iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

#iteachmath Does anyone use a voice operated calculator? When marking I sometimes would like to check a calculation without picking up my calculator. I tried chatGPT but within the first 10 minutes it gave a wrong answer.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Public libraries are just amazing! My daughter is doing a D&D campaign as part of the summer reading program and while I am waiting, someone got a document scanned, then an elderly person got help with their fit-bit, a bunch of books were signed out, and it is all just so damn pleasant.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Idea for fraction practice, grab a set of sockets for a socket wrench and get students to order them largest to smallest. This may or may not have been inspired by dropping a toolbox on the floor. #iteachmath

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Real life math: I am adding a title to an audio file to make a video for youtube. The video editing software lets me stretch the length of the title clip to double its current length (more or less). The clip is initially 5 seconds long, how many times do I need to do this to make it an hour long?

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

Watching Wheel of Fortune and people always buy vowels at the first opportunity, but surely that is more likely to help your opponents? I would think you should wait until you think you will be able to solve.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

#iTeachMath Used the WHO baby growth charts when teaching percentiles and quartiles. Solid stuff.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Okay, I think I muddled my way into an awesome sequence of chemistry experiments for science for citizens 11 (a general science course) On Monday we did PhET simulations on building atoms and building molecules then did burning gummy bear as demo.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

For the second year I got students in Workplace Math 11 to do a Robot Prior's awesome motion graph matching exercise. I was nervous both times because it is legit tough, and tough doesn't always go well, but both times have been an absolute hit. #iTeachMath science.robertprior.ca/physics-11/k...

science.robertprior.ca

Physics 11: Kinematics

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

What major skills do you think should and/or will be dropped from a standard K-12 curriculum in the next 20 years? Equation solving maybe? I can't imagine what it would mean to be good at math without being able to do basic algebra but maybe it is possible. #iTeachMath

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Do you know what the SECOND most populous continent is?

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

What is the area of the middle i.e. the overlap of the 4 quarter circles? Told to me at a BCAMT conference several years ago. #iTeachMath #recreationalMath

A Cartesian grid has a square filling the space from (0,0) to (1,1). It is made of 4 quarter circles each going from one vertex of the square to its diagonal. The middle is shaded by all 4 quarter circles.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Made fruitcake from an old recipe that makes one large (8x8), one medium (6x6) and one small (4x4) cake. How would you turn this into a math problem? #mtbos #iteachmath

Three square pans full of unbaked dark fruitcake, one large,one medium, and one small are sitting on a brown kitchen chair.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Neat effect in the sky today, on either side of the sun there was a very bright yellow/red dot that kinda looked like part of a rainbow. I didn't get a great picture that included both sides.

Picture taken from a vehicle showing snow on the ground, a sun near the horizon on the right side and a yellow and red dot in line with the sun which has an arrow pointing towards it on the left side of the sky.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I like teaching financial math with spreadsheets. #iTeachMath

A Google Sheets spreadsheet for calculating compound interest with annual payments.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

I wonder if kids raised in places with temperatures regularly in the negatives have an easier time with integers. #iteachmath

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Had students implement the compound interest formula in Sheets today and got them to see if the values approached a limit as # of compounding periods increased. Unfortunately ran into some kinda bug after about a billion compounding periods per year. #iteachmath

A Google Sheets graph showing total in a compound interest calculation with the number of compounding periods increasing. The value approaches $93 344.25 as compounding periods increases to 10 million times per year and 100 million times per year but then shoots up a bit more at 1 billion times and at 1x10^21 the value becomes 4000 which was the original principal.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

This year in Physics 11 I decided to make the problem sets in-class assignments. The reason was AI, but I like it. Students all get the same challenging questions but with different values and are encouraged to collaborate and use their notes. Lots of great discussions happening.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Coil of magnet wire, with two ends sticking out. One fully sanded, one sanded on only one side. Held up by two paperclips over a plastic cup with a magnet on top. A few batteries to provide electricity to the paper clips. I have made this so many times but each time it is magical. #iteachphysics

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

One of the odd effects of the phone ban is seeing kids playing with their calculators when they have a spare moment.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 23/08/2024

Found this problem in one of Michael Dispezio's puzzle books. I got a different solution than the key did. I am interested in how others would approach it. #iteachmath

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 03/08/2024

Ran the problem sets I normally assign for intro Physics through ChatGPT and it can now do them (mostly at least). I don't see any way to assign them out of class going forward. Maybe I will try to find some in class time for pared down versions. #iteachphysics

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 14/06/2024

MY GO TO REVIEW. Make sheets with topic title on top (5-10 topics), hand out sets in order. Students write all they can about their topic for x min then pass sheets 'til everyone has seen every topic plus a couple extra. All who ended with the same topic go to the same VNPS to condense key points.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 06/03/2024

#iteachmath #mtbos Has anyone created a traditional summative test as a Desmos activity? So students would have the test but at least on some questions there could be nudges that they should think a bit more about their answer.

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 26/02/2024

Textbook had an error, but I think I will give the question with the prompt "Solve what you can and show why no more can be known".#iteachmath

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 10/02/2024

The bells at my school have been slowly slowing. So time for a task on linear change right? Rate of change averages out to be .86 sec/day. Then we confidently predicted when they would ring a week later. BUT IT IS A WEEK LATER AND THEY ARE STILL EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT OFF! 🤷‍♂️ #iteachmath

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 03/01/2024

#iteachmath How do y'all feel about algebra tiles for adding or multiplying polynomials? Useful?

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 05/12/2023

Any ideas on a quick, in desk, non dice, activity students could do which when tabulated over the class would create a normal distribution? I normally time students walking across the room but everyone was feeling shy about that today (which is fair enough). #iteachmath

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Pat Nelson (he/him) @patnelsonbc.bsky.social · 30/11/2023

Any suggestings for physical puzzles for a classroom? I have a Tetris Cube which is always popular, I love that it is easy to start, hard to solve, and the pieces are large enough to not get lost. So something along those lines? #ITeachMath

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