The Next Scribe... Hahahaha?

Well Robert told me who the next scribe is lol. Since um... Blogger isn't working for him in some strange coincidence. Don't ask me why... I'm having problems too... lol. Well here's the next scribe... (Robert did make this. He sent me it.)

Yeah it's me. lol. What a strange coincidence... Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Circle Acrostics

Kudos to Mrs. Armstrong for turning me on to the idea of acrostics in math.

Blogging Prompt
Your task is to create an acrostic "poem" that demonstrates an understanding of circle geometry related to any one of these concepts:

CIRCLE
INSCRIBE
ANGLE
CHORD
TANGENT
SUBTEND
CONGRUENT

As an extra challenge (worth an additional bonus mark) try to make a Double Acrostic, that is, each line should begin and end with a letter of the word you are working with.

Remember, this is a bit of a race. Your answers have to be posted to the blog in the comments to this post. If someone has already used a word or phrase in their acrostic you cannot use the same word or phrase. i.e. It gets harder to do the longer you wait. ;-)

Here is an example of an acrostic that Mrs. Armstrong wrote:

Always in 2 dimensions
Region between the boundaries
Entire surface is calculated
Answer is in units²

Be creative and have fun with this!!

Sunday Connected-Slide Funday!

ConSlide puzzles are a new type of sliding block puzzles invented by M. Oskar van Deventer... The pieces of a ConSlide puzzle move like regular sliding block puzzles, but some of the pieces have sections connected by bars of various heights. This means pieces can pass over and under one another as long as the bars and posts don't run into one another. The goal of each of these puzzles is to move the red block to the upper left corner. Play it here.

(Once again, thanks to Think Again!)

The Editor's Initiative

Instead of posting a pre-test reflective comment on your progress in this class you may undertake The Editors' Initiative. Here's how it works:

  Step 1: Scan through the previously posted Scribe Posts on the blog. Find one that has one or more errors.

  Step 2: Discuss the error(s) and what you think the correction(s) should be with me. If I agree with your editorial proposal go to Step 3.

  Step 3: Discuss the editorial change with the author of the post. The author will chose to proceed in one of the following two ways.

3a	3b
The Editor is briefly allowed administrative privileges on the blog. They will edit the post to make any necessary corrections. They then sign the post at the bottom: Edited by: [name] on [date]	The author will edit the post in consultation with the editor who will vet the author's changes until they are correct. The author then signs the post at the bottom: Consulted editor [editor's name] on [date]

Students may chose to make more than one edit. Each additional edit will earn them a bonus mark on the next test. Your mark on the previous test determines the maximum number of edits/bonus marks available to you.

Mark on Last Test / Max Edits Allowed
> 90 / 1

80-89 / 2 (1 bonus mark)

70-79 / 3 (2 bonus marks)

60-69 / 4 (3 bonus marks)

50-59 / 5 (4 bonus marks)

40-49 / 6 (5 bonus marks)

30-39 / 7 (6 bonus marks)

20-29 / 8 (7 bonus marks)

10-19 / 9 (8 bonus marks)

0-9 / 10 (9 bonus marks)

You may also assume the role of Content Consultant to earn marks as outlined above. Here's how it works:

  Step 1: Scan through the previously posted Scribe Posts on the blog. Find one that doesn't provide enough detail or leaves out too much information. Decide what additional content should be added.

  Step 2: Discuss the new content you think should be added with me. If I agree with your editorial proposal go to Step 3.

  Step 3: Discuss the editorial change with the author of the post. Together, you will chose to proceed in one of the following two ways.

3a	3b
The Content Consultant will add a new post to the blog inserted at the appropriate time and date. They then sign the post at the bottom: Additional Content by: [name] on [date]	The author will edit the post to include the additional content provided by the consultant. Additional content will appear under a heading "Additional Content". The author then signs the post at the bottom: Additional Content Provided by [consultant's name] on [date]

Students may chose to make several additional content contributions for bonus marks according to the table above.

After discussing the issue with all my classes I have decided that you cannot edit your own scribe posts. When it's your turn to be scribe try to write a post that is so excellent no will be able to edit it. ;-)

Mr. Dixon's on eBay - How Trusted is He?

