Today, my math peeps, we’re going to be sharing and maybe doing math! Is there a problem that you love having your kids work on? A favorite problem that evokes conversation and ah hah moments? Or is there a math problem or puzzle you’ve seen or done that made you go “oh, wow!”? 

In your Mastodon post:

1. Write down your math problem! If you use it in your class, share the grade/class you use it with, and why you like the problem for your kids. If it’s just a recreational math problem or puzzle, feel free to just drop it in the post. You can decide whether you want to give a hint or not! (NOTE: you can use the “CW” button when writing a post to hide the post’s content until someone clicks on it… so you can type the problem in one post, and then in a reply to that post, you can use “CW” to hide the hint until someone decides they want to see it.)

2. Tag your post with #MathPuzzle and #prompt4 and #ClassroomMath

Don’t forget to bookmark any problem/puzzle you might want to use in the future! 

To practice using the site, we have just one challenge for you: practice using the fancy math ability of mathstodon to write an equation in a post. The fancy math equations only show up when you read posts on the desktop (not in apps, yet…), but it’s pretty awesome. 

From the desktop page, click on the “f(x)” button and click “inline equation.” Some slashes and parentheses will appear. In between those, type: 

g(x)=\frac{\sqrt{3x-5}}{3}+\frac{x^{52}-x}{3\pi \sin^{2}(x)}-5x^{6}+a_{n}

See what happens! Believe it or not, you’ve typed pretty LaTex math.

Please tag your post with #ClassroomMath, and #prompt4!

Recently, Sam Shah and I decided to join Mathstodon and try to rebuild our math teacher community. I have been so excited to talk to all of my math teacher friends again! It truly feels like Twitter 2010, 2.0. We also started a new hashtag, #ClassroomMath, so we could easily find other math teacher posts. There are already about 100 posts a week to this hashtag, so join in our fun! ColinTheMathmo made a very cool Solipsys that created a visual of the conversations recently happening.

I love to try all of the things, so I’ve been downloading different mastodon apps for my phone. I’ve tried Mastodon, Tooot, Meta, Ivory (paid) and Ice Cubes so far.

By far the Ice Cubes app was the clear winner! Some of my favorite features so far:

1. Posts are in different colors to indicate different things, like posts vs direct messages. They also have a symbol that shows you if a reply is a favorite, or a boost.
2. Likes and follows get grouped, like other apps, so it’s easier to see when people are talking to you vs favoriting.
3. You can bookmark instantly from the post.
4. You can see longer posts on the same page, instead of being directed to a different page, by clicking a down arrow.
5. You can see who is following you in a list, and follow them on that same page.

Using Ice Cubes really helped me understand Mastodon better, as it feels more intuitive, and almost like Twitter, which I already understand. So try it out, and join us over on Mathstodon!

I love to try all the new things. And, I miss my math teacher friends and conversations. So, when a friend asked me to join Threads with them, I immediately hopped on! I was encouraged when I first signed up, as sign up was seamless. Threads is attached to Instagram, so you can automatically follow your Instagram friends who have already signed up. This meant I started Threads with about 35 followers, and many of them were math teachers. I was encouraged, but then greatly disappointed in Threads.

I am not a fan of Threads

There are no hashtags in Threads. In Mastodon I can click on a hashtag (and even follow hashtags) when I want to learn things or follow/participate in a conversation. This is a deal breaker for me.

Your feed is full of garbage. I am looking for a feed full of math educators, not ads and verified celebrities and people and accounts that I never followed in the first place. I don’t want to have to parse through all of that garbage in order to find posts I want to read, and people that I am trying to interact with.

I opened my feed and read the few posts from my friends. And that is where the fun ended. Because after the 5 posts from my friends, my feed was full of verified posts from advertisers and celebrities, like Paris Hilton. I had not followed any of these people. So, I began muting these posts, hoping to get more posts from people I had actually followed, but the more I muted, the more that appeared. It is similar to Instagram, where when you are “all caught up”, you just get suggested posts. I’ve never been a huge fan of Instagram, and this is exactly what Threads feels like.

