Educational software has really come a long way in the last couple of years, and an update to my big darn list is long overdue.  Some of the biggest changes over the last few years have come through the introduction of the iPad and iPhone.  iOS in particular, with its attendant application store has emerged as a powerhouse environments for developing and distributing very high quality software at extremely low cost, a great boon for schools of every grade level.

The strange looks combined with the gasps of horror are starting to get to me. I thought that after all these years I was getting used to it, but it happened again at a recent conference.  At Stanford, no less.  I had made the mistake in public company of mentioning how much I loved math and getting kids excited about it through WISE.  "Really?  Uhmm, that's nice," they said just before wandering off to refresh their drinks.

Every time I get a chance to watch one of our finance folks over at MobiTV wield a spreadsheet, I learn some new tricks. Those financial analysis folks steeped in the arcane features of Excel seem to be able to make the software package produce ever more astounding and useful models of increasingly complex systems.But this one takes the cake. Check out this really cool implementation of a 3D graphics rendering engine. IN EXCEL! Peter Rakos over at Gamasutra outdid himself.This image and video pair shows the rendering system using a simple display that colors the native Excel spreadsheet cells as the calculations are being performed.This image and video pair shows the same program using the Microsoft Office Graphics Abstraction Layer to do the rendering instead of using writes to the spreadsheet cell.Even better, some of the spatial layout and cell computation models of spreadsheets turn out to be very useful in designing and presenting very compact and elegant representations of the rendering pipeline. This design and layout in the 2-D spreadsheet grid is massively easier to see and understand than all the simple linear text files that I coded up in my college graphics course. ...

Hi all,We just launched the new web site for the Westminster Institute for Science Education [W.I.S.E.]. Click on the logo below to check it out, including the links to the student and teacher blogs. Comments and suggestions welcome!Oh yes, and for any of you wealthy philanthropists or corporate titans with a hankering to invest in nationwide science, math, or technology education reform, donations are encouraged! Just email or message me, or post a comment here on "All the Best Bits."

Matthias Wandel has developed a fantastic mechanical binary adding machine using a simple series of cascaded chutes to store numbers and perform carries through mechanical toggles. Don't miss the video embedded below to see it in operations.Ingenious!More details can be found on his web site: www.Woodgears.ca along with all manner of interesting contraptions.

Check out the model number on this bad boy.Yes, it's Pi to 27 digits. From techEblog.