Learning in Progress

  This post or iginally appeared on FTISE dTech Math makes me nervous. And, not your run of the mill, mild, tingle in your belly kind of nervous. It's the kind of nervous that literally initiates the fight or flight response, where every neuron is on edge, skin feels prickly to the touch and a waterfall of tears is being held back by not even a shred of willpower: I t's the kind of nervous that shuts a learner totally down.     Needless to say when I wrote a grant for a 3D printer last year, I wasn't thinking that I would actually have to use math to use it.  I mean, my general plan was that the kids would figure out how to use it, and I would just cheer them on, and probably tweet about the cool stuff they were doing.  And then it became apparent that I had to learn how to use it. For real use it. As a last minute challenge, one of our district technicians, Andrew, talked me into meeting him and Michelle, one of our second grade teachers after school, on a Friday