Margo's Progress Report

From Better Practices

My Goal for this workshop...

My goal for this workshop was to become more familiar with programming in Flash CS3.

What jump started my work...

My work was jump started by the work of Barbara and Doug. I want to thank them for thier great tutorials and all their help.

Earlier Work:

I had worked with a great programmer, Jacobo Bulaevsky, to create virtual manipulatives which went hand in hand with curriculum I had on my web site. We designed (and he programmed) a virtual Base Ten Blocks Java applet for my preservice teachers and thier students. This work was missing a component of an interactive applet of the partial product model for multiplication which is a stepping stone to the more efficient algorithm used in the U.S. The activity and applet can be seen here - [[1]] Whole Number Algorithms and a Bit of Algebra! and the Java applet at [[2]] Base Ten Block Applet.

Workshop Artifact!

My workshop artifact is an interactive Flash applet with steps students through the partial product model of multiplication which will, eventually, go hand in hand with the current Base Ten Java applet. Here is an image of one completed round of the Flash applet I created this week. It is still a work in progress. Please contact me if you'd like to see the code! The interaction involved "Next Step" buttons so the student can see each step of the algorithm.