apple Distinguished Educator, Smithsonian Laureate, Palm Education training coordinator/provider, Houston, Texas; Mimi Bisson, PT3 grant technology trainer, Department of Instructional Technologies, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California; Elaine Wrenn, technology coordinator, Echo Horizon School, Culver City, California.

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Technology Integration Professional Development Guide | Edutopia

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Edutopia.org's Technology Integration professional development guide is meant for use either after completion of the Project-Based Learning Guide or with participants who are familiar with project-based learning. The guide is designed for a two- to three-hour class or session. It can be used in conjunction with trainings on technology used in classroom settings.

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4th grade apps & online games for representing the value of the digit in…

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Math teachers: This is for you. Here are some great suggestions from efriend and math afficionado, Matt Kim:

***

Before I was ever a high school math teacher, I was always a hardcore technophile. As long as I can remember, technology has been one of those things that have caught my interest no matter what my current job title was at that time. It makes sense that when Jacqui and I were talking about popular tech tools and ways to bring tech into the k-12 math class, I had a lot to share and get excited about and jumped at the opportunity to write this post. It really is an exciting time for technology in education and the tools available to us to use today in our math classes is no exception. Just a disclaimer though, I am a high school math teacher, so a few of the tech-tools I reference in this post belong mostly in a secondary math classroom, but with a little elbow grease and ingenuity, there are ways to fit them into any K-12 math curriculum as well. For the most part, these are just great ways to incorporate tech in your math classroom so feel free to give them a try!

1. If you're a math teacher and have never heard of Desmos, you've been either living under a rock or need to upgrade your math-teacher game pronto. While TI calculators are still ubiquitous and useful especially when working in higher math classes like Trigonometry or Calculus, Desmos is an online graphic calculator that can do everything the $100+ TI calculators can do and more (and did I mention it's free?). If you are teaching in a 1-to-1 device classroom, the Desmos team has done an exceptional job in bringing math education into the 21st century. Desmos has created an activity builder that teachers can use to build interactive lessons that students can do on their own tablet or Chromebook devices while the teacher monitors student work in real time. What's more, they have curated the best lessons into a comprehensive library of lessons that are free for teachers to use as well! Check out teacher.desmos.com to create your own activities or use some of the featured lessons already there.

2. Geogebra is very similar to Desmos in that it harnesses the computing power of classroom devices (tablets or Chromebooks) to do things that required a $100 device to do before. In a nutshell, Geogebra is a program that you can run in a web browser or a standalone app that can you can use to demonstrate math concepts in graphical representations. I have to be honest, it can be a little too technical to use for the average user, (or at least it was for me). The interface isn't as intuitive as the Desmos activity builder, but the good news is that they have a library of 400k+ lessons that you can search from and so I didn't really have much of a problem finding a lesson someone else had programmed and found a way to fit it into my lesson. Even if you don't have a 1-to-1 device classroom, there are a lot of great examples in the Geogebra library that you can project in front of your class to demonstrate an otherwise abstract mathematical concept and have a great class discussion about what they are observing.

3. On the surface, the idea behind Nearpod isn't very groundbreaking or unique in any sense. Nearpod is described as a mobile app that allows teachers to create and share interactive multimedia presentations in 1-to-1 device classrooms. I once heard a colleague describe it to me as a very fancy PowerPoint presentation, but in my opinion, that is an overly simplistic description of it. Yes, the lessons are built around a presentation platform, but Nearpod does a good job of incorporating interactive elements like polls, question and response, the ability to draw on screen, and so much more. What's more, they have a fantastic library of lessons created by teachers who use Nearpod in their own classrooms. If you're a particularly enterprising teacher, they are currently accepting applications to become a Nearpod author where you can create and sell lessons on the Nearpod platform to earn some supplementary income. Although this list is specifically being written for a math classroom, the nice thing about Nearpod is that they have a library of lessons that covers other subjects as well like ELA, Science, Social Studies, and even Digital Citizenship.

4. Let me start off by saying that of all the recommendations on this list, I am fairly confident that Kahoot will easily be the most popular learning tool you use with your students. Why? Well, because Kahoot is a powerful educational tool (backed by a lot of good research) in the guise of a VERY addicting game format that you can play as an entire class. The basic premise behind Kahoot is fairly simple: Teachers create a series of multiple choice questions that are projected on the screen while the students answer those questions on their own devices. The game element comes into play because after every question, the top ranking participants are displayed before moving onto the next question which really ramps up the competitive spirit in almost every classroom I have seen use Kahoot. One of the really great things about Kahoot is that it is extremely easy to set up and students do not need to create an account to participate. All they have to do is navigate to the Kahoot website, input the code for the quiz that the teacher provides, and they're off to the races. As a high school math teacher, I have used Kahoot in my classes more times than I can count, but so has my wife who is a first grade teacher, and it works just as well there as well!

