The 61st in Mr Barton's Autograph Video tutorial series. I was surprised that one of my Year 13 students wasn’t aware of the lovely fact that you can draw a circle through any 3 points, so long as those 3 points do not lie on a straight line. After an example with compasses and a ruler failed to convince him, I turned to Autograph, and this is the result! Clicking on the web-link you can see all the videos in this series.

The 9th in a new series of videos where each week I visit my favourite mathematics websites. A controversial one this week as it’s the turn of Khan Academy. This is a website with over 2,600 videos of lessons and worked examples, many of them relating the mathematics. The questions are: do you like them, and if so how can the videos be used effectively for learning? I suggest that maybe some sort of “reverse learning” could be employed, or better still why not record your own video? Please share how you use the website below.

The 51st in Mr Barton's Autograph Video tutorial series. Following a request from Science teacher Mr Richardson, here is a video explaining how you can use Autograph to fit functions to various data sets. It doesn’t matter if the relationship in your data is linear, quadratic or exponential decay, you can be sure that Autograph can handle it. Clicking on the web-link you can see all the videos in this series.

The 49th in Mr Barton's Autograph Video tutorial series. Following directly on from Video 48, this week we look at how we can use Autograph’s unique 3D engine to demonstrate to students exactly where the formula for the volume of revolution comes from. This provides a nice insight into limits and the fundamental theorem of calculus. Clicking on the web-link you can see all the videos in this series.

Mr Barton's Web Whizz Video 8: This is a video review of a blog website. This is one of my “must visit on a regular basis” websites. It is a blog set up by a very enthusiastic and talented teacher that certainly keeps me up to date on the latest exciting developments in maths teaching and technology. There are gems such as online interactive whiteboards and collections of amazing rich tasks. The 8th in a new series of videos where each week I visit my favourite mathematics websites.

The 13th in a series of videos where each week I visit my favourite mathematics websites. We return to the NRICH website to have a look at their annual offering of an advent calendar. But this is not your usual advent calendar because behind each door instead of a chocolate treat you will find… a mathematical treat! One lovely problem for each of the days leading up to Christmas. NRICH produces the goods once again. Ho, ho, ho!

The 12th in a new series of videos where each week I visit my favourite mathematics websites. I am always on the look-out for short, snappy activities that are related to things going on in the real world to hammer home the relevance of maths to my students. Well, for that aim this amazing website is simply a Godsend. Each day new activities appear based around current news stories. Whether it be tennis, the new host of Countdown or the destruction of the Brazilian Rainforest, you can be sure that MathsFlash has a starter activity lined up for you. Enjoy.

An Autograph Player activity to practise sketching quadratic graphs. You can use this activity on the interactive whiteboard, or for your students to investigate on their own. Autograph does not need to be installed to use this activity (so your students can even use it at home), but you will need to install the free Autograph Player add-on (instructions given after clicking the link). For a full list of Autograph Activities, please click on the other web-link.

An Autograph Player activity to practise sketching quadratic graphs. You can use this activity on the interactive whiteboard, or for your students to investigate on their own. Autograph does not need to be installed to use this activity (so your students can even use it at home), but you will need to install the free Autograph Player add-on (instructions given after clicking the link). For a full list of Autograph Activities, please click on the other web-link.

The 11th in a new series of videos where each week I visit my favourite mathematics websites. Google can always be relied upon to come up with the goods, and this little website is no exception. Google have taken all of the 5.2million books that they have access to from the last 200 years, analysed all 500 billion words of them, and made it possible to search for the relative frequency of any of the words within them. So, how does garlic compare to onion over the last couple of centuries? How about radio, television and the internet? Lots of fun with numbers and graphs to be had here.

The 14th in a series of videos where each week I visit my favourite mathematics websites. It’s that time of the year where you may be tempted to throw a little bit of a… sharp intake of breath… “fun lesson” into the mix, and in my opinion there is no better fun lesson that one involving a quiz. Here are a few ideas and resources to help you put together an award-winning Christmas Quiz that might just make those last few lessons pass a little quicker. Merry Christmas and I will return with more videos in the new year.

All good things must come to an end, and the same is also true for our Autograph Trigonometric Trilogy! In this final video we go out with a bang by taking a look at how we can use Autograph to test students’ understanding of the classic isosceles triangle questions that seem to be a favourite of the examiners. Can students use their knowledge of sin, cos and tan in right-angled triangles to solve these problems?

It’s that time of year again. Your exam classes have left, reports are written, parents evenings are over, and maybe (just maybe) you can start to relax a little and look forward to the promise of the long summer holiday. But before all of that, you still have some lessons to teach! Myself and the TES Maths Panel have put together the following Collection of resources to help you in these last few weeks of term. If you are up for trying something a bit different in your maths lessons, then hopefully you will find something to tickle your fancy in amongst these ten lovely resources.

The 10th in a new series of videos where each week I visit my favourite mathematics websites. Mr Reddy’s Geometry Toolbox is an absolutely essential tool when I am trying to teach students about measuring and constructing. Whether it’s drawing line of 7cm, measuring an angle of 40 degrees, or trying to use a compass, you can guarantee that mistakes will be made. But with the ability to carry out very clear demonstrations thanks to Mr Reddy, you might just get through these lessons with some of your hair left in place. Please share how you use the website below.

The second of the Trigonometric Trilogy! Following on from last week’s work, we take a look at how we can use Autograph to help students practise finding the sizes of missing angles in right-angled triangles using Trigonometry. The advantage of doing this on Autograph is you can easily generate as many examples as you want and quickly check the students’ answers. One more part to come next week…

The website Wordle came to prominence in around 2009, and has been popping up at conferences, lectures and around the display boards of schools ever since. In this video we take a look at how to use the website, and more importantly how we can use it effectively in the maths classroom. Ideas suggested include using it to summarise examiners reports, to capture the key topics that your class find difficult, and then as a starter activity to introduce a new topic. This is only scratching the surface of the potential of Wordle, so if you have any ideas on how it can be used, please share below!

An Autograph Player activity to illustrate the circle theorems involving tangents. You can use this activity on the interactive whiteboard, or for your students to investigate on their own. Autograph does not need to be installed to use this activity (so your students can even use it at home), but you will need to install the free Autograph Player add-on (instructions given after clicking the link). For a full list of Autograph Activities, please click on the other web-link.

MEI has kindly shared the following resources to support the use of ICT in A/AS Level maths. These are practical activities that look at how we can use the TI-Nspire (graphical calculator) to enhance the study of differentiation and integration (calculus), predominantly at AS level. These are ideal for use in a computer room or for students to investigate at home. The pdf file contains full instructions and challenges, and you can download all the supporting TI files by clicking on the weblink.

This Autograph Video teaches how to cope with integration’s little twists, such as dealing with negative areas, working out the area between a curve and the y-axis, and working out the area between a curve and a line. This will set us up nicely for next week when we enter the world of 3D...Clicking on the web-link you can see all the videos in this series.

An Autograph Player activity by Simon Woodhead where students investigate how to model a vase in 3D. You can use this activity on the interactive whiteboard, or for your students to investigate on their own. Autograph does not need to be installed to use this activity (so your students can even use it at home), but you will need to install the free Autograph Player add-on (instructions given after clicking the link). For a full list of Autograph Activities, please click on the other web-link.