After spending most of my life as an institutionalized student (and teacher), I naturally have some opinions about Education. Nothing here rants against the poor quality of the American educational enterprise (except this sentence). Instead, the papers below suggest techniques to improve some small aspects of teaching and learning.

EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION –– Some ideas about improving classrooms.

VIRTUAL WORLDS –– Educational applications of virtual worlds, somewhat of a fantasy.

ICONIC MATHEMATICS –– What would algebra be like if we were to manipulate (and compute with) physical blocks instead of abstract tokens. This work carries the Cuisenaire Rods approach of kindergarten into high school.

SPATIAL ARITHMETIC -- Children are weaned from physical manipulation around age 7, and are taught the symbolic abstraction of group theory. However, arithmetic can be axiomatized using rules that are inherently spatial and maniulative.