GeoGebra Institute:2010 Annual Report GI California

The GeoGebra Institute of California

The GeoGebra Institute of California was established in Spring, 2010. It is housed at the College of Science and Mathematics of California State University, Fresno [1].

Founding Leaders

• Agnes Tuska (Director)
• Armando Martinez-Cruz
• Bill Lombard
• Oscar Vega
• Rajee Amarasinghe (Institutional Trainer)

Training and Support

• We incorporated GeoGebra into many professional development institutes for K-12 teachers at Fresno State University.We had incorporated several sessions on the effective instructional use of GeoGebra into the professional development workshops we conducted through our California Mathematics and Science Partnership grants with Washington Union Consortium, Central Unified School District, Sanger Unified School District, and Kings Canyon Unified School District.
• We have also used GeoGebra in our summer intensive teacher leader development institute of the San Joaquin Valley Mathematics Project. November 20, 2010 was our second Technology Day, organized by the San Joaquin Valley Math Project (SJVMP) [2] in Fresno. Agnes organized GeoGebra programs (in addition to others), that ran whole day. She recruited a group of interested individuals to do course work via Global Education for getting a GeoGebra trainer certificate. These individuals learn for the GeoGebra leaders and from each other, develop and perfect future presentations, instructional innovations, and workshop materials. The best ideas of these prospective trainers will be presented on the spring technology day of SJVMP, and on GeoGebra workshops during the summer of 2011.

Development and Sharing

• We use GeoGebra in some mathematics courses for demonstrations at Fresno State University.
• Rajee uses GeoGebra extensively for years in Math 134: Geometry for Liberal Studies for demonstrations, illustrations, conjectures, proofs, constructions. He has also used GeoGebra in methods classes and in courses for prospective middle school teachers.
• Oscar uses GeoGebra in MATH 260: (graduate level) Perspectives in Geometry, and in the California Subject Examinations for Teachers preparation workshops for the geometry subtest. He uses it mostly to create figures, and to use the geometric environment of GeoGebra, not so much the algebra part of it. His best work on this is to create a model for the Poincare disk, an example of a hyperbolic geometry that measures the angle sum of triangles, showing that this sum depends on the area of the triangle.

Research and Collaboration

Presentations on conferences/workshops in 2010:

• Tuska, Agnes: Making Archimedes Accessible with GeoGebra. California Mathematics Council, Southern Session Annual Conference, Palm Springs, November, 2010.
• Tuska, Agnes: The surface area of the sphere – How can high school students learn from the best problem solvers? History of Mathematics and Teaching of Mathematics International Conference. Proceedings is published on CD by the Institute of Mathematics of the University of Miskolc, Miskolc, 2010. ISBN 978-963-661-929-9 (used GeoGebra for illustrations).
• Armando Martinez-Cruz & David Sousa: Dynamic Geometry Software (GeoGebra) for Access, Achievement. California Mathematics Council, Southern Session Annual Conference, Palm Springs, November, 2010.
• Rajee Amarasinghe was an invited speaker at the Algebraic Thinking Symposium California Mathematics Council, Central Section, Annual Conference, March 2010, Asilomar, California. Topic: Teaching and learning with GeoGebra.
• Rajee Amarasinghe presented a paper at Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE) International Conference, March 2010, San Diego, California. Topic: Reasons behind the Positive Effects of Using Dynamic Computer Software in High School Mathematics Classrooms.
  

Collaborations during 2010:

• Agnes attended Erhan Selcuk Haciomeroglu’s GeoGebra presentation in the NCTM conference in April, 2010, and exchanged ideas about future collaboration with him. Selcuk accepted the invitation to be our invited keynote speaker on our Technology Day in November 20, 2010.
• Agnes have discussed GeoGebra efforts in Hungary with Peter Kortesi during the History of Mathematics and Teaching of Mathematics International Conference in Hungary, May 2010.
• We also participated in extended on-line discussions with the leaders of other GeoGebra institutes and interested professionals in Northern, Central, and Southern America.

