Far too often I hear people talk about how hard math is, which kind of bugs me because math itself is not hard nor easy. It just is. When they say math is hard they are actually referring to their interaction with mathematics. With today's technology, a person's initial contacts with mathematics can and should be drastically different than was even possible even a just a few years ago. I know that many people have a bad taste for math because they spent years in school struggling to tread water while being placed in a depth that was just over their heads. The panacea effect of calculators (which never really helped) was really just a matter of putting flippers on a non-swimmer.
Every once in while I like to take new technology and use it to look for new ways to teach old concepts, hoping to enable beginners to gain a comfort with the shallow water. Even while doing this care must be taken, as one can drown in just an inch of water. Such an attempt is shown here.
This file is nothing more than part of an attempt to enable students to internalize the concept of slope. My goal is to expand this simple file over time so that a path can be blazed that will connect this simple concept with unique slope of a line, slope-intercept equations, parallel lines, right-triangle trigonometry, and more.
Take note that this file requires the viewer to be able to count. Even such a simple item as the "slope formula" is not needed.
This file can be found here.
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