I am looking for a place for all of my math education conversations, and Threads is not where that is going to happen. I will stay on Threads for now, mostly to tell people to come over the mastodon, as I am having fabulous mathy conversations there! If you want to reconnect with math educators, come over to Mathstodon! We would love to see you there!

If you haven’t signed up for Mathstodon yet, you’re missing all of the fun! It is full of all your math teacher friends! Read our initial post for step by step directions of how to sign up!

#ClassroomMath #prompt3

This week will be fun and frivolous in the best kind of way, dear peeps who love math and teaching! We’re going to do two things. We’re going to play “Some truths and maybe a lie?” and also you’ll share a photograph from your phone that brings you joy — and explain why. 

In your post:

1. Write down three facts about yourself, but one, two, or all three can be lies! 

2. Share your photo and explain why it brings you joy.

3. Tag your post with #prompt3 and #ClassroomMath

Of course the whole point of this is to get people talking! So after you post, look around at other posts with the #prompt3 hashtag and make a guess! Are any of them lies? All of them? Bonus fake points if you start talking with someone you’ve never talked to. 

As always, to practice using MATHStodon, two challenges. First, find a new hashtag based on one of your interests that people are posting with (for example, #knitting) and “follow it” so it shows up in your timeline. Then share it with the #ClassroomMath community in case others are interested. 

Second, many of you have been using the official mastodon app, but (@jreulbach and @samjshah) have tried many apps and we’re loving IceCube for iPhones: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ice-cubes-for-mastodon/id6444915884. So our first suggestion is to check that out! 

If you have any ideas for future prompts or ways to build community, please reply here or DM @samjshah and @jreulbach! We’d love help keeping the conversations happening! 

Sam (https://mathstodon.xyz/@samjshah) and Julie (https://mathstodon.xyz/@jreulbach)

Even if you missed the first two prompts, it’s never too late to join in the fun! Below are Prompt 1 and 2, so you can still do those as well. I haven’t completed prompt 2 yet either, so I will be late with you! lol

PROMPT 2:

Superb! We’re introducing ourselves, we’re getting used to the platform! Wunderbar! 

One thing we all have in common in this community, no matter how different we are (including in many of your terrible rankings of desserts from #Prompt1), is that we have worked with kids in the classroom teaching math. We all have millions of stories inside of us that are hilarious, heartbreaking, harrowing, hopeful… When you rallied against the administration, when a kid said something wonderfully outrageous, when you accidentally had an answer to a start-of-class question be 69 and you were being observed… 

So we ask you to share just one small story from your teaching life — something you’re comfortable sharing! Something you’d share with friends over dinner after a particularly eventful week. (Remember if you use the mathstodon.xyz site, you can get 1729 characters in a post.)

In your post:

1. Share your SMALL story. No pressure… and remember this is a judgment free zone. 

2. Tag your post with #Prompt2 and #ClassroomMath

We also realized that if others are reading your story and want to find the prompt, they might not know how to find the original prompt. So if you can, REPLY to this post so others can see what the prompt is replying to!

Lastly, to practice using mathstodon, here’s the new challenge! In the next few days, go to your LOCAL timeline. That’s posts by EVERYONE on mathstodon.xyz (or whatever “instance” you’re on), not just people you follow. Find someone new to follow AND boost a post of theirs that you find. (Boost is like a re-tweet.) That will help others who follow you see something you find interesting… and maybe they’ll start following that person too. 

PROMPT 1:

We love how many math teachers/coaches/etc. have joined mathstodon! Huzzah! It’s strange coming into a place where we have to build community again. We also know some people feel totally lost. So we (@jreulbach and @samjshah) thought we should have some get to know you prompts so we can meet each other and start talking!  Some will be about math/teaching, some will be challenges for you, some will be fun frivolous things!

To start, write a post (or a series of posts) sharing:

1. Who you are, what you teach or do, which city/state you teach in.

2. If you had to rank the following, what order would they go in: pies, donuts, cakes

3. What are some things you enjoy spending your time on outside of the classroom?

Tag your post with #prompt1 along with #classroommath and #introduction.

And a challenge: try to respond to 2-3 other people! Fake bonus points if they are people you don’t know (which might be everyone for you)!

