Computers in mathematics teaching = more math thinking

There is a very good TED talk (17min) below by Conrad Wolfram who makes a very powerful argument about how Maths teaching can be enhanced with the aid of computers. But it is very sad to read the initial comments on the TED site from the quite smart people who use TED. Most of didn't hear much of what he said. If you view the video you find that

Wolfram was at pains to say that Maths is about thinking mathematically, and its declining status in schools and broad aversion by many people is because the calculating (computation) part of Maths dominates what happens in schools and the other aspects are neglected. He says more attention should be spent engaging students with the three other aspects listed here. But the critics of changing the way things are done in the classroom often do not value the end point of learning. They think it is important for students to put in the hard work of learning how to calculate, remember, perform base level skills in the expectation that one day they will get a chance to apply these skills on real world problems.

For those interested in just one example of how this can work in practice, the Alice programming language is a wonderful tool to use from mid primary to advanced programming levels.

Real learning, programming with Stratch

This is an image of my first bit of programming using Scratch, and I am interested in using it as a tool to practice and learn down-to-earth curriculum skills. In this case, mid primary exploration of what the main plane figures consist of: like equilateral triangles. The glorious animated version can be seen here - 7 seconds of maths glory. Scratch is a delight to use. Very very simple and apparently powerful.

I am interested in how to use a powerful tool like this for students to learn some nice measurable curriculum skills and understandings close to the heart of any teacher. Having just heard presentations at the CEGSA conference on Scratch is strikes me (again) that we often go out of our way to suggest the most complex ways of using ICT and then are upset when teachers do not apply our wonderful ideas. Everyone seems to see programming only as a problem solving tool that students use to initiate an investigation, work on it for a long time, and hopefully come to a rewarding conclusion. While this kind of project can be very effective and beneficial, it is just about the hardest kind of learning to manage, requiring particular attitues, patience, teacher skills and student perservearance. Why not think of ways to apply powerful technologies to quite rudimentary learning, like, in this case, Year 5s learning the characteristics of standard shapes, and becoming familiar with their construction and manipulation?