GeoGebra in 2010

• Bill Lombard’s work related to GeoGebra through his personal webpage:
  [3]



Invitation for Collaboration

• Invitation for collaboration for GeoGebra from a colleague:
  Dear colleagues:

I am engaged in broadening GeoGebra applications for teaching subjects different from Mathematics. With this purpose, I have been developing new GeoGebra tools aiming at making easier GeoGebra application for Physics teaching purposes. Simultaneously, I have been writing a course for training Physics Teachers so that they can take advantage of GeoGebra special features as simulator of phenomena in those knowledge fields both using the GeoGebra standard version and the new one. At the moment, the course is in Spanish but I am planning to write an English version as soon as possible. Nevertheless, since your institution is in California you can take advantage of the Spanish version as well. On the other hand, it could be interesting to make up a developing team aiming at going further in developing an exhaustive set of GeoGebra tools for Physics Teaching purposes. I would appreciate any comment or suggestion. Thanks in advance. COURSE LOGIN AND DOWNLOAD

You can have a look to the course and download it under Creative Commons Licence equal-share, non-commercial uses. To log in the course for analysis and download, you only need: 1. Get into the web page http://jlhneira.com/areaformacion 2. Create an account (it is free of course). 3. Get into the course “Geogebra como simulador de procesos físico-químicos (curso piloto)”. You do not need a password. 4. Click on the downloading link. 5. For any doubt, problem, suggestion or discussion, please contact José Luis Hernández Neira (jlhneira@gmail.com).

Yours Sincerely J.L.H. Neira

-- José Luis Hernández Neira Ph. D. in Physics Baccalaurate Physics Teacher IES Ramiro de Maeztu C/ Serrano 127, 28006 Madrid Tlfs.: 91.561.78.42 - 91.561.61.58 Fax: 91.411.08.65 e-mail: jlhernandezneira@educa.madrid.org Personal website: http://jlhneira.com

Research Projects

The following GeoGebra-related projects were completed by graduate students in the Master's in Mathematics, Teaching Option at California State University, Fresno, under the supervision of Agnes:

• Shane Wake: The Effectiveness of GeoGebra on Learning: Student-Driven Investigations versus Teacher-Led Demonstrations (Fall, 2010).
• Alina Melkonian Balabanian: On the Teaching of Geometry: The Role of GeoGebra (Spring, 2010).
• Chue Fue Mouanoutoua: Teacher Perspectives on Effective Use of Computer-Based Technology in High School Mathematics (Spring, 2010).
• Nathan Stephen Allen: The Effects of Mathematics Instructional Technology (GeoGebra) in Classroom Instruction (Spring, 2008).

Plans for next year

• Rajee and Oscar plan using GeoGebra for all figures in the Advanced Algebra for Teachers book that they, and Kirhi Premadasa are writing.
• Agnes, Oscar, and Rajee plan developing a CD with GeoGebra dynamic worksheets as supplement for a textbook they are co-authors of for prospective elementary teachers.
• Learn more GeoGebra, and use it more in our classes. Oscar wants to create "worksheets" for symmetries of polygons, and for visualizations of Pick's theorem (right now he is using geoboards for this). He has thought of assigning projects in the Math 260 class using GeoGebra, and works on incorporating GeoGebra into other math major courses.
• Oscar will write an article for the math teacher magazine, published in Chile, as an introduction on the ways teachers can use this program in their classes.
• Baljit Gill (prospective certified trainer) will give a workshop to about 30 middle school teachers in the Bay area in Winter, 2011.
• Agnes will conduct a GeoGebra introductory workshop for secondary teachers in San Jose State university in March, 2011.

What we would like to happen soon:
- To have at least 5 certified trainers developed by summer, 2011.
- To conduct at least one workshop in Northern California.
- To organize a 3-day regional GeoGebra conference for the summer of 2012 (with invited speakers, local presenters, workshops by grade levels, etc. maybe in conjunction with the SJVMP summer teacher leadership institute).
- To participate in software development.
- To widen the instructional use of the software by developing and posting dynamic worksheets (two categories: one list suggested by us, other list for anybody who wants to post something).
- We also need to get some funds (most likely grant money) to support our activities. We could set up an account as part of the international GeoGebra Institute Inc. (non-profit organization). Meanwhile, we could try to do stuff in collaboration with SJVMP, using a fee for service model.