So I have been reading some of  Dan Meyer‘s  series of “What can you do with this”   posts.  Cool Stuff, to be sure.

My efforts will be less ambitious, but still helpful, I hope.  If you don’t live under a rock, you know that there are a boatload of Java Applets and interactive tools out there on the web.  I don’t even want to list a small fraction of them, because I’m sure we each have our own folder of go-to applets.

So many of these are “cool.”   But the “cool”  eventually has to become a useful too to help my students learn.  And that’s where I come in.  I know that many folks have learning worksheets around these tools, and some are really great.  Many, however,  barely scratch the surface of what will actually work in a classroom.  I think that the design & sequencing of questions / tasks / set-ups  is some of the harder work I try to do.  Sometimes I have success, sometimes I don’t.

So I want to propose an invitation to “think and play:”
1.  I post an applet that I think is “cool”  for some math reason.
2. We all play with it, and THEN
3.  We put our teacher hat on and start doing some real thinking…  Specifically:

a. What questions  would you design for  your KIDS that motivate the need to use this tool?
b. When playing with this tool, what would you want kids to see , discover, or struggle with?
c. What mathematical / practice goals  would you want your kids to leave with after playing with the activity?

So Here’s the first “cool tool” I like:   It’s a Plinko Probability Applet.   It comes from the PhET project at the Uniersity of Colorado at Boulder.   This one is particularly cool for a number of reasons.  When you change probability of a ball  falling to the right,  the little pegs actually “tilt”  to the right.

Brainstorm of the quick math topics: binomial probabilities,  empirical probability converging to theoretical probability,  impact of  n and p on the  shape, center, and variability of the distribution of pegs,  yada yada yada.  That’s the easy part.

What would we design for kids?   What questions start to emerge when YOU start playing with it?  How can this get leveraged into cool stuff for kids?    What’s the important math in this?

My intentions is to “wring out”  all of the potential in using this tool.   Maybe an effective lesson or few can emerge from this.   Let’s find out.