Attn: All [Computer-Savy] Math Teachers

Updated on November 01, 2011
C.T. asks from Chester, NY
4 answers

My Mom is getting a new lap-top. She is a school math teacher and she keeps talking to my Dad about using her laptop to "draw graphs". Is this a computer program that I can purchase for her? Does she need an external pad or other mechanism to do this? I get the feeling that this is something she thinks she can do free-hand.

I do know that you can make graphs using excel but this is a plotting feature and needs to be based on numbers entered before hand.

Anyone have any idea what she is talking about?? Can you help me out? Her birthday is on Thanksgiving and I'd like to get this for her [if there is such a thing]

TIA.
~C.

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So What Happened?

She teaches middle school - 6th, 7th and 8th grades.

I know it is not excel. She wants something that she can "draw" on real-time during class while it is projected on a screen to the class.

More Answers

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S.R.

answers from El Paso on

I could help some more if I knew what level she was teaching, but for lower level stuff, there are some good programs out there that are test/worksheet generators that have some graphs on them. The ones I used were from this website:
http://www.kutasoftware.com/

I have both the Pre-Algebra and the Algebra I

For higher levels (if she teaches high school calculus or college courses) you could look into these:
http://www.ptc.com/products/mathcad/ Program is called MathCad

http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/ Program is called Mathematica

Personally, I either just used the Kuta Software to make coordinate planes or I drew my own for regular data charts.

I also occasionally used an online program called Study Island. It was a program that our school already had/paid for, and it has questions formatted like standardized tests for every state. You can tell it to make the questions fill-in-the-blank as well, and when you "create" a worksheet, it opens in Microsoft Word, & you can cut and paste into your own document. I think it requires some sort of paid subscription, but I have no idea how much it is.

I'll look around some more and see if I can find anything more useful!

1 mom found this helpful
Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

L.B.

answers from New York on

Look at Visio. I have been using it for years. Do not need anything special just your computer and mouse.

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

☆.A.

answers from Pittsburgh on

Well...you can use data already entered in Excel & use graph wizard to do various options of charts/graphs for the selected data...do you think that's what she means?
(Sorry--not a math teacher but I do use excel quite a bit.)

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

J.W.

answers from New York on

She might be talking about Geometers Sketchpad. http://dynamicgeometry.com/

(Check the pricing for the student version.)

It's really nice that you're offering to get this software for her so that she can teach math more effectively for her students. It's especially nice if her school does not pay for teaching resources like this. Most teachers spend so much of their own money on school materials, and expect none or very little of it to get reimbursed.

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