Anne McEnerny-Ogle wrote the first internet articles for the 1995-96 school year. When she invited me to write the articles beginning with the 1996-97 school year, I never dreamed it would turn into an amazing journey covering 15 years. Just last week I was tutoring a second grade student who was having a difficult time learning to borrow in subtraction. After modeling the process with appropriate blocks, I showed her the NLVM website with subtraction being illustrated using place value blocks. When she selected the block of 10 to borrow and saw it actually break apart into 10 cubes, she exclaimed “Oh, Cool!”

Since this will be my last article, I would like to share my favorite and most often used internet resources.

NLVM: National Library of Virtual Math: Balance scales for solving equations with integers, borrowing in subtraction that was mentioned earlier, GCF and LCM using Venn diagrams (useful in illustrating how to find the LCM in solving rational equations!), and a wide array of topics for grades from 1 to 12 are all at this site. Try exploring the many fraction topics using circles or rectangles, the number line bounce for addition and subtraction, and many other helpful mathematics explorations.

Shodor Interactivate Activities: Be sure to try the variety of interactive activities math topics from grades 3 to 12. This is one of the most comprehensive sites available. The materials include an interactive online version of “The Pit and the Pendulum.”

Math.com: This site has a wide range of topics covering Basic Math through Advanced Topics. Presentations are clear and easy to negotiate. Just choose your area. Then click on the topic you want to practice. These are tutorials with interactive practice.

Make Sense of the Times Tables: Studying 3 facts until they are mastered, then studying 3 more, then putting all six together, is a much more effective strategy than looking at 10 facts and going over them again and again. Here is a structured look at learning the times tables with effective interactive practice.

Multiplication Practice, Interactive Applet: Visual representation of the area model of multiplication. Click on the numbers you wish to multiply and then click on the equal sign.

Multiplying Polynomials with Tiles: Scroll down the site to find the interactive Tiles. This interactivity will show the factors and the intermediate steps to find the product. Illustrates the FOIL method of multiplication. The student changes the tiles while working through the steps in the solution. Factoring uses the same format. Also visit here for the Factoring Polynomials with Tiles site.

West Texas A&M Virtual Math Lab: Index to Math Tutorials. Check here for topics covered. Tutorials 2 - 13 cover the prerequisites to College Algebra. Tutorials 14 on cover the College Algebra concepts. This is clear and easy for students to follow. Tutorial 1 covers how to succeed in a math class and is great!

The Math Forum @ Drexel: Chameleon Graphing is a fun way to learn about the Coordinate Plane, Lines and Slope. Kids love the Chameleon.

Calculator help for the TI and other calculators: Students appreciate this explanation of how to use a large number of calculators. Included are TI, Casio, Sharp, HP, Commodore, Radio Shack, Aurora, Datexx, and Microsoft Excel. This website was last updated on 9/12/2004