Blogging On Blogging

Hi. I'm BOB. Phew! I'm glad I made it. Thank you all for being so patient and waiting for me. Now that I'm here, I'll stay with you for the rest of the semester ... we're really going to have FUN learning together! ;-)

An interesting class today. We looked at a distance/time graph showing Charlotte's road trip to Gimli. Since Charlotte's average velocity over the entire trip was about 40kph, everyone thought she was a slow driver, or rather "a cautious driver." When we looked at the graph closer, finding her average velocity over smaller and smaller time intervals both at the end and the beginning of the trip our opinions changed. Charlotte isn't a cautious driver ... she's a cRaZy driver; who arrives at their destination going almost 200 kph?!? I think we all learned something though ... it's important to know how to look at a graph and examine the details. A friend of mine always says: "It's all in the details." ;-)

We were talking about exactly what sort of post you're supposed to make to get that mark on your test. The kind of post I'd like you to make should have one or more of these characteristics:

• A reflection on a particular class (like the second paragraph above).


• A reflective comment on your progress in the course.


• A comment on something that you've learned that you thought was "cool".


• A comment about something that you found very hard to understand but now you get it! Describe what sparked that "moment of clarity" and what it felt like.


• Have you come across something we discussed in class out there in the "real world" or another class? Describe the connection you made.


• Respond to a Blogging Prompt I posted. (see below)

Your posts do not have to be long. I'm far more interested in the quality of what you write rather than the quantity.

Blogging Prompt
To help us along our blogging journey I've decided that I will also occasionally post a Blogging Prompt. It will be easy to find because I'll always put it under a heading like the one above this paragraph. Feel free to create your own Blogging Prompt for the rest of us if you like. If it's a really good one (i.e. has rich possibilities for blogging) we'll count it as your post. ;-) Here's my first one:

We've learned about three different ways to represent a function; symbolically, numerically and graphically. Blog a brief paragraph identifying ways in which these three representations are similar. Blog a second paragraph outlining the ways in which they are different.

This sort of compare and contrast exercise can be made easier to do using Venn Diagrams. Draw three large overlapping circles. List the similarities in the appropriate overlapping sections and the differences in the non-overlapping sections. If you like, you can use this web tool to do it online. If you do blog about this prompt and want to post your diagram we'll talk about how to post pictures sometime in class. ;-)

Happy Blogging!