Maths Conference 2011

Today I attended a Math conference at the Abu Dhabi Women's College. I thought that the speakers were pretty interesting and had a lot to say about using technology to teach. Four of the main speakers weren't even in the country as they gave their presentations via Skype. This got mumbles along the lines of, "How can they use Skype when it's illegal here?" While Skype was illegal, it no longer is. It is merely up to the providers, Etisalat and Du, to block any activity. Even though everyone uses Skype, most people don't know that it is no longer illegal.

Another reason this conference was interesting was that students from Abu Dhabi Men's College were invited as well. This wasn't anything extraordinary as students have been attending this conference for years. The difference is that despite the fact that there have never been any problems, this year the students needed a chaperone to keep them away from the women. It was no big deal, though because they all left halfway through, enabling their chaperone to attend the teachers' lectures as he had initially planned.