Learning:
The Journey of a Lifetime
A Cloud Chamber of the Mind

January 2006 Mathematics Notebook

An Example of a "Learning Process" Journal

7:00 am Ballina NSW Australia

I have just begun creating the website for my Learning of Mathematics in 2006. I definitely have gotten side-tracked on this topic this month and wish to return to my original goal of making this my primary Learning activity for the year.

7:40 am I am hitting my first real decision point, both conceptually and technically. The question revolves around how to best organize my thinking and my files.

One option is to adopt a strict chronological approach where whatever I do on a particular day is stored in a folder for that day. This might include a Mathematica file, an Inspiration file, a pdf file or whatever. Basically it would always be a page like this (a Learning Process Journal) plus whatever additional files are created that day.

A second option is to separate out the "clean" notes that are relevant to the topic. At the end of a few week's work I should have a very nice set of "math notes" that would be excellent for review and which would not be cluttered with asides such as these reflective comments.

However something else is going wrong. The original format for these Learning Process pages was to have two colors: one (green) would be the content, which would be followed by light tan box that contained the reflective commentary. I seem to have lost this format.

9:35 am I am pleased with my progress this morning. I have pulled together my notes from November 11 and 12 and reformatted them into a light green (for content) with a tan box to highlight the reflective commentary. It is worth noting that all four of my notes for this year are tan only. I have not made any substantive progress in the actual Learning of calculus.

Another obvious feature of electronic files is the (general) ease of modification of files. Although this is taking a few hours, the result is both quicker and neater than any paper based system.

11:25 am I think I have this site organized and ready for uploading tomorrow when I am at the uni on a high speed line.