Searching and blogging for mathetics

Is there a correlation between the countries on the top ten list of searching for the word Mathetics and those countries visiting this weblog?

In order to answer this question we used the top ten list and compared it with the results of the counter on our weblog (see picture).

There is indeed a correlation for the top searchers on Google: Australia, United Kingdom and United States. They also are the top of the blog ranking list.

The Philippines and New Zealand also correlate positive. They are on the 8th and 9th place.

Remarkable is the position of Germany. This does not correlate with search behavior on Google. However on the blog ranking list it is on the fifth place.

* There is a correlation for five countries: they search most frequent on Google for the word "mathetics". Those countries are also the most frequent visitors of this weblog.

* Germany is not in the top ten list of Google, but is looking at the weblog rather frequent.

* In both situations (Google and the mathetics blog) there is a fast growing amount of total visits observable.

Many questions arise and remain. One was answered in a pilot study, in the context of the European project Eisweb. There we used a small questionnaire for the participating experts from Universities, Schools of Education, and the students (teachers who worked in their schools for elementary and secondary education). Eleven of them answered four questions:

1. Are you familiar with the word
mathetics?
yes (73%) no (18%) ? (9%)
2. What country are you from?
Austria(2), Netherlands(3), Switserland(1),Czech
Republic(1),Hungary(1),Germany(2)Italy(1)
3. Is the concept of mathetics playing a role in your
country?
a little (55%); no (27%); ? (18%); yes (0%)
4. Would you like to learn more about mathetics?
Yes (100%)

All this lacks reliability and validity. It is just a pilot, showing a tendency and could be the start for further research. Let me know if you are involved in it or plan to do.

Mathetics: growing interest divided over the world.

With the help of Google it is possible to see how often words and concepts are being searched. Either all over the world in a particular country or part of that country. Although rather elementary it gives an idea of the popularity of the term or concept in question.

Starting from 2004 there is a more than doubled interest in Mathetics as a search item. The top ten countries, in which the term is searched rather much are:

1. Australia
2. United Kingdom
3. United States
4.South Africa
5. Thailand
6. Singapore
7.Pakistan
8. Philippines
9. New Zealand
10. Netherlands

Although mathetics got twice as much attention as in 2004, Europe seems to play a minor role in searching the word. Only the United Kingdom and the Netherland have a place in the top ten from this moment. Next question would be to relate this to the educational developments in the countries. Why is there a growing interest and does it correlate with the search interests of people.

Public interest and neuroscience

Booming neuroscience interest. Who is afraid of the neurobomb?

Explanations of psychological phenomena seem to generate more public interest when they contain neuroscientific information. Even irrelevant neuroscience information is seen as more satisfying by non experts, in a research project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Researchers warn against the "seductive allure of neuroscience explanations".

Bringing research, that is still in a preliminary stage, into public circulation is accelarated by ICT. It points again towards the need for a more independent (mathetic) coaching of pupils, as young as possible, to make clear that there is always a basic need for judging the reliability
and validity of a given news item. It's often described as media literacy.

One of the champions of media literacy was the French educator Célestin Freinet. At the beginning of the 20th century he made newspapers with his children, using a simple printing press. By doing so, children learned that they could easily produce information themselves. That made them more critical towards text they saw in "official" newspapers. Freinet discovered several didactical techniques useful for critical and democratic media literacy.