(Pro tip: If you use the desktop version of mathstodon.xyz you can get 1729 characters in a post.) 

Also, we’re going to try to include some “mathstodon” challenges to help you learn what it can do and how to use it! So your first challenge is to add all posts with #classroommath to your timeline! Since there are so many different apps, see if you can figure out how to do it on your app. On the desktop, search #classroommath, click on it, and look for the little person icon with a + sign on the top right. Click that! You’ve just added all posts with #classroommath to appear on your timeline! 

#mtbos #iteachmath 

 #prompt1 #classroommath #introduction #mtbos #iteachmath

Sign up at Mathstodon to join us!!

We love how many math teachers/coaches/etc. have joined mathstodon! Huzzah! It’s strange coming into a place where we have to build community again. If you haven’t joined yet, you can read my post about getting started on Mathstodon! Join us!!!

We also know some people feel totally lost. So we (@jreulbach and @samjshah) thought we should have some get to know you prompts so we can meet each other and start talking!  Some will be about math/teaching, some will be challenges for you, some will be fun frivolous things!

To start, write a post (or a series of posts) sharing:

1. Who you are, what you teach or do, which city/state you teach in.

2. If you had to rank the following, what order would they go in: pies, donuts, cakes

3. What are some things you enjoy spending your time on outside of the classroom?

Tag your post with #prompt1 along with #classroommath and #introduction.

And a challenge: try to respond to 2-3 other people! Fake bonus points if they are people you don’t know (which might be everyone for you)!

(Pro tip: If you use the desktop version of mathstodon.xyz you can get 1729 characters in a post.) 

Also, we’re going to try to include some “mathstodon” challenges to help you learn what it can do and how to use it! So your first challenge is to add all posts with #classroommath to your timeline! Since there are so many different apps, see if you can figure out how to do it on your app. On the desktop, search #classroommath, click on it, and look for the little person icon with a + sign on the top right. Click that! You’ve just added all posts with #classroommath to appear on your timeline! 

#mtbos #iteachmath

(From Sam Shah and Julie Reulbach)

What We’re Doing and Why:

Okay, friends. Twitter was acquired by Elon Musk and seems to constantly be on the brink of imploding and full of misinformation, and now ads about every three tweets. There is that whole pandemic thing where many of us were just trying to keep our heads above water — and so we connected less with the online math community. Twitter Math Camp became a thing of the past. And blogging was already on the decline. 

And you know what? We miss our math teacher community so goshdarn much. We miss talking with each other, throwing lesson ideas out there, sharing what we’re reading and cooking, talking about equity and belonging in our classrooms, commiserating over failures and celebrating successes. We miss you. 

I once read this quotation which stayed with me: “Don’t complain about that which you have the power to change.” So let’s change things! We found a twitter alternative called Mastodon (specifically an “instance” called mathstodon.xyz) which isn’t exactly the same, but is pretty awesome. You can type equations! Posts can be longer than on twitter. And unlike twitter which has a lot of junk on it, the place we’re proposing is a place for people who love math and is run by a mathematician! 

(This isn’t to suggest that you give up twitter like we did, if you’re still on there… this could be something you do in addition to twitter.)

What is mathstodon.xyz? How is mathstodon.xyz is different From Twitter? What’s the same?

Mastodon is like a “universe” of twitters. Anyone with a server can set up their own “instance” of twitter, with their own rules of conduct. When people were initially nervous about twitter breaking, a bunch of math peeps created mathstodon.xyz. So anyone who signs up for mathstodon.xyz is pretty much already a math nerd.

When you join (instructions below), you can talk with and be friends with anyone on any server of mastodon — not just the math one. But by joining mathstodon.xyz, in addition to seeing all the posts written by people who you’re friends with, you can also see all the posts written by anyone on mathstodon.xyz. So you can read lots of interesting things written by professional math geeks, and use that to find new people to follow. 🙂 That is one shift — though. Twitter has an algorithm that helps you find people, while mastadon doesn’t.

Posts (aka. tweets) can be longer than 280 characters! You can edit your posts! If you know latex, you can write equations in your posts! You can both “star” (favorite) posts and bookmark posts! 

