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Mathematics Manipulative Online Resources for Q-476 Technology to Enhance Learning

Rationale :
Experiential learning is built on the premise that students who are actively involved will retain, recall, and make connections of material learned. Math contains many abstract concepts which may be difficult for students to grasp. Using manipulatives will actively involve your students in the learning process thus aiding in their understanding of abstractions and concrete operations.

I have combed the internet looking for resources for teachers, parents, and students. You will find links to papers about using manipulatives, math applets, printable manipulatives, and some links to other resources. These links are all quality links, think about including some in your weekly class newsletter to share with parents.


Search Strategy:
To locate the mathematical resources for my manipulatives page, I used several different search engines. I used Dogpile.com, Google.com, and my favorite MarcoPolo search engine which lead me to the Illuminations website. The keywords in the order I used them are:

  • math This is a general subject term and I was curious as to what I could find.

  • math and manipulatives I knew I wanted to locate manipulatives that could be used with students in the classroom, home, or in a lab setting.
  • math and manipulatives and free My last search effort brought up a lot of hits that included sales pitches for purchasing various math manipulatives. I added the word free to narrow down the information.
  • math and manipulatives and free and online Next, I added the word online because I wanted to narrow my search more. This last search located the type of sites I was looking for.

One of the other searches I used was to go to the MarcoPolo website and click on the link for Illuminations. At this site I knew what I wanted to find. I have been given the MarcoPolo training and one of the sites we explored in the training session was the Math-lets and i-Maths. I wanted to be sure and include these in my resources. After I found these links I did a power search using the MarcoPolo search engine and using the keywords math manipulatives and checking the appropriate boxes indicating online movie files and audio files conducted a search. I was able to locate several different resources but only one I want to use on my page.

To locate online articles about the use of manipulatives as they relate to mathematics, I used the following keywords:

  • math manipulatives and articles
  • articles about math manipulatives This allowed me to find the article Math Learning Disabilities
  • Eric and manipulatives
  • Eric Digest and manipulatives I located the article Experiential Learning of Mathematics: Using Manipulatives .
  • Virtual manipulatives I was glad I thought of this because it brought me to the most fantastic website which is being developed by Utah State University. Although this site was not a journal article it was a gold mine of information which I am going to use on my webpage. I also located the article Virtual Manipulatives: A New tool for Hands-On Math.
Relevance:
I feel that all my links are relevant for their intended purpose which is to encourage teachers to use technology to enhance the curriculum. I have listed links with lesson plans to help them get started and listed other sites with applets that can be used in conjunction with any textbook that teaches to the standards. For those teachers are uncomfortable with completing an online lesson plan an alternative would be to print out manipulatives to use with the class. If they are not comfortable with printing they can read online articles that may encourage them to use virtual manipulatives with their classes. The resources I have listed speak to a wide variety of comfort levels.

Explanation for the Pages I created:
The links below are to my pages of Math Manipulatives. All the manipulatives listed in the Illuminations Site and at the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives will allow you to meet the standards. Each lesson has data on which standard it address. The Mathematics Manipulatives and Lessons page has links to single day lesson plans and multiple day plans. All these plans are from the Illuminations website and have an interactive component.

The More Manipulatives page has a list of links to the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives and the MegaMaths site. Neither of these host lesson plans although the National Library will in the future. The next section has links to online flash cards and printable resources. These are good for online skill and drill activities. You can also use these in your class newsletter. If you have a child in your class whose parents don't have the resources to purchase a set of flash cards, you can print out a set of customizable ones!

If you are sure not sure about using manipulative with your students, I have listed several online articles. These articles give you some historical information about manipulative, why they are useful, and the national guidelines on using them.


Mathematics Manipulative and Lesson Plans
More Manipulative

searching paper for class

All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2002 Jean Napier-Faeih

 

 

 




All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2001 Jean Napier-Faeih