This is an online math dictionary:
http://www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com/
It is FANTASTIC. I listed this as one of the "good" sites for our project this week.
When I was in high school, I had a friend who was a total bookworm and very into philosophy. I, on the other hand, love my math. We had a two-day discussion about infinity. I was taking calculus at that point, and held firm the notion that infinity can be positive or negative. He, on the other hand, insisted that infinity is merely a concept in our imaginations and can't be positive or negative. Turns out, we were both right. I realized that he was correct in the common notion of the word infinity. However, I asked my calc teacher, "Do mathematicians have their own dictionaries?" Turns out, they do. My definition of infinity was correct mathematically. Relatively speaking, then, we were both right. Things like this happen all the time in math. Absolute, prime, factor and infinity mean different things in everyday life (and in the English dictionary) than they do to mathematicians. Hence the need for a math dictionary.
I like this online site in lieu of a book because it is interactive. It is colourful, easy to get around, and has pictures. Click on "abacus Chinese" and you can learn about what it is in addition to actually playing with an online abacus. You can't do that with a book! You'd have to go find an abacus in someone's attic to learn how to work it.
This is a great resource for students to use all the time, be they in the classroom or at home.
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3 comments:
Interactivity is a wonderful thing and when we apply it to our educational settings it seems to intensify the learning opportunites. I can't help but think about the articles on learning from a few weeks back and how much more depth we add to learning when we offer a variety of modalities to specific educational experiences.
Check this site out:
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/
I am no mathematician, but this site has quite an array of interactive activities related to the many domains of mathematics as well as many teacher lessons, tools (fraction to decimal converter, etc.), and a dictionary, too. I think that I could classify this one as 'good,' but I have not gone all the way through it.
Hi Karina,
Great link/resource! I love the visual and sometimes interactive nature of the definitions. This is a great way to review math terminology. A game I play with my students is called fly swatter. As the game implies, we have two fly swatters, and opposing students holding them at the white board. Vocabulary words are taped to the board, and they have one swat (to prevent random swatting) to a word that matches the definition, synonym/antonym, fill in the blank, or rhyme, etc. They love it, as I pit teams against each other and really encourages them to know their definitions prior to the game.
I agree that this is a good location of math related topics. I could use them to help demonstrate concepts to students working in various lab environments. Thanks for the page.
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