News

Winners of Promethean Interactive Whiteboard systems are:

Scoil Mhuire gan Smal,
Co Donegal
Teacher Dierdre Ní Dhomhnaill

Gaelscoil Moshíológ,
Co. Wexford
Teacher: Múinteor Laoise

Congratulations! Promethean, leading providers of interactive whiteboards will install an interactive whiteboard system worth €5,000 in each of these schools.

View the youtube video of the draw.

Check out the Maths in the City video here -

Win an Apple iPad worth €500

Or €200 worth of Yteach resources.

 As it is the 5th annual Maths Week Ireland we want to learn about teachers’ views to help us plan the future development of the festival.

Please visit the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/mathsweek2010

This first questionnaire is designed to capture your views prior to Maths week 2010. The second, due out after Maths Week will ask you to reflect on your experiences of Maths Week. Y(ou will not be identified in any results and no personal information will be passed on.)

We seek the perspectives of teachers who participate in and/or organise events for Maths Week and (through them) the reactions and responses of their pupils.

This year may be the first time you have been involved, but your responses are just as valuable to us.

Thank you for your time and help with this questionnaire.

Yteach has a special offer for Maths Week and in addition to this €200 prize is offering three prizes worth €100 each for Primary, Junior Cert and Leaving Cert in their on-line maths challenge for pupils at http://www.yTeach.ie.

PRISM Maths Challenge for Schools Announced

PRISM the popular in-class maths challenge coordinated by NUI Galway will go ahead on Thursday 14th October 2010. This is a written test that is done in class under the supervision of the teacher.

There will be two levels -

• Junior  meant for all pre- junior cert
• Senior post junior cert students

Existing teachers should have received announcemnt by email today.

New teachers should send an email to prism@nuigalway.ie with the word phrase "prism registration" in the subject field.

In the message body put the

1. full name
2. address of the school,
3. name
4. email address of the contact person.

This email address should only be accessible by the contact person.

You will then receive the PRISM instructions and details by email.

Please follow these instructions carefully as the organisers of PRISM are doing it in their spare time and will not have a lot of time to follow up on errors, omissions or queries

Please do not contact Maths Week about PRISM as we will be unable to answer queries

Visiting presenters for Maths Week 2010

We are bringing leading international presenters and performers to venues around the Island. Here are some of them:

Marcus du Sautoy

Marcus du Sautoy is Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics and Fellow of New College, Oxford. He is also Senior Media Fellow of the EPSRC. Marcus is well known through his TV work including the Story of Maths with BBC and several Horizon programmes. His latest book is The Num8er My5teries: A Mathematical Odyssey Through Everyday Life. Marcus will present at the RDS Dublin on Monday 11^th October in the afternoon for schools and in the evening he will give a public lecture entitled The secret Mathematicians. Booking through the RDS at http://www.rds.ie/cat_event_detail.jsp?itemID=611503

Steve Humble

Steve Humble (aka Dr Maths) believes that the fundamentals of mathematics can be taught via practical experiments. He holds the Guinness World Record for the most children learning maths outside the classroom. In March 2010 he published an academic paper on the educational benefits of learning maths outside the classroom and is presently researching into the effect of parents on their children’s homework His latest academic paper is called The Humble-Nishiyama Randomness Game gives a flavour of his other two mathematical loves – Magic and Randomness.

For the last seven years he has written a fortnightly newspaper column called Dr Maths. For more information on DrMaths go to

www.ima.org.uk/Education/DrMaths/DrMaths.htm

Email: drmaths@hotmail.co.uk

Andrew Jeffrey

Andrew Jeffrey, aka The Mathemagician, is a teacher, lecturer, magician, and keynote speaker and has been described as a mathematical evangelist. He is the author of several books, including 'Be A Wizard With Numbers', 'Magic for Kids', '100 Top Tips for Top Maths Teachers', 'Top 20 Maths Displays', and the brand new 'Cool, Calm and Calculators.' A former vice-principal, Andrew travels Europe inspiring and entertaining teachers and students alike with his Magic of Maths shows. (See www.andrewjeffrey.co.uk for details).

Andrew sold out the RDS during 2008 Maths Week Ireland, and made front-page headlines at the BT Young Scientist in 2009 when he used an electric saw to find 'fractions of a student'!

Kjartan Poskitt

Kjartan Poskitt is the author of Scholastic's "Murderous Maths" series which have sold over 1,500,000 copies world wide. His latest book "Everyday Maths For Grown Ups" is written to help adults who have never quite grasped how sums work!  Over the last 10 years he has entertained schools, teacher conferences and theatre audiences with items from his books including strange numbers, bizarre facts, tricks, predictions, flexagons and magic squares, and  he has presented numerous science and maths programmes for BBC TV. He lives in York with a nice wife, four daughters and a pinball table.