5. As its name suggests, Formative is an online tool that teachers can use to create formative assessments (you see what they did there?) and make it super easy for teachers to instantly gather student data on any given subject. The real power behind Formative is in its ability to convert any PDF or Word document into an interactive assignment that you can give to your students, have them do it on their devices, monitor their progress in real time, and give feedback to them instantly. This really cuts down on the feedback loop for students because instead of waiting a few days for the assignment to come back to them corrected (if at all), the teacher can give feedback almost instantaneously as the assignments are turned in. If you're like me and have entire file cabinets of old worksheets in PDF or Word formats, Formative is a great way to breathe a second life into those worksheets and turn them into interactive lessons that you can assign to students.

6. Google Apps For Education (GAFE) is another one of those tools that you are either using currently, or eventually will use in the near future thanks to the ubiquitous nature of all things Google. I have worked in 3 different school districts in my career as a teacher and GAFE has been rolled out in all 3 of those districts at some point in my time at each of those districts. To be quite honest, it's really easy to overlook the usefulness of GAFE as there's nothing ground breaking about most of the apps provided in the suite. You have Google Slides which is an online presentation tool in the vein of PowerPoint, Google Documents which is essentially an online word processor, and also Google Sheets is an online spreadsheet app very much like Microsoft Excel. However, GAFE also provides apps like Google Classroom which allow you to organize your students into classes, assign assignments, create assessments using Google Forms, etc. In fact, there is so much functionality built into GAFE that they offer certifications to become a Google Certified Educator, and even have entire conferences called GAFE Summits that teachers can attend to receive training on the latest developments in the world of GAFE. What's more, some rockstar teachers like Alice Keeler have entire websites built around GAFE explaining the functionality usefulness of those apps in the classroom.

The next four recommendations are not necessarily tools to use with your students, but they are tech tools that will definitely enhance your teaching practice in a way that just wasn't possible until fairly recently.

1. Twitter is probably one of the most misunderstood tech tools available to teachers today. It's misunderstood because its widely hailed as a social media tool, but no one bothers to explain why and how to use Twitter effectively as a teacher. I won't bother to explain it in too much detail because I wrote a much longer piece on my thoughts about why teachers should twitter, but I will say that Twitter is probably the single most powerful way for teachers to network and communicate with other educators around the world in real time to share thoughts, lesson ideas, and inspiration to improve their own practice as a teacher. Also, since this is a list specifically for math teachers, there is a special Twitter hashtag, #MTBoS, which is an acronym for Math Twitter Blog oS phere which has grown to become one of the largest and most vibrant Twitter communities with literally thousands of math teachers contributing, and having discussions about their math classes on a daily basis. This really is an invaluable resource for math teachers if you know how to use it.

2. CoffeeEDU is an idea started by Alice Keeler (who makes her second appearance already on this list) and the basic idea behind this is to organize educators to meet in a physical location to hold an "un-conference" which means that the meeting should be an impromptu, unscripted, conversation style meeting that is as unrelated to a presentation style professional development as possible. There are a whole bunch of guidelines that Alice has taken the time to put together so please go check them out at the link posted above. While this isn't necessarily a tech tool, I will say that I have been to two CoffeeEDUs in my area and at both meetings, people made recommendations about tech tools and websites that I had never heard of. Oh, and it was just plain fun actually meeting and network with some educators in my area that I would not have had the opportunity to meet if it weren't for gatherings like this.

3. Start your own blog

If you don't have your own blog already, you should start your own teaching blog as soon as possible. Without exaggeration, blogging has transformed my teaching practice more than any single tool or resource listed on this post. Blogging allows you to metacognitively reflect on your lessons, write about what went right and what went wrong on any given lesson, share ideas with other teachers, and just provide yourself with a place to record your thoughts. One of my favorite things to do is look back on my past blog posts and see how far I've come as a teacher. It is both humbling and enlightening at the same time and easily the most important tech tool I have in my teacher's bag of tricks.

