Keith Devlin - not a keynote speaker at NCTM but should be

You may know of Keith Devlin as a mathematician, Radio's NPR Math Guy and the prolific author of some wonderful math books. But did you know that he is a master level player of World of Warcraft - a massively-multiplayer on-line role playing video game? Or that his two daughters experience with video games in the early 1980s started him on 30 year journey to find out how video games can solve many of our current ills in math education? His recent book "Mathematics Education for a New Era" documents that journey and he will be sharing that vision at his session at the NCTM conference in Indianapolis next month. (More details about his session are available here.)

Pi Day = Ides of March* - 1

Vi Hart's promotion of Tau Day

To honor Pi Day today (which is always on the day before the Ides of March*) I thought I would share Vi Hart's video promoting Tau day... a kind of Un-Pi Day rant?


Tonight on Math 2.0 Live - Special Pi Day presentation: "Blockhead - The Life of Fibonacci" 

Meet author Joseph D'Agnese and discuss ways to use his mathematical picture book, Blockhead: The Life of FIbonacci, to teach not only about the Fibonacci sequence, but a variety of other math concepts.

Right now I'm mostly thinking about the Ides of April +  2 (April 15) that's when CLIME is planning a Math 2.0 live & virtual Party at our booth (#326) at the NCTM meeting in Indianapolis. More details to follow.

*The Ides of March is the name of 15 March in the Roman calendar, probably referring to the day of the full moon. The term ides was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th day of the other months. The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god Mars and a military parade was usually held. In modern times, the term Ides of March is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C.- Wikipedia
See my Pi Page

Indy Conference Preview Updates

Hello Math Bloggers!

Stop by the CLIME 2.0 booth #326 in the Exhibit hall to say hello and show your solidarity with the Math 2.0 vision by picking up and wearing a Math 2.0 sticker and then share with others about the power of Web 2.0 to enhance math teaching and learning.

Key Curriculum's Idea Board in San Diego

If you are not going to Indy you can still participate by sharing & promoting "what you are up to" virtually. I'm creating a website that will be a CLIME poster board for the conference where you can contribute your ideas. 

Key Curriculum had this wall for you to write on during last year's conference in San Diego. Ours will be online! So you will be able to contribute from near or far. Also we'll keep a twitter feed going. (Hashtag #nctm11) Click on the Wiffiti link on the right to see a cool way we will be sharing your tweets & mail messages.

New this year: Smartphones will be more useful for conference info this year. You will be able to keep track of conference goings-on on your Smartphone. (More about that later.) CLIME will organize a Tweetup at different times so you can find out who else shares your interest in using Web 2.0 tools for math. Who knows you may even get to meet your favorite math bloggers!
Recommended sessions. Here are two Math & Tech linchpins who are speaking on friday. They were also guest presenters on our weekly online Math 2.0 Elluminate sessions.

Patrick Vennebush - Session #404 - Friday
Profile & link to his Elluminate session: "Calculation Nation."

Karim Kai Logue - Session #551 - Friday
Profile & link to his Elluminate session: "Mathalicious."

Online Participation at NCTM Conference? Let's make it happen!

Collaborating or simply communicating at conferences can be a powerful motivator for teachers. But I wonder how much better it could be if teachers could also interact with each other online in real-time at the conference?  NCTM is supporting the move in this direction. They now have a conference blog and are active on Facebook and Twitter (#nctm).

But based on Sean Sweeney's take on the Baltimore NCTM regional conference last fall we still have a long way to go. Here is an excerpt:

I went to NCTM last week, where I met up with [math bloggers] Kate, Jessica, Nick and Jackie.  I had a good time, and as I don't have a lot of real life high school math teacher friends, it was a lot of fun to have people that can completely relate to everything I do for my job everyday. […]  Anyway if I had to choose one thing that stood out that I learned from NCTM it's that a ridiculous number of math teachers are completely unaware of the online math teacher community. Let me repeat that:

Wi-fi Detector hat

Spreading the word. At the NCTM annual meeting CLIME will once again be promoting their Math 2.0 initiative in the exhibit area spreading the word about how participation in online math communities can make a difference in teacher's lives. One hurdle for us to overcome is the the major lubricant for online or Cloud collaboration - Wifi - will once again not be free at the convention center. I just found out that you can get Wifi at the convention center for $14.95 a day outside of the exhibit area. That’s cheaper than it was in San Diego last year, but anything more than free is still too expensive. Someday Wi-fi will be taken for granted (like the availability of oxygen for breathing) as it is now at ISTE and other Tech Ed conferences. Oh yes, exhibitors will pay $99.95 per day to "breathe."

So for all of you who are planning to attend NCTM Indianapolis in April or if you are interested in following virtually, let’s work together to make the Indy conference more  "cloud collaborative" friendly. Here’s a list of things that you will need to know before heading to Indianapolis or if you plan to participate virtually.

