The Vinculum (Pilot)

Choosing a Blog title can be time consuming. Something quirky, but not offensive (Loved my friend's suggestion "Hot for Teacher"). Something related to what I wanted to write about, but not taken and more importantly not needing a number after the word (no "mathguy634" for me!)

Eventually, this lead me to thinking about what I wanted to focus on in this blog. While my interests are varied, I thought that my primary focus would be about education as well as technology. If that's what you want, congrats you're in the right spot! I'll get off track from time to time, but I'm looking to keep this positive about the teaching profession as well as share out technologies that I find useful, or at the very least, interesting.

The Vinculum
Not to link back to my own blog in the first post, but I started thinking about  the formal names for symbols in mathematics. The Radical? A Power? An Exponential? Transcendental numbers? Sum, product, quotient, numerator? So. Many. Terms... What is the name of the dividing bar anyway? A quick google search led me to find that it is, in fact, called a "vinculum". But, that isn't the only place that symbol is used. That same symbol is used over a repeated decimal, it is the extended bar when used with the radical symbol to indicate what expression you are going to find the root of (called the radicand--more terms!!!), it indicates the complex conjugate. You get the idea. The simple horizontal bar--the vinculum--is everywhere.

My original thought about the dividing bar was it was splitting things up, however it's design was to group things together instead. That's deep. Done. I found the web address. It is a fine line.

The Author
I'm sure there is somewhere I can put things about me in like a profile or something, but I'll look for it later. I've been teaching since 1999 and I've been in my current school since 2001. I teach pretty much any math course, but in recent years I've settled into Geometry and Calculus with a smattering of Personal Finance as the courses you are most likely to find me teaching. I've run teacher workshops for six years (I tell my students that I am a "teacher teacher" on the side), I support teachers with their use of technology in the classroom, and I believe that every student can learn mathematics. In 2013, I was named a finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

The Challenge
The 2013 Michigan Teacher of the Year, Mr. Gary Abud, challenged us at a recent gathering of educators to do more. More advocating for our profession. More leadership within our school and in the community. More to reach all of our students. More outreach. I already do a lot, but one thing I thought I could do better was getting the positive stories out about what I and so many of my amazing colleagues, do all the time.

So here goes.