Readers who follow my reviews are aware that I seldom wax poetic. This book is one of the very best to address what teaching and learning mathematics should be in the age of connected technology. It is written to inform, not to impress.

The preface starts with Marshall McLuhan who popularized the term global village and maintained that the delivery medium impacts the content as in “The medium is the massage (not message).” The Internet has enabled an interconnected, digital classroom without walls, a global learning village. The text contains five easy-to-read chapters, each with a comprehensive reference list.

“Math Education and Learning” is a walk through the history of mathematics. It ends with the conclusion that the best of all possible worlds is the melding of the traditional classroom (teacher and students face-to-face) with the resources of the Internet.

“Technology, Society, and Education” begins with McLuhan, incorrectly referring to massage as message (see Amazon.com for the correct spelling.) The contemporary math classroom uses the new technologies in four ways: As an ancillary tool, with social media; as an integrative tool, with print textbooks; as a collaborative tool, with virtual teams and communities; and as an embedded tool, using the tech tools of their daily lives. Computer science, beginning with algorithms, is a fundamental part of math education today.

Having set the stage in the first two chapters, the next two provide commonsense, easy-to-apply uses of today’s digital technology. “Social Media and the Wall-Less Classroom” discusses social media in general, and then specific tools: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We learn how these tools extend the classroom, creating a new curriculum for the connected mind.

Chapter 4, “Pop Culture in Math Pedagogy,” gives credence to methods that I have long believed are beneficial to classroom learning. Many decades ago, in a methods course in history, I suggested that my student teachers use the I Love Lucy candy factory video to explain the assembly line. A number of students questioned my judgment, saying that the video is more fun than school is supposed to be. Math figures prominently in comic books, movies, television, and video games. Enjoying the learning process increases motivation to learn and retention. The chapter guides teachers in the use of these resources.

The final chapter, “Blending, Math, and Technology,” leans toward psychology in its discussion of knowledge and math cognition. A major implication is that traditional IQ test and math exams are no longer relevant, which is another battle I have been fighting for years. Once we determine what it is we are teaching and what we want learners to master, we must decide how to assess achievement. The process is called matching outcomes to objectives. Unfortunately, even in environments in which teachers are free to guide students beyond the walls of the classroom, test construction is most often an administrative or state-mandated task.

The book is highly recommended for an undergraduate course in methods of teaching mathematics. Chapters 3 and 4, in particular, equip the new teacher with a wealth of useful techniques for today’s digital math classroom. Also, it is a wonderful text for a professional development course for math teachers whose education preceded the widespread use of technology tools for the classroom. If I were in charge of the state-mandated math curriculum, I would require all district math coordinators to take an in-service course based upon the book.