Marilyn's Photos - June 7 2025 - Learning from Calculators

 

Our immediate past gives us insight into where AI is going with children's mental abilities.  I am thinking about is calculators. Calculators came into their own in the 1970s.  So by the early 1980s, I used a financial calculator in the MBA program  where probability calculations are a part of marketing strategies. I remember what a labour-saving tool it was.   Calculators became ubiquitous in the 1990s in classrooms.  There was doubt that students could maintain a high level of skill while relying on calculators to do basic arithmetic. That controversy still exists.  Articles say progress has not been made in integrating calculators with mental arithmetic.  Studies show that heavy reliance on calculators leads to declines in student mathematical skills.   So I went searching for more and found a edutopia article on using calculators to deepen students' engagement with math HERE. I found it engaging for me, too.   "PERCENTAGE In this lesson, I always begin by telling students that I’m going to give them several percentage problems as well as the answers. The first thing students wonder is why I would give them the answers. Aren’t they supposed to figure those out? Not in this case, I tell them: The goal is not to get the answer, but to figure out how the answer was gotten. The first problem we tackle is pretty simple: What is 50% of 24? The students can usually shout out “12!” before I finish writing the problem on the board. “Excellent!” I respond. “Now, how could you figure that out on a calculator?” At that moment, students grab a basic four-function calculator. I walk around and have students show me their methods, and I tell them that dividing 24 by 2 is not what I wanted. “But 50% is half,” they protest. “So you divide by 2.” “Certainly,” I say. “But we’re not always going to have something as nice as 50%, so we have to find a different way.” Exasperated, my students try to figure out what I want. After letting them engage in productive struggle, I guide them toward the idea that we can use the numbers 50 and 24 to reach 12. Soon, they’re getting ideas like multiplying the numbers, resulting in 1,200. “That’s kind of like 12,” someone will say. “But I have to get rid of these zeroes.” My students start figuring out that to reach the answer, we can multiply the percent by the whole number and then divide by 100. Some students even propose that you just turn one of the numbers into a decimal before multiplying (50 times 0.24 or 0.50 times 24). Others say that you put a decimal point into both numbers, but only one digit in each (5.0 times 2.4). Some suggest using the % button on the calculator, which would also turn their number on the screen into a decimal. I then have students provide conjectures about why all of these strategies work and what they have in common. Soon, my students are engaging in a mathematical discussion about relationships between decimals and percents, how the number 100 is inherent to all of the calculations, and how 50%, 0.50, and ½ are all the same thing. I continue the lesson with more complicated problems. Trying to solve something like 17.35% of 8.4 using paper and pencil is overwhelming—but with calculators, my students approach even seemingly scary problems like this with confidence, armed with the knowledge that the relationships remain constant regardless of the complexity of the numbers. Using ideas like percent-decimal equivalence—as well as efficient algorithms like “% × n ÷ 100”—my students develop, with the help of calculators, conceptual understanding and procedural fluency."   Isn't this a masterful sculpture on the landscape.  This is at the Week 1 winning Trillium garden in Grimsby.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 6 2025 - Looking into Spoilerl Alert

 

Spoiler alert came to mind.  I realized it must be a recent term.  And it is.  It originated on the internet in 1979.  "Spoiler" on its own is a much earlier term - someone who robs and plunders - from the 1500s.   But we know Spoiler with alert.  And the most famous of these?  The true identity of Darth Vader is one of the most widely known spoilers in popular culture - that's from Wikipedia.   Wikipedia says there are three types - short, long and thematic.  Shot spoilers reveal the plot ending in a brief way.  Long spoilers provide more context and summary.  Thematic spoilers reveal a story's unifying theme as well as a synopsis of the plot and the ending.   It sounds like Cole's Notes and summaries might be synonyms with thematic spoilers.  However, often spoilers are published before the book, movie or television show is released.  There's a quote from Alfred Hitchcock in the Wikipedia article:  "Please don't give away the ending, it's the only one we have." Here's more of his quotes: There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it Always make the audience suffer as much as possible The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder Don't we miss Alfred Hitchcock!   Is it a spoiler to reveal what an abstract is made from?  This is a section of the Henry Moore sculpture out front off the Art Gallery of Ontario.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 5 2025 - Remember Susan Boyle

