Where is math 2.0? Alarming trends and hopeful frameworkscirca 2010

General Summary

The proposed chapter addresses critical analysis of the presence of mathematics in onlinecommunities that include children and teens. The chapter sections are:1.Descriptive analysis of the presence of mathematical ideas and artifacts in socialcommunities on the weba.Introduction and review of educational framework relevant to social internet b.Preliminary summary of existing trendsc.Representative examples illustrating the trends2.A study of mathematical behavior on the web among young people, teachers and parentsa.Survey design and difficulties in data collection due to the situated nature of behaviors and parents’ low level of awareness b.Data analysis3.Conclusions and implications: toward a framework for building math-rich onlinecommunities

Frameworks summary

Community learning is a complex phenomenon that can benefit from multi-disciplinaryapproach and synthesis of multiple frameworks. The following framework clusters are necessary tounderpin the current study:

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Communities of practice and legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger,1991) with the shift from communities to distributed open networks and affinityspaces (Barton & Tusting, 2005)

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Studies of trends in interactive media (Churches, 2009; Dede, Honan, & Peters, 2005;Moravec, John, 2009)

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Serious gaming (Michael & Chen, 2005)

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Educational semiotics and studies of representations (Hoffmann, Lenhard, & Seeger,2005), to analyze new forms and roles of referents, signs and social objects

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Frameworks based on meaning and significance (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008; Wesch,2008), to focus on the ways internet effects and shapes human quest for meaning

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Psychology of mathematics education and learning theories, including metaphor studies (Droujkova, 2004), developmental studies (Kozulin, Gindis, Ageyev, &Miller, 2003; Piaget, 1971), and enactivist models for the growth of mathematicalunderstanding (Droujkova, Berenson, Slaten, & Tombes, 2005)

Preliminary trend analysis

The ongoing descriptive analysis, together with accumulating interview data, suggestsseveral trends. The main trend is the lag of mathematics behind other subjects in class-centered web2.0 communities for children, and an even larger lag in informal, recreational communities.Children’s mathematics remains very much confined to classes, homework, and standardized tests,or activities that closely imitate them. Most class-centered mathematical communities are notsustainable, in that they dissolve after the class ends, even if the artifacts stay available online. Manyexisting sustainable math-oriented communities are intellectually elitist and demographicallyexclusive.

Picture 1. Sharp drops in math-related web searches during school vacation times.

The data gathered for the study includes comparison of mathematical behavior on and off theweb; comparison of behavior in math-related and other activities; and comparison of behavior among different demographics.

Math You Make: Toward a framework for mathematical culture shift

Math You Make is a framework where mathematical education is viewed within a culturalcontext, defining learning as taking on roles in communities and networks. Changes in mathematicseducation, then, are culture shifts that include many events at individual, family, local communityand group, and global network levels. A framework encompassing these events can help bring aboutmathematics education changes, and, in particular, to orient individual web 2.0 educational projectsto wider vision and goals.

Picture 2: Math You Make framework

Math You Make, a practical and conceptual framework, has roots in the theoreticalframeworks discussed above. It identifies five directions for the culture shift toward widespreadalgebraic, statistical and geometric literacy, currently estimated at about five percent of the adult US population. These five directions are: mathematical authoring; community mathematics; humanisticmathematics; executable mathematics; and psychology of mathematics learning and education. Thechapter will discuss the role of the social internet in support of each of these directions of themathematical culture shift, providing a comprehensive review of current examples and future trends:

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Tools and practices of user-generated content, as well as the internet participatorytrends of co-production, crowdsourcing, and open educational resources can powerfully support

mathematical authoring

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For

community mathematics,

free, well-designed communication platforms such asnings, blogs, wikis, microblogging, forums, aggregators, and distributed contentmash-ups can support online and local math clubs and math circles, topicaldiscussion and study communities, and networks growing around a variety of particular math endeavors: competitions, educational philosophies, comic strips, books, or curricula.

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It is said that mathematics is not a spectator sport. The culture of setting upmathematical activities to require knowledge of relatively advanced formal math tomake any sense is cited as one of barriers preventing the majority of population fromappropriating mathematics as their own endeavor, or expressing any interest and joyin the field (Lockhart, 2008).

Humanistic mathematics

approach promotes activitiesthat an audience can enjoy. On the web, this includes infusing mathematics intorobust artistic and musical communities; creation and viral spread of appealing math-rich media; and developing newbie-friendly tools and communities supportingauthoring of such media.

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The idea that manipulating carefully prepared objects can support powerfulmathematics is rather old, with examples including abacus (2500 BC) or Napier’s bones (1600s), and 20

century sets by Montessori, Cuisenaire, and Mortensen. Web2.0 brings several crucial changes to this field of

executable mathematics

, includingzero-cost distribution of virtual manipulatives; an invitation for everybody to createtheir own math-rich objects through programming or “construction set” mash-upenvironments; situating math objects in multi-user virtual worlds; and ease of sharingand continuing development in open educational resource communities.

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Psychology of mathematics education

incorporates theories of teaching andlearning, studies and practices of meta-cognition, developmental awareness, andsupport of emotional well-being such as math anxiety reduction. Web 2.0 requires a