# Reva Narasimhan

## Small Nudges and Their Impact on Student Success

We get them in our inbox every day – a reminder for the dentist appointment, an alert about a payment from the bank account, or a possible fraudulent charge, and so on. Many of us have become so accustomed to these reminders and alerts that we find ourselves somewhat dependent on them. This led me to wonder if my students… Read more →

## Student engagement and technology apps

Lately, I have been using various technology tools to increase interactivity within the classroom. I have moved toward smartphone apps that can readily engage students.  Here’s my current list: Google Classroom – students can post comments and answer questions in real time Remind – this is a messaging service where I can instantly text message students without knowing their phone… Read more →

## Desmos

Desmos is a powerful online graphing utility. Below is a simple graph made with Desmos. You can click on it and then interact with the graph.

## Math Equations in Google Sites

I use Google Sites for most of my course related materials, since it is part of university’s Google Mail account. MathJax – a system for writing math on the web – does not work with Google Sites, since MathJax uses Javascript.  After some time googling this issue, I found that Google has its own way to enter math. For example,… Read more →

Just type in x^2-y^2 into Google’s search box and you get the saddle figure – and you can move it around as well!  With these types of  ready- to -go aids for graphing, anyone can incorporate serious graphics into teaching and learning math. Click on the image  to see a “live” version of the surface  $$z=x^2-y^2$$.

## Web based Excel

It is now possible to run a limited version of Excel completely on the web. Click on the post title to see an Excel web app that I created. It’s interactive – you can change numbers and the results will change. More Excel material can be found at my website, http://www.mymathspace.net

## Interactive math demonstrations from Wolfram

The following is one of literally thousands of interactive demonstrations in the Wolfram Demonstrations web site. You will need the free CDF player to run the demonstration. A small collection of these can be posted on a class web site for students to explore and then answer questions interactively, perhaps using Google forms, or as a hand-in assignment. Formulating good… Read more →

## Math Jax

MathJax is a web-based JavaScript application that you can use to include LaTeX in your web pages, like the following.$\cos^2x+\sin^2x=1$$\int x \, dx = \frac{x^2}{2}+C$No GIF’s to export, no complex, additional markups to learn etc. It just works! If you want to use it in Blogger, click here. Planning to use it to create more math… Read more →

## Wolfram|Alpha widgets for an online course

I’ve blogged about using Wolfram|Alpha (W|A) widgets for general use. Since I teach an online intro stats course every year, I thought it be handy to embed the widgets right in the topics section within the course management system. W|A widgets can fetch some data distributions – it’s a lot easier to insert these types things at point of use… Read more →