Should I carry a laptop with me at the conference? 

Yes, if you want to maximize your engagement with other like minded educators in the online conversations that will be going on - many of them in real time. Of course, smart phones can be used for that as well.

Locations of Wifi hotspots at the convention center and at the conference hotels. As folks discover good places please share them. If you are wandering in downtown Indianapolis anytime during the conference, here’s a list of free Wifi sites. 

To correspond by Twitter use hashtags #nctm11 and #climemath to share your experiences, ideas, and what you are learning. If you are new to Twitter this conference would be a good time for you to experience how Twitter can effectively help interested folks to share their experiences. (I'm tweetable at @climeguy.) Email still works! Try me at ihor@clime.org if you prefer.

 

Stop by the CLIME 2.0 booth #326 in the Exhibit hall to say hello and show your solidarity with the Math 2.0 vision by picking up and wearing a Math 2.0 button and tell others about the power of Web 2.0* to enhance math teaching and learning.

If you are interested in our initiative, I encourage you to share a comment. Also you can post a reply to my blog entry at the NCTM conference blog site. http://nctmconference.blogspot.com/

*Collaboration can be a powerful experience that goes beyond just simple communication of ideas. It is a process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals. Web 2.0 provides tools that can make that happen.


-You can subscribe to CLIME updates on the Indy Math 2.0 Initiative here.
-My latest tweet: If Egypt can do it, we can do the same for Math. Support Math 2.0 virtually or in person at @NCTM Indy http://bit.ly/9zwZl #mathchat

Saturday's Math Strand @ Educon-Takeaways

Though there wasn't an announced math strand for those interested in math education, it turned out that most of the sessions that had math as a key word in their titles or descriptions were on Friday. Here's the three that I attended:

• Project-Based Learning in a Math Classroom (session 1)
• Getting in to the (mathematical) conversation (session 2)
• Innovative Roles of Mathematics in STEM Education, Entrepreneurship, and Workforce Development in 21st Century (session 3)

Session 1 - SLA students and teachers presented examples of math projects students worked on. They are just in the beginning stages. Worth following their goals. Chris Lehman's blog about math inversion is worth noting here.

Then, [math] class, rather than being a time when all kids sat and received the instruction, could be the time when they reinforce skills by doing problem sets, worked on real-world application projects, collaborated with teachers to reinforce concepts, etc... in some ways, it's an inversion of what we traditionally think of as a math class. Right now, in traditional classrooms, class is where the teacher demonstrates concepts (often with some time for individual reinforcement and work), but the bulk of application / practice / etc... is done at home where there isn't much chance for help. If we use technology to invert that idea, so that kids could watch the teacher's demonstration of the skills and concepts at home (and with the ability to rewind when necessary,) we could allow kids the opportunity to apply and practice their knowledge in the space where they can get help, collaborate, etc... doesn't that make more sense? -blog entry

Projects could be something that students can plan, review, and revise with classmates and teachers in the classroom. The bulk of work could be done outside of school hours. This is doable if the project development is well coached.


To be continued...

Educon Math 2.0 Takeaways-Part 1

Chris Lehmann talks about the future of SLA at Educon.

Math 2.0 is alive and well at SLA where students, teachers and their linchpin leader are carving out a more powerful way to teach and learn math. Though they are only at the beginning of their journey in creating a project based learning curriculum for math, but the trip looks promising for significant student centered learning of math. Here are some of my takeaways.

"And friends, they may call it a movement." - Jon Becker
For me this movement will empower students and teachers to carve pathways so they can follow their passion for teaching and learning.

Teachers and students should be partners in the learning enterprise. That's a critical paradigm shift.

We need teachers & students who will take interesting ideas, questions, neat phenomenon to ask this Dan Meyer inspired question: What can You do with this (WCYDWT)? For example, today's massive storm over most of the country produced mostly ice, sleet and even rain in the northeast while the temperature was below 32º. How is that possible? (Watch Eliot Abrams explain it.) The details of his graphs are difficult to interpret. Have your class recreate the graphs with your guidance so that everyone including the teacher understand it better. Then share it to the world on the Web! (Sounds like an assignment for me.)

Teachers should encourage students to create math videos where students share their findings and takeaways from answering interesting questions that have surprise answers. How about this one I shared with my students as part of a unit on probability? Newspaper headline: British Hunter is Shot By a Fox in Its Burrow. Really? See details. WCYDWT. How likely is this event? For starters.

Educon 2.3 Begins Today

Friday morning - I'm off to the Educon 2.3 conference in Philadelphia. Will be tweeting "math stuff" @climeguy #educonmath #educon while I'm there.
Arrived at 12:30 in snow covered Philly at the SLA (Science Leadership Academy.) Since it was a snow day for the school students came to school voluntarily to participate in the unconference that was created since the scheduled classroom visits were not possible. More to come...


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