4. Read and follow other teacher's blogs

Every single one of the tools I have mentioned above have come from my reading other math teacher's blogs and digging through the veritable treasure troves of information that they shared with the Internet for free. Here're just a few of the teachers I follow and recommend for you to follow as well (in no particular order):

These are just a few of the teachers that started me on the path towards blogging and there are many more that I wanted to put on this list, but this is a good place to start. You should start your own list of teacher/bloggers to follow and contribute to the growing community of math teachers on the internet as well!

"Matthew is a husband, father of two, a lover of all things pizza, and a high school math teacher (not necessarily in that order). He's a big believer in incorporating as much tech in his lessons as possible and preparing his students to be 21st-century learners. You can find him at Tips4Teachers.net where he blogs about education and his personal blog, Mathmattics.com."
More tech resources about math
Math bundle of lesson plans

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Math teachers: This is for you. Here are some great suggestions from efriend and math afficionado, Matt Kim: *** Before I was ever a high school math teacher, I was always a hardcore technophile. As long as I can remember, technology has been one of those things that have caught my interest no matter what my current job title was at that time.

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Ideas for Resources to Implement in my Math Classroom

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Ideas for Resources to Implement in my Math Classroom

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Keeping students engaged and excited about math class can be a tall order. However, with the many advances in technology, it is much easier to make math lessons fun. In addition, technology can also make the math teacher's job a lot easier by providing pre-made activities, options for differentiating and even helping with pre- and post- assessments (including grading!).

The following is a list of different resources to help both new and veteran teachers make math class a whole lot more fun for students. Best of all, most of these resources are free! You should find materials that can be printed, ideas for activities to use in your classroom and even blogs with tips from teachers around the country to help you build your perfect learning environment.

Materials

Here is a look at the many different items that you can use in your classroom to make math class more engaging for students and easier for you. These items range in cost, but there's something here for everyone (no matter your budget).

"Make personal student white boards just by laminating cardstock."

White Boards. For those of you on a budget, you can make personal student white boards just by laminating cardstock. A dry-erase marker and a piece of tissue is a great way to get students more involved in the classroom while also allowing teachers to assess student learning throughout the class period. There is no easier way of determining if your students are getting the main concepts from the lesson than being able to see their work on their own white boards. If you have a little more money in the budget, you can get a sturdier white board at your local home improvement store. Ask for "white panel board." Most home improvement centers will even cut larger sheets into smaller pieces for you. You will leave with a class set of white boards for less than $50.

Interactive White Boards. Some of you might know these interactive white boards as "promethean boards" or "smart boards." These are the next step up from the old-school overhead projectors. Best of all, you will no longer need transparencies! You can connect the white board to a computer and share documents, websites and even play games. With a large touch screen, students will be excited to come up to the white board to help complete notes, do examples or take part in one of the many interactive games and demonstrations that can be used.

Tablets. A tablet can act as a personalized interactive white board. Instead of one large white board on the wall for the whole class to use, each student can have a touch screen right in the palm of his or her hands. The best feature of tablets is that they allow for customized learning. Ever wondered how you could possibly differentiate your lessons for all the different types of learners in your class? Tablets are the way to go. Students can work at a pace that suits them, and still be learning.

Clickers. Clickers allow every student to feel like he or she is on a game show. Clickers, when used wisely, can keep students engaged during a lesson, help promote discussion and also give the teacher instant feedback on student comprehension.

Graphing Calculators. The graphing calculator has come a long way. Some calculators can now be connected to the teacher's calculator, the interactive white board, the computer or other technology. The graphing calculator can give students an amazing tool for seeing math come to life. Many models can also work as clickers.

Printable Stuff. A teacher's time is a precious commodity, and saving time on the little things is critical when teaching. The Cornerstone offers many free items that can be printed directly from the website, including customizable flash cards, awards and even specialized forms for just about any school occasion. You will not have to recreate the wheel; instead, just print what you need.

Practice Drills. Sometimes students need practice to become fluent in their math skills. Practice drills, or "mad minutes," can be a quick and easy way to provide students with the practice they need. You can design your own practice drills, or if you'd like to save time, simply print some of these pre-made items.

You can find tons of drills already made at Math-Drills.com.

Donna Young also has pre-made practice sheets on her website as well.

Manipulatives

Manipulatives make learning mathematical concepts fun and engaging for students. However, buying supplies for the classroom can get expensive, and you can't always expect to be reimbursed. Therefore, you may want to create some of the manipulatives yourself. Instead of spending time trying to get everything formatted correctly, you can visit one of the many free websites offering pre-made math goodies and have them ready to print for your use!

