The Future
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The Future.....

Wish list:

The formation of an international non-profit foundation to help improve mathematics understanding and learning needs to be formed. The foundation’s focus will be on elementary and secondary school mathematics. Some of the activities will be:
  1. The foundation will continue to use its' copyrighted information displaying format unless more efficient and/or economical methods are developed.
  2. Expand the cataloging efforts, like obtaining the SMP materials from England and other elementary and secondary school student mathematics textbook series (paper or OER ).
  3. Expand the international efforts. Hire consultants in non-English speaking learning communities to expand this site’s efforts.
  4. Get the services of a programmer to help:
    • Give a little “form” to this site, as k-12math.info has only been concerned with “function” (how to get information to the user quickly).
    • To organize the materials so that changes can be handled quickly.
    • To give flexibility to the system so that users can create bibliographic lists or in the case of OER or OA (Open Access) materials download those limks so that the user can create their own modules, chapters, books or even textbook series. Give the user the ability to create!
    • Templates to design materials quickly, with automated checks on content use and distribution.
    • Expand the capacity of hand held devices to access information systems like K-12math.info.
  5. Adding additional terms (adding two new lists for Analysis, and expanding the existing Logic, topology, transformation geometry and other lists) that would take k-12math.info [name change!] through the first 2 years of college/university mathematics to provide a complete grounding in mathematics textbooks.
  6. Encourage the development of k-12science.info, k-12language.arts.info, k-12class_management.info and similar websites to help improve materials development.

  7.                      Any thoughts please let me know - jim kelly at k-12math(at)sbcglobal(dot)net

Are we there yet!
Are we getting close to being able to ask:
“Computer! List alphbetically all the math terms that appear in at least 80% of 5th grade mathematics textbooks ….”
“Computer! List the 10 most frequent terms that precede the addition of …..”
“Computer! What is the probability that a 7 year old will know ….”
How far away are we from this “Star Trek” mode of interaction with information systems?
I wonder what information database we could start from ! (March 23, 2012)


Interesting news
Will Apple’s newly released iPhone 4S with siri (voice recognition system) allow an 8 year old ( 3rd grader ) to get a definition of the term FRACTION ? The evolution of classroom media just took an interesting turn !
(October 4, 2011)


The world just got more interesting!
As K-12math.info is an “interactive” information source, the recent contest between IBM’s Watson and others on the game show Jeopardy was very interesting. The outcome was not much of a surprise. Clearly among the innovations IBM has used is a superior “bookmarking” routine; an important component that OER textbook developers need to address.
One of the high points for this person was when the host Alex Trebek reprimanded Watson for not listening to the same incorrect answer that Ken Jennings had just given. How human was that! How far have we come in accepting our interactions with machines.
Now all we need is an avatar that takes on a human form and mannerisms – excuse me it looks like this work is being done in the electronic visualization laboratory of the University of Illinois in Chicago.
The world just got more interesting. Maybe in less than 5 years we will have friendly faced avatar connected to a math oriented Watson operating on our iPhone and Droid devices helping us solve math problems. One hopes that teacher training will reflect the reality that is coming. (February 22, 2011)
An interest note was made during the NOVA presentation on Watson. It seems that teaching Watson by feeding it rule after rule was a failing approach. Yet if you gave it many examples Watson was able to create generalization and observations. Very interesting. (May 5, 2011)

Positioning for Success.
One of the purposes of this site is to help materials’ developers to position their resources for success. To use vocabulary that is not appropriate for the grade level, guarantees that the resource will be ignored. A simple example is the use of the word Natural Number in the title of a resource for first graders. While it maybe mathematically correct to use that term, the first grade teacher will most likely not even look at the resource. A check under whole numbers category in this website shows that the term Natural Number is not used in textbooks until the seventh grade. Interestingly the seventh grade teacher will also ignore the resource as the author has set it for the first grade. So a great resource fails to help anyone learn. Hopefully authors will check out resources like k-12math.info to position their resources for success.

Where's the 12th grade?
Traditionally, materials in 11th grade Algebra II books are divided between the eleventh and twelfth grades. With additional materials, like advanced algebra and calculus topics, being added to the twelfth grade programs.
In the 1970/80's a list of about 300 additional terms were created and materials reviewed. The additional terms expanded the list of Logic and Topological terms and added terms from Analysis. The list in addition to the twelfth grade covered materials being used in colleges and universities. Cost in storing the data in paper form proved to be too expensive. Apple II versions of the information stored in random access text files formatted so that programs, written in Applesoft (and GWBASIC for PCs) could read them were created . In the 80's a limited number were produced because few educators and publishers desired to view K through second year college mathematics as a single continuously developing subject.
K-12math.info is considering the possibility of adding some of these materials.

Content checker
Just as “spell checkers” have allowed people to concentrate on developing ideas and not dealing with the mechanics of expressing those ideas; material’s developers are going to have “content checkers”. For any website whose purpose is to help its users develop educational materials “content checkers” will be a must have. A “content checker” will not only check the age appropriateness of the content being used in defining and developing an idea, but also provide links and other information during the developing process. Manual “content checkers” like K-12math.info exist, it is only a matter of time when the people who brought us the “spell checker” will have the enlightening moment and create “content checkers”.(April 8, 2009)

©1972 (paper), 1985 (APPLE II/PC), 2005(www), 2015 Jim Kelly - All Rights Reserved.