Math Week: Readers' Ideas

Readers weigh in with 'Math Week' ideas, comments, observations, and suggestions...
Noah Geisel on finding and using tools:

Regardless of what subjects we teach, the innovative and "authentic" ways in which many of us are incorporating tech were not necessarily obvious to us from the start but we realize that we are limited only by our imaginations in utilizing the tools that are out there. It's no different for math and science; the tech exists, they just need to find it!

Norman Constantine on math and keyboards:

It is a question of what you are used to seeing as notation. Programmers have been writing code that produces massive calculations using a keyboard.

Reader Jeremy isolates a problem (and offers tech know-how to fix it):

Math homework is such a freeform method of writing. The only things I've found to accomodate it requires the student to learn a dizzying array of buttons to click on or some sort of syntax to represent equations within the confines of a sentence like structure. It's ironic, because I often tell people where I work that the hardware is no longer the problem in education. It's the innovation of individuals that is the missing ingredient. Maybe math is the one area that isn't quite true yet.... We need a tool that allows students to build equations visually, the same way they would on paper. The trick is going to be a GUI that is easy to use and only requires a mouse and keyboard.

Mark Pullen offers a suggestion for elementary school math:

For lower elementary, ixl.com is a great site that has very specific practice sets on every single topic (or close to every topic) you would need in a given school year. If you wanted to shift to web-based math for 2nd-5th grades, I'd go there.

Reader DGM cites Webassign.net:

They have deals with various textbook publishers for automated marking of the maths problems in the back of textbooks.

Kax offers a bunch of good resources:

Graphcalc.com is a site recommended by Ira Socol because it can integrate into Word or Google Docs. I have not tried it out yet. We have Geometer's Sketchpad at my school which is a great program for exploring all levels of math. Dan Myer has a great blog where he gives creative ideas for authentic math at http://blog.mrmeyer.com/. I also like the idea of mathcasts; I would like to have students create their own videos explaining math concepts that would become a library for help that students could access for help at home or if they are absent.

Brian gives a resource for adding equations to blogs:

If you are trying to get an equation into a blog or wiki, there is a relatively (notice the word relatively) easy way of doing it now thanks to LaTeX.

And Russ comes in with various ways to present math in projection:

People without Smart boards, but [who] have a projector for a computer, may be interested in the wiimote whiteboard project, to turn any surface into an interactive whiteboard with the use of a wii remote control. Improved versions may be available via sourceforge. Geogebra, would look fab, throwing graphs up on the wall, via wiimote whiteboard, interactively. And Sketchup (free 3d drawing program), great for elementary and middle school, tesselations, modeling, 3d dimensional construction, angles. See Bonnie Roskes' books at 3dVinci, geometrics, and modelmetrics. Co-author Jon Choate will be presenting at the NCTM conference in Boston this Oct. I love Sketchup. His zebragraph website has the .ppt's on a previous NCTM presentation. I'm head-over-heels over Sketchup, really!

Mind you, as a teacher in the Humanities, I really knew nothing about any of this cool stuff. Just goes to show what a great readership can do to help fulfill the promise of a blog.

You guys rock!

Math week continues tomorrow with a personal story of math agony.

High School Math Burial Grounds (and how to raise the dead)

ASCD reports on Uri Treisman's presentation at Education Commission of the States' recent National Forum on Education Policy:

To Treisman, high school algebra is the burial ground for the aspirations of many students in part because "almost no one uses the content of these courses in their subsequent university courses."

Treisman, Professor of Mathematics and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, argues that we've got to seriously up the ante in terms of the kinds of math content teachers can teach.

Not being a math teacher, I'd love to hear from some folks who are explain why the algebra, geometry, trig, calculus regime is the current standard. And what does it mean to 'up the ante'?

(Just as an aside, did I miss a memo? Seems like all of a sudden there is math talk all over the ed blogosphere!)

Math Week

Ok, Ok, I get the point: it's Math Week already!

I totally didn't see this one coming. You know, despite the idea that most people have of me manipulating world events for the goal of mandating paperless Latin classrooms, I really treat this blog as a living organism and I try my best to respond to the input of readers as well as to whatever happens to be going on in the ed blogosphere at large.

So, I'm delighted that in the same week that the discussion turns to math, McLeod starts his PUSH on math blogs:

What are some excellent math education blogs that P-12 math educators should be reading? We need both elementary and secondary examples.

They are putting together a wiki on the topic, so go check out what's going on and maybe by the end of this week, between the resources being talked about here and the sites being collected there, we'll have a nice collection of materials for digital teaching in math.

Alas, Math.

In the case of the paperless math resources, I thought it was interesting that by-and-large in terms of integrating tech into math teaching (at least at the secondary level) the math folks seem so far behind the folks in the humanities. And that's hardly the fault of math teachers; rather, as many folks have pointed out, it's a problem with hardware and the ways by which we think about physically using a computer.

In a serious way, if you don't have a Tablet, you don't have the full applicability of tech integration to learning math.

Whereas in the humanities, typing itself is hardly a detriment. And the keyboards we use today are really no different than the typewriters of our past. Therefore, tech in the humanities was quickly and easily able to get into the business of creating hyperlinked text databases, encyclopedias, and online books whereas math teachers were left to struggle with the question of how to 'show work' via a keyboard.

And I think it's especially pertinent to note this advantage that the humanities have had whereas so often it is suggested to us that math and science lead the technological revolution.

Certainly math and science have been the developmental foreground for digital technology, but what are the most popular uses of that tech? A cursory look suggests that it's all about reading the news, sharing photos, and listening to music.

Journalism, Photography, and Music.

Hmm. I wonder how many folks would consider that triumvirate at the top of the tech revolution?

And (I know it's a loaded question, but what the heck) why then don't we give the same elevated position in education to journalism, photography, and music that we do to math?

Could you imagine what high schools would look (and sound) like if journalism, photography, and music were four-year requirements?

Here's to hoping the technicians designing computers actually catch up to the digital needs of math teachers and their students. And here's to the folks in the humanities and arts who are using tech in authentic ways everyday.

Paperless Math?

I'm on a mission for a reader who's a math teacher.

What options are out there for collecting math homework/assignments paperlessly? With the exception of what you can do with a Tablet, I'm woefully ignorant about how to handle math work (especially in high school).

Let's put this readership and PLN to work and come up with a list of options!