 

Susan Boyle became a celebrity in November 2009 on Britain's Got Talent.  There was a mismatch of expectations, wasn't there?  No fat girl should sing like an angel.  Angels are not fat.  So the underdog story was particularly compelling.  Not that she got onto Britain's Got Talent without being able to sing.   And how fat was she, really? I read an article describing the "reveal" as staged and the story promoted as a modern parable on our judgement of appearances.  Something about this combination was compelling the public.  She continued in and out of the press, and on social media over time.  Every detail off her behaviour, actions was covered.   So it isn't surprising to see headlines over her loss of weight. That's a long time ago - she was diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes in 2012.  So when did she lose 50 pounds?  It was in 2016.  But there are before and after pictures with a "princess" having emerged, as though just today.  From 2024:  Susan Boyle is now so thin and looks beautiful! It is a modern-day Grim Fairy Tale.   Iris - the flower with the "sweet grape" scent.

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Mairlyn's Photos - June 5 2025 - Your Favourite Colour?

 

A worldwide study has revealed that blue is the most popular colour.  That's across 10 countries in four continents.  Why are there such big surveys?  Because colour influences our moods, eating habits, who we date, and more.  And the more is the world of marketing. Look at that chart!  Everything in one picture.  Well, except there's no Canada.  Oh well, who would we consider ourselves most like?  Especially these days as we steer away from the U.S.  Would it be Britain, Germany or Australia?   We're considered to have similarities with Australia - British Commonwealth, federal states, constitutional monarchies large landmasses and small population, also with open economies, strong trade ties and a focus on natural resources.  And then we're close to Britain with that shared history, Commonwealth, monarch, parliamentary systems, but we are a diverse geography and culture with an indigenous population and role in government.  Compared to Germany we are considered to be similar in terms of strong economies, generous social systems and environmental awareness.  But we have differences in culture and social customs.  Of course, Norway, Sweden and Denmark are also missing from the chart.  Maybe we're more like them. On the other hand, what is the impact?  The most popular colour is likely to be blue. It is really only when we look at the second most popular colour that the US, China and Thailand stand out as preferring green.  Poor Hong Kong, all alone with purple.     Lots of blue to be found in peeling paint and grunge.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 3 2025 - LOL

 

From boredom to laughter.  The internet acronym "LOL" - laughing out loud - or laugh out loud - came about as an internet slang.  It has been given the origin of the mid-1980s.   Wikipedia says it is attributed to Wayne Pearson who was reportedly the first person to use LOL while responding to a friend's joke in a digital chatroom.  Typically origination requires something verifiable in writing, etc, so the first actually recorded use was in 1989.  But Wayne gets credit in the articles - some with a picture of him smirking, a few others with a picture of him smiling.   Wikipedia says: 'It is one of many initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular laughter, as text, including initialisms for more emphatic expressions of laughter such as LMAO ("laughing my ass off") and ROFL or ROTFL ("rolling on the floor laughing").' May sense is that this  became a meta humour moment.  LOL is "about"  laughing - it isn't laughing.  What might you have really written if you had laughed. Maybe:  this is really funny or this made me laugh.  Writing LOL comes across as superior - as wikipedia says  "a self-reflexive representation of an action." Maybe sarcastic, maybe cynical. LOL is said to be in decline now.  Fox 59 says if you are still using it you are getting old.  Another says people have defaulted to using 'haha' or 'hehe' and emojis. Another says it is a telltale sign that the person typing may be a millennial.  That turns up in articles such as:  'LOL' is the new fake laugh Do people actually laugh a lot after typing LOL? Why so many people type "lol" with a straight face Who could guess the story of laughter would take such a turn on the internet.

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