{"id":817,"date":"2014-10-09T08:30:12","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T13:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/?p=817"},"modified":"2014-10-08T15:10:39","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T20:10:39","slug":"blogging-in-math-history-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/2014\/10\/09\/blogging-in-math-history-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogging in Math (History) Class"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Plimpton<\/a>

Plimpton 322, the Babylonian mathematical text that started off our math history class. Image: public domain, via wikimedia commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

I am teaching a math history class this semester, and in addition to trying to teach my students math and history, the course satisfies an upper-level writing credit. It\u2019s a lot to try to cram into one three-hour course! With 40 students enrolled at the beginning of the semester (enrollment has dropped a bit since then, but it\u2019s still large), I wasn\u2019t sure how to get my students doing a significant amount of writing,\u00a0give them meaningful feedback, and let them revise their work\u00a0without burying myself in a mound of paper every time an assignment was due.<\/p>\n

In part because of that concern and in part because I like blogging, I decided to start a class blog<\/a>. I have a rolling deadline system that keeps\u00a0the flow of new writing somewhat manageable, and doing everything online means I can easily email comments and suggestions to my students. Now that the semester is about a third of the way through, almost all of my students have written at least one post for the blog, and I think it\u2019s time to share it with you.<\/p>\n

The blog is called 3010tangents<\/a> because the course number for our class is math 3010, and the posts on the blog should be at least tangentially related to topics we cover in class. We started the course talking about how we write numbers, so we have some posts up there about different base systems, including an impassioned plea to switch to dozenal<\/a> and an exploration of a binary monetary system<\/a> in the Book of Mormon. (The religious text, not the musical.) Subsequent classes have touched on a lot of different topics, and my students\u2019 posts reflect that. They have written about Euler<\/a>, Ramanujan<\/a>, Noether<\/a>, al-Khwarizmi<\/a>, and Zhao Shuang<\/a>. They have also written about art<\/a>, religion<\/a>, limits<\/a>, and women in math<\/a>. And of course, the perennial question of whether math is invented or discovered<\/a> has gotten some treatment.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons I started\u00a0the blog was to get\u00a0students who are interested in math teaching and communication involved in the wider online mathematics community, so I hope some of you will stop by and give them (kind, helpful) comments on their posts or read and share them. You might even learn a little something about math history!<\/p>\n

This is my first time running a class blog, and I am keeping track of what goes well and not so well about the experience. I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll write more\u00a0about blogging in a math class when all is said and done.<\/p>\n

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I am teaching a math history class this semester, and in addition to trying to teach my students math and history, the course satisfies an upper-level writing credit. It\u2019s a lot to try to cram into one three-hour course! With … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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