Keynote Addresses

OPENING KEYNOTE: FRIDAY 9:30am

What can technology add to a mathematics classroom?

Douglas Butler
Oundle School, UK

Notes from Douglas Butler's presentation are available at http://www.tsm-resources.com/mansw.

Mathematics has been taught very successfully for many centuries with just a piece of chalk. This talk will argue that maybe it has been just the more able students who really mastered the subject from this approach, and that there are new opportunities now to help the less mathematically endowed to visualise what's going on.

The motivational prospects of using ICT the classroom are profound: exciting web resources and dynamic software can be used to bring a new realism into the subject and help teachers to answer that question they all dread: why are we learning this? Douglas will draw on experience gained from over 30 years at the chalk-face, and a keen involvement over the past 10 years in harnessing the new technologies to help teachers to add a new sparkle to their teaching - and to help students get to grips with the subject that, sadly, most adults admit to being hopeless at when they were at school!

After graduating in Mathematics and Electrical Sciences at Cambridge University, and a spell with EMI Records, Douglas has specialised in secondary Mathematics. He has served as Head of Mathematics at Oundle School (Peterborough UK), and was Chairman of the MEI Schools project, a leading UK curriculum development project, for 6 years.

A keen pianist and dinghy sailor, he is also author of "Using the Internet - Mathematics" (revised July 2003), the principal author of Autograph (version 3 May 2005), and a major contributor to "Teaching Secondary Mathematics with Technology" (Open University, October 2004). He maintains a large web site of educational resources in many subject areas

In 2000 he founded the innovative iCT Training Centre, based at Oundle School, which is now creating new resources for the educational use of computers in mathematics, and running the TSM (Technology in Secondary/College Mathematics) teacher training events all over the UK and overseas. He is a frequent speaker at international mathematics teachers' conferences, and was the keynote speaker at the 2006 T³ Conference in Denver. He has also run a new series of conferences on Technology for Teaching Music.

KEYNOTE: SATURDAY 9:00am

Playing the Numbers

Dr Jamie McKenzie

Numbers can be a source of wonderment. If we equip the young with the right questioning and mathematical thinking skills, they learn to mine data sets for meaning - exploring, discovering and ultimately coming to understand complex systems and relationships. "It's magic!" they might well squeal at that great Aha! moment when the pieces of the puzzle suddenly all fit and the picture emerges.

Jamie McKenzie will illustrate how we can challenge students to pose important questions, playing with the numbers to generate concepts. They learn the power of numbers to help us predict, anticipate and prepare. Jamie will also touch upon the chances of "selling" mathematical thinking across the curriculum and the value of new technologies to support this process.

Dr. Jamie McKenzie is an international speaker with a focus on questioning, thinking skills, information literacies and the smart use of new technologies. His work takes him from Singapore to Sweden and inspires teachers to challenge students at a high level of rigor. Jamie has published and spoken extensively on information technologies and how they might transform classrooms to support student centered, engaged learning.

Jamie is the Editor of "From Now On - The Educational Technology Journal," a publication with more than 30,000 subscribers, a third of which are from outside North America. He recently launched a new journal - The Question Mark. In both publications he explores both the practical and the possible, grounding his work in classroom realities.

In the early nineties, Jamie was the Director of Libraries, Media and Technology for the Bellingham (WA) Public Schools, a district of 18 schools and 10,000 students where he helped to pioneer their networking and program development. He has moved on to support planning and professional development for schools around the world.

A graduate of Yale with an MA from Columbia and Ed.D. from Rutgers, Jamie has been a middle school teacher, an assistant principal, an elementary principal, an assistant superintendent in Princeton (NJ) and the superintendent of two districts on the East coast of America. He also taught four-year-olds in Sunday school.

CLOSING ADDRESS: SUNDAY 2:30 pm

The Mathematics of Sex

Dr Clio Cresswell

Mathematics and Sex? That’s right, the two are very much intertwined. So, what better way to finish the conference than a dalliance with the equations explaining love, marital bliss, and the number of partners you should have before you stop playing the field. Be prepared for some of the latest mathematical research, as the field goes much, much, further than numbers and probabilities. In fact, expect a smorgasbord of mathematical sexual activity and relationship advice packed into a presentation that reminds us mathematics can be used in a variety of unexpected fields, and that it is often the key to understanding what on face value can be the most abstract of connections. And most importantly, a presentation designed to highlight the crucial role contributors, especially educators, play in the field.

Dr Clio Cresswell has established a diverse career as a mathematician, author, writer and presenter. Clio is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at The University of Sydney. She is author of Mathematics and Sex (published through Allen and Unwin); and features regularly on television, radio and press. You may have seen her recently as a member of The Brains Trust on The Einstein Factor, ABC TV.

Diversity has been a constant theme in Clio’s life. Born in England, she spent part of her childhood on a Greek island, and was then schooled in the south of France. Clio was studying Visual Art in Cannes before she simultaneously discovered the joys of Australia and mathematics at the age of eighteen. She went on to study mathematics at The University of New South Wales and following a stint as an actuary, Clio returned to university to win the University Medal and complete a PhD. Today, she is a proud Australia Day Ambassador.

Clio has interviewed personalities on The Panel; delivered serious book reviews for the Science Show on ABC’s Radio National; has been a not-so-serious host on breakfast radio on Triple M; has given relationship advice on Beauty and The Beast as well as on Mars/Venus with Rebecca Gibney; has made jokes on The Glasshouse; won the debate for The Greatest Australian on the ABC TV special of the same name (successfully speaking for Lord Howard Florey); and was even voted one of the 25 Most Beautiful People by Who Weekly in 2001.

Mathematics and Sex was released in Australia & New Zealand in Sept 03; North America in Sept 04; South Africa in Jan 05; UK in March 05; Germany in April 05; and Italy in March 06; Scandinavian and Japanese translations to follow.