First Vi Hart. Now Brit Cruise, whose exemplary work with videos and math instruction was featured in these pages a couple of weeks ago. For me, this has all the drama of some kind of skin graft or organ transplant where no one has any idea if the host body is going to accept or reject any of it. In both its videos and its exercises, Khan Academy has a distinctive house style. So does Hart’s work and Cruise’s to a lesser extent. It isn’t remotely clear to me how any of those competing styles will interact with each other.

In news that’s much less exciting, though still related to Khan Academy, I’m working with my advisor and two other graduate students at a charter school in San Jose. We’re working with their teachers and Khan Academy to develop a blended unit on similarity, congruence, and trigonometry. (“Blended” is defined, in this instance, as a 1:1 environment that includes regular in-class use of Khan Academy.) It’s my first in-the-classroom experience with either blended learning or Khan Academy. There’s probably a lot that should be said about the experience but I’m still learning.

I’ll be facilitating a brief workshop and delivering an even briefer lecture at The Urban School of San Francisco on Wednesday, January 11. I’m told that both events are at capacity, but my hosts will be streaming our sessions on their Livestream channel.

The workshop runs from 12:00 to 2:30. (All times Pacific.) It will comprise a) a problem-solving session, b) a debrief of that session, c) some practice turning the raw mathematical material we find in textbooks, on the Internet, and in our daily lives into perplexing tasks for our students.

I’ve titled the lecture “Capturing, Sharing, and Resolving Perplexity.” I would have gone with “The Instructional Technology Presentation for People Who Don’t Like Instructional Technology Presentations” but I’m a coward.