Black Line Masters offers a wide-range of printable tools and resources geared towards students in pre-K through ninth grade. Check it out, and see what you can use in your classroom. Bookmark it for later so you can go back and print more as your needs change.

SEN Teacher has a page of printable items mostly geared towards the elementary level, including clocks, polygons and even coins. These items look even better when printed in color. Be sure to print on card stock and laminate the items so that they last longer.

IAmHomeschooling.com also offers plenty of ready-made manipulatives and other tools. From pre-K to high school, there are items for students at every level. You can print algebra tiles, Cuisenaire style rods or fraction circles. These are also colorful and can be used over and over if printed on thick card stock and laminated

Craig Loewen of Lethbridge University has a small batch of excellent resources for students in higher level classes, including tangrams and geoboards. These tools have tons of possible uses to enhance your math lessons!

Lessons and Videos

Maybe you already have amazing technology in your classroom. All you need now is some great content to use with that technology to enhance classroom learning. There are many great resources to be found on the web, and many of them are free. Here is a breakdown of some of the sites offering the best lesson plans, videos or even entire courses.

Khan Academy is completely free and offers an excellent library of videos presenting complex math topics in a way that is easy to comprehend. There are also practice questions that can be used in conjunction with the videos.

Saylor University is branching out with brand new, fully-loaded courses for grades K-12. Many courses included assessments, lessons, videos and discussion questions. New courses aligned to the Common Core standards will also be added. For those students looking for a challenge, there is a whole line of open college courses, too.

Want to make your own online textbook for free? Need a lesson plan? Then CK-12 Foundation has what you need! From single lessons to entire courses, CK-12 has it all. Many of the lessons are connected to the Common Core standards as well.

Discovery Education offers a wide-range of new and interesting pre-made lesson plans for you to use. Be sure to check back as new materials are updated. To quick access to materials for the level you are teaching, simply click on K-5, 6-8, or 9-12.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics believes math lessons should be more than just "drill and kill!" They've put together an excellent compilation of lesson plans and activities. These are free and geared towards many different levels. Be sure to click on your grade level to maximize your search results.

PBS Learning Media offers an eclectic library of activities and is a great place to find videos or ideas to spice up your lessons. There is a section specifically for K-8, and a section for each of the high school topics. This resource is free, but you may be asked to set up an account.

Cynthia Lanius from Rice University has created this site featuring a broad collection of math lessons that are sure to be "fun, fun, fun!" The lessons are scattered about the page, but you can click on any of the links to get to the actual details. Many involve real-life scenarios and ideas to really get students thinking. These lessons are suitable for upper elementary and middle school students.

K-5 Teaching Resources is an especially great website, and could really be placed under every category in this article. Not only are there lessons, practice tasks, math vocabulary practice ideas and math projects, but you'll also find games and printable items and just about anything else you could need for teaching grades K through 5. By clicking on the links to the different grade levels within the site, you will even be given lists of books that you can use to incorporate literature and language arts into your math lessons.

Learn Zillion is a great place to visit if you're looking to boost classroom discussions with videos and lessons that explain math topics in an easy-to-understand and engaging way. The site offers fun and educational content appropriate for all levels of students. You can use the videos to start a lesson and introduce new ideas, or you can use them to help students draw conclusions and bring it all together.

Who says math can't be fun? With Mathalicious, spicing up middle school and high school math lessons just got a whole lot easier. These amazing collections of lessons will not only get your students thinking and problem solving, but they will have fun while doing it! The lessons are typically geared towards using math in real-life applications, which really helps students see the importance of learning and understating math.

Have you ever heard of the Three Act Math Task? Dan Meyer's has put together some ingenious ideas for changing the way we teach middle and high school math. What's even better, these great ideas are available in a Google spreadsheet, which means anyone can apply them in the classroom. Some of the lessons include videos and data that can be a great starting point for enhancing your lesson, even if you don't follow the three acts.

Shodor is a great resource for students to see math in action. This interactive website has already designed a plethora of fantastic math activities to help students see math at work. The geometry and probability sections are especially helpful!

Online Games

Kids love games! Learning becomes easy with a game that is not only fun, but also meaningful. The next section outlines several resources for the best online math games available.

Mr. Nussbaum is geared towards students in grades pre-K-5. The games are free, entertaining and engaging. Many of the games can be played on iPads and iPhones as well.

Math is Fun is a free website offering mini explanations of math topics from all levels, including elementary to high school. It also features tons of games and puzzles to explore.

