ExploreLearning News

Site Maintenance — Weds. 10/27 early a.m.

We will be completing important maintenance updates to the ExploreLearning servers on the morning of Wednesday, October 27, 2004 sometime between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m.

We expect that the ExploreLearning website will be unavailable for approximately ten minutes while the work is completed.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

The Professional Development Department

Here at ExploreLearning we want to help you achieve all that is possible with our Gizmos. What does this mean? Well that's where you can help us. We are in the process of building a dynamic Professional Development department staffed with experienced educators who are anxious to get out and help you discover the power of Gizmos. This post is to get your thoughts on where we should focus our initial energies. Here is a sampling of what we have been batting around the office:

1. Algebra Readiness: Gizmos and support material to help students prepare for Algebra success.
2. Small school implementation issues: In smaller schools where a curriculum specialist may not be available, how can we get all teachers comfortable with Gizmos quickly and efficiently?
3. Ideas for specialized training days: Similar to Algebra Readiness, there are curricular issues facing teachers today that ExploreLearning can help resolve. Once we have a handle on what these issues are, and where the greatest need is, we can build unique training seminars to help schools work through some of these concerns.

New Exploration Guides and Assessment Questions

Earlier today, we posted ten new Exploration Guides and sets of Assessment Questions. These accompany 10 of our newest science Gizmos. Check them out, and look for more to come in the near future!

• Diffusion
• Osmosis
• Determining Density via Water Displacement
• Element Builder
• Energy Conversion in a System
• Freezing Point of Salt Water
• Moon Phases
• pH Analysis
• Determining a Spring Constant

Are you ready for some football?

American football is very popular. Kids can first play Pop Warner football. High schools all over the country have a game on Friday evenings. Colleges play hundreds of games on Saturday, and Monday Night Football is watched by millions every week. Physics (although not quite as popular) is taught to millions of students every year.

Do football and physics belong together? Should a football fan learn about physics? Should a physics student (or teacher) learn about football? For those that have any interest in either, I highly recommend Football Physics: The Science of the Game by Timothy Gay.

The book covers a broad range physics (and math) topics, including Newton's Laws, torque, and wave velocity to name just a few. The football topics ranged from the grass on the ground, to the ball at its highest point during a punt - and everything in between.

Early in the book the primary subject is Newton's Laws and the equations of motion. Dr. Gay writes,

These quantities - speed, velocity, and acceleration - are the elements that make up the branch of physics called kinematics, or the science of motion. Galileo was the first scientist to make a comprehensive study of kinematics.

In a later section,

Now is a good time to break away for a discussion of the difference between quickness and speed. Jerry Rice, at his peak, could run the 40 in about 4.6 seconds. That is not an incredible time - it's fairly typical for a wide receiver. What separates Rice from th pack of his peers is his ability to get open, and that has to do with quickness, only one aspect of the 40-yard time.

This aspect of distance, velocity, and acceleration can be investigated in our Distance-Time and Speed-Time Graphs Gizmo where you can quickly visualize the position of two people in a 40 yard dash. Which one would be better for a short passing game? Long passing game? Football Physics does a great job of going in to the practical application the data.

In the chapter that discusses the West Coast Offense there is a section on evasion strategies.

There's one final kinematics issue to consider that gives both offensive and defensive players an edge in the open field: chase strategies.

I found this section very interesting, since so much game programming is done to create aliens (or some other such creature) that can track you down. Although not quite as lively as a good alien chase, we have a Gizmo that can teach you the fundamentals of a one dimensional chase with the classic cat and mouse. Will the mouse be able to escape (score a touchdown), or not?

In a later chapter, the flight of the ball gets discussed (punting, kicking, and throwing). In the section on Punts and Parabolas the real world applications of parabolas mentioned.

We encounter parabolas all the time. A parabolic shape is ideal for focusing electromagnetic waves such as light or television signals. … microphone reflectors used by TV crews on the sidelines. Likewise, parabolic mirrors are used in astronomical telescopes to focus light rays coming from distant objects in to a lens …

Next time you think about a punt, think about a quadratic of the form ax² + bx + c. What was the sign of the a value? Positive or negative. For a bit of help, learn more with our Quadratics in Polynomial Form Gizmo.

As the discussion on the flight of the ball continues in Football Physics, air drag is considered. A lot of data is presented which shows that theory and observational data match up rather well. Although the Gizmo is one of the oldest, the Golf Range! Gizmo will let you look in to the effects of air drag. If you get a hole in one, you may here my voice.

The final chapter was entitled 'Waves in the Stadium' where concepts of sound and wave motion are investigated. I was fascinated by the discussion of fans "doing the wave."

The Wave phenomenon was first noticed internationally at the 1986 World Cup soccer competition in Mexico. For this reason it is often referred to as La Ola, or the Mexican Wave. [...] it did, in all likelihood, truly originate in Mexico, possibly as early as 1968 at the Olympic Games in Mexico.

Believe it or not, Dr. Gay obtained data at the University of Nebraska stadium, and determined the speed of the wave as a function of temperature! I had never thought about this before. The wave speed of humans can be modelled as an ideal gas. For an ideal gas, all molecules will stop moving at absolute zero (-491^oF). Human waves also have an absolute zero value. Can you estimate what that value may be? Guess you will have to read the book to find out, at least until we build a Gizmo about it! Stay tuned for a few new Gizmos as the football playoffs approach.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Tim Gay and his nuclear physics research (I was also a nuclear guy in graduate school!) at the University of Nebraska, visit his website, or drop by his Football Physics site.

