Math with your Friends

After looking thought various apps available on iPads and iPhones, I came across Math with your Friends. It's 100% free, which is always an awesome feature. When you download it and make an account you're shown the option to play with friends or random opponents. 


























There are multiple math options and instead of using the traditional letters/words the user uses numbers and mathematical symbols such as +,-, =, and many more. There is even a chat options for papers and users can go at their own pace and pay as many as 30 games at one time.


This is a great way for students to brush up on their math skills in a low stakes environment. I could see this being beneficial for many grades most kids have an iPad or iPhone at their disposable. Adaptions can be made such as larger font. 

Low and mid tech options in Math

There are many adaptions available for students with disabilities to use in a Math classroom. Today, I will be talking about tools used specifically for low and mid tech.

Some examples of Low tech:

Math Manipulatives 

















Graph Paper


Enlarged Worksheets



Math Smart Scripts


Some examples of mid tech:

Calculators 

Adapted Keyboards

Flashmaster

http://www.wati.org/content/supports/free/pdf/Ch8-Mathematics.pdf

The different kinds of educational applications used to teach math concepts, math skills, and problem solving

I talked about in prior blog posts the importance of finding an educational application that works for each individual student's needs. A big factor is the tool must match their developmental level. 

Some useful tools are:




Utah State University's National Library of Virtual Manipulatives this website helps to support the development of math for grades K-12. It offers categories such as Algebra. Measurements, or it goes by specific grades like 6-8.








Illuminations offers various activities on their website for helping students develop math concepts. This website is available to students in K-12 and run by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. 









Computing Technology for Math Excellence is a website that helps students understand math using virtual manipulatives. 













Internet 4 Classroom is a free website used by educators to help reenforce content or to for materials to use in classroom instruction. There is content for grades K-12.









Math Playground is a website that helps support new or confusing concepts, skills, and problem solving to students. The best part is this website is 100% free and students can go back and look a their work after each step and receive feedback from the website.






Conceptua Math is a website that focuses on fractions and it also offers tools for educators to use in their classroom. This program works best with he younger grades (2-7). It shows visual models and spoken text to help students understand the content better.







Destination Math is a tool that helps math reasoning,conceptual understanding, and problem solving skills to students in grades K-12. This program uses animation and audio to keep students engaged and learning in a fun way.







There are certain math applications offered solely to students with cognitive disabilities such as  the Attainment Company who offers a program that teachers students how to compute, have basic money skills, and tell time. IntelliKeys is available for students who need an alternative keyboard to use any or all of these programs/websites. 

Assistive Technology in the Classroom Enhancing the School Experience of Students with Disabilities 

Educational tools for students with visual spatial or motor control difficulties

Many students have issues with writing numbers, aligning digits, or creating visual representation in the form of angles or shapes. Students with these problems have motor control difficulties or visual spatial difficulties. There are many tools available to help them such as MathPad, Virtual Pencil, Number Navigator, Microsoft Word, MathType, and Scientific Notebook.

MathPad is a talking math worksheet program. It allows students to do arithmetic computations with whole numbers. It is very similar to the way students would do it with a traditional pencil and paper.



Virtual Pencil (VP) is a tool designed for students unable to use the traditional pencil. This is a common tool for students who are blind or who have motor control difficulties. This offers students the same thing traditional paper and pencil would. There are different types of VP. The VP Arithmetic offer verbal feedback to the student. The VP Algebra helps with algebraic  equations.  Here is a video all about the VP.

Number Navigator is a program that is simply a math processor it does not offer any special features. Students are able to solve basic math with this program. Colors, size, and font are customizable.



Microsoft Word is a program most people are familiar with and can be used as a math processor. This program would specifically be good for students with handwriting difficulties, but can use the mouse.




MathType is an alternative to Microsoft Word. Students in higher level math classes would be better suited for this program. This program offers more variety and color coding. 




Scientific Notebook is an application designed for students in higher level math classes. It allows them to participate the same way their peers do. This tool not only allows students to write equations, but it also solves them.





Assistive Technology in the Classroom Enhancing the School Experience of Students with Disabilities 

Educational applications and automaticity/math fluency

In the prior blog, I talked about the importance to find the right educational applications. There are so many applications available, but this blog will talk specifically about fluency in math. Fluency is the fast, accurate, and effortless process of content information. Some useful educational apps to have are FASTT Math,  Timez Attack, The ArithmAttack, and Arcademic Skill Builder. 

FASTT Math is a program designed to help students with math fact fluency. It assesses students on basic facts by measuring response time and based on each individual student's time they will be given a customized activity. Here is a video of a student using and explaining FASTT Math

Timez Attack is a program that focuses on the multiplication table only (2 to 12 times table). Here is a video that explains how to use Timez Attack.

The ArithmAttack is a program helps students practice basic math skills such as addition, multiplication, ratios, fractions, and many more things. This program customizes problems and can be downloaded right on to the computer. Here is an example of a teacher talking about ArithmAttack and all it's benefits.

Arcademic Skill Builder is a program designed to help fluency in subtraction, division, integers, and so much more. This game can be played with more than one person or solo. Here is an example of a student using the program.



Assistive Technology in the Classroom Enhancing the School Experience of Students with Disabilities 

Meeting students goals and needs with educational applications

When choosing educational applications for students to meet their needs and goal certain key questions need to be asked such as: 

• What is the intended outcome of the application? Ex: Is it mean to help strengthen student's math skills in problem solving.

• Will the application fulfill its purpose? Ex: Does the tools possess the ability to show students where they are going wrong by providing feedback?

• Can the application be used in place of traditional classroom actives to help student's participation? Ex:Will the student's learning be as effective as traditional classroom learning? 

Assistive Technology in the Classroom Enhancing the School Experience of Students with Disabilities 

AT & Math introduction

This set of blogs will focus primarily on Assistive Technology (AT) and Math. I will discuss the different types of technology available and the students who would benefit from these tools the most. 

The next set of four questions will focus primarily on questions that need to be asked before students receive tools and types of tools students with various needs many need including assistive technology in low tech, mid tech, and high tech.