Sheppard Software is a great resource for teachers looking for new ways to differentiate. The games offered on this site have many levels, so no matter what stage your student is at, he or she can still practice and have fun! The games are geared towards elementary and middle school students.

Soft Schools has it all, from counting to AP statistics. There are tons of games, worksheets and even online quizzes to help students stay engaged in math.

Cool Math offers a broad collection of free games for a range of age levels. There's also a special section for 3- to 5-year-old students, and you will even find a special section for pre-calculus. Be sure to check out the lessons and activities, too.

Math Playground features games for students that are used to playing video games on consoles, such as Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo DS. The graphics are great for math games, and most are made for elementary and early middle school students. You will also find a link to great iPad apps that give your brain a workout, and many math manipulatives that would be great for use with an interactive white board.

Math Blaster contains a selection of free games with an option to purchase a membership for access to lessons, additional games and other features. There is also a special section for teachers. Games specifically focus on skills for grades pre-K-6.

Math Activities

Some students just need to be able to learn while doing. Gone are the days of the math "drill and kill" lessons, where students silently solved hundreds of problems. Many students benefit from moving around and discussing with other students. The following list includes interesting activities already made or created to help get teachers thinking beyond the worksheet or textbook.

"Gone are the days of the math "drill and kill" lessons..."

Hands on Math Activities was put together by Wendy Sawatzky. Activities are divided up into categories, and each category includes a basic summary of the activities included and an explanation of any extra materials you might need to carry them out.

Education.com has an interesting selection of activities that will keep students motivated about learning. There's a ton of fun and educational activities that will help keep students engaged in the learning process, including projects like using math skills to make toothpaste or making collages of cityscapes using geometric shapes.

Activity Village has an assortment of games using dice! Students will enjoy this site because they will feel like they are playing a game, but they're also learning math, too! Dice are usually available at dollar or discount stores and can be an inexpensive way to spice up the classroom.

Crewton Ramone's House of Math shares some interesting ways of changing up card games in order to help promote math skills. There are so many ways to change up the games so that differentiation becomes a little easier while still allowing everyone a chance to play.

Teach Mama has three absolutely wonderful ideas for games that are easy to make, easy to play and a fun way to learn or practice math skills. These activities are most appropriate for elementary level students.

Homeschooling Hearts and Minds shares a simple way to help students practice place value and other math concepts through the use of an abacus. When students ask why they can't use a calculator in your class, you can tell them to use their abacus!

Education.com has yet another gem. They have put together a nice group of activities specifically for middle school students. The activities are fun and are a perfect way to spice up lessons.

Hands on Math is a blog with a lot of great ideas to make math more engaging and fun. You may have to sift through some of the other posts, but in between are excellent ideas for teaching math and getting students thinking. There is even talk of using playdough to help students learn. Who doesn't love playdough?

Cut the Knot features almost 1500 different activities to make learning math more exciting. Activities are organized into categories to help you quickly find what you are looking to teach. Many of the activities would be suitable to the high school crowd.

Science Buddies has a list of projects suitable for science fairs, but they also include ideas for math. The projects are organized into three difficulty levels. You can use these ideas to create class projects.

Many games can be switched around to fit the topic you are teaching. The difficult part is coming up with enough inventive ways to keep children excited to play. Multiplication.com has a comprehensive list of math games that are easy to play. There's also a guide for each game that explains how to use the games and how easy or difficult they may be for students.

David Gardner has put together 17 pages worth of games designed for primary school students. Again, some of these games can be adapted for use in lessons other than the ones mentioned on the site. In addition, many of the games require little-to-no cost or preparation.

Common Core

Making sense of the rigorous Common Core standards can be tough. However, there are tons of resources out there to help you create the best lessons in accordance with the new standards. The following compilation of resources includes activities, lessons, unit plans and even practice assessment questions to help you best prepare your students for success.

Learning Math at Home

Getting support from families really helps build a relationship between home and school; it also helps students learn and retain information. It is important to keep families informed about the happenings in your classroom. Moreover, parents are often interested in knowing what their children are learning in school. The followings websites include tips and tools that you can share with parents to help them get involved in their child's math education.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has a special section geared towards families. They offer tips for helping with math homework and problems for families to solve together.

The US Department of Education has put together many activities to help build mathematics into everyday life. Helping students and families see the importance of math and how it can be used everywhere is an important step in getting everyone on board for learning! These activities also make math seem fun and interesting when done together as a family.

Here are some ideas on how families can help with math homework from Great Schools. This is another link that you might want to post to your teacher website or email to parents at the beginning of the year. There are also tips to help parents know where to start when trying to work through a difficult homework assignment.

