Information Age Education Blog

"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"
--Henry David Thoreau

My wife Sharon Yoder had a fine undergraduate liberal arts education. Those of you who are involved in the field of computers in education will recognize her name as the author or co-author of a great many books. Initially she focused mainly on Logo, but then expanded her interests to a wide variety of other topics. Learn more about her at http://iae-pedia.org/Sharon_Yoder.

Many years ago, when I first became a faculty member in the University of Oregon College of Education, I heard about C.P. Snow and his ideas on Two Cultures. I didn’t read his material, but I agreed with his ideas of science versus non-science ways of viewing the world and as areas of scholarship. Although I had been sort of brainwashed by my mathematician father during my childhood to believe that Mathematics was not only the queen of the sciences but the queen of intellectualism, I was gradually coming to accept the idea that in every academic discipline there are a great many very smart people.

Recently I read C.P. Snow’s famous lecture (about 30 pages in length):

 As you know, I read a lot. Recently I read the short book:

Wolcott, H.F. (2010). Ethnography Lessons: A Primer. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Quoting Marshall McLuhan well-known statement:

The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium—that is, of any extension of ourselves—result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. (Marshall McLuhan; Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar; 1911–1980.)

Recently my close friend and co-author Bob Albrecht shared with me examples of a category of math problem used in some elementary school math classes. We are currently co-authoring a book on the use of games to enhance math education for K-8 students. (Note added 12/2/2012: See Moursund & Albrecht in Reference at the end of this entry for the title and a link to download the book.)

Add to 15: List as many ways as you can to use the numbers 1 through 9 to add up to 15, without repeating any of the numbers in a single equation. If you can, try to list all possible ways.