Top 4 tips for creating engaging math online using Google tools
Long time friend of Texthelp, Eric Curts takes us through some of his favourite ways to teach math online. Eric shows some great math tools in the webinar he recorded with us and links to lots of helpful online math resources that you can download. But to get some quick tips, check out the pointers below:
Using Google Drawings
This is a great online math tool. You have a blank canvas to draw on and heaps of images to add like shapes, arrows, lines and tables.
Use Drawings to teach:
- Lines of symmetry
- Names of shapes
- Working out a perimeter
- Parts of a whole, to introduce fractions
Google Sheets
There’s a lot more to this tool for teaching math than spreadsheets.
Use Google Sheets to teach:
- Pixel art, use small squares to introduce pattern
- Fractions, how many parts make up a whole?
- A great way to introduce the idea of area
- Eric has a template on his blog that you can download and use.
Google Documents
But this is only for literacy right? Wrong, there’s a lot you can do with Google Docs to solve math.
Use Google Documents to:
- Have your students use different colors to highlight parts of a story problem
- Use pictographs in a basic table
- Use emojis in math by replacing variables with emojis or making a pictograph.
Google Slides
This is a great way to let everyone work together, students can see and respond to each other's answers, and teachers only need to open one document to check every student’s work.
Use Google Slides to:
- Set up a presentation with a complex question on slide one, like - how do you calculate the area of this shape.
- Give every student editing permissions
- Each student adds a slide with their individual approach to the problem