Blogging from the conference

I attended the wrap up session for the Technology Learn/Reflect Strand yesterday at the NCTM conference. The attendees were sorted into three groups for folks interested in middle, high or elementary grades. I was in the middle school group which was led by Mike Gould a member of the Professional Develpment Services Committee of NCTM. It was great. I was sorry to leave before it ended because I had to get back to my booth. Mike masterfully constructed a fascinating conversation around the 4 questions that helped organize the technology  theme. In fact it was so good that I told the group as I was about to leave that if I was starting a middle school I would hire every single one of them with a starting salary of $100K. Needless to say I got everybody's attention.

Wifi in Philly - some bad news? NO!

Thu 11am 117A (CC)

Flash News! Wifi is available at Convention Center - Day 1!


Previously - At the moment I'm working on my presentation and as is my usual practice I'm creating a related website which contains links to all my relevant references during my presentation. Since there is never any guarantee that Wifi will be available in the conference room that I'm speaking in (or any conference room for that matter) I checked in with NCTM and got this reply:

At this time, the Pennsylvania Convention Center does not offer daily internet rates or allow for individual connections throughout the conference. There is complimentary wireless in the concourses, overlook area, and BuzzHub.  The only way to obtain internet in a meeting room is to order it for each room. Ihor, the rates for room 107 A/B are:Wired 1.5 mb/s: $,1050 Wired 784 kn/s: $735 Wireless: $,1000

A grand for wireless! How nice for the convention center to be so considerate. Last June when I spoke at the ISTE conference in the same convention center free Wifi was available in all the conference rooms. To be fair, I don't expect NCTM to shell out the kind of money that ISTE (a tech organization) does. Some day it will be as common in rooms as electricity but more convenient. So much for my having a Twitter backchannel* for my talk. You can use your smart phone to tweet, but it's not the same as with a larger device. You can if you have an iPad with 3G or you can always run out to the concourse to tweet. For those in the know,

#Mathchat
Colin Graham will host his weekly #mathchat Twitter session next Thursday 4/26/12 at 8pm EDT in the topic of using Twitter at math conferences. I hope to "see" you there.

Math bloggers 

Since math blogging is pretty much invisible at this conference (no session even mentions it), I'm going out of my way to promote it at the CLIME booth, during my talk and at the BuzzHub. Please spread the word that you are an active participant in the online math world. Please let me know if and when you have posted about the conference. You can keep track of the tweeting following #nctm12. If you miss a blog you can always check out topsy.com and enter nctm12. I will be posting links to your blogs as soon as I get them.

Things to do

Visit the BuzzHub 

We want to give NCTM some feedback on how well it works for you as a Web 2.0 math conference participant.

Participate in the conference with Twitter 
Make your voice heard! Just type a message in Twitter and end it with the hashtag #nctm12. (Check out current tweets or go to topsy.com to see all the tweets posted so far with the nctm12 moniker.) We're spreading the message that Twitter can be a powerful tool in professional development especially at conferences like this one.

Other technology sessions at conference

As usual CLIME is posting all the technology related sessions. If you are a speaker you can have yours updated. Give me a yell. ihor@clime.org or @climeguy

• Techology Strand Sessions (Thursday) - link
• All tech sessions  - link
• Highlighted tech sessions - link
• CLIME friendly vendors, too - link

It's never too late to update your speaker information. Just let me know.

*"A Twitter backchannel at a conference can provide participants a way to share ideas and resources from the sessions they attend, connect people who might not have connected otherwise, and broaden the conference discussion to include those not physically present."
Source: Encouraging a Conference Backchannel on Twitter - Derek Bruff

CLIME Connections 106

Math 2.0 Live! Session

Monday, April 23, 2012

9:00pm EDT 

Guest Host: Gary Stager

Recording of the event 

Gary will be describing a new workshop he has created that is most appropriate for the new vision of the Core Curriculum Standards in Math. It's not business as usual; its a paradigm shift in how we learn math.

Read more about Dr. Stager here

CLIME Friendly Vendors @ NCTM Conference & Beyond

Vendor Area in Philly - a Dynamic View

Click on image to visit the area

CLIME will once again be parked in the Exhbit Hall's NCTM Affiliate Row (1300) and will be sharing about Technology's role in creating the Math 2.0 vision for math education. You can see a complete view of the exhibit hall by clicking on the image (to the left.)

Also you can download the NCTM App that has all the sessions and vendors listed. (Info here.)

Right around the corner from CLIME is the new NCTM BuzzHub.

