Over the last couple of years I’ve had the opportunity to work with some very clever students. Last year one of them knocked me up this T-shirt based on my site’s Alexa ranking. Tah!

Today when I was hunting for some files I came across it. I ripped into alexa.com to see if the rank had changed and was rather surprised to find that my site had popped up a little in the rankings. My 3 month average is the 417 219th most popular website on the Internet. Sort of makes you all warm and fuzzy inside So I jumped into Photoshop and changed the numbers to what they are today.

On digging around in the stats on the site I found that in certain countries around the world my site’s ranking is much higher. e.g .

Fiji = 2 696 th most popular, Barain = 16 196th, Australia = 44 000th, Quatar = 55 171 and that 5% of my traffic comes from The United Arab Emirates.

It was also nice to see just how many countries are downloading my resources and using them to educate. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/adrianbruce.com

All that said, I aim to keep the site growing. So feel free to get your friends to subscribe to my newsletter and pass my site around those who need the resources. I have heaps more ideas that I want to get online over the coming months esp poetry, 5 minute Science ideas, a heap more Math games, ideas on reducing ‘teacher stress’ and esp the reading games that people have converted to other languages for me to add to the site.

cheers

Adrian

Every time I invite students to get out a calculator & double numbers until they either become so large they show an ‘E’ on the display or move to scientific notation I’m amazed at the banter/buzz that is produced.

Students love BIG numbers and for me this activity has always produced an excellent opportunity to seize the teachable moment presented. ie you can extend the your students beyond the constraints of syllabus and direct them towards the parts of our existence that inspire ‘awe & wonder’ & raise truly interesting questions.

Look, I know that HUGE numbers are outside the possible conceptual understanding of children, but hey… these numbers are so fantastically large I would say that most people cannot truly comprehend their enormity. But why do we shelter children from them? My new place ‘value charts on steroids’ webpage is more about attitude development than complete understanding.

As an aside… my son 9 y/o son has been asking soooooooooo many questions about BIG numbers while I have been putting these resources together. Surely the question raising in itself has to make the place value chart downloads worthwhile. lol

So, feel free to download, print, laminate, display in your windows or at eye level in your class, discuss and explore my new large number place value charts. Who knows, you might even switch a couple of kids onto the Math of the HUGE with the research tasks and bits of trivia I have included.

cheers

Adrian

A couple of years ago I had the chance to attend a keynote by Marco Torres of Ican Film Festival fame. In amongst his many pearls of wisdom he said, ‘Know your Yodas’. For me these words meant to recognise the people who inspire, guide, extend, support and teach you.

Since my interests are so eclectic I was visualising an assembly of Yodas something like the Sergent Pepper’s album cover. My current album cover (or Ipod CoverArt hehehehe) would be a collection of: thinkers, cricket players, writers, musicians, photographers, friends, film makers, educators, poets, great leaders, scientists, artists, hackers and the picture would be constantly growing and changing.

Now with the advent of Twitter we can get to know many of our Yodas from the education world personally. We can have short (140 character) chats in real time with the people we ‘follow’ wherever they are in the world. We can: converse, challenge, argue, ask advice, organise get togethers, joke, lurk, direct people to readings or digital resources, call for Skype participants and even get to know a little about their personal lives.

As far as software goes for Twittering, I like the Firefox plugin Twitterfox. Using the Twitter homepage really doesn’t fit my work style. With Twitterfox each time a person adds a comment to Twitter it pops up in my web browser’s window. I can then glance down at it, give it a quick read and reply, go to recommended resource or continue working. Nice, convenient & relatively unobtrusive.

Twitter has become a nice add on for my professional development and it definitely has implications for the professional development of all educators.

So if… ‘ u rnt using twitter - itz where itz all at man :)’ - (MizMinh, 2008) it could be time to start checking it out.

cheers

Twittername = adrianbruce

PS Who are your Yodas and what would your cover art look like?

