Personally, I think it does not make sense to add to a blog just for
the sake of adding to a blog.  Dan seems pretty responsive as a
moderator, and I feel a non-additive comment just makes more work for
everyone.  Also, Dan's blog is more than just a blog to me.  It's more
like an educational site where I need to take some time to parse and
understand what he has posted.

Although I like this task, I would probably need to devote at least
another hour to digest the posts and make a comment that wasn't
silly.  I tried to access the other WCYDWT link, but it would not come
up and timed out.

To the question:  would you prefer I make a go at it or could you
suggest a few other blogs where I might be able to make a meaningful
comment without spending too much time on one task.

Sorry to whine, but I also couldn't get Jing to work so I've spent a
few hours today without anything to show for it!

Al,

You are making excellent points. Dan is one of more thoughtful teachers and
bloggers out there - that's why I recommended his blog especially as a
destination. As you noted, this raises the quality plank for our comments!

"This is not a drill" - when you do make that thoughtful comment, it will
help many teachers and their students. In my opinion, Dan and his circle are
leading an important innovation - and they need to hear voices of everybody
involved, including beginning teachers. After this first week of class, I
have all the confidence you can help, even if you choose to make the
contribution small - an example, a question, a link to something related. As
my friend says, "Do small things with great love."

The other link was just a Google search for WCYDWT.

Last week, commenting on a multiple representation article, you wrote:
"People learn differently and sometimes in synergistic ways – that is, they
can put the multiple parts together in a way that is greater than the sum of
the parts.  With regard to this blog, I was suggesting that we need to show
how math can be used in jobs, careers, and real-life applications so that
both males and females “get it”. Right now women are very under-represented
in the computer science job space.  Perhaps if, as teachers, we showed how
math can be used and applied in very broad areas that might interest both
genders evenly."
http://ajw0812.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/commenting-on-multiple-repres...

You were extending the idea proposed in the article, and applying it in
broader sense. It is a valuable type of contribution - to readers, to the
author, to everybody. As an aside, I would like to suggest you use this
point as your Wikipedia article improvement, because I don't think we got
gender issues in the differention part, yet.

The WCYDWT project has been growing for a while - there is a lot going on.
If you want, you can wait on this task until the class discussion on
Wednesday. I find voice conversations get creative juices flowing. Another
possibility is to run preliminary ideas, however early they are, by us in
this email group. If you want to raise the quality, depth or breadth of the
comment, I am sure people here will help.

Cheers,
Maria Droujkova

Make math your own, to make your own math.