Mr. Dixon is in my classroom right now and he has a question he needs your help with.

His trust rating on eBay is 99.2%. Out of 122 transactions he's had, 121 people said he treated them well and he can be trusted.

Mr. Dixon wants to know when will his "trust rating" reach 99.3% and he needs your help.

(1) Can you write an equation he can use to solve this problem?
(2) Can you solve the equation and tell Mr. Dixon how many more favourable exchanges he needs to have to raise his trust rating to 99.3%.

All of my classes are working on this. The first student in each class who solves Mr. Dixon's problem correctly gets a chocolate bar. ;-)

Proof that Proof Exists...?

I can't prove what's allready been proven yet
there is no proof that we have proven anything.
So I'll prove that I proven everyone wrong with
this really simple thing. HAHAHAHA











Look's strange but it's so true. Make a triangle
and cut off the corners. Then put them together.
You make a line. And a straight line is 180º. Now
that's proof that YOU can do at home. Hahahaha.

Oh yeah. It was taken from this site.

is this proof?

http://www.apronus.com/geometry/triangle.htm

i found this site, who knows this might be useful to all of us.

bloggin' before the big test...

this is my blog before the test... i need that one mark hah =)... well im pretty comfortable with solving equations.. whats really bothering me is the one with the equation and the greater or less sign then you need to find a coordinate, that really confuses me. plus the asymptote, its a funny word but really hard for me to comprehend. well this unit is pretty hard and we all have got to work even harder. well good luck everybody! especially me haha =)

Fourth Powers

- I hear you have extraordinary powers!

- Not true! What I said to the press was that I have fourth powers at home.

- What do you mean?

- 1, 16, 81, .... That kind of stuff.

- But these are square numbers!?

- Yes, but they are more than that. They are square numbers squared.

- I see. And you have these at home?

- Some of them. Not all of them.

- And what do you do with them?

- Play with them, of course, what else?

- What kind of games?

- This morning I added them.

- That must have been great fun!

- That's what I said to the press, but they didn't believe me.

- How did the game go?

- Not very well. I tried to pick less than nineteen of them, one several times if
neccessary, to get any number in the universe.

- How did you get 20?

- 20 was easy. 1 + 1 + 1 + 16 = 20. I only had to use five of them.

- Which number gave you problems?

- I found a number less than 500 that required nineteen fourth powers.

- So you lost the game?

- Yes, and I can't even remember which number it was.

Solving Equations -- Lots of 'em!

A couple of reviews to get us started:

    Solving Inequalities and
    Systems of Linear Inequalities

This is a well done tutorial on solving linear inequalities including a few absolute value inequalities. You can find other types of inequalities (quadratic, polynomial and rational) here.

This is a good review of solving various types of equations.

You can find a tutorial, quiz and graphing calculator tips on solving systems of linear equations here.

Here you can find two tutorials (solving graphically and algebraically), a quiz and graphing calculator tips for solving non-linear systems. i.e. a line and a parabola.

All about graphing circles and parabolas is over there.

Absolute value inequalities -- tutorial here and practice there.

And, to round off this overwhelming, information laden post, 5 quizzes you can try to see how well you understand the material:

• Graphing Systems of Equations


• Substitution


• Elimination


• More Elimination


• Graphing Systems of Inequalities

Whew! That's a LOT of stuff!! But it's good to have a lot of material to work with before a big test. Isn't it? ;-)

The View From Sunday

This week's puzzle comes from Think Again! again. ;-)

The Other View

With nine pieces as the one shown above, a 3x3x3 cube was made. Below you can see the cube viewed from South, East, and North. What does it look like seen from the West?

del.icio.us Guide

You can download a pdf guide to del.icio.us right here.

It is 12 pages long. Flip to the section where you feel you most need help. If you like to work off a hard copy you can print it up. If you don't have a printer at home you can print it up at school. If enough of you want to have the hard copy let me know in class and I'll have a bunch of them copied for you. ;-)

DON'T FORGET TO POST BEFORE THE TEST!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Well I'm getting this up before everyone else again.