Here’s a net for making cubes. I’ve added the faces again as I’ve received a couple of emails saying how the students are liking the play on words between a ’square faced’ cartoon character and the ’square face’ of a 3d shape.

I’ve also added a section of facts and questions about cubes so you can have your students create labels for your Math display. I figure this will give them a little more ownership.

cheers

Adrian

PS If you found this resource useful, you might like to consider subscribing to my newsletter. It lets you know when I’ve added new resources to my site.

Hi Again All,

Here is the second in my series of three addition games that I’ve set the goal of completing this week. This new addition game deals with reinforcing the addition facts of ‘doubles + 1′. I’ve played it heaps with kids over the years and it is very effective.

You can add to the gameplay by allowing students to use calculators and this way they will see that the human mind can be a more efficient tool to use in some situations

For those of you in the snow, you can play this game by drawing it up in chalk on the carpet.

Enjoy

Adrian

Dear World,

Tonight I’ve put together a colourful tetrahedron net for you all that can hang in your Math display area. Feel free to use the tetrahedron in any way will aid your students’ education. (or help them get through those bloody, bloody stupid, dumb, rah, rah, rah tests)

Yes… I drew all the triangular faces myself in a program called Inkscape and for those who asked I used a Wacom tablet to get the drawing control. NB I tell my classes that, ‘drawing with a mouse is like picking your nose with your elbow’. OK, they are 10… they think it is funny

cheers

Adrian

In Australia books are rather expensive e.g for me to buy my son a paperback copy of Rowan of Rin for his birthday it will cost c.$14 US here, yet through Amazon it only costs $5.99 + postage. Needless to say I do a bit of shopping through Amazon

In the last couple of years I’ve added an Amazon Wishlist to my site. In that time I’ve probably received one ‘wish’ in return for every 500 000 educational resources I give away.

Today was another one of those nice moments when a delivery truck pulled up and I had to sign for an Amazon parcel. Sue B in the UK gifted me this woodwork book for all the resources she uses with her students.

The message read, “To Adrian, I think your resources are amazing. Thank you so much. Sue B, Arleseey, UK.’

So Sue, just to let you know that this book is going in the cupboard until my son’s birthday on March 28th. He is going through a phase where he loves to build stuff with wood. Thank you soooo much for your generosity. It is truly appreciated!
Cheers

Adrian

Evening All,

Today I finished one of the tried and true number fact games I have used over the years with my classes. This new addition game is drawn up on the concrete in chalk and play as a small group. The game board and game cards are all in the download.

The power of the game comes when you discuss the use of ‘efficient’ mental strategies. I get the kids to aim for ‘SEE IT. SAY IT’ ie automatic recall. We also discuss the steps on the way to ‘automacy’. 1. Counting on fingers 2.Knowing the answer in your head but since you are stressed you still use your fingers 3. Automatic recall.

You’ll have heaps of fun with this but make sure they ‘Play Safe!’

cheers

Adrian

Hey All,

I’ve just spent the last hour or two cruising around Google Images, Photobucket, Flickr and a few other image sites using this new Firefox plugin called ‘PicLens’. The software converts image sites to a simulated 3 dimensional art gallery. It is nice and quick, you have heaps and heaps of images you can access and you don’t have the distraction of text around the photos. This one is well worth a play.

My only criticism so far is that I can’t find a minimise button as I like to allow pictures to load while I do something else and then come back to view them. My work around was to open a second Firefox window (not a tab) and then toggle between the screens using the ‘Windows’ button.Download PicLens hereand you can get download Firefox via this page.

Have fun with it.

Adrian

Congratulations to Sue in Buffalo Lake MN on winning the copy of Glen Singleton’s 101 Cool Science Experiments. I hope the experiments in it turn your kids onto learning in Science

In order to win this month’s prize of a copy of Emily Rodda’s ‘Forest of Silence’
all you have to do is leave a comment about how or where you are using my educational resources.

Best of Luck!

Adrian