The Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO) awards a “connection prize” to researchers whose work has translated effectively to a product or activity for educational practice. And this year’s winner is… the JASP project! The JASP nomination page features a nice promotional video. The video is in Dutch, but that should not matter, because it appears that I talk so, so slowly that you can understand what’s going on even if you don’t speak any Dutch at all. You can brew a cup of coffee and grab a dictionary in between each pair of words.
Receiving an award is always pleasant, but the real prize here was to get nominated in the first place. The nomination meant that we had a professional video made and could generate attention for JASP in front of a large audience of Dutch teachers who were present at the award ceremony. Moreover, the other two nominees were awesome. Check out their cool projects and videos:
- Joris Hoeboer (De Haagse Hogeschool) – De MQ Scan: Snel, betrouwbaar en gevalideerd inzicht in motorische ontwikkeling van kinderen. The video is here.
- Janine Stubbe (Codarts Rotterdam) – Performing artist and Athlete Health Monitor. The video is here.
I’d like to end by reporting a pretty unlikely coincidence. At the NRO conference, after my presentation on JASP, a high-school teacher approached me and suggested that I contact a colleague of his, who teaches mathematics. “But it’s a high-school in Sneek [the Northern part of the Netherlands, far beyond the Wall]”, he said with a note of apology in his voice. It quickly turned out that the high-school was the one that I actually had attended myself, approximately 1000 years ago. “So then you may know our mathematics teacher, John LittleHair”, he continued enthusiastically. This was even more surprising to me, because I did know a John LittleHair who had taught at this high-school; however, he was a music teacher, not a mathematics teacher. Turns out, the mathematics teacher is his son! I am not sure yet what the universe was trying to tell me, but if John LittleHair wants to set up a meeting beyond the Wall, I probably ought to undertake the journey…
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