For the elementary levels, Everyday Mathematics has some helpful guidance for parents to help their child(ren) build number sense and become better prepared for higher level math.

EngageNY has put together resources to help families as the Common Core standards are implemented. This is an excellent resource to share with parents of the school where you teach is using the modules created for Common Core.

Ideas for Over the Summer

Creating something meaningful for students to do to keep their math skills in tip-top shape can be time consuming. Instead, here are some premade activities that you can share with your students so that they return in the fall ready to learn.

For grades 1 through 5, there are summer themed math worksheets at Kid Zone . You can share the links with families or print them out and make a packet for students to work on over the summer break.

Family Education has some excellent ideas for activities that students can do over the summer that involve math.

Here are a few others:

Math Contests and Competitions

Sometimes students need an extra challenge. A math contest or competition could be a perfect push to get students motivated. In addition, you could help your students win money towards college, or you could win money for supplies and other classroom necessities.

Moody's Mega Math Challenge offers $20,000 to the winning team each year. Three to five students in 11th or 12th grade work with one teacher to solve a "mega problem." The problems may not seem like math problems at first, but the math is an important part of the solution.

Mathcounts has a Math Video Challenge. Students make a video showing a math problem and its real life applications. Students get a chance to mix their math skills with the technology. In the end, teachers have an archive of videos that answer the age old question, "When are we going to use this?"

The Mathematical Association of America offers the AMC 10/12 test for high school students. It is a multiple choice test with questions ranging from really easy to truly challenging! There is also an AMC 8 for students at the middle school level. If a student happens to do well on the AMC 10/12 he or she could be invited to take part in the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad. Yes, it is basically the Olympics for Mathematics!

If organizing a group of students to travel for a competition seems impractical or too difficult, you can also take part in the National Internet Math Olympiad. The contests are monthly and seasonal, so be sure to check the website often. There is also a Junior Online Math Olympiad) for lower level students to check out.

The Mathematical Association holds the Primary Math Challenge, a competition specifically designed for elementary students. The competition takes place in November, and students that do really well will be asked to take part in a bonus round in February.

The University of Alabama offers a Math by Mail contest. There is no traveling required, and there are cash prizes to be won! The entire contest is done through the mail.

Here is yet another contest for elementary students. Over at Noetic Learning, students can take part in a contest where they will have 45 minutes to answer 20 questions. The top students will earn a medal, and the top 50% will have their names placed on the Noetic Learning website.

The Art of Problem Solving has a great list of competitions categorized by state so that you can find even more way to challenge your students. There are other national competitions listed above as well.

Blogs

Teachers need a place to discuss and grow. Some of the greatest minds out there are blogging away while thinking about teaching and trying to find ways of reaching students and building math understanding. The following list includes some great blogs that you may want check out to gain perspective and build an online support system when you need help.

For the Love of Teaching Math is not only cute, but it's also home to some really great ideas. Sometimes you just need to see how other teachers are doing it, and this blog provides a chance to see a bit of what goes on in another math teacher's brain.

Reflections of a High School Math Teacher offers a great discussion of mathematics in real-world application. Each post is a true mathematical look at real life, and the applications tend to differ from what you find elsewhere.

Dividing by Zero is great for middle school math teachers looking for a blog that is focused on math and the classroom. This savvy blogger shares the triumphs and struggles of teaching middle school math and describes the different activities she has tried while teaching.

Mr. Andrew Stadel writes at Divisible by 3. This blog features a mix of all different types of posts. Many teachers, old and new, will find the discussions worth reading. Mr. Stadel offers a look at different activities he is working on for the 3 Act lessons, and he even discusses assessments. professional development and trainings.

I Speak Math has put together a master list of the many great middle school math blogs currently out there.

Walking in Mathland is a great place to go to find out what other teachers think about an activity they have tried before you try it yourself.

Over at dy/dan, Dan Meyer writes about math education, what is wrong with it and how it can be made better. He writes about the three act lessons that he has put together, professional development opportunities he has taken part in and even other proposed learning models. He thinks deeply about each topic and has a fun way with words that make his articles enjoyable to read.

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Useful Classroom Resources for Math Teachers

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Keeping students engaged and excited about math class can be a tall order. However, with the many advances in technology, it is much easier to make math lessons fun. In addition, technology can also make the math teacher's job a lot easier by providing pre-made activities, options for differentiating and even helping with pre- and [...]