My first attempt

Please find following my first attempt to build lesson plans using Cuisenaire rods and SL as the supplementary aids for instruction. http://college.livetext.com/doc/2595507

I had been stuck in the Cuisenaire rods stage for a while and I will try to come up with the SL part of lesson is yet to be completed.

Before that, I was stuck at the stage of wanting to understand why one would want to use the prims in SL to teach math if Cuisenaire rods in RL could be used to enhance the teaching of math with fewer fads and much more ease.

The first conclusion I came up with was that... regardless whether the learning of math will occur, the use of SL, in and out itself, makes people use and learn to use computer-- which might have its potential in the bridging of digital divide. The second conclusion I came up with was that-- it would take much more thinking and practicing before I could either come up with solid lessons or figure out the exact role and strength of SL as an instructional aid. (Yes, if I can show you the butterflies in the garden, why shall I ask you to find it on the screen?)

God knows when that Eureka moment will arrive. For now, let me to take a break in my RL-- inspired by that of Ratprincess2 Noel in SL. lol

Conference pictures

Please find following some picutre I took when attending a SL conference.

Wonderful Day

Today I went into TC Educator to build more items in Second Life to implement into my math lessons and I saw that some other people were there exploring the island. I met one of them who told me all about SciLand (a land devoted to educating teens in the sciences). There lands are affiliated and sponsored by NASA, JPL, and other science organizations.

I actually met the Director of one of the lands I think was called the Science School. He told me that he'd like to connect with TC and I informed him about what TC Ed Zone is doing. We teleported to his land, and he showed me around a little and told me about what they're trying to do. He works at the University of Denver in Physics and Astronomy. He's going to introduce me to some people who will be lead me on a tour of their lands (13 of them), and inform me about what they're trying to do with mathematics.

This is so cool.

Happy Day

Today I have decided to take my previous lesson to the next step by building a 2-Dimensional (Cartesian) Plane.



It is becoming more easy for me to build things on Second Life due to all of my experiences.

Here's a close up.


This plane will be part of my next lesson and I will be implementing coordinates into the lesson.

Out of Loop

I am currently immobile, can't go anywhere because i suffered a high ankle sprain and have been unable to walk since last Friday. I went to the hospital and my ankle was put in a cast and was also given a cane. However, i am frustrated by the fact that i can't go anywhere, i am usually a fast healer, but this one is taking longer than i like.
I have logged into second life once in a while but my personal computer do not have enough juice to keep second life running and always shut off after few minutes. So i feel completely out of loop, because i have no idea what the team is doing these days.
I hope i will be able to reacquaint myself with second life soon,or even better if my fellow team members are kind enough to keep me abreast with what is going on.

Developing The Lesson

Finally, I hope

This image is of Marcus's avatar standing in front of the tree. The size of the avatar in relation to the tree. The size of the tree is easily manipulated as a result you can make it both bigger and smaller than Marcus's avatar.

In this image i create a tree and also convince Marcus to appear in the snapshot. This allows me to see the size of Marcus's avatar in comparison of the tree i created. Since i can easily manipulate the size of the tree i can show how one particular size relates to another. Since these sizes are both in decimals and percentages, it gives me an opportunity to help the students understand percentages.

This image is a way of showing proportions. I decided to create a tree to demonstrate proportionality. I use my co-worker's avatar to show how two things next to each other differ in size and scope.

Yet a bigger box. This is made by just increasing the decimals corresponding to bigger objects. Clearly it is easy to see how a student working with this program will have a better appreciation of the shapes and the numbers that create them

This is yet another dimension of the same object. By turning a solid into a box, is another way to enhance the stdudents' understanding of a solid.

This is a way of showing how the object comes together. A solid with some of its sides cut out. This can be used to show how many sides a solid cube has, because manipulating the numbers let you easily add or remove different sides of the object. What is important is that you have the ability to construct and deconstruct any geometric shape this way.

This image is created by right clicking on an empty space pricesely where the image is right now. You ge a number of options, and you select CREATE. This will generate a menu of almost all the major geometric shapes. Here i chose a cube. I can change this shape any way i want, by clicking on OBJECT. The drop down menu will enable you to do whatever you wnat with the object. This is where the math comes in. First all the dimensions you can choose are in decimals, and they are for length, breadth, hieght, thickness, and even hollow.

This is a way to demonstrate the different sizes of the cube. By taking away some of the sides, we can show the construction of a solid.

This image shows yet another dimesion of the same object. This object is made by adding the length and hieght of the object. The coordinates control the size of the object. The larger the number of the bigger the object. This practice is a very neat way to show how to add and subtract decimals.

I believe the visual aspect of the the practice will be invaluable to the student understanding, becuase they can see how numbers can translate into size.


ThisThis image is created by right clicking on an empty space pricesely where the image is right now. There will be a number of options, and you select CREATE. This will generate a menu of almost all the major geometric shapes. Here i chose a cube. I can change this shape any way i want, by clicking on OBJECT. The drop down menu will enable you to do whatever you wnat with the object. This is where the math comes in. First all the dimensions you can choose are in decimals, and they are for length, breadth, hieght, thickness, and even hollow. This will enable students to to see decimals at work.

I tried uploading my lesson plan yesterday, but i could not. Dr Chang suggested that i should upload the images one at a time. So that is what i will try to accomplish today. The images will demonstrate not only how to build objects on second life, but hopefully they will show just about everything on second life can be a valuable math teaching resource.