ACARA - General Capabilities Consultation begins - talk now or forever hold you peace!

ACARA has just published an update asking for interested parties to complete a survey on the general capabilities at http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Consultation before Sunday 7 August. You will need to complete the survey by reading and reflecting on the general capability explanations provided here: http://consultation.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities

Here is the current list of general capabilities:

Literacy

Numeracy

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) competence

Critical and creative thinking

Personal and social competence

Ethical behaviour

Intercultural understanding

World IPv6 day - how many addresses are possible now? (Counting Techniques)

Previously IP addresses were of the form xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, e.g. 196.168.0.1 or 10.0.0.1 - In each of these four sections, there are 2⁸ possibilities, that is 256. Everything from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. This gives a total of 2³² possible IPv4 addresses (approximately 4.3 billion addresses).

 

So, we use the internet too much and we've used up all 4.3 billion addresses. Hence, the introduction of IPv6, which consists of many more.

 

IPv6 addresses are written in 8 groups of four hexadecimal digits, for example 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 (from wikipedia). Each hexadecimal digit can be one of the numbers 0 to 9 or the letters a, b, c, d, e, f, which gives 16 options or 2⁴ options. This means that each set or 4 can have (2⁴)⁴ = 2¹⁶ with 8 groups this is (2¹⁶)⁸ = 2¹²⁸ which is about 3.4 × 10³⁸ individual addresses. More than enough to last us the next few years!

Use Google Sketchup to visualise 3D shapes to find SA

Sometimes, students find it difficult to visulaise a 3D shape and can forget to include some of the sides when finding the complete surface area.

Yesterday, I ran into this problem with my Year 9 class and decided to use Google Sketchup to create the 3D shapes. Combined with my post on screencasting yesterday, I thought that I should use Screenr to create a short tutorial. N.B. Screenr only allows 5 minutes of recording. You can see the video below, also uploaded to my youtube channel.

2 recommended tools to Screencast

Screenr has been around for a while, but the quality seems to be quite good now. Since it is web-based, there is no software to install and best of all you can upload directly to youtube. This is an essential feature these days as you may be aware screentoaster suddenly decided to cease their service and all videos were lost. If the videos are uploaded to youtube, then they should be secure.

 

CamStudio is a fantastic opensource piece of software. You do need to download it, but the benefit of this is that you know you will always have the software. You save the file to your computer and can then manually upload to YouTube.

Implication for Teaching

Similar to Khan Academy, you can record a concept or enlightning instructional interactive for students to watch at a later date. I also find this incredibly useful to record a short video on simple computer processes for colleagues.

iWork "Numbers" app for the iphone

The numbers app for the iphone is here, bringing spreadsheets to the iphone. This year, I wholeheartedly embraced the GoogleSpreadsheets / OffiSync solution described previously. Numbers seems to have additional functionality and seems a little easier to use (from watching many youtube videos).

My one concern is that it may be difficult to sync with my PC. Options include:

• uploading to iwork.com (although I think this will only allow a download to PC option, rather than sync). Or a sync via iTunes (having to plug in a cable) - this may have all changed with the announcement in iOS5 of wireless sync.


• Emailing the file to myself, but if I use it regularly, this may be annoying.


• Integrating with dropbox via dropdav (although this costs)


• Get a mobileme account with iDisk (which cost $100 p.a. until now - maybe with iCloud this is free? They did not mention iDisk in the WWDC keynote

I am now close to paying the hefty $12.95 (about a third of the cost of OS X lion at US$29.95).

Further thoughts in the iWork for iOS suite are for pages - would be quite useful and keynote - which I don't think I would have any use for.

Update: after watching WWDC keynote in full, it looks like you can sync with PC. No charge for this 5GB of storage!

Using students to create and visualise a locus in the classroom

To assist students to visualise what a locus is, I recently completed this exercise with a Year 11 class. Students can the locus given these different situations:

1. Ask a student to stand up. All other students are to stand the same distance away from him.


2. All students to stand equidistant from two opposing walls.


3. All students to stand equidistant from two adjacent walls.


4. All students to stand so that their distance from one wall is twice their distance from another wall.


5. Ask a student to stand up. All students to stand so that their distance from him and the wall behind him is the same.

May in Review: This Month on Twitter

• The SMH reported on NAPLAN-Style testing in the US saying it had 'failed' schools [tweet]. @age_edu questioned whether NAPLAN actually tested numeracy (I think it actually tests maths) [tweet]. @aamtinc
  tweeted the SMH article proposing NAPLAN to go online and The Age article on NAPLAN [tweet]. The SMH also wrote an article about schools 'parenting' students.


• Julia Gillard announces teacher bonus pay [tweet]. This idea was slammed by SMH [tweet, tweet] and the NSW Teachers Federation [tweet] who later wrote an article.


• The President of the US says that you need algebra! [tweet]


• Should we be using twitter to engage students in lessons? http://t.co/oxSCZSS


• @republicofmath
  tweeted We're not wasting our students time by giving them extra homework in Maths


• Math Teacher Mambo had a great worksheet on using wolframalpha in class


• New links included: Links Category to Maths Applets
  SynchTube


• New Web tools: Google Cloud Connect


• NSW Board of Studies has published new assessment guidelines for Stage 6 Mathematics Courses. [Official Notice] Gen Maths and Calculus courses.

What I've been up to this month:


I set up facebook and twitter for maths.net.au. I also wrote a post about setting up twitter and facebook to interact with my students and their parents. I have used twitterfeed to help with this.

I launched Khan Academy with my classes and wrote a blog post about it.

I have put together a page which lists all the PD sessions for Maths in the Sydney region, and also interstate and international conferences.

 

The Month Ahead

Check out which PD sessions you should sign up for. I'll be adding my PLN to maths.net.au, including who I follow on Twitter, which blogs I regularly check (via Google Reader) and which podcasts I listen to.