turtle pond | strempletechtools

Illuminations: Turtle Pond

Curator: Aimee Muscoe

Name & Link to Tech Tool or Tool homepage: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=3534

Brief Description of Tech Tool: Students must plan a route for a turtle to get to a pond. The turtle and pond are located on a coordinate grid, students must look at the relationship of the two objects to determine how to get the turtle to the pond. This tool can help students with their understandings of direction, distance, location, and representation.

Technical & Cost considerations: This is a free tool that would work well on student computers or a smart board. It does require the use of Adobe Flash Player.

Evaluation

Description of Learning Activity

I would have my students play this game as a way to practice looking at the relationship between objects on a coordinate plane. They would have to practice determining the distance between objects and the direction that the turtle must travel in order to reach his destination.

1. Learning Activity Types

LA-Practice - practicing for fluency

LA-Apply - applying mathematics to problems and situations

2. What mathematics is being learned?

NCTM Standards

NCTM-Geo-specify locations - specify locations and describe spatial relationships using coordinate geometry and other representational systems;

VA SOL Strands

8.8 a, b - The student will a) apply transformations to plane figures; and b) identify applications of transformations.

Proficiency Strands

PS-adaptive reasoning- students must think logically about the location of the objects in order to successfully get the turtle to the pond

PS-productive disposition- this is a real world application (similar to reading a map)Additional comments on what is being learned

3. How is the mathematics represented?

The mathematics is represented as a virtual manipulative and creates a dynamic representation for students to interact with. The grid lines on the ground give students extra help in determining the distance, but they can be removed for more advanced learners.

4. What role does technology play?

The disadvantage of this tool is that it is simplistic and students may be able to quickly master getting the turtle to the pond. Adding the extra obstacles does make the task more challenging and requires students to think more about the relationship between the objects.

Affordances of Technology for Supporting Learning

Representing Ideas & Thinking - Students must look at a map representation and think about the relationships of the objects in order to successfully move the turtle to his desired destination

5. How does the technology fit or interact with the social context of learning?

This tool can be used alone or students could work together in small groups. This tool could also be used on a smart board for larger groups or whole class instruction.

6. What do teachers and learners need to know?

This is a very simple tool to use and doe not require any special technology knowledge. In the more advanced version of the game, students need to know basic angle measurements to help direct the turtle.

7. How could this resource supplement/facilitate PBL?

This resource can be used to supplement PBL. This game could be played as an additional resource for what students are learning.