Project Interactivate

Project Interactivate, sponsored by the Shodor Education Foundation, Inc., sets a new standard for online math support for teachers. It aims to provide web-based courseware for teachers of middle school mathematics. An unusual feature of the site is that topics are cross-referenced to several commonly used middle school textbooks, but you can also access the topics directly. The resources provided on the site, which are of exceptional quality, fall into four categories: activities, lessons, discussion, and themes.

The activities are well designed Java applets, accompanied by buttons that link to different types of support: What? explains the mathematical significance of the applet, How? provides instructions on how to use the applet (such as by altering the parameters of a graph), and Why? suggests ways the activity can be used in the curriculum.

The lessons center on the online applets and other classroom activities. Supporting information is thorough, and includes links to relevant NCTM standards, as well as student prerequisites and suggested follow-up activities. Each lesson has one or more online worksheets.

The discussions are hypothetical teacher-student dialogs that suggest ways to guide students to greater mathematical insight, while the themes section organizes the topics on the website into categories, which lead to suggestions for other ways to use the online activities in the classroom.