.Script for AT for Math PowerPoint
Mike Mann, ATP
Slide 1
Assistive Technology for Math; presented by Michael Mann, Assistive Technology Practitioner.
Slide 2
I come to this project in a round-about way. I became a physical therapist in 1986, and soon after became interested in pain syndromes as a specialty. In 2005 I began to work as a hand therapist in the same business where the Idaho Assistive Technology Project has its North Idaho Demonstration Site. At first, I did not know what assistive technology was. I gained knowledge about assistive technology through training, self-study, and playing with devices and software. I earned my credentials as an Assistive Technology Practitioner (ATP) in 2006 and began doing assistive technology assessments for the Idaho Assistive Technology Project. One of my first assessments was with a high school student who was struggling with geometry. He had a 4.0 grade-point average, but the part of his brain that does spatial reasoning was damaged. Since I knew very little about how to help with that, I did a lot of research before I wrote his report. Later on, I shared this information at a training for other ATPs; then at the annual conference for the Idaho Council for Exceptional Children, and I have presented many live web-based trainings on AT for math. I have continued to expand and update this training as I gain more information.
Slide 3
This presentation has been prepared for special education departments, math teachers, and assistive technology resource persons. Parents of students struggling with math may also benefit. It is my aim to acquaint you with resources for teaching math that may be new to you, which will apply to students at both ends of the spectrum, the ones who struggle, and the ones who need more.
I’m going to give you some thought questions and data by way of introduction, then we will look at some of the resources available on the Internet, show some equipment ideas, and offer help in choosing software programs for learning math. At the end I will provide information on the services the IATP offers including in-school assessments, AT demonstrations, and training.
Slide 4
Here are some thought questions:
What are the domains of learning? Certainly the classroom is one of them, but how much of your native language did you learn before going to school?
How much of your knowledge of history and civics have you learned from television and personal reading?
Slide 5
L.O. Wilson proposed four domains of learning: Formal instruction with a teacher, reflection and cognition, self-teaching by seeking out information, and accretion, which means knowledge obtained simply by exposure over time.
Slide 6
Each of these domains contributes to lifetime learning.
If the total of these domains produces 100% of lifetime learning, what percentage of that would you assign to instructor-led courses?
Slide 7
According to Siemens and Wilson, only about 10% of a student’s lifetime learning in school subjects happens in a traditional classroom setting. About 70% occurs by accretion. Accretion of learning is an unconscious or imbedded process over time, like the way small children learn to speak their native language. Think about how much of what you know about your profession was learned in college vs. how much you have learned by doing it since you graduated. Does the 1:7 ratio apply?
I think this is very significant.
It means that students who are struggling with math in the classroom still have plenty of opportunities to learn math by some other process over their lifetime. Our role as parents, educators, or consultants in assistive technology is to provide access to these domains of learning at the level of learning students are ready for.
Slide 8
One more thought question: What new domains of learning are available through technology?
Slide 9
Here are a few examples that offer new domains of learning.
Slide 10
Siemens recommends the development of “Learning Ecologies” in which students have access to many domains of learning at once, and are encouraged to engage the curriculum in a personalized way. Some of these are listed here: a space for gurus and beginners to connect, a space for self-expression, a space for debate and dialogue, a space to search archived knowledge, a space for structured learning, and a space for communicating news and research.
Many of the niches listed in this learning ecology theory are represented in the resources we will be visiting today. With access to technology, your classroom or home can become a learning community where students take a more active and personalized approach to meeting the standardized objectives.
Slide 11
I hope this has given you some fresh thoughts about your environment for teaching math.
Now, let’s begin looking at some math resources on the Internet.
Slide 12
The first site I want you to see is or Computing Technology for Math Excellence.
This is a great website for math teachers.
Slide 13
Check out the links along the left side of the screen, this site is BIG. There are several links specific to assistive technology (see the red arrows), such as Math Projects, Software, and Assisting Readers. Math Projects are usually developed by university math or education departments as they try out new and better ways to engage kids with math. Professional development, associations, and news (see the yellow arrows) provides teachers with several new domains for their own learning. There is even help for teaching methodology, writing tests, and meeting state standards.
I’m going to select Math Resources.
Slide 14
These are math resources for basic skills development. They are listed alphabetically.
