Maria Droujkova

"Oh, so a good teacher can make many methods work really well, and newbie/bad teachers can't? News at 11! Irony aside, this is a serious problem. Many brilliant educators (Papert, for example) faced the same issue. What worked beautifully in their hands - didn't work in other people's hands. Or at least, not for the majority. We need to realize that some methods only work for a minority of people, and embrace it. Yes, only 5% of teachers can do things like Wesch. So what? Just different methods for each 5%..." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Studies focus on existence of little quirks and some amazing coincidences. This means that being a twin will probably lead to SOME things in life coinciding. However, there are literally tens of thousands of little quirks and events and paths in each person's life. The fact that even five or ten of them coincided closely IS amazing and significant. But we need to look at careful statistical studies of how close the overall set of variables become. And people who do that sort of (complex) math figure it's about 60:40 percent for nature:nurture. Not bad." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Об этом хорошо (и много) сказано в формате дизайна игр. Первые квесты должны быть очень интересные, но при этом очень быстрые и легкие. Потом трудность должна нарастать, но с правильной скоростью. Это описано в психологии "потока" - супер-полезная (и тоже хорошо обсужденная уже) штука для дизайнеров обучающих систем и игр: http://secondlanguagewriting.com/explora..." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Moebius Noodles Glad you like the format, Malke! I will move all the old Trek materials into that blog in similar manner. Doing mark-up on pictures is a lot of fun. I want to have a mark-up party and invite kids to make collages like that, either on computers or with paper. - MariaD" - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"When something that was done by everybody becomes the domain of professionals, it’s called “professionalization” – and the opposite would be “de-professionalization.” This is similar to, for example, deschooling as Illich used it, which I like in this context. And similar to de-medicalization of breastfeeding which needs to happen, and de-professionalization of breastfeeding consultants back to LLL ideals." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Maybe it will cause a switch to some collaborative rather than competitive models?" - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Just want to throw a reference in here about Huzita-Hatori axioms ("origami axioms") that are more powerful than Euclid's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... For example, you can trisect angles with them! I love it!" - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Интересно, что думают в терминах школ. По-моему, всё это направление мысли (школы) безнадежно устарело. Как там стулья на Титанике не переставляй. Из относящихся к делу новостей: первый человек, нанятый компанией Google, ушел работать в Khan Academy" - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"This I got to see. Usually training of an educator costs about $20-30k or so. Open Educational Resources and networking tools will have to be used to lower the price to his 1k." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Where can we see your paper? I would love to read it!" - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"I find gaming experience to be a huge boon while working with kids (of all ages). It’s a good conversation topic with teens, and any roleplay’s good for little ones! I’m playing SWTOR at the moment. Good roleplay there. I got in (mild) trouble on my PRAXIS – which I took after getting the PhD, because otherwise I could not teach undergraduate courses, only graduate. Funny, that. Anyway, I was in a theoretical disagreement with authors of one of the essay questions, apparently. It was amusing. Glad to find your blog!" - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Мне кажется, вопрос стоит рассматривать более комплексно (как в теории хаоса). Сам факт того, что где-то рядом, в том же пространстве, существуют олимпиады, поддерживает не только тех детей, кто в олимпиадах участвует! Это также передает математический "вирус" их друзьям, знакомым учителям, родителям. Занятие математикой получает чуть больше престижа. Про математику чуть чаще вспоминают. Найти хорошие задачки - из олимпиадных коллекций, сайтов, форумов - становится чуть легче, а самих задачек создается каждый год всё больше. В Facebook становится больше обсуждений около-математических вопросов :-) В общем, почва становится более плодородной, суммарно." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Do mathematics parents educators count? I am thinking about the family math project Moebius Noodles (advanced math under five) and whether there are common interests with members of this group." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"This is still "power over people" - we need to move (economically and socially) to "power with people" which will look, well, friendlier." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Hah, I was just writing about sandbox games for the math grant. I want to replace the last panel with pan-out of the kid having elaborate Minecraft-style island behind him in the sandbox, and the tiger saying something ironic about him not noticing the inspiration already struck." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"You will laugh, but I've made blocks like this for my kid when she was a toddler... We then used them to define characters from the musical "Cats" - like "young AND white=Victoria"" - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"I accept friend requests from students and kids in general, but I don't send them requests myself on social networks. I am concerned they may not feel free to decline." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Modulus functions are applied a lot in programming (for "stack overflow" for example). It's a handy way to describe many daily situations, when you need to program or visualize something about them. Time is an excellent example - today is Tuesday, but six days later it won't be "day 8 of the week." Musical transpositions are like this too - check out the modulo machine I made when my daughter was little to help her understand piano: http://naturalmath.wikispaces.com/Piano+S..." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Jen, awesome cause. The poster girls don't look "inner city" to me >_> To answer the question, I would find a strong individual enthusiast already known for success on a shoestring, and donate to whatever umbrella she's under at the moment, so money goes to her program. Could be a teacher running an art club, for example." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Everybody mother needs love. I object to finding beauty in non-consensual aspects of events, though. The violence toward mothers need to be separated from the love of motherhood and babies." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"We are looking at this article now with an open class participant, discussing gender issues. We both agree with Peter – it should be focused more on teaching, rather than the theory. Because the need is great." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"I like your idea. But I also like thinking 7 generations into the future. The fact it’s hard to impossible to visualize realistically is a good thing. Every long-term game needs its “infinity-th level” or people will finish the game and stop playing." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"On the other hand, I can hardly wait for direct participatory democracy ("voting by phones" on individual issues, rather than huge package deals). The SOPA thing made me hopeful I can live long enough to see more of it." - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet

"Awww, I miss cooking in backpacking trips. Everything smells of the fire - tea, soup, potatoes... We cooked a lot, but not like this. For example, we baked potatoes in the coals. I need to look into cooking with fire by different peoples of the world!" - Maria Droujkova from Bookmarklet