Colour Tiles is a learning tool from mathies. Students can use the tool to design their loom bead work and engage in mathematical discourse around pattern, number, symmetry and transformations.
Colour Tiles is available for Windows and Mac, the iPad and Android devices.
At the start, you are offered three choices, including one specifically designed for bead work.
Once the tool opens, tiles are dragged out from the panel at the left into the main workspace. Tiles can then be selected, moved, reflected, rotated and have their colour and shape changed.
In the image at left, an Eganville District PS student used v1.0 of Colour Tiles as part of loom bead study. The student designed the pattern, hid the panel at the left, and used the built-in annotation tools to identify the pattern core.
The mathies site has links to a support wiki page with explanations of all the features of the Colour Tiles tool and more examples of its use. A printable tip sheet is also available.
You can find images of students working on Colour Tiles on Twitter using hashtags like #ONmathies and #ColourTiles.
Press the i button and use the Feedback Form button in the Information dialog to contact the developers to ask for help or to make feature requests.