HAHAHAHA

So anyways. The test is on tuesday so don't forget to post. Uh ha. And so far. I hate circle and distance problems. I understand them well enough but if you give them to me. I'll go blank. That's a real fact. The line problems are really easy. In fact too easy. Simple as can be =) . HAHAHAHA And the stuff we just learned is easy enough execpt for one thing. For some reason I allways get confused with the greater than and less than sign. Hahaha. I remember a loooooooong time ago I failed a greater than, less than test because I mixed up the signs. Hahaha. That was a long time ago though and... I still get confused. Hahaha. Oh well. I have to learn more than. Haha.

Um.. SO remember guys. I'll say it again.


DON'T FORGET TO POST BEFORE THE TEST!!!!!

sorry scribin' so late... this is for november 3 ya'll

SORRY PEEPS =).... better late that never hehe... well.

Well November 3rd's class was started off with problems on the board. Here they are, try to solve them if you weren't there. There are answers on the bottom.

SOLVE EACH SYSTEM
Questions:
1. a) a = b + 3
3a - 3b = 7

b) 3x + y = 6
7x + 5y = -2

c) 11x = 8y + 13
5x = 7y + 16

2. One number is 5 more than a smaller number. If 4 times the larger number is subtracted from 6 times the smaller number, the result is 6. Find the 2 numbers.

ANSWERS:

LET STATEMENTS: big number = b, smaller number = n

b = n + 5

6n - 4b = 6

WELCOME TO ORDERED TRIPLES.

While ordered pairs are for flat surfaces, ordered triples are for 3 dimensional surfaces.

ORDERED PAIRS: (x , y) ORDERED TRIPLES: (x , y , z)

Here are some examples:

well fellow classmates im not even sure if i explained it that well but i tried my best sorry guys about being so late my computer is so strange.

PS. mr k i got a good joke for pi day =)...

Q: What do you get if you divide the cirucmference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?

A: Pumpkin Pi!

A del.icio.us Idea

I recently received this email from a student in another class:

Hey Mr. K.

This is one of the websites I was looking at that had simplifying radicals..

http://regentsprep.org/Regents/math/radicals/pracRad.htm

I found a few that I thought were good just by typing "radicals" in google, they really helped me out.

See you Monday,
************

Students often find more, and better, sites than I do. You're better websurfers than I am. ;-) That got me thinking .....

I spend a lot of time looking for good websites that help us learn in this class. But what if we all spent a little time doing that? What if there was an easy way for us to both save our bookmarks (without cluttering up our favourites list) and share them with the whole class with the click of a single button? And what if we could access those bookmarks not just from home, but from any computer in the world? Hmmm .....

Well, there is an easy way to do that! Instead of saving bookmarks on your home computer sign up for a free account at a site called del.icio.us. You can then access them from any computer in the world. You can easily install a little button/bookmark that allows you to save any webpage you're looking at without interupting your surfing. Tag it using this tag:

pc30s

Now we can all get each others bookmarks with the click of a single button in our del.icio.us accounts.

I'll go one better than that. If you all jump in on this idea, I'll write a post on our blog (with a permanent link in the sidebar) that will load the 10 most recently saved links automatically as you find them. I'll also include a link to the archive that you can browse at your leisure.

If this interests you (and I can't imagine how it doesn't) read this tutorial on how to get started with del.icio.us. You might also be interested in watching this screencast that illustrates just how powerful this web tool is.

When you've signed up for a del.icio.us account (register here) leave a comment on this post telling me so. When I see some action here I'll blog that self-updating post. ;-)

It's Sunday Again

In the game of Kayles a number of pins (or coins) are arranged in separate rows. A legal move consists of knocking down either one pin or two adjacent pins from the same row. This may break up the row into two smaller rows. Whichever player knocks down the last pin wins. What's the winning strategy for the game of Kayles?

Play here. Discuss your winning strategies in the comments to this post .... and have fun doing it!

You Made An Impact.

About a month ago I was contacted by Meg Gwaltney who works for Stein Communications, an education marketing firm in the US. She had stumbled across our blog and was impressed with our work. So impressed she wrote an article about us that is distributed across the United States. You can read it here.

You've made an impact. Congratulations! Keep up the good work!