Click above

The NCTM BuzzHub
is an open Wifi area and much more. There is no Wifi available in the conference rooms so the 'Hub is a good place to take advantage of it. Only other places where Wifi is available is in the concourses and the overlook area. While in the 'Hub you can take advantage of other NCTM offerings described here.

The Math Forum
is hosting the Math Pop Forums in Booth 220 in the Exhibit Hall. Feel free to stop by, pick up some popcorn, listen to the short presentations and engage in conversations!

Click on image to visit the area

Key Curriculum Press is now Key Curriculum

Visit us at booth #902 in the Exhibitor Hall to check in with us and see what's new! You can play with Sketchpad, Fathom, TinkerPlots, browse activities, and ask questions in the booth, or we can direct you to excellent presentations on Sketchpad, Fathom, and TinkerPlots.

Don't miss our annual Technology User Group meeting on Thursday evening! Join us in Salon H at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown for drinks, snacks, and eye-opening presentations from your peers. Finally, you can learn more about the Dynamic Number project and KCP Technologies’ other NSF-funded project, Data Games.

Mind Institute - Booth 728

Keith Devlin writes: "The designers at MIND put symbolic representations to one side and develop new, native representations of basic math skills so their young learners can "play" with the mathematical concepts themselves. Only after a child has demonstrated mastery of working with the concept is she or he presented with the symbolic representation for the same operation." Video tour of ST Math

Booth 448

For more about their participation at NCSM and NCTM click here.

Booth #1217

Audrey Weeks, author of Calculus In Motion^TM and Algebra In Motion^TM will be exhibiting in #1217

Exhibit Booth # 1228

Get the “Good Stuff!”  Drop by and say hi and let us show you around! Visit our booth and get a personal tour of Mathlanding. Come with curiosity and questions, and leave with experience and answers.

mathalicious.org

Though Karim Ani will not have a tent set up in the exhibit hall you will find him speaking/participating at these venues: 
NCSM Sessions
213: Real-World Mathematics with Mathalicious (Tue 8:45 107)

345: Math Learning 2.0: New Opportunities for Collaborative Teaching and Learning with Internet-Based Tools (Wed 2:45 113C)

364: Ignite! Speakers (10) Enlighten the Room with Fresh Ideas in Mathematics (Wed 4:00 105)

NCTM Session

582: Real-World Mathematics with Mathalicious (Fri 3:00 108B)

Booth 1206

Wowzers combines adaptive math instruction with engaging, game-based collaboration using the Cloud. As a free trial user, you have full access to all content for grades 3, 4, and 5 until May 10, 2012. This includes lessons, practices, games, quests, quizzes, homework, and other printable materials. Come visit at our booth #1206

More to be added. Let me know if I leave you out. 

Thoughts about Alternatives to the "Royal Road" to Calculus

Continued from previous blog: Math Awareness month begins... what I would like to focus on is the third point NCTM made in the quote above: Technology as a tool should [..] influence what mathematics is taught. What mathematics should be taught in the 21st century? Should some of our sacred cows topics take a back seat? My take is that the math topics don't matter as much as long as they are embedded in interesting contexts that engage students in learning; mostly through well crafted projects. This will prepare students to effectively deal with the challenges of 21st century life. Can we collaboratively build towards this vision? cc blog 96

The NCTM president Michael Schaughnessy wrote this message to lead off this month's NCTM Summing Up newsletter:

Some Thoughts on Calculus and a Thank You!
Calculus is often viewed as the entry path to college mathematics. However, a high school calculus course should not be the be-all and end-all of mathematics, nor should it be the only transition path from high school to college mathematics. High school mathematics should prepare students not just for further, specialized study in mathematics but also for the variety of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers and other professions that will be open to them in the future. Recently NCTM and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) crafted a new joint position statement on the role of calculus in the transition from high school to postsecondary mathematics. 
[...]

Both NCTM and the MAA have found evidence that there are a number of strong mathematics students who successfully finish calculus before or in college and then happily announce that they “never have to take another math course!” As a result, we are losing large numbers of highly qualified mathematics students very early in their college careers. Many of these students are strong candidates for possible STEM careers—some of our best students, in fact. Also, we may be turning a number of potential mathematics students off by pushing them through years of a repetitive and overly narrow, algebra-focused mathematics curriculum, which doesn’t give students sufficient opportunities to broaden their horizons in other areas of mathematics, such as in various geometries, discrete mathematics, statistics, or linear algebra (February 2011 President’s Message, “Endless Algebra,” also discussed this pitfall). Read the entire message.

