Homeschool Math Blog

Today October 21st is a Wolfram|Alpha Homework Day . I am not quite sure myself what all this entails, but it is a LIVE interactive event on the web, revolving around what can be done with Wolfram|Alpha search engine. Here are some highlights (from the website ) of what will be happening over there today: A special Homework Day Welcome from Stephen Wolfram A demonstration by a forward-looking elementary school teacher of lesson plans that use Wolfram|Alpha A conversation with the creator of "Shift Happens" about tech trends and their impact on education A fun experiment with Wolfram|Alpha's mad scientist Theodore Gray Several live, interactive Q&A sessions where Wolfram|Alpha scholars and experts help you tackle your homework questions A special live Q&A session tackling the toughest math questions A thought-provoking in-depth conversation with an internationally known actor and education advocate A live interview with the creator of the Ning soc...

Wolfram|Alpha is a new, computational search engine. If you do a query where the answer has quantitative data, Wolfram|Alpha probably gives it. For example, try enter your last name. Wolfram|Alpha gives you information about the popularity of that name. For example, "miller" ranks 6th within the US and there are about 1,128,000 people with that surname. Enter a first name, and it will even give you a graph showing the name's popularity over the years. I just found out that Cindy's popularity peaked in about 1960. No wonder it is a common first name among the mothers who ask me questions about their children's math education. Enter a town - for example Houston , and see what information comes up. But, the reason I'm writing this post is because Wolfram|Alpha (or Walpha as some called it) especially excels in mathematical queries . This has implications to mathematics education, especially in high school and college. This tool is completely free, easy to use,...