Comments on: Notes From Foo

By: Jacob Patel

Jacob Patel — Mon, 24 May 2010 21:51:22 +0000

Home Schooling is also nice since you got to always see your kids.:*-

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:47:28 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by galejohn: reading Dan Meyer’s notes from Foo Camp /?p=4599…

By: wb

wb — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:02:11 +0000

When I started using SpringBoard last year it was a set of project based learning modules. This summer they came out with a text book that uses those projects and then designs a more complete curriculum around them. It's more investigative learning and real world situations. You can check out some of the modules here.

By: Kathy Sierra

Kathy Sierra — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:22:12 +0000

Your session at Foo Camp was one of the most significant and inspiring I’ve seen at Foo… and I’ve been to all of them. I only wish that we could have had a two-day camp *just on that*.

You made an impact. The standard Foo “joke” is that it’s the only place where you can walk by any room and hear someone who looks 20 saying, “So that’s what I did LAST week to change the world…”, and it’ll actually be true. Tim showing up to your talk was pretty significant as well. His mantra these days (to us developers) is “work on stuff that matters.” Obviously he puts your work in that camp, and other people listen.

By: Sue

Sue — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:27:47 +0000

Morgante, What text are you using?

By: Morgante Pell

Morgante Pell — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:27:05 +0000

Sounds like a great experience, and a good model for potential education conferences. I think there’s a lot the programming world gets right, much of iit not related directly to technology. Despite our supposed anti-social tendencies, geeks really do know how to organize and coordinate—better than teachers, certainly. No serious tech person can live in a bubble, but plenty of teachers do.
I definitely think you need to keep asking questions about how curriculum is developed and shared. Today, I had my first AP Probability & Statistics class and I think this is one course which gets it right. It’s all about dealing with fuzzy inputs and real world applications (almost all of the textbook problems are pulled from case studies). Right off the bat, the first investigation is applying statistical analysis to an actual gender discrimination case. I think the ideal tool would let this kind of curriculum be shared, not only with other AP stats teachers, but with all math teachers.

By: Maria Droujkova

Maria Droujkova — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:50:40 +0000

Dan,

Thank you for brainstorming! The reason I am asking these questions: Ihor from CLIME is organizing a Math 2.0 conference in San Diego this Spring: http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/people+and+networks How do we make these events meaningful and, well, possible is a huge question.

TED started in someone’s living room. O’Reilly wasn’t always a big name, either.

Some unconferences attach themselves to big established conferences, which may be a way to go, judging from EduBloggerCon, NECC Unplugged and Constructivist Celebration, to name a few.

So, about that Redwood City campus…

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:18:31 +0000

@Kyle & Maria, Here a few obstacles (as I see them) to reproducing FooCamp in the education sector: 1. The O'Reilly name lends a certain kind of credibility to the event that I can't find in our field. Pearson? McGraw-Hill? Arne Duncan? I don't know. 2. The event isn't cheap for O'Reilly Media. The lawn and orchard space for tents was free but the catered food was not. The open, tended bar kept conversation running well into the night. The campus is gorgeous. There was 24-hour security in case (I suppose) a terrorist decided to take out the world's largest assembled body of lolcat experts. O'Reilly threw a great, expensive party, to a certain extent, because it kept them surfing with their toes at the edge of the board of any subject they wanted. So it's nice to offer a Redwood City campus for the event, and I know I'd attend, but I live forty-five minutes down the road. What would compel a teacher from the East Coast to pay airfare, room, and board to attend? Obviously, in light of those obstacles, EduCon has done pretty well for itself. @wb, I haven't seen much on SpringBoard and Google is being unhelpful. Can you link me anything?

By: wb

wb — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:53:44 +0000

Have you seen the new SpringBoard textbooks? I’m using it in my Alg. 1 and 2 class and I think it addresses some of your concerns about curriculum and textbooks. The Alg. 1 version has a stacks of cups lesson comparable to one of your posts.

By: Maria Droujkova

Maria Droujkova — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:06:22 +0000

How can we host an event like that for the Math 2.0 interest group? We are all over the world…