From "Endless Algebra" (Michael Schaughnessy, 2011):

[...]The Common Core State Standards provide us with an opportunity to rethink the sequence of school mathematics, as well as a challenge to provide exciting new pathways and transitions from high school to college mathematics. We need to offer students alternative pathways as they make their transition from secondary school and into colleges. The mathematics paths that we provide for our students need to prepare them for existing fields that are changing rapidly, as well as for emerging fields—and for fields that don’t yet exist. In my view, the current deadly sequence of ever-repetitive and out-of- touch experiences in algebra—the sequence intended to lead students to a single variable calculus course—will not accomplish this goal. It is time that we replace the eternal algebra transition from high school to college with some viable and exciting 21st century mathematics alternatives.[...] 

For me this change is long overdue. What are your thoughts?

cc blog 105

Celebrating Math Awareness Month - NCTM's technology themed annual conference

CLIME Connections continues to chronicle the road to the Final Four days of the 2011-2012 NCTM's Technology themed conferences culminating in Philadelphia this month. It all started last fall with the regional conference in Atlantic City where CLIME exhibited, followed by events in St. Louis and Albuquerque where attendees participated in a one day Learn/Reflect strand of technology themed sessions. Four guiding questions were posted and were used as talking points at a debriefing session held later that same afternoon. This will be repeated in Philadelphia on Thursday, April 26th starting at 9:30am with a kickoff presentation given by Thomas Dick and followed by 24 sessions from which you can choose to attend. Though it's only possible to participate in few of these sessions, collectively we hope to gain from the "wisdom of the crowd" as folks will meet up later in the day for the debriefing session at 3:30. I hope you attend and let us know how it went. (See list of all 26 sessions.) If you are one of the speakers (of any technology themed sessions) and would like to update the listing let me know and I'll update it immediately.

Dan Meyer heads up a list of highlighted speakers in Philadelphia
There are plenty of other technology related sessions. Some of them were highlighted by NCTM. Here's CLIME's list of technology Linchpins who will be speaking out about effective ways to use technology that are changing the teaching and learning of mathematics.

Recent talk

Dan Meyer shared with me that "it would be great to recruit bloggers to attend each of those talks, write a review, take a photo, grab supplemental resources, etc. Something that will add value after the conference." I hope you can help with this. Let me know if you will be blogging about the conference sessions in Philly.
For those of you who haven't seen Dan in action, here's a recent presentation. His NCTM talk #474 on Friday is "Why Students Hate Word Problems."

My biggest disappointment about the upcoming NCTM conference is that there are no sessions (including mine which I just corrected on the CLIME listing) on how math blogging is changing the landscape of math teacher's professional collaboration. I definitely will bring it up at my session. Mike Thayer (session 153) has posted his thoughts about the upcoming conference here.

Conference highlights rewind from previous blog entries

• See Conference online Program book. Unfortunately, the final physical program book won't be available until the conference starts. But you can get a listing of all the sessions from NCTM search page or if it's technology sessions you are interested in here's the full list. 
• Speakers can upload handouts on the NCTM speaker site. Instructions are here. As of today only 9 speakers have posted. I hope NCTM will contact the speakers again about this before the conference begins.
• What kind of technologies are showcased at the conference. Check out the stats at Blog 100.
• Technology theme discussion blog 96.

Here's the comment/reply I just posted at blog 96:

Math Awareness month begins... what I would like to focus on is the third point NCTM made: Technology as a tool should [..] influence what mathematics is taught. So what mathematics should be taught in the 21st century? Should some of our "sacred cow" topics take a back seat? My take is that the math topics don't matter as much as long as they are embedded in interesting contexts that engage students in learning; mostly through well crafted projects. This will prepare students to effectively deal with the challenges of 21st century living. Can we collaboratively build towards this vision? Other opinions? Please reply.

cc blog 104

More About the Upcoming NCTM Conference

Open flipbook

This flipbook previews the upcoming NCTM conference, the actual program book is not out yet and won't be available till you arrive in Philadelphia. NCTM has stopped mailing out program books in advance but you can preview all the sessions using the the NCTM search tool which now also includes links of handouts submitted by the speakers - not very many included so far. If you are a speaker and wish to post your handout go to NCTM's Speaker Page and click on Login to the speaker's corner.

See all tech sessions

All the technology related sessions are listed on this site. If you are speaking on a technology theme you can update this site with your latest information. Just let me know what you want me to include by sending me that information.



While you are in Philadelphia look for the China cups sculpture in the convention hall. John Scammell wrote a blog entry and activity about it when he attended a conference there last June.

China Wedge - Blog by John Scammell

He's got a quite a bit of information about it including some cool video and photos. (Click on photo.)