For Tuesday, April 7, read "Teaching and Learning Mathematics with Interactive Spreadsheets" by Stohl. Check out several of the referenced spreadsheets at the Microsoft Excel Interactive Projects website. Come to class prepared to share your questions and comments. Create a web page that synthesizes your reflections on the reading, several of the actual Excel documents from the website, and the class discussion.

For Tuesday, March 24, read "Preservice Secondary Mathematics Teachers' Beliefs about the Nature of Technology in the Classroom" by Leatham. Come to class prepared to share your questions and comments. Create a web page that synthesizes your reflections on the reading as well as the class discussion.

For Thursday, February 19, read "Square or Not? Assessing Constructions in an Interactive Geometry Software Environment" by Daniel Scher. Come to class prepared to share your questions and comments. Create a web page that synthesizes your reflections on the reading as well as the class discussion.

Create a GSP document (and make it available for download from your web site) wherein you dynamically represent both the geometric and the analytic geometry definitions of a parabola. Then writeup (still in GSP) your exploration of the following ideas:

• The construction of the focus, directrix, line of symmetry, and vertex (in both representations)
  
• The relationship between the geometric and the analytic geometry definitions/constructions
• The derivative (in both representations)
  
• Locus of the vertex as constant variables vary (in the analytic geometry representation)

Create a library of GSP custom tools and make it available for download from your web site. (There is no need to create a separate webpage for this assignment.) Your tools need to be Euclidean constructed (no use of measurements or transformations here). In addition, all of the givens for your tools should be independent of each other. Somtimes this restriction may require you to construct objects that are separate from the final tool. Your library should contain at least 10 tools including the following:

Isosceles triangle
Square given the diagonal
Trisection of a segment
Regular Pentagon
Parallelogram given ______________ (you decide on a set of minimal givens that will define a unique parallelogram)
Nine Point Circle

For Tuesday, February 3, read "Creating Meaning for and with the Graphing Calculator" by Doerr and Zangor. Come to class prepared to share your questions and comments. Create a web page that synthesizes your reflections on the reading as well as the class discussion.

As a class we are creating an online collection of resources for Pre-Algebra. This Pre-Algebra Web Resources page will be organized around 20 main topics from the standard Pre-algebra curriculum as outlined in the Utah Secondary Mathematics Core Curriculum. Your task is to collect at least 12 resources (to be delineated according to our class discussion) for your assigned topic and to evaluate them according to the evaluation criteria we developed in class. For each resource provide a brief description of the site and a brief evaluation of how well the site meets our evaluation criteria. Once you send me a link to your page I will link your page to our Pre-Algebra Web Resources page. In the end, we'll have a nice, usable resource.

Pour Favor: Last day to turn in: Thursday, 1/22/09

Explore the VM Fill and Pour. Once you have carried out the exploration create a web page that presents and illustrates your solutions to several of the problems and your answers to the following questions:

1) Assuming that a problem is solveable, describe a generalized strategy for solving the problem.
2) How can you tell whether a problem is solvable or not? Provide explanation and justification for your response.
Finish up your writeup with a pedagogical paragraph, where you talk about the fundamental mathematical concepts this VM might allow students to learn. (Follow this link for more detail on what is expected in a writeup.)

Virtual Reflection: Last day to turn in: Thursday, 1/15/09

• A link to our class home page
• Links to some of your favorite or most visited sites
  
• A link to send you an email
• A graphic of some sort
• A link to an "about me" page that contains basic information about yourself (with appropriate links)
  
• A space where you plan to provide links to your assignments