Tools for students

Hi all,

Here are some tools I use with my students to help them understand math better:

WabbitEMU - an android app that simulates the ti-84 calculator.  Makes your android into a perfectly functioning graphing calculator, and more importantly, helps students learn the graphing calculator so they can use that tool during tests, even if they don't have a graphing calculator of their own.

Khan Academy - For anybody, at any age range, the SAT study guide is perfect.  It will track what you know and adjust, and show you what you still need to know.  I plan to use it to take the graduate tests I need to take in the near future, because it will diagnose if I need to re-remember anything and then give me the things I need to know.

Desmos.com - a great graphing calculator for any browser, any operating system.  It graphs in color and makes graphing easy.  One warning - students become a bit dependent upon it, so make sure you help them with graphing calculators too because they can't use desmos on assessments or the SAT.

TI-Nspire Cas CX - the best graphing calculator I've ever used.  Menu based and document driven, it looks more like a computer than a calculator, graphs in color, and will do most basic algebra tasks for you if you know how to use it. 

For presentations, I like smart boards, smart tablets, chromecasts for students to cast to (with their chromebooks) and dual displays.  My room has a forward facing and rear facing projector, one of which has a smart board attached.  I'm hoping my donorschoose gets funded so that I can use a wacom tablet on the other one, to sort of emulate the smart board functionality without actually having a smart board attached.  I used to use the RM easiteach boards, which I felt were better technology than SMART boards, but for some reason they've been discontinued. 
They were sort of like this:
https://www.camcor.com/cat/iMMPad-SE-Wireless-Classroom-Tablet-RM-Easiteach-Mac-IMMPADSE.html

Anyhow, have a great day!

Mark

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