Geogebra – Constructionism made easy
I was talking the other day about constructionism (see this post).
As a math teacher (and this can be used in science as well), Geogebra is just the perfect tool to allow students to construct their own knowledge. It is a very ‘user friendly’ software used for dynamic geometric constructions, and that has also basic graphing features. Basically it can be used throughout the junior years in Maths, up to probably year 11 or even 12, to help students discover by themselves some of the knowledge we want them to remember. I’ll keep it short but here are some things that might be of interest:
- students can discover geometrical properties by themselves, by constructing a geometric figure, and modifying it dynamically. The property does not change (eg: when constructing the bisector of an angle, dragging the arms of the angle and therefore changing it don’t change the fact that the bisector still divides it in 2 equal angles)
-they are able to grasp concepts of straight lines graphing more easily, as geogebra is a tool that allows the user to graph lines very quickly. Such things as y-intercept and gradient can then readily be linked to the equation of the line, by constructing series of lines on the software in a few minutes, rather than doing it on their exercise book for hours
The possibilities are endless and only limited by your imagination but there will always be a ways to make this interesting (and therefore relevant) to students. See below for some screen shots:
pic: http://www.geogebra.org/cms/images/stories/screenshots/umkreis.gif
pic: http://www.geogebra.org/cms/images/stories/screenshots/picture_homer.gif
pic: http://www.geogebra.org/cms/images/stories/screenshots/umkreis.gif
Filed under: Maths and tagged Constructionism, Free sowtware, Maths
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