What did I learn?
I didn't know how box and whisker plots worked until today. Fathom was completely new and completely fabulous.

What do I want to know more about?
Same as yesterday. I'm interested in visual and audio media. Plus I'm interested in how technology can be used for more creative assessments (Fathom looks rich for opportunities).

How can I connect this stuff to the classroom?

Algebalance
This could be a useful addition to my algebra class. We use algebra tiles to learn how to solve equations. I talk about how it's important to keep the sides balanced, and some kids get this idea, but the idea is lost on a few. This activity would be useful to illustrate the idea that you must do the same thing to both sides to keep it balanced (or take away or add a zero). It would be great if you could create pages with set equations for kids to practice with. You could put kids in pairs. Each creates a balanced pan and then switch to solve their friend's equation.

More Slope Games
My two favorites here are matching and archery. Archery is a lot like guess the slope but way more fun. Also, it's not competitive (between students) so it's less likely to turn off students who shy away from competition or failing.

Parabolas in Factored Form
Don't like this ap. Confusing layout, don't like the fact that r1 and r2 are in parentheses (the unnecessary notation will confuse and distract some students from the key points here), and too hard to use.

Box and Whisker
The dynamic nature of this activity allows kids to play around with the concept and come up with their own understanding of what a box-and-whisker plot represents.

Fathom
The connections to statistics are obvious. i teach algebra and so i'm thinking about how to connect fathom to algebra. i would have students do something like what we did today: find data with two continuous, quantitative variables, scatter-plot the data and find the best fit line and then tell a story about the data. i would probably do this in pairs.

okay my arm feels like it's going to fall off, so i'm signing off.