Mars Rovers Still Roving!

Although they aren't getting the press that they were getting in the summer time, Spirit and Opportunity are still operating on Mars! Both were expected to last for 90 Martian days, but have been operating for three times that long. Wow.

Mars Exploration Rover Mission Site

California Science Content Standards

The correlations to the California Content Standards for science are now online.

Can Math Help in Terror War

Can Math Help in Terror War? 

Wired News reports on how order theory and data mining are being used in the global war on terrorism:

Theoretically, [mathematician] Jonathan Farley [of MIT] said, abstract math could help intelligence officers figure out the most efficient way to disable a terrorist network.

Say it's cheaper or more practical to go after a terrorist cell's "middle management" rather than its leadership. How many of those lieutenants would you have to remove in order to disrupt communication between the top dogs and the field operatives? Are there one or two key individuals whose capture would completely cut off the chain of command?

Order theory is all about such questions.

Fascinating stuff. And a cool tonic to any who are inclined to label the study of mathematics as "boring" or as having no practical application to "real life."

CAIS 2005 - Call for Proposals

Those of you who are "power users" of Gizmos in your respective classrooms might be interested in this:

Teaching with Technology planners would like to invite you to submit a workshop proposal for the 2005 program. We seek workshops that provide attendees with inspirational ideas, pedagogical techniques and technological skills that will enhance their teaching and their students' learning. If you are interested in leading a workshop please visit the online proposal page.

Gizmos: "Greatest Thing Since the Graphing Calculator"

Janice DeLong an Instructor of Education at the University of Maine at Presque Isle emailed us to say,

… I want you folks to know that, as a 25-year career high school math teacher, I find your Gizmos to be the greatest thing to happen to mathematics since the graphing calculator.

We are all wide smiles and high fives after reading that. Thanks so much, Janice.

A Gizmo a day?

As more and more people are using our site, requests for new (or improved) Gizmos continue to roll in. If we were a really big company we would be able to make a new Gizmo every day, but we aren't quite that big yet ;) However, the requests that users send us do get put on a big list of 'things people want' that sits right on my wall (we love getting ideas!).

One user wrote in about the Period of a Pendulum Gizmo and said,

I was using the period of a pendulum with my students today and found it to work reasonably well. It would be nice if the angle of release could also be varied as one of the possiblities we discussed in class that 'may' make a difference (i.e. a possible independent variable for an experiment).

One of our coders found a few spare minutes, modified an existing Gizmo, and created the brand new Period of a Pendulum - Large Angle Gizmo.

Now, according to the pendulum, my time for creating this post has run out.

Soaring to Space

SpaceShipOne soared in to space today to claim the Ansari X-prize as the first private space ship to make it to space twice within two days carrying a mass equivalent to three people.

For more information:

BBC News story
CNN News story

Welcome Our New Team Members

Related to the recent post regarding our new Teacher Training and Professional Developement Program, I want to introduce the newest members of the ExploreLearning Team.

Eve Solomon, Education Specialist
Eve taught at the elementary, middle and high school levels with a focus on developing programs for at-risk youth. She holds a Masters Degree in Administration and Supervision from the University of Virginia and a BA from Emory & Henry College. Prior to joining the private sector, Eve Solomon served as a program coordinator for Project YES (Youth Experiencing Success) and director of Project RETURN, a distance-learning consortium comprised of 23 school districts throughout the state of Virginia. Prior to joining the team at ExploreLearning, she designed and implemented the professional development program at Boxer Learning, Inc and provided training nationwide for use of the BoxerMath product.

Thom O'Brien, Director of Professional Development
Thom taught elementary and middle school with the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado for 12 years. During his tenure with Cherry Creek he was on the cadre of Educators who opened Thunder Ridge Middle School, was the head of the Thunder Ridge Middle School Mathematics department for 5 years, and on the board of Directors for the Colorado Association of Middle Level Educators. Thom was a two time runner up for Colorado Teacher of the Year and a distinguished educator at Thunder Ridge. He holds a Masters Degree in Instructional Mathematics from the University of Phoenix and a BS in Elementary Education from Metropolitan State College in Denver. For the past three years Thom was national Professional Development Manager for Curriculum Advantage.

Welcome aboard, Eve and Thom.

Teacher Training and Professional Development Program

In order to maximize your subscription investment in the rich and powerful library of ExploreLearning Gizmos, we encourage you to take advantage of our informative teacher training and professional development program.

Led by skilled instructors, ExploreLearning's live courses instruct teachers how to blend technology into their instruction as well as learning how to use the simple and intuitive enrollment and set-up process for the Gizmo delivery platform, use of exemplary Gizmos in relevant grade levels and subject areas, and management of student login and assessment results.

ExploreLearning's team of trainers provides one or more initial training sessions (depending on the number of teachers participating in the school or district adoption) as well as ongoing support for staff development. Participants in the initial training session(s) may be classroom teachers, school/district staff training specialists, or both.

Please for information on our Training and Professional Development program.