DailyDirt: Back To School Time...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It's that time of year again -- time for kids in the US to go back to school after a summer break. There are plenty of folks who argue that summer breaks are unnecessary and waste valuable teaching time. There also seems to be no end of suggestions on how to fix the US education system. Here are just a few more opinions about improving educational systems.

• Would students be better served by taking "applied math" classes instead of pre-algebra, algebra, pre-calculus and calculus? Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys, engineers or scientists... [url]
• Google's Eric Schmidt admonishes British teachers for teaching students how to use Microsoft applications -- instead of programming. Out of spite, how about we teach kids how to use Microsoft Visual C++? [url]
• Teachers have a hard job in NYC... and it doesn't help when it's so easy for new teachers to be dismissed as bad teachers. But it's not easy to grade teachers, either. [url]
• Teaching as a career doesn't seem to be a highly-regarded profession, according to several polls. But it's not clear how the trend of diminishing status for teaching professionals can be reversed. [url]
• To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: education, knowledge, learning, math, schools, teachers

DailyDirt: Math Is Hard

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Several years ago, a president of Harvard resigned -- due, in part, to expressing his opinion that there are innate differences between men and women that contribute to fewer women in math/science professions. Since then, there have been a few studies on how people deal with math. Here are just a few quick links.

• Barbie was just stating an opinion, too: math is hard. But a study shows that girls are performing just as well as boys in math... [url]
• Some psychologists think people have an innate skill at math from birth. But that doesn't mean that kids who are bad at math should give up! [url]
• Chinese speakers tend to memorize numbers more easily because numbers in Chinese are simpler. If English speakers have a harder time because their numbers are weird, try French -- where ninety-nine is quatre-vingt-dix-neuf (roughly "four*twenty+ten+nine"). [url]
• To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: barbie, chinese, education, math, numbers

Why The NY Times Paywall Business Model Is Doomed to Fail (Numbers)

from the dude-where's-my-math dept

Not considering technical details (every wall can be brought down), even by its own business model the New York Times' paywall is doomed to fail.

Last Friday's Financial Times had some interesting numbers.

• Fact 1: According to analysts, the New York Times only needs to convert 1 to 10 per cent of the online visitors in order for the model to pay off.
• Fact 2: NY Times chief executive Janet Robinson has stated that they only expect about 15 per cent of visitors to encounter the paywall, since visitors can read 20 articles per month for free.
• Fact 3: Full website access and the mobile app are bundled for $15 per month. For the iPad app + web you pay $20 per month. $35 for all three.
• Fact 4: One analyst argues that the NY Times could earn $66m per year if it converted just 1 per cent of the visitors. This would mean they go from paying nothing, to paying (at least) $195 a year.

There is no way these numbers add up. Consider fact 1 and fact 2. First of all only 1 per cent might actually not be all that easy, let alone 10 per cent. Secondly, the 1 per cent is misleading, as they'll actually have to convert 1 to 10 out of every 15 visitors to encounter the paywall. So they actually have to convert 6 to 66 (!) per cent.

Next, the pricing might be too high. $15 per month is a lot for consumers who are not used to pay for news online, especially since there's no additional value as Mike commented last week. I'm not saying nobody will pay, but dragging in the 6 to 66 per cent of the visitors will be challenging, to say the least.

I cannot imagine this paywall to be successful. They can probably kiss the $40m investment in the development goodbye.

Filed Under: math, paywalls, predictions, subscriptions
Companies: ny times

The Changing Way That Math Is Taught To Children

from the carry-the-1 dept

NPR has a fascinating story about how the methods for teaching basic mathematics have been changing in schools. For example, they show the following comparison for teaching multiplication:

The Way We Used To Multiply

The old way to multiply required a student to add the products of 36 x 4 and 36 x 2. The trick is to add that 0 at the end of the second product. How Kids Learn To Multiply Now

These days, students add four products to get the answer.

This fascinates me because I was definitely taught that first method as a kid, but what really gets me is that I ended up teaching myself the second method, because it seemed like a fun trick that made it easier to multiply larger numbers in my head (shocking news: I was a bit of a nerd). But once I had taught myself the latter method, I could never figure out why that wasn't more common. Apparently, I was just ahead of my time.

The other interesting thing that hit me was the article's explanation for why things have shifted:

"That's largely to reflect the different needs of society," he says. "No one ever in their real life anymore needs to -- and in most cases never does -- do the calculations themselves."