What’s the same? You can still send DMs. You can still create lists. You can still use hashtags. (We want to create a hashtag for math teacher tweets, like #classroommath, so we can easily find and post about math teaching.) You can “boost” (retweet). You still get it for free. And you can use it both as an app and on the web. 

Want to see what a page looks like? Here’s Sam’s (https://mathstodon.xyz/@samjshah) and here’s Julie’s (https://mathstodon.xyz/@jreulbach)

As an important aside, mathstodon has rules of conduct which are thoughtful and inclusive, while Twitter is pretty gross in all the ways.

How to Sign Up:

First, you need join the Mathstodon server of Mastodon. Mastodon is not a single website so, you need to pick a server to join. 

“Mathstodon.xyz is a Mastodon instance for people who love maths!” 

Be aware that sign up is not automatic. You will need to verify your email and then be approved to join this group. But, it doesn’t take long! So follow these steps and get going!

1. We found signup easier to do on our computer than with the app.
2. Go to the Mathstodon.xyz page. 

3. Click Create Account, and then agree to follow the rules.
4. Fill in all of the fun stuff, then Request an Account.

5. Once finished, you will receive a notification email from mathstodon.xyz asking you to verify your email address. 

6. After verifying, my account was active about 20 minutes later! You will get another email welcoming you to Mathstodon with a link to set up your profile. 

YAY! You’re in! Now what?

Set up your profile! You can do this by clicking on the link in your Welcome email, or by clicking on “Edit Profile” under your name.

1. Upload an avatar and a header (if desired). 
2. Uncheck Require follow requests. I left this unchecked, as I am trying to build my mathy network on here, and want all the mathy people to connect with me.
3. Check Suggest account to others. I selected this, for the same reason as number 1.
4. Uncheck Hide your social graph. I left this UNCHECKED, because if you check this box, your followers and who you follow will be hidden from other users. We didn’t want this hidden, as your mathy friends followers are often people you want to be able to follow. 

Tips For Getting Started:

1. Follow us! Sam is here at https://mathstodon.xyz/@samjshah and Julie is here at https://mathstodon.xyz/@jreulbach. We will follow you right back! Also, our follow lists are open (Sam’s list, Julie’s list), so you can check them out and quickly follow everyone there too!
2. Play around with it and see what you can figure out on your own. It’s not the same as twitter, so don’t expect it to work exactly like twitter. But it’s super similar, and has some added benefits!
3. Get an app! We’ve tested out both the main Mastodon app (iphone, android) and Metatext (iphone) and like both! Metatext is most similar to what the twitter app felt like.
4. Turn on all notifications. We found this part really fun, especially since Twitter has dried up! And we want to get the conversations going! 
5. Put the app icon on your phone’s first page so you will check it and use it frequently. 
6. Add yourself to the #MTBoS on Mastodon Google Sheet, so other people can follow you! And start following people from the spreadsheet! 
7. Write a post/tweet introducing yourself! Where are you in the world? What do you teach? What’s something that you love about teaching? What are your hobbies? Maybe add #mtbos and #classroommath to your posts so others will be able to find it!
8. Be patient. It’s going to take time for people to join and conversations to happen. It’s not like you’re joining an already thriving community — you’re helping build a community that will soon be thriving! So give it time to happen!

Privacy in Mastodon

You can also be private on Mastodon. This setting in found in > Preferences > Other.
Public – Everyone can see

Unlisted – Everyone can see, but not listed on public timelines.

Followers-only – Only shown to followers.

Summer is here! I love listening to Podcasts while I am unwinding and cleaning up my at home life after a hectic school year.

In this podcast, I got to debate with Eli Luberoff, Patricia Vandenberg and Kathy Henderson about the merits of giving digital assessments versus paper assessments.

You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or even watch while you listen on YouTube.

Debate Math, Let’s Get Digital on Apple Podcasts

Debate Math, Let’s Get Digital on Spotify

Debate Math, Let’s Get Digital on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjk47IGz9UmBGYewHNrhF_g/videos

And, you can find many more amazing debates on the Debate Math Website!