Checking off my summer to-do list

Exploring "The Language of Mathematics" to discover how primes are used in cryptosystems.

A selection of maths webcomics for classroom use and my "One Good Thing" for today.

I mentioned in my Pick of Twitter a couple of weeks ago that I'd found a link to blog post prompts. Well, we're on post 40 of 51 now, and I'm getting writer's block, so thought I'd pick a prompt and go with it for today's post. I thought this one looked interesting: 

This seemed an opportune moment to refer to the recently created Maths Echo Chamber Twitter account (@MathsEcho) so I popped over to do a bit of random selection.

I blogged last week about discovering IFTTT and how I'd be using it to help with my Pick of Twitter every week - everything I favourited on Twitter last week automatically got saved to Pocket and tagged with "pick of twitter" so I could easily distinguish Twitter favourites from anything else I'd saved from other sites.

I'd put money on the fact that I get asked whether I enjoy teaching by at least four or five pupils every term. I started thinking about this and other related questions when writing my post about my journey into teaching a few days ago. It confuses me that pupils ask this - I wonder if they're going to lessons where teachers visibly look like they're not enjoying teaching, or whether they're just buying into the media picture of what the job's like.

I know how loser-ish this sounds, but I love stationery. I particularly love picking up bits and pieces for the new academic year - Wilkinson's is a great place to go for novelty Post-Its and patterned notebooks at a decent price.
If I've got to mark books, I'll make sure I do it in a pen I enjoy writing with, and if I've got to give visible feedback, I'll liven it up by using fluorescent pink stickers if I so choose.

So today's post includes some of my stationery must-haves - I'm sure there will be more as I do this year's big shop next week!

As I mentioned in my Pick of Twitter last Sunday, I've enjoyed a few stories about people's reasons for and routes into teaching, so I thought I'd post my own today.

Sometimes, you really need a basic practice worksheet - pure and simple, drill and kill, no fuss or problem solving. This might be for a five-minute heads-down skills practice in class, to source questions for a revision lesson, or simply to satisfy the rare pupil who asked where they can go to get extra work.

I use textbooks less and less in my teaching now, and I find that the exercises in most new textbooks aren't great for what I want out of the lesson. If I want basic skills practice, there's often bits in there I don't want the pupils doing (such as a substitution exercise which uses negative numbers before they've been taught this), and then there's the irritating bit of explaining that they need to start on Q3 and do up to Q5, then move on to Q21 on the next page, and it's all more trouble than it's worth. And let's not talk about having to hand the flipping things out...

If you're a regular Twitter user, there's nothing revolutionary on this list - these are the sites that I check first before scouring the Internet for other problems, and that's because they've usually got something great that requires little adaptation for the classroom.

However, if you're a regular Twitter user but you know colleagues who aren't, I really recommend sharing this list with them, as it may be that they've never heard of some.

A couple of days ago, @mathedup mentioned using IFTTT (If This Then That) for automating post sharing between Twitter and Facebook. I'm not a big user of Facebook for teaching stuff (yet), but was intrigued by the title of the app, so decided to go and have a play, mostly in preparation for setting up my own Facebook page soon.

I quite like playing around with technology, and, as I only got a smartphone a couple of years ago and my tablet about six months ago, the world of apps is relatively new to me. So I've quite enjoyed messing with IFTTT this afternoon - depending on what's ended up being useful, I'll post some more in-depth tutorial-type things later.

This is the first Sunday I've been at my computer since my last Pick of Twitter, so there's a bit of backdating going on here. 

Due to the fact that our cruise line wanted to charge nearly £120 per day for the privilege of unlimited Wi-Fi, I've been without Internet for most of the last week. It's been incredibly relaxing, but I do feel like I've missed a lot on Twitter - I had far too many notifications when I logged in yesterday, and I have a lot of reading to catch up on with all the other#summerblogchallenge posts. I've also gained about thirty new followers this week through tweeting absolutely nothing, which might suggest that I do better when I keep my mouth shut...

I've now managed to post all of the photos from my challenge; here's a quick index:

1. Infinite mirrors
2. Archways
3. Set with playing cards
4. It's all Greek to me...
5. Tiling patterns
6. Triangular bridge
7. More arches in Ancona

There were lots more Roman arches in Ancona, but I also spotted this slightly differently shaped one in a piece of very old wall. A quick Google has told me that this is probably either a lancet arch or an equilateral arch, and I'm going to find out which later by measuring it!

Thursday took us to Dubrovnik, where we played "spot the Game of Thrones filming locations" and tried to avoid melting in the heat. On the way out of the port, I spotted the Franjo Tudman bridge, which is pure geometry in action.

Another day aboard with nowhere to go, hence this slightly tenuous floor tiling pattern - I thought it was quite pretty though!