Thursday, September 18, 2008

NCTM Elections 2008

Dear friends of CLIME, If you are a member of NCTM you probably received your ballot for the upcoming NCTM elections (deadline: October 31st). Having been an NCTM member for most of my adult life (and with some forethought could have had a life time membership for $150 in 1967) I want to urge you to vote this year. I have not always paid close attention to these elections in the past mostly because I didn't know the people running for office and from their resumes there didn't seem to be much of difference among them so it didn't seem to matter so much. But that was before I realized how important the board members are in deciding policy for NCTM. Case in point. Most recently I was disappointed by the Board's decision to not invest in the future by looking at the cost of technology as too expensive and not worth the investment at annual meetings. Renting busses is also very expensive, but the board sees the urgency of paying the outrageous fees for busses, but not for the technological infrastructure necessary to help math educators take advantage of the what technology has to offer us as the collaborative and participatory nature of Web 2.0 continues to grow and be a dominant player in the real world, but not in our math classrooms. There are no panaceas in the technology promise, but the train is leaving us at the station as our math leaders at NCTM are still looking at technology as an expensive frill and not an integral part of what's needed in the math classroom. It already is a part of our students lives, so we need to help make it a part of our teacher's lives in the math classroom.  What I'm doing as an NCTM member is casting my vote for someone who in my opinion is a champion of viewing math education creatively through a technological lens. Ed Dickey was my chair person on the program committee for the 1999 San Francisco Annual meeting and had the foresight then to see that there needed to be a technology liason on the committee as we approached the new millenium with all its technological promise. I was fortunate enough to serve in that role and admired his effort to push the agenda towards a more innovative and creative future for mathematics education. Ed has also been good friend of CLIME over the years and always encouraged me and others to continue our efforts in support of the vision of how technology can serve the needs of the math educator community. So I encourage you to join me in voting for Ed Dickey as a new At-Large NCTM Board member of NCTM.  (For more details click here). Best wishes, -Ihor Ihor Charischak CLIME president Council for Technology in Math Education ihor@clime.org http://clime.org

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