AAAMath has a random problem generator for all kinds of problems for K-8th grade.
Aplusmath has interactive flash cards for operations, fractions, money, and more.
Apples4theTeacher has games and lessons you can download for free on basic operations.
Academic Skill Builders has arcade-style math games, including multiplayer games. This is really motivating for kids.
One that we will be visiting later on from this page is CoolMath.com.
Slide 15
Funbrain.com is a big award-winning site with math as just one section.
Iknowthat.com has self-paced activities with audio explanations, for students who learn better with auditory support.
Internet4classrooms has links to materials listed by standard according to Tennessee State Standards for math.
Slide 16
Links has animated reading and math lessons produced in Washington state.
Math Cats is fun for early geometry exploration.
Math Drill sounds bad, but it has 86 levels of difficulty for learning math facts. Kids can start at their level of success and build skills gradually.
Math Gooodies features a message board where kids can help each other.
Math Playground has some great activities for kids who can’t grasp a pencil or use a protractor, for grades 1-6.
Slide 17
Sawmill Software has an application for teaching measurement that could come in handy for students with poor fine motor skills.
Teach R Kids has some activities incorporating clocks, calendars, time, and money into math concepts for functional math learning.
Slide 18
Visual fractions gives your students a way to visualize fractions as volumes that can be helpful for them.
The Visual Math Learning site also helps in this way.
Wired Math, from Canada, offers resources in English or French for grades 7-9.
The Worksheet Library could save you some time. Most of the worksheets are free, and the answers are provided. As a bonus, they also have graphic organizers.
Slide 19
OK, all that stuff was on page 1 from the resource list at CT4me.net. They have 3 other resource lists we didn’t see.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with so many choices. If you stick with one or two favorite sites, you can gradually get familiar with other links from your main sites.
Next I want to show you a math website that is appealing to kids.
Slide 20
Coolmath.com is a great site for students in the primary and middle school grades. I like it because it has lots of fun things to do, but also provides basic help in a lot of math areas for different ages. On the left side you can pick the area that corresponds to your age and interests. It has areas for parents and teachers too. The “Stress” link is for kids who have math anxiety. The “Finance” link is for anyone interested in financial math such as calculating compound interest.
I’m going to visit the “Kids” area.
Slide 21
Here is the kid’s menu page for Coolmath.com. The Lemonade Stand is a place to learn about money. You can work on multiplication facts with times tables, or if that isn’t working, learn to use lattice multiplication. The “number monster” is pretty challenging because it is based on speed. Scratch Addition is a shortcut way to add long lists of numbers accurately without a calculator.
Let’s take a look at the Lemonade Stand.
Slide 22
You have 20 dollars to start your business. You have to buy cups, lemons, sugar, and ice. It isn’t a very hot day. How you decide to invest your 20 dollars is up to you.
Slide 23
This is part of the lesson on scratch addition. Scratch addition is a cool way to add long columns of numbers without messing up!
Slide 24
The more ways you give a student to work with numbers, the more likely one of them will stick, so long as you don’t go too fast or start out at too high a level.
Slide 25
Coolmath.com also has a section called Survivor Algebra. This is a classroom game that simulates the Survivor reality TV show. It allows students to work collaboratively and individually to learn Algebra with the added motivation of competition.
Slide 26
Next I’d like to visit a project of the University of Utah called the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.
Manipulatives are things like number blocks or an abacus for figuring math by manipulating objects. Virtual manipulatives are the same thing, but they are interactive images on a computer.
Slide 27
This is the selection page for the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.
Choose a row for subject, a column for grade level, and click the block where they intersect.
I’m going to choose manipulatives for geometry grades K-2.
Slide 28
One I like from this page is base blocks. You can work in base 10 or in any other base you like.
Slide 29
This is set up for addition in base ten. The blocks above the dotted line are for the upper number to the right. The blocks below represent the number to be added to that to solve the problem.
Slide 30
This is part of the page for geometry manipulatives for grades 9-12.
I’m going to look at the Pythagorean Theorem puzzles.
Slide 31
You start with two white regions that are shaped differently, but have the same area. You use the Pythagorean Theorem to prove that the areas are equal by filling them with the same number of equal triangles and squares.
If this was live Internet, I could take the red and blue figures and drag them into place to complete the puzzle.
