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Newsletter, Volume 2.1, August 29th, 2001

An update on resource development at www.mathsnet.net Thank you for subscribing. MathsNet is a free and independent educational website, produced in its entirety by me, and supported technically by www.AngliaCampus.com. MAJOR RECENT DEVELOPMENTS If you want to you can vote for MathsNet at the UK Net Awards, www.uknetawards.co.uk, by August 31st. Find it in the "Best Resource/Educational site" category. CURRENT PROJECTS My AS/A2 course now includes a "Graph Centre" at www.mathsnet.net/asa2/modules/graphcentre.html. This page summarises all the graphs involved in the course. There are also new pages on power series for Further Maths students, starting at www.mathsnet.net/asa2/modules/p64expx.html A level results are out of course in the UK. At my school the A-Level and GCSE grades were fine, much as last year. AS results were a very different and depressing story - though we did expect it. Nationally there was almost a 30% failure rate, yet government agencies appear to be positive about AS. What happened at your school? How are you going to make a positive difference for the new Year 12 starting next week? And how can we affect government thinking before A Level maths fades away completely? I can imagine my A level classroom next week being EMPTY, the sound of whistling wind in the distance and tumble weed drifting through the door. I've updated the "Graphmaze" page so it actually works! www.mathsnet.net/graphmaze.html Finally, any more suggestions for REAL justifications for teaching algebra?

Newsletter, Volume 2.2, September 28th, 2001

An update on resource development at www.mathsnet.net Thank you for subscribing. MathsNet is a free and independent educational website, produced in its entirety by me, and supported technically by www.AngliaCampus.com. MAJOR RECENT DEVELOPMENTS MathsNet has made it into the shortlist (of eight) in the "Innovation and Change" category of the Becta/TES 2002 ICT in Practice Awards. This is mainly for work connected to the Geometry material on MathsNet. The awards will be announced in time for the BETT Show in London in January 2002. Note that the password for access to puzzle answers only appears in the emailed newsletter, not this archive. CURRENT PROJECTS My AS/A2 course now includes a lot more interactive "examination questions" based on specimen or actual papers from the exam boards EdExcel, OCR, AQA, WJEC and NICCEA. There are also new pages on trigonometry in Module P1 that include displays of the circle definitions of the trig functions and a page on use of graphic calculators. The total number of topics across all the modules now stands at 587! The AS story continues. As far as I can see, no one at DFES level seems to be getting to grips with the inconsistencies and oddities of the AS/AS maths specifications. Numbers in Year 13 have dropped significantly from last year. At my own school we have about 35 Year 13 students, 20 less than last year. To help ease the load, we are teaching mainly P1, S1, S2 this year where last year we tackled P1, P2, S1. We have given all Year 12 students a two week crash course in the basics - based on the background knowledge present in all specifications. However, it seems clear that not all the 10 topics in that list are equally important, for example the volumes of cones and spheres and the properties of circles do not feature a great deal in Year 12. On the other hand, a facility with all things algebraic remains crucial. Development on MathsNet is, inevitably, slowing at the moment as I am back to full-time teaching and so am doing things in small bursts rather than finding hours and hours to work on the site. I have written a review of web sites that offer revision material to A-Level students . You can find the important results on this Revision page and the full article will appear soon in the Association of Teachers Of Mathematics magazine, MicroMath. Can anyone recommend any sites or CDs that provide good quality GCSE revision? Finally, in August , The Royal Society published its report "Teaching and Learning geometry 11-19", a copy of which is available on the Royal Society website. MathsNet fully supports this document, particularly its principles and recommendations, some of which are listed in MathsNet's Geometry Policy.

Newsletter, Volume 2.3, November 4th 2001

An update on resource development at www.mathsnet.net Thank you for subscribing. MathsNet is a free and independent educational website, produced in its entirety by me, and supported technically by www.AngliaCampus.com. MAJOR RECENT DEVELOPMENTS Sadly, MathsNet did not make it any further from the shortlist (of eight) in the "Innovation and Change" category of the Becta/TES 2002 ICT in Practice Awards, which will be announced at the BETT Show in London in January 2002. Note that the password for access to puzzle answers only appears in the emailed newsletter, not this archive. CURRENT PROJECTS My AS/A2 course http://www.mathsnet.net/asa2/modules/ now includes a total of 105 interactive "examination questions" based on specimen or actual papers from the exam boards EdExcel, OCR, AQA, WJEC and NICCEA. The most recent additions are "examination papers" which include 7 or 8 sample questions from each module. The total number of topics in the Pure and Statistics modules now stands at P1-P3: 359, S1-S3: 195, with an overall total of 668! On the Articles page, http://www.mathsnet.net/articles.html you will find reviews of three current CD-ROM products aimed at A-Level mathematics students. I have redeveloped two parts of my online interactive geometry material as online course. These courses are designed to be highly accessible to both teachers and students and do not require the learning of any specific interactive geometry software. The first, entitled "Interactive Transformations", you can find at http://www.mathsnet.net/transform/ . Reflections, rotations, enlargements and translations are all covered in detail. The second, "Interactive Shape", is at http://www.mathsnet.net/shape/ This resource is organised by Key Stage and covers everything from triangles and quadrilaterals to circle theorems and locus. Both courses include pages for teachers and/or tutors, with summaries of contents and additional ideas. Also included are some BIG displays intended for use with a PC projector and/or interactive white board. Incidentally I do not have access myself to an interactive whiteboard. Has anyone any ideas on that? Finally, I am making very tentative plans to launch some of the resources on MathsNet as commercial products sold online as downloadable units. If this happens it will be in the new year.

Newsletter, Volume 2.4, December 6th 2001

An update on resource development at www.mathsnet.net Thank you for subscribing. MathsNet is a free and independent educational website, produced in its entirety by me, and supported technically by www.AngliaCampus.com. MAJOR RECENT DEVELOPMENTS There is now a tour of the Interactive ASA2 course which picks out some topics from the AS modules on Pure Mathematics, Statistics and Mechanics. Also available is a tour of the Geometry topics on MathsNet. Both tours would be suitable for display on a PC projector at events such as Open Evenings for prospective parents orfor students choosing their A level courses. Note that the password for access to puzzle answers only appears in the emailed newsletter, not this archive. CURRENT PROJECTS My AS/A2 course http://www.mathsnet.net/asa2/modules/ now includes more topics from the Mechanics module M1, including examination questions. There is a total now of 127 interactive "examination questions" based on specimen or actual papers from the exam boards EdExcel, OCR, AQA, WJEC and NICCEA. On the Articles page, http://www.mathsnet.net/articles.html you will soon find a developing review of WebEQ 3, a collection of tools for putting dynamic maths on the Web. This is published by the people behind MathType. I also hope to include reviews soon of Geometers Sketchpad 4, which promises easier methods for creating interactive web pages, and FX Draw 2 the add-on to Word for creating mathematical diagrams. These should appear over the Christmas period. Is there any other newish web-related maths software out there that might be worthy of reviewing? In addition to the other interactive courses mentioned in previous newsletters, I have plans to create one on Fractions. There are materials produced in 2000 on Fractions already here. Some of the pages use LiveMath, a plugin-for creating interactive algebra and graphs, but I am trying to move away from LiveMath towards more Java based applets. Macromedia Flash files would be a great addition too but I cannot find the time to learn Action Script, the programming language within Flash 5. Does anyone have any suggestions? This is the last newsletter of 2001.

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