Comments on: [Help Wanted] Can I Get Your Feedback On MathRecap.com

By: Leigh Nataro

Leigh Nataro — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 02:26:04 +0000

I definitely see the value in this and would like to contribute recaps of some of the T-Cubed sessions I am going to be going to in Philly in March.

(I posted above about trying a google+ hangout on air. Apparently, you can’t invite the general public to a hangout on your youtube channel. So, if this was going to become a way to “meet” to discuss the site, a group would need to be created via google + first.)

By: Bill Fitzgerald

Bill Fitzgerald — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 19:36:25 +0000

Hello, Dan,

Content strategy around tagging would certainly be part of it; ideally, this would be paired with some clean summary pages (that displayed, for example, a title, a summary, and a related image) that helped give people an overview of what is available within a given topic. And, fwiw, tagging and tag maintenance could be an editorial role (as opposed to something that is put onto content authors).

Right now, people get full text or nothing, which impairs their ability to browse and discover.

But really, this site is a great start, and it will only become more valuable as more content gets added.

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:42:04 +0000

Hi Bill, thanks for the feedback here, particularly on Solr. The sum of your comments and others here point in the direction of more visible tagging, both by conference, speaker name, and content. So ideally, someone who heard about a remarkable talk on flipped classroom deployment in a 1:1 Android tablet classroom at NCTM 2013 should be able to locate a recap of that talk by clicking away at that unholy mess of tags. That sounds useful to me.

By: Bill Fitzgerald

Bill Fitzgerald — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:23:54 +0000

Hello, Dan,

Another hand in the air here from people who didn’t know about the site until now.

As to improving the site, the biggest thing you can do to improve it is keep adding content. From a look at the posts, it looks like the site has been around since late November – that’s not a huge amount of time.

I would also hesitate against judging the utility of the site from something as simple as pageviews. IMO, it’s better to be of great interest to a smaller, motivated crowd than to break pageview records. In any case, I’d focus on quality of posts/recaps, and let the pageviews sort themselves out.

Additionally, having a calendar of math conferences that will be recapped would also be useful. Allowing people to browse recaps by conference would also be useful. The fact that people can only interact with the site via full-text posts makes it difficult to browse, which will drive down interactions by people who might want to dig deeper but feel like the site doesn’t offer much in the way of tools to discover content.

Finally, the search functionality will need to improve as more content gets added – right now, it returns full text (or at least it did when I searched for iPad); ideally it would return titles, text excerpts, and allow for faceted drill down within searches. Given that WP supports solr search, this could be pretty straightforward: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/solr-for-wordpress/

But really, the site is useful; the best thing you could do is recruit more recappers, find an additional trustworthy editor or 5, and have more people add more content.

By: Bowen Kerins

Bowen Kerins — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 08:11:33 +0000

I think if you had something where people could upload and feature their conference videos, it would work — people would take it upon themselves to get the video hooked up. Or, whoever is going around to these speakers can borrow a flipcam or use a smartphone. I like the “highlight” idea as well; with smartphones it’s pretty simple to take a 3-5 minute video of the proceedings, at least enough to get the feel for the speaker.

Without video I think this doesn’t go anywhere, but it’s just an opinion. I am shocked, however, that I’m trying to convince you that video can do things that text cannot ;)

By: Leigh Nataro

Leigh Nataro — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 05:20:48 +0000

Ok – I have a suggested plan of attack. Those interested in helping by contributing to the site and those interested in helping to craft this idea should meet in a google plus hangout. 9 pm eastern time works for me just about any day of the week. The hangout can be watched live on YouTube & the discussion recorded for those who can’t attend. Plus we can record our ideas on a google doc & there is a chat window too.

What do people think? We have great ideas, but needs to refine them. I suggest thursday, January 3rd at 9 pm eastern time. My YouTube channel is mathteacher24. Go there than to contribute!

By: Blake

Blake — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 03:27:48 +0000

Bottom line- more pub needed. Site is a great idea, obviously needs some organizational help (grouped and searchable), but word needs to get out. Lets all do our part!

By: Andrew Stadel

Andrew Stadel — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:42:40 +0000

Bowen touched on video. Watching short video clips of presentations is valuable for me, especially if the presenter is dynamic as yourself. Dan, I recorded some of your CMC South presentation would love to share some bits of that. There were so many quality parts, but a 1-2 minute highlight would prove effective in my opinion. Would you be interested in something like that? 1-2 minutes of video highlights?

By: Roberto Catanuto

Roberto Catanuto — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 09:58:52 +0000

The idea is generally good. A useful help for those who can’t access these conferences in person.

My feeling is I find boring having to scroll down the entire page to see all the presentations’ titles and decide what’s worth reading and what’s not.

What about a short summary somewhere, or perhaps you could write the titles as links. Clicking on them would lead the reader to the requested page.

Thanks

By: Lisa Nussdorfer

Lisa Nussdorfer — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 01:58:45 +0000

Greetings!
I was surprised to see my name in Dan’s blog while I was catching up in Google Reader. I thought I would weigh in! I agree with Michael P
“Blog posts are good. Presentations are good. But what is each format particularly suited to do? In particular, what gets lost when you try to translate a presentation to a blog post?”
When I got to hear Dan *in person* at CMC North give his talk about “perplexity,” I felt that I could catch and understand what he was saying. In fact, I started to make connections with other subjects, like, “What does it mean to capture perplexing ideas?” “Would I be like Dan if I captured more?” “Great instruction builds by breaking down ideas into manageable chunks” I read a lot of blog posts that inform my instruction and teaching/learning philosophy but sometimes I cannot learn as much because I cannot chunk it down as well as I could in a presentation. It reminds me of independent study (you have to be VERY motivated – like watching Khan :)).
The math recap idea will and can grow, but for ideas to spread to new areas and to non-motivated learners, buddies need to tell other buddies about it. – a Facebook Page?
The beginning of me tapping into the online math ed community for me began when my coworker sat me down and insisted that I watch Dan’s TED talk, and here I am. It continues to be a fun ride and my google reader bulgeth.