danaleeling

This last week with a focus this term on mathematical models and the mathematical universe began on Monday with the Nova special  Mathematics Explains The Universe and then continued on Wednesday with a counterpoint to the mathematical universe .  Although at 8:00 I opened with a video on the map of mathematics, by 11:00 I had stumbled into amore appropriate video,  Why do people hate mathematics? The video provided a better foundation for the introduction to the laboratory. Is everything mathematical? When we say this, what do we mean by "mathematical"? What mathematical models are possible? What does it mean to "understand" a system of mathematics? Can an abstract math class teach math? How does one teach mathematics? I then did as I have done in the past. With nothing visible in the lab, this term hiding the box itself in a back cabinet, I taught site swap diagrams as an abstract pattern. And again students identified the pattern and correctly answered what the ...

 When images are uploaded to Canvas the images retain their original size in terms of memory consumed.  By way of example, the original image for the above image is 4000 × 2250 that requires 1,945,277 bytes (1.9 MB on disk). When uploaded to Intructure Canvas LMS for use in an Assignment, Quiz, or on a Page the original size is retained. The original 1.9 MB file is the second one listed. The first file listed is a rescaled (resized) image reduced to 960 × 540 using the free open source photo editor Graphic Image Manipulation Program . The Graphic Image Manipulation Program is a cross-platform package with versions for Linux, Apple OSX, and Windows.  Both files were added to a Page in Canvas via the usual image upload option.  Prior to uploading an image I use the Scale Image... option in GIMP to resize images. I use this option so often that I have assigned a keyboard shortcut to the option. The resized image requires only 159,636 bytes (160 KB on disk). This is...

Monday I ran a playlist that covered the planets. Then Wednesday I laid out the solar system on campus. I still believe that is a valuable exercise for pre-teacher prep majors.  Serjean was an early arrival at Uranus. Athina Viola and Milain followed by Ozimy who is carrying the sun. The exercise lays out the solar system to scale on campus, presuming the sun is shrunk down to the size seen in Ozimy's hands. BB shot represents the inner rocky planets, duck marbles are Jupiter and Saturn, "sinai" marbles are Uranus and Neptune. The duck marbles are about 5.2 grams, the smaller "sinai" marbles are 2 grams. 

A review of fall 2022 found that Monday for this unit went long, too long. I trimmed back to just reaching tritium and helium in order to fit in the video playlist on the hydrogen bomb and Eniwetok . A survey of the class suggested that only a few had ever had this material and those few had forgotten the details and definitions. So I proceeded rather slowly as seen above. Covered the element colors, then the atomic number, then the atomic mass and why there are decimal places By 12:32 this was a far as I had gone, including spin in the orbital. As part of the view of the road ahead, I outlined the orbitals.  Then I ran the video playlist  that explains indirectly why tritium matters in Micronesia. Detail view Periodic table on the back wall On Wednesday tropical depression TD 01W had formed south of Pohnpei with potential tracks over Pohnpei. As is the rule in physical science, when a physical science live event impinges on the classroom, that is a teachable moment. I covered...

 Future retrospectives will be puzzled by the variability in page views seen late in the spring 2023 term. The drop in page views in week 13 was due to spring break coinciding with FSM culture day at the end of week 12, college founding day on the Monday of week 13, and a faculty development workshop on Tuesday. This was followed by spring break. Page views on Instructure Canvas came back up in week 14, then in week 15 tropical depression 01W, later tropical storm Sansu, shut down the national and CTEC campuses on Thursday. Both campuses saw very low enrollment the next day.  The result was a drop in page views on Thursday and Friday of week 15.  Of note this past week was the release of New Analytics in the admin console for Canvas. This is actually being run on Looker, which was acquired by Google and which is what this author has been using to produce dashboards. 

The week opened with the MicSem video on alternate energy . With the capabilities of the new SMART board I realized that I could display the labels on electrical devices on the board while working the cost at the front.  The lecture started with the bridge from the micro-hydro alternate energy generation system seen in the video on Monday to electricity. Knowing that we would not have to go outside at the end of the period, I moved more slowly and carefully through the definitions. I had preloaded more devices than I could cover in the class. The photos were loaded into Google Drive. Macro shots of labels made the details very visible in the classroom.  I used the kettle to calculate the cost per hour to have the 1500 W kettle running. This was a slightly different approach than I have taken in the past. I first calculated the cost per hour: 1.5 kilowatts times $0.56 per hour. I used the rate prior to the government subsidy. As usual I wrapped up with the cost for the split a...