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:
Read 3 posts from blogs you’ve never visited, give a quick take-away from each.
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.
1. Flying Colours Maths
This was the first post on the Maths Echo Twitter feed, and a quick click through confirmed that I'd not visited Flying Colours Maths before. It's a site run by a maths tutor in Dorset (who doesn't appear to be on Twitter?), with a regular feature "Ask Uncle Colin", where students can email their questions in for Colin to answer.
I started with the linked post "A Disguised Quadratic" and had a quick click through to a few others - I quite enjoyed "These Alcohol-Related Figures Look a Bit Fuzzy". I quite like the idea of using some of these questions in the A Level classroom and seeing if students can come up with a response before checking Colin's answer. |
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EDIT: After a bit of digging, I've discovered that Colin is in fact on Twitter (@icecolbeveridge) and is very famous. I just appear to have been living in a hole...
2. rbeckettyd
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I obviously read more maths blogs than I think, because I had to scroll for quite a while to find something that wasn't either a) from one of my fellow #summerblogchallenge-ees, or b) from a site I visit regularly.
I did get clickbaited into this one though - it's a very new blog set up by one of this year's NQTs, Rob Beckett (@RBeckett_Yd). The penguins post linked through to areally nice lesson written by PhD students at UCL. I particularly like the fact that the introductory video is voiced by the students and tries to get across the idea that real maths isn't all about the kind of stuff you learn to pass your GCSEs. I'm going to give this a go at some point next year, and also keep an eye on Rob's blog and Twitter feed. |
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3. I Can Speak Mathematics
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Apparently, hardly anyone is blogging at the moment - or more accurately, my idea of sensible frequency of blog posts has been ridiculously skewed by having to write one a day. Anyway, I had to go back four whole days (!) to find my next one, which is another new blog from a chap who identifies himself only as Jacob (@midoyoso on Twitter) and is a primary school teacher.
I confess, I recognised myself a little bit in this blog article, although I have got better now we're using our Mastery curriculum stuff. However, while I think not knowing times tables is often used as an excuse, there's no doubt in my mind that rapid recall of multiplication facts really makes a difference in a lot of mathematics - for example, when adding fractions, being able to "spot" the LCD without having to list out a load of multiples really helps with quicker processing of the entire question, or (much later on) factorising quadratics. |
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Regardless, another interesting new blog I'll be keeping an eye on, anyway, particularly as I don't follow many primary school teachers on Twitter (not through choice - I just can't seem to find many that focus on maths!).
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