Category Archives: education

Patterns of Change – Calculus as a Critical Literacy

Stephen Downes’ introductory blog posting for the second week of the Critical Literacies Online Course ( CritLit2010 ) deals mainly with how we describe change, and in fact it would (with some minor edits) be the basis of a good … Continue reading

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OnLine Educational Resources

Scott Leslie may be on the right track with another 1/4-baked idea – OER “virtual reference librarian” at EdTechPost, but I suspect that it may be less with the idea itself than with the doubt he expresses as follows: <<Is … Continue reading

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Hard Problems

hardproblemsmovie.com is the website of a documentary made about the US team in the 2006 International Math Olympiad. << Although American students on the whole rank well behind many countries in mathematics, American math Olympiad teams regularly finish among the … Continue reading

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Why Math?

A couple of recent additions to the arsenal of reasons for promoting mathematics education are this recent article by Ian Stewart in the UK Telegraph and the collection of ‘Math Matters – Apply It’ posters developed by SIAM (the Society … Continue reading

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Stanford Study of Writing

The Stanford Study of Writing provides a welcome counterpoint to some of the nonsense that has been put about regarding impact of the internet on literacy.

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Crossing the Finish Line: SATs and GradRates

Stephen Downes points to Chad Adelman posting on Crossing the Finish Line – a recent book about university graduation rates by William G. Bowen, Matthew M. Chingos & Michael S. McPherson. I haven’t read the book but am suspicious of … Continue reading

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A Widening Gap

The Back Page article by Joseph Ganem in this month’s APS News suggests that nominal content and student capability outcomes in US high school mathematics are moving in opposite directions – and attributes this largely to attempts to introduce abstract … Continue reading

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FAQ for Universities Interested in WPMu

Since my institution has started using WPMu for faculty and departmental websites I had better have a look at this from bavatuesdays (which came to me  via Stephen Downes).

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How to remember trig ratios

Inventing cute mnemonics is fun, and the process of inventing and checking them may help reinforce the definitions, but beyond that they really are useless – and I believe they do more harm than good when people actually try to … Continue reading

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Teaching math using interactive white boards

This interview with a recent convert to teaching math using interactive white boards includes a lot of good ideas for using the computer display but  leaves me wondering what the IWB adds over what could be done with a tablet … Continue reading

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Born on a Blue Day

Coincidentally I read ‘Born on a Blue day’ just yesterday – i.e. one day before zac at squareCircleZ posted his summary review – (having been led to the order the book after watching a video posted – also at SqCZ … Continue reading

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Lecturing – stupidest profession?

Donald Clark Plan B: Lecturing – stupidest profession? An uninterruptable lecture is almost as much an abomination as a TV broadcast, but even a replayable recording is no better than a bad lecture – where the only response to a … Continue reading

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Homework Help = Cheating ?

In checking out some of the people mentioned in this posting by Seb Schmoller (which I learned of via Stephen Downes), I was led to consider where is the borderline between helping a student to learn and facilitating cheating.

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What is 0^0 equal to? – squareCircleZ

This post at squareCircleZ (a very nice enrichment and support website for students and teachers of mathematics) raises the conundrum of how to define 0^0 if all positive x give x^0=1 and 0^x=0.

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Open Culture

Open Culture is a website developed by Dan Colman (who moonlights as the director of Stanford’s Continuing Studies program). It focuses on educational video offerings such as the Leonard Susskind Physics Lectures, and includes a page of links to other … Continue reading

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By The Numbers

This article discusses the latest round of changes in the WNCP Math Curriculum. Somehow, after seeing perhaps half a dozen rounds of this game, the rhetoric of revolutionary change wears a bit thin.

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Trigonometry tips @ squareCircleZ

Murray Bourne’s IntMath Newsletter this week includes a nice preamble to the study of Trigonometry. I’d like to be able to link to that item specifically when introducing the topic, so maybe I’ll ask him to isolate it if he … Continue reading

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BCcampus OER site – Free Learning at EdTechPost

Scott Leslie writes about the BCcampus Open Educational Resources site with some new ideas for using social networking sites like del.icio.us

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Computer Algebra Systems

(This posting was prompted in part by a brief mention of the issue in  squareCircleZ ) It is often claimed that Computer Algebra Systems will (or already do) eliminate the need for much of what is taught in high school … Continue reading

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Goodbye College Diplomas ?

Stephen Downes links to Tom Haskins saying Goodbye College Diplomas Thank god that the time will soon arrive when a prospective employer will not be denied the pleasure of reading all my undergrad essays but will instead be able to … Continue reading

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