Slide 32
Here’s the solution. It is harder than it looks!
Slide 33
While we are on the subject of geometry, I’d like to show you a shareware program called Poly for manipulating polyhedra that you can use online or you can download it to use without internet access. You can get Poly at
You have to play with this live to really appreciate it.
Slide 34
The control box in the upper right corner allows you to choose what kind of polygon you want, and the color. If you click and drag your curser on the polygon, you can manipulate it to see all sides. If you click, drag, and release while moving, you can set it spinning, whatever speed you like.
The blue arrow is pointing to a slider control. When you move the slider to the left, the polygon gradually opens until it is flat.
Slide 35
Here is the dodecahedron half-open.
Slide 36
And this is how it looks fully flat. You can send this image to a printer, print it out, and then use scissors and tape to make one in 3-D.
Slide 37
You can work with polygons as simple as a cube, or as complex as this 6-frequency isosahedral geodesic sphere.
When you move the slider over for this one …
Slide 38
…here’s what you see. It looks like artwork to me!
Slide 39
Mathmadeeasy.com is a good resource for parents to consider. There is a fee for online tutoring, review courses, and practice exams. Your student has access to a tutor for homework or for math learning from home.
Slide 40
Here is an example of the tutorial material from this website with a helpful mnemonic for order of operations.
PEMDAS stands for “parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction.”
Slide 41
I have one more website I think you will want to know about. At webmath.com students can access help with their homework at midnight, on weekends, and from anywhere they have Internet.
They can get help in three ways: First, they can look up the type of problem to see how to solve for different variables, like this lesson on circles…
Slide 42
Second, students can get help with the exact problems in their textbook homework. They type in the name of the textbook, the page number, and the problem number and the website will show how to solve problems from that page.
Slide 43
…or third, you can type in any math problem and the site will give the answer and a detailed explanation of how to do the problem.
The solutions have audio and animation just like the teacher is explaining the problem while writing down the steps on your screen.
Slide 44
The window in the upper left shows what the animations look like, except they are larger. If you visit this page you can see it live.
Nutshell Math Plus is a resource within webmath.com. Teacher accounts are free because they want you to try the subscription features.
Slide 45
OK, I think that gives you a good idea about what kind of math resources you can find on the Internet. Next I’d like to show you some hardware products for teaching math.
When we recommend products for schools to buy, we try to offer low-technology solutions as well as the more expensive items. The rule of thumb is to go with the lowest technology that gets the job done wherever possible. This applies to math as much as it does to reading and writing.
Slide 46
A good example of low-technology for math is to use number blocks and other physical manipulatives. Blocks like these can be used for tracing numbers onto paper, or for setting up simple equations with tactile feedback. A student who cannot write numbers can sometimes manipulate blocks instead, or coins, or other objects. A student with a visual impairment might also benefit from large blocks like these.
Slide 47
Three-D objects such as plastic figures can be used for simple math problems.
As can be seen from the slide, six figures…
Slide 48
…divided into two groups by color…
Slide 49
…equals three of each color!
Slide 50
Hardware and software calculators are available in a wide variety of types. has software calculators for measurement, financial functions, geometry problems, and even a graphing calculator.
Slide 51
This is a talking calculator sold at Sears or at Toys-R-Us for $20. Since it is easier to hear a mistake than it is to see one, auditory support can reduce calculating errors.
Slide 52
For about $15 you can get this talking software calculator from DucklingSoft.com that helps students learn how to calculate. This product has stronger auditory support than the talking calculator because it helps with each step in a calculation.
Slide 53
This is Kevin Hills, Manager of Disability Support Services at Eastern Washington University.
He and another teacher designed several simple learning manipulatives to help a blind student complete math courses and tests.
In this photograph he is holding a Bell-shaped curve model with Braille labels and raised lines for the standard deviations.
Slide 54
This plotting board was used for an exam question. The points are small nails driven into the wood, and the x- and y- values were marked with Braille labels.
The axes themselves were made of wire, with staples to mark units.
This kind of creativity made it possible for this student to complete required courses for his degree.
Slide 55
Mr. Hills used a white board, since it has a metallic backing, and cut out figures from plastic. To the back of these he glued magnets. The labels were made in ink, with clear plastic Braille labels over the top, so that the teacher and the student could both read them.