Sequences

I used Don's cell to speak with Koreducators today, from within the hull of Meliptus. Since I regard them as affiliated with PSU, I asked Adam to put in a good word from me for Visual Math @ the Math Learning Center (MLC) should he run across a staffer.

I tried to get to first base with MLC some years ago, using a pre-publication Quadray Coordinates paper as entre. That got me nowhere -- I think he confused me with some math PhD wannabee, who'd have no intrinsic interest in pedagogy aimed at discerning middle schoolers. He was wrong of course, but on the other hand, neither was I as skilled back then as I am today (and I'm still learning).

Anyway, Visual Math uses these interesting tiling patterns to introduce algebraic formalisms, having students deduce an expression for the nth term in the sequence, given an example progression. Tara brings these home most days, and I've enjoyed the creativity. I also see ample opportunities for synching with my own sequence-based approach, which makes Python an implementation language for just such nth term expressions, with figurate and polyhedral numbers the focus.

I also encouraged Adam to keep talking to me about open source, even though I'm not the biggest name in town on that score (at least I know a few Free Geeks).

For its part, Koreducators is interested in recruiting for the new school (obviously). I said I'd try using my AFSC contacts to drum up more interest in northeast Portland (the target demographic this time -- we could bring more of the same on-line in other quadrants, should this experiment prove successful). Portland Impact probably doesn't need any help though, plus I'm no longer clerk of anything in AFSC world; younger talent has assumed the helm.