David Warlick has been working hard on his preconference Keynote presentation for K12 Online 2006. And the conference kickoff is getting closer by the second ... as you can see from the new counter in the sidebar over there --> at the right.

David will kick off the conference on October 16. Later that evening, at 6 pm eastern time in North America, 10 pm GMT, we will have our first of three Fireside Chats. David and the four conference organizers (Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Will Richardson, Wesley Fryer and myself) will all be in attendance in an Elluminate room.

You're all invited to join us! There will be a link posted to the K12 Online blog. Watch for it ... all you need to do is click it to get in ... remember, everything about K12 Online is free. ;-)

And one more thing ... if you want to join the countdown on your blog here's the code to copy and paste to your blog sidebar. You can edit the colours of the text and background using colour names or their html equivalents ...

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David Warlick's
<br>
Keynote Begins in</b>
<br><font size="-1">
<script language="JavaScript">
TargetDate = "10/16/2006 12:00 AM";
BackColor = "white";
ForeColor = "black";
CountActive = true;
CountStepper = -1;
LeadingZero = false;
DisplayFormat = "%%D%% Days, %%H%% Hrs, %%M%% M, %%S%% S";
FinishMessage = "It is finally here!";
</script></font>
</center>
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://scripts.hashemian.com/js/countdown.js"></script>

Tags: k12online, k12online06

Jon Klassen is a student teacher at my school. He interviewed me as part of an assignment for his curriculum and instruction class. This podcast was recorded in my classroom at the end of the school day on October 4, 2006. You can tell from the announcements made over the PA system and the sound of slamming lockers as the students are leaving the building. ;-)

Interviewed by Jon Klassen (9.7 Mb, 20 minutes, 6 seconds)

These are the questions Jon asked in the interview ...

Is vocabulary important in mathematics? How do you teach it?

What are your thoughts about technology and calculators being used in the math classroom?

Are there any particular benefits or drawbacks to using graphing calculators?

How do you teach them to "read" the calculator?

How do students learn concepts, particularly math concepts, best?

How do you relate the study of mathematics to student's lives?

What do you do for students who are struggling to understand mathematics?

How do you evaluate your students?

I don't do many podcasts where I talk explicitly about the teaching of mathematics ... the time just flew! Feel free to add to the discussion by leaving your comments below. If you prefer, you can leave me an audio comment. ;-)

I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Susan van Gelder this past summer at the Building Learning Communities conference in Boston. Susan is from Quebec. She maintains the ICT Leaders and Learners web site which is part of the Quebec English Schools Network. She interviewed me about the upcoming K12 Online conference ... I gave her a scoop ... listen for it. ;-)
Interview with Susan van Gelder (23 minutes 40 seconds)

Show Notes
K12 Online  

Will Richardson 

higheredblogcon.com 

Techcrunch 

Skype 

Elluminate 

David Warlick 

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach 

Wesley Fryer 

Bud Hunt 

Alan Levine 

Anne Davis 

Ewan McIntosh 

The Landmark Project 

Blogmeister 

Hitchhikr 

Technorati 

The New Story Virtual Handouts 

Writing HTML 

Seize The Time! 

EdTechTalk 

Jeff Utecht 

LAN Parties

Tags: k12online, k12online06

and counting. ;-)

The deadline for submitting proposals for K12 Online is Saturday. If you or anyone you know was thinking of submitting something ... NOW would be a good time. Particularly in the Overcoming Obstacles strand. ;-)

You can submit your ideas here.

Tags: k12online, k12online06

This is a writely (recently acquired by Google) document. I created it back in March when we were working on last year's Coin Hunt. It's a list of clues (and some of their answers) that we used in the Coin Hunt.

My AP class is working on their second "Publish It!" assignment. I've suggested they use http://writley.com or http://thinkfree.com to collaborate and then use the "publish to blog" feature. I'm just testing it out myself. ;-)



class of 2004 - class of 1997

To how many decimal places does Kate Bush celebrate with us?

A triangle puzzle:
1
11
21
1211
111221
find the next line in the triangle then add up all the numbers in that line. (10)

The three digit number under the infinity symbol

Four years ago, Our Day was featured in "the everyday happenings of weebl and sometimes weebl's friend bob." How many π's are there? (http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/pie.htm) (16)

In what year were the first 100 digits of π first calculated? (1701 by Machin)

Which number is missing in the first 30 digits of pi's decimal expansion? (0)

Yasumasa Kanada at the University of Tokyo, in 1995, calculated π to how many decimal places (to the nearest billion)? (1241) - How long did it take him to do the calculation? (116 hours) = ?(1125)

Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728-1777) was the first to prove that the number π is an irrational number. In what year did he do this? (1768)

In 1897 the State House of Representatives of Indiana unanimously passed a bill setting pi equal to what value? (16/(sq.rt.3)) Were they right? (no)

Wes posted where we stand as far as proposal submissions for K12 Online as of yesterday.

The excitement is building and there are lots of ways to keep up-to-date with what's going on. You can subscribe to the conference blog, you can follow what's happening across the blogosphere over at hitchhikr, technorati (here and here) or at bloglines.

Help make the conference a success by summitting a proposal (or three) for the conference. This really is a grass roots event. It's success depends on all of us. Your contribution will improve the education of all our children and colleagues. Can you think of a better way to spend your time?

I've just done some reorganizing of The Scribe Post Hall Of Fame Wiki. I've archived last year's Hall of Famers and have two inductees already for the new school year. I know there are some other teachers out there using scribes in their classes. I hope you'll tell them about the Hall Of Fame, add yourself as a contributor (including of an email link is optional) and start inducting each other's students into this year's Hall Of Fame.
Last year I had talked about designing a badge for the inductees. I've designed two different badges, available in two different sizes. I've already pasted one into one of my student's posts. Mind you, so many of them are doing such great work so early on in the semester, I expect to see a prolifferation of Hall Of Fame inductees.
The HTML code for the badges is on the wiki. Just copy and paste it in right at the begining of your student's Hall Of Fame worthy posts ... and feel free to add your own badge designs; the more the merrier. ;-)