Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Special Pi Day Webinar by Author of Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci

In yesterday's blog post, I announced our March Giveaway of an autographed copy of the book, Blockhead:  The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese, in honor of the celebration of Pi Day on Monday, March 14.  However, this month we have an extra treat.  The author of the book, Joseph D'Agnese, has agreed to do a special webinar about this book on the evening of Pi Day itself (although, just to be clear, he will not be speaking about math that relates specifically to Pi or Pi Day activities).


Therefore, at 8:00 PM US Eastern Time (GMT -5.0), Mr. D'Agnese will give us some insight into his book and how to use it to teach match concepts to our students.  Joe will go beyond merely talking about the sequence and pattern of Fibonacci numbers to illustrate other ways to use the book to talk about such mathematical concepts as different numeral systems (Roman, Arabic, etc.), the value of place values, what is a number, numbers in nature, using an abacus, and many other related topics.  For the book lovers in the audience, he will also describe some of his inspiration and research for the book, and display the wonderful pictures in the book that convey these mathematical concepts, sometimes subtly, sometime more directly.


To participate in this seminar, which is being offered as part of Maria Droujkova's Math 2.0 series of math-related computer-based discussions, all you need is a computer and an internet connection, although it is helpful to have a built-in computer microphone so you will be are able to speak.   For the details on how to join in the webinar, please visit the event webpage on the Math 2.0 wiki.


UPDATE:  In response to a question, let me add that we will be recording this webinar for people who can't participate at the designated time.  I will have a link to the recording on my March 15 blog post.


1 comment:

  1. My favorite children's math book is Kathryn Lasky's "The Librarian who measured the earth."

    http://www.amazon.com/Librarian-Who-Measured-Earth/dp/0316515264

    It motivated me to develop the Noon Day project at CIESE/Stevens

    http://ciese.org/noonday

    -Ihor

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