Links: www.murderousmaths.co.uk www.kjartan.co.uk

Jennifer Piggott

Earlier this year Jennifer retired as a lecturer and director of the NRICH Mathematics Project (, at the University of Cambridge).  She is now working part time as a freelance mathematics education consultant.

Jennifer taught mathematics in secondary schools for 26 years including eight years as a head of mathematics.  She has also spent time in primary schools, been a pastoral leader, an ICT coordinator and a local authority consultant.  Just before moving to work in Cambridge, she trained primary teachers at graduate and post-graduate level at the University of Hertfordshire.

Jennifer is a fervent believer that collaborative problem solving approaches are crucial to developing learners’ confidence.  Through such approaches she believes we can widen participation in mathematics, showing that we value inquisitiveness, creativity, and communication skills and sharing passions and fostering a real enjoyment of the subject and the challenges it presents.

http://nrich.maths.org/booksandcds

Fernando Blasco

Dr Fernando Blasco is a mathematician at the Universidad Politechnica de Madrid and he’s also a magician. He is a well known in Spain for his books and TV appearances popularising maths. He believes that “most people envisage mathematics only as a necessary tool for science and technology. A tool rather abstruse, composed largely of equations and complex definitions. While it is true that maths provides the language for science, and that its development has been motivated by problems in areas such as physics, chemistry or biology, it is also true that many practitioners have focused since ancient times on its recreational side. Surprisingly, this side of maths tends to be forgotten by both the general audience and not so few mathematicians. There is nowadays little doubt, however, that one of the most attractive approaches to create mathematical culture is by means of magic. In fact, the first manuscript describing a card magic trick, “De Viribus Quantitatis”, was written by the mathematician Luca Pacioli some 500 years ago. Likewise, the first printed book containing such a description was written by Girolamo Cardano, another mathematician. The fruitful relationship between magic and mathematics continues in our own time, with Martin Gardner’s “Mathematics, Magic and Mystery” being an excellent example. This book has been followed by many others relating the two subjects: art (magic) and science (mathematics). This talk will place such relationship in a historical perspective, going into detail about the transmission of knowledge by means of emotions and the creation of a magical atmosphere. After all, people keep wondering in magic how tricks are done –are mathematicians that much interested in formal proofs?”

  

Matt Parker

Matt Parker is a highly enthusiastic Mathematician whose life goal is to make people more excited about Maths. Using a range of presentations and hands- on activities, he communicates Maths in a very engaging and entertaining way. Matt talks about Mathematics for organisations including the Royal Institution and the BBC and he was the People’s Choice Award in the 2009 national Famelab competition. His favourite number is currently 496.

  Dr. Colin Wright,

Australian Maths Juggler -Colin Wright graduated in 1982 from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, with a B.Sc.(Hons) in Pure Mathematics, and went on to receive his doctorate in 1990 from Cambridge University, England. While at Cambridge he also learned how to fire-breathe, unicycle, juggle and ballroom dance. Since then he has worked as a research mathematician, a computer programmer, and an electronics hardware designer, taking time to give presentations all over the world on "Maths of Juggling”

www.solipsys.co.uk

Robert Hill

Robert Hill is one of Ireland’s best known STEM popularisers. He is the Director of the Northern Ireland Space Office based at the Armagh Planetarium and STEM advisor with the UK Yorkshire based Space Connections group.

He spearheaded the campaign to bring astronomy and space science topics to teachers and pupils through the newly revised curriculum in the province. He has co-ordinated the creation of thematic units with regional government and the Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment to align space related resources to accredited/integrated education.

He designed and created the highly acclaimed ‘From Earth to the Heavens’ exhibition at Armagh and has worked with several other science centres to help in the realisation of exciting and stimulating related exhibitions. He became the Faulkes Robotic Telescope schools co-ordinator in Ireland and helped bring this resource to Portugal and Russia through the British Council. He founded the Astrogazers Ireland schools network, working with teachers to gain confidence in using astronomy and space related resources.

Robert is a member of many EU and Global working groups including author of Astronet Panel E ‘Education, Outreach and Recruitment’ elements ‘Relationships with industry’ and ‘Planetaria and Museums’. He is currently a member of the International Astronomical Union Executive Committee Working Group for International Year of Astronomy 2009 Legacy, the EURISY Foundation and a member of the UNESCO Space Education Team to Tanzania and Nigeria.

His present duties include liaison with the local government in Northern Ireland to explore the possibility of bringing the space industry sector into Northern Ireland. Further, Robert is the Principal Investigator on the Large Award Science, Technology and Facilities Council (STFC) Engaging Learners in Virtual Interactive Science grant with the UK Cardiff based Herschel Space Observatory team.