Basically, MathMojo is about math-hacks, some life-hacks, making math meaningful, critical thinking, and Eduction (also know as Edux – which I won’t [...]]]> Life-hacks are great little tips that help you shortcut some things that you want to do/learn. For example, mnemonic techniques are hacks for memorizing things; math-hacks are shortcuts for doing mathematical operations.

Basically, MathMojo is about math-hacks, some life-hacks, making math meaningful, critical thinking, and Eduction (also know as Edux – which I won’t be dealing on the site until I’ve finished with the math-hacks).

Among the life-hacks that I can recommend most, is Macintosh computers. If you are one of the unfortunate ones who still lives on the “dark side,” you have something to look forward to if you can switch to a Mac.

I realize that is a finance-intensive hack. But consider it when you can.

Beyond that, there are tons of online-based life-hacks. Many of them involve “Web 2.0” sites. I’ve created a Squidoo lens (a mini-website, on the Web 2.0 site called “Squidoo”) about what “Web 2.0″ is, and how to get involved with it.

Basically, Web 2.0 sites are social networking sites, where you, the reader, can have a lot of input. If you look at the left-hand column of this blog, you will see links for del.icio.us, digg, furl, reddit, technorati, subscribe, etc. Those are links to social networking sites where you can bookmark pages you like (like this one!), leave comments about blogs, posts and other things you like on the web, and develop and interact with communities who share interests that you have.

On the right side of this page, you may notice a bunch of little pictures (usually of my dogs, Galileo and Maia) that are on Flickr. Flickr is a Web 2.0 site, which is a social photo sharing site. It’s not just a place to store photos, but a great way to share them and build a community of people who like the same kind of photography you do.

The reason I’ll be writing about some of these social networking sites, is that I know that a lot of my readers are curious students, parents and teachers, who’d like some seriously good and easy tools to create their own curriculums, schedules, community of like-minded learners, etc.

I’d like to help provide some info and tutorials on how to find and use sites that can help you do that.

The Squidoo lens that I’ve created is “Web 2.0 for Non-Geeks,” and you can find it at:
http://squidoo.com/web20nongeek

My plan is to get as many readers as possible up to speed on this stuff, and maybe we can form our own little community, where we can share Ideas that help other readers motivate, inform, educate and streamline the learning experiences of each other.

To this end I’ll also be starting a forum soon at Mathmojo.com. That should be a good way for us to be able to communicate with each other.

If you have any thoughts on these Ideas, I’d love to read your comments. In the meantime, head out to
http://squidoo.com/web20nongeek and poke around.

Hotcha!

As I worked, I used a catch (see last post) to collect my thoughts. The one I used is my favorite – it’s a mnemonic device. I [...]]]> Just had a great evening mulching and edging our apple tree. I ran out of mulch and ground paper, but I can get more tomorrow.

As I worked, I used a catch (see last post) to collect my thoughts. The one I used is my favorite – it’s a mnemonic device. I used the rhyming peg method, (“one is the sun, two is a shoe, three is a tree,” etc.) and only needed to get to “door” for the four Ideas I had been mulling over.

(Note: After I’ve finished posting all the lessons on basic math I want to put up on the MathMojo site, I’ll start working on Memory Mojo, and explain all the memory hacks I have been using, with lots of tips).

If you read the last post, you remember that I’d been pondering some Ideas as I mulched the tree, but had forgotten them by the time I wanted to write them in this blog. So I went back with a catch, and hoped that by resuming mulching, I could get back into the thoughts I was having.

It worked. The first thought I wanted to record was this:

I a had already mulched half of the ground below the tree last year. The entire area is about – well, you figure it out – the radius is about 18 feet. The formula for the area of a circle is pi times the radius squared. Pi can be rounded to about 3 for our purposes here.

Unfortunately, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I had read about several methods, and had used a fairly “organic one.” I weeded under the tree, tilled the soil with a hoe, and covered everything with a layer of newspaper and soaked the paper down with a hose. Then the I covered the entire thing with a 3 inch layer of fresh grass clippings from our lawn.

This spring there were lots of weeds poking out of the entire area. Damn!

What this all lead me to think was how there are lots of ways to do things, but the most thorough is usually the best.

What does that have to do with math? Isn’t it apparent? Schools try to cover “curriculum” within certain time frames. If the material is throroughly learned or not is not important. As long as they learn enough to pass a test.

Last year I passed the mulch test. I did it successfully. I weeded, tilled, and mulched. I could say I did the job.

The weeds didn’t care if I could say I did the job or not, though.

Math and reality don’t care how you did on your test. The test is just for the bureaucrats to be able to say they tested you.

Math requires a deeper appreciation for reality than those superficial school textbooks and standardized tests will give you.

Well, that’s a lot of typing for today, so let’s save some of the further insights of today’s mulching project for the next post.

Today’s suggestion: Get a good method of catching your thoughts. A small memo book and a golf pencil are easy to carry around.

Hotcha!

I’m not a gardener, and have never been very good at things like that, but I can weed, I [...]]]> I was out mulching our apple tree in the front yard, when some thoughts came to me. One of them was that I can see how gardening can be such great contemplative avocation.

I’m not a gardener, and have never been very good at things like that, but I can weed, I can mulch, and I can mow the lawn. All of which are sort of brain-dead activities which can lead you into a trance-like state.

If you had been contemplating something just before you get into that state, or have had something preying on your mind, it is easy to let thoughts about it come to you while you are in that state. They can wash over you in a pleasant way. The trick is to catch them, and get them recorded somehow, so you can recall them later, and work them into something and take advantage of them.

Having a pencil and paper, or small voice recorder is a good Idea. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any of those when I was mulching, so I’ll have to try the trick I sometimes use when I wake up from a dream that I want to remember, but can’t recall the details of – I go back to sleep and hope I can pick up where I left off. I’m not going to go to sleep now, I’m going to go back to mulching and weeding (it never ends anyhow!)

Trying to go back doesn’t often work, but often I at least get other Ideas that are useful, and this time I’ll make sure I have a catch.

According to “Mind Performance Hacks – Tips and Tools for Overclocking your Brain” by Ron Hale-Evans, a catch is ” … an advanced system for collecting every thought, from everywhere in your life, and bringing them together.” (Page 43)

Well, we’re not quite going to go that far with this today – I’m not trying to collect every thought, but part of a catch is simply something to record your random thoughts with.

Normally, I try to have a something to write with and something to write on with me at all times – a pad and a pen (with a little lightbulb in it so I don’t have to turn on a light and wake up my patient wife when I want to write an Idea fresh out of a dream); a little car notebook (for when I can pull over and record a thought); a hipster PDA when I am out,

I will be writing more about the hipster, because I believe that using it is one of the best things you can do while learning something, like math techniques, or concepts.

So I’ll be taking my little digital recorder out with me to mulch with this time.

See you at the next post!