The Most Important Thing in Your Pencil Case, or Calculators Ain't Bad

I have a friend who's starting secondary school in September. Her mum sent me this:

I need your opinion on something. B████ is laughing at me because I said that choosing a new pencil case is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing about a new school year. I messaged my English dept, but she said they’re bound to agree and I needed to message a Maths teacher. Thoughts?

I responded with:

Teaching to the Void

Following a conversation sparked by one of their training events GEM, the professional network for people interested in learning through museums and heritage, asked me to write a guest post loosely based upon (and an expansion of) the ideas in this post. It's here:

Teaching to the Void at GEM.org.uk

Is Zero Odd or Even?

It's been a while since I posted something mathsy, but I've seen a few people being wrong about this one lately, so here goes...

Let's start with the popular-but-wrong response; the one that would get the QI alarm awooga-ing: "it's neither!"

Wrong!

Stony Stratford: Things to See and Do

If you're looking for things to do in Milton Keynes I've recently discovered* Sophie etc, a blog covering just that topic. It focuses on food (she's pointed me towards some GREAT takeaways during lockdown) but also posts now and then about other adventures that are up for grabs in the area.

There's a post (this one, in fact) about all of the fantastic things you can do in Stony Stratford, a gorgeous former market town up in the furthest reaches of north-west Milton Keynes.

Actually, she doesn't quite cover all of the things that are worth seeing, though the one I'm going to tell you about is a bit niche.

A little background

EDIT (06/07/2020): Now with added PowerPoint!

I've taken part in a good number of online discussions, seminars, conferences and the like since our Lockdown period started and on the whole it's all been very good, with incredible use of broadly (and often freely) available use of resources to turn an experience that could be flat and impersonal into a very positive one. There are a few things that niggle me, however, and I've been looking into overcoming them, especially as I've been moving into this online teaching lark as well. I thought I'd post about some of the things I've found out and include a few "how to..." walkthroughs. This is largely so that I can find these things again but I realise there may be others out there who might benefit.

Thoughtful transitions can be used to make slides clearer and less cluttered. Losing them can make a big difference.

If that's you, fill your boots! Also ask questions if I'm at all unclear, miss out an important step, or say something you don't understand. If I get something wrong correct me; if there's an easier way let me know!