Computers do arithmetic for us, Devlin says, but making computers do the things we want them to do requires algebraic thinking. For instance, take a computer spreadsheet. The computer does all the calculations for you automatically. But you have to write the macros that tell it what calculations to do -- and that is algebraic thinking.

"You cannot become good at algebra without a mastery of arithmetic," Devlin says, "but arithmetic itself is no longer the ultimate goal." Thus the emphasis in teaching mathematics today is on getting people to be sophisticated, algebraic thinkers.

So for all the times kids claim that they shouldn't need to learn mathematics because they'll never need aspects of it in real life, it's nice to see that the education system is actually adapting to make the process of how you think about math much more practical in today's world.

Filed Under: education, math, teaching

Man Claims Copyright On Mental Math Trick

from the try-calculating-how-likely-you-are-to-enforce-that... dept

There's a wonderful book by Ben Klemens called Math You Can't Use about how the growing encroachment of intellectual property laws on things like basic algorithms and software are locking up math. However, it appears that one guy is trying to take it to an extreme. Pegr alerts us to a story of a guy who claims to have obtained a copyright on a method for multiplying any two numbers in your head, and he's willing to sell you the trick for $33. Of course, there are all sorts of mental multiplication tricks out there (and a quick search of the web will teach you most of them, if you're unfamiliar with them). There aren't many details on the supposed "copyright" on this trick, so it's not clear if he actually registered the copyright or just thinks he has the copyright, but it will be fascinating to see if he stops anyone else from discussing the method, should it actually be new.

Filed Under: copyright, math

Google Scientists Successfully Split The Bill

from the with-some-help dept

theodp writes "Yes Virginia, there is a Techdirt reader at Google. It took a little public teasing, but Google has quietly fixed the formula bugs in its YouTube-hyped Shared House Expenses spreadsheet template, which can now correctly split roommates' bills three ways (before and after). And so ends another episode of life imitating The Onion."

Filed Under: errors, math, spreadsheets, templates
Companies: google

Showcased Google Docs Spreadsheet Does Not Compute

from the zero-problem dept

theodp writes "Recently, Google debuted its new Google Docs Template Gallery, showcasing a Shared House Expenses spreadsheet template in a pretty elaborate YouTube Video as an example of 'tools that just work.' Only problem is, the popular five-star template still doesn't work correctly. Thanks to its doesn't-handle-zero-correctly bugs, the spreadsheet fails to always divide expenses properly, allowing one roommate to get away with contributing far less than his "Fare [sic] Share." So did Google release the spreadsheet to gazillions of users without bothering to verify it worked, or did all those Googlers fail to recognize some pretty obvious mistakes?"

Filed Under: errors, math, spreadsheets, templates
Companies: google

Verizon Wireless Apparently Still Can't Train Its Sales People In Basic Math

from the add-your-0.2-cents dept

You may recall the story from last year about Verizon Wireless' dubious math skills. What kicked off the story was a guy traveling to Canada with a Verizon Wireless EVDO account. He had asked how much the roaming charges would be, and was told 0.002 cents per kilobyte -- which is quite reasonable. However, when he got his next bill, it was quite a lot bigger than he expected. That's because Verizon Wireless actually charges 0.002 dollars per kilobyte. When confronted on this, hilarity (or frustration, depending on your point of view) ensued. Even when being explained the difference in dollars and cents clearly, Verizon Wireless customer service reps continued to insist that 0.002 cents per kilobyte is the same thing as 0.002 dollars per kilobyte. The publicity backlash convinced Verizon Wireless to refund the guy's money (though still demand he not use their logo on his blog about the story). Either way, you would think that this widely talked about event would have Verizon Wireless careful to train their customer service reps on the difference between dollars and cents. Not so, apparently.

Broadband Reports points us to a guy who clearly has way too much free time, who decided to check up on Verizon Wireless, calling the company 56 times to ask about two separate data rates. Out of 56 customer service reps he spoke to, a grand total of one gave him the correct info on both questions. 52% answered both questions incorrectly. All in all, he received 22 unique answers, with many underquoting the actual rate by a factor of 100. However, as he noted, that didn't stop nearly all of them from immediately then offering him a two-year contract -- which you could claim was sold to him with false data about what he'd be paying. He put together a nice video to highlight some of the incorrect statements from Verizon Wireless CSRs: So, is it reasonable to ask when Verizon Wireless is going to start teaching its customer service reps math?

Filed Under: data charges, dollars and cents, math
Companies: verizon wireless