Yesterday our building had a staff meeting to discuss our 1:1 laptop program. A few of the math teachers mentioned how difficult it is to find ways to use the laptops in math classes. Later that day while perusing my Google Reader account (by the way, if you don't have a Google Reader account, you should consider signing up for one! I'll put up a blog about this later), I came across Richard Byrne's post on his blog Free Technology for Teachers about a website called Thinking Blocks--a website that helps students model their math word problems.
Because of my extreme disdain for math, I hesitantly checked out the website. After playing around a bit, I can see how this could be useful for students. Byrne recommends that this be used for K-8 math, but I really think this could be used in some of the lower level math courses we offer at the high school. The website allows students to visually map out their process when solving a problem. Students can use shapes, number lines, colors, and text to solve the problem. It's like having manipulatives on the computer. I struggled with math in high school partly because I am such a creative, visual, hands-on learner who was quite honestly scared of the subject. I think this tool would've taken the edge off of math for me. It would've given me a visual, hands-on way to solve word problems. If you're interested, check out the Modeling Tool page to find videos of the tool in action.
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