Over the summer, my family and I took a holiday, driving around Tasmania. It was great, of course, albeit the ferry over was a bad mistake.1 Our first stop was Stanley, a gorgeous, windswept town, featuring a mini Ayers Rock, and penguins that could be viewed unobscured by an MCG-sized stadium or a crazed horde of fellow tourists. Also in Stanley, as it happened, I found a book. Continue reading “Arithmetic, CAS and the Dangers of Obsession”
Courtesy of Scientific American, we have the “debate” over whether 0.999… equals 1.
This is really really stupid. Although, to be fair, SciAm‘s attempt to redefine numbers is much less stupid than their attempts to redefine sex. Continue reading “PoSWW 57: Dotty”
Alex Blanksby, the Vic Maths Notes guy, has posted a thorough and well-written and (too) even-handed summary of the CAS debacle.
As noted by Simon, the list of survey questions is different, depending upon whether you indicate you are a teacher, student or whatever: non-(teachers and students) get to respond to almost nothing, and are launched straight to Q21. Additionally, the survey is submitted without warning for teachers (clicking “Next” after Q15) and students (clicking “Next” after Q20).
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Well, more or less. VCAA is kind of sort of asking for teachers’ opinions on the insane UDF CAS arms race. Continue reading “VCAA Wants to Know What You Think About CAS”
Artificial? No question. The level of intelligence, however, is less clear. Continue reading “PoSWW 56: Symping for AI”
We were alerted to this one by a friend currently suffering through a teaching degree. It is a word problem courtesy of AITLS, the guys who set the standards of how teachers should be professional. Continue reading “PoSWW 55: Bad Apples”
Well, duh. But, it’s NAPLAN season, and we have been asked to post a ballpark question, so what the hell. Continue reading “Is NAPLAN a Waste of Time?”
As noted by commenter Craig earlier in the week, McKenzie Alexander Clements, AKA Ken Clements, has died. Tributes to Ken have been posted by AMSI and the MAV. Continue reading “Ken Clements”