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Count On
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10 September 2008 by NCETM_Administrator

CountOn.org is drawing to a close

The Count On project has now come to an end and the site is being taken down. Some of the content will be added to the NCETM portal in the next few months and we will provide links to it from this page once it is available. We are also in discussion with a number of partner organisations about them hosting more of the content. Again we will add links from this page to the content once it is available.

In the meantime we have a link to ‘useful websites and free resources’ that may provide you with alternative resources. Or alternatively, why not go to the forum Recommend a Resource, and ask for materials that you need – you may find that some of the teachers using the forum have suggestions for where alternative content can be found.

Please let us know your views and which content you would really like to remain available. We will do everything we can to ensure that this happens.

If you have any comments or questions, please contact us.

Comments

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11 September 2008 09:58
This site continues to provide excellent content for pupils of different abilities. Some of the circus activities are very good for improving speed in calculations and there are more difficult activities to stretch others too.
I certainly want to know where the content can be obtained if this site closes.
15 September 2008 11:04
Yes, some of the content on the site is still very relevant, although some other aspects have been superseded by more up to date content on other sites. We are in active discussion with a number of organisations who may be able to host parts of the content on their sites. We will keep this page up to date with where things will appear once the information is agreed.

In the meantime we do have a ‘Recommend a Resource’ forum if you go to our communities section on this portal and click on ‘view all communities’ and in the Resources area on the portal, there’s the Useful websites and free resources link. These might provide you with some alternative useful ideas for resources and sites.
23 September 2008 20:35
Mathionaire was great. We use it in class, and were using it at our school open evening. I had just been telling visiting parents how Counton is one of the great resources which came out the Millenium Maths Project. It is sad to just lose such a resource. Is there any way we can have a copy to run at school - or on my website?
25 September 2008 15:00
most of the games were used by children in my school and i have been recommending it to parents to help children have fun with maths rather than do labourious calculations at home that parents are keen to give the children. My class particulary enjoyed pole climber and dino dig. I would also lopve a copy to run at school
26 September 2008 09:24
I cant believe that this website is going, it had some great activities and games which I used frequently in class. The mathonaire game in particular was great as you were able to pick levels, ( something most other millionaire games dont enable you to do!) Please can you make sure that there is some way in which we can still access these resources!
02 October 2008 11:29
It is very sad to see this great resource go! As an elementary technology teacher I appreciated the variety of games and will especially miss Mathonaire. I hope that it will be one of the games you will rescue from the abyss.
13 October 2008 20:23
I hope the poems will be transferred across. They are great fun!
15 October 2008 15:09
I hope that NCETM will reconsider the decision to dismantle the site. While much of the NCETM site is not used much, Count On and Maths Year 2000 were two of the top mathematical sites (often top in Google). Admittedly they are not concerned just with the formal education system - they are very much "Maths for All" sites. (The fact that they are not school-teaching related was given to me as one reason why NCETM cd not continue them - this strikes me as a very narrow and apparatchnik view of what education is all about.)

I have just been contacted by the BBC who are doing a Horizon program on just this thing ("Maths for All") - they had not heard of NCETM which I find very sad.

One other thing - what about the new CMathTeach (Chartered Mathematics Teacher) - I can't find anything about it on the NCETM site. (Nor are NCETM on the organising panel - according to the recent LMS report)
16 October 2008 08:27
Before becoming a maths teacher I ran various websites for government departments. I still run various maths, scientific and chess websites.

Like others I valued the conton website and feel its disappearance is a great loss. I would be willling to host and run the counton website at no charge.
16 October 2008 14:25
The NCETM recognises that Count On was a popular and useful resource for many teachers and their students. However, the Centre does not have the capacity to continue the hosting of the materials, although we are fully committed to ensuring that teachers and students continue to have free access to the Count On resources in future. The NCETM will host some parts of the Count On site through the NCETM resources. For those sections of Count On that do not sit naturally on our portal, the NCETM is exploring several hosting possibilities with non-commercial mathematics websites. Once the materials are available through other sites, the NCETM will announce the locations of the resources and ensure that the site re-direct gives all users an easy route to the new locations.
19 October 2008 05:19
I understand that the NCETM Directorate has ordered the removal of several contributions to this discussion on the merits of Count On. These have included two from myself, which invited people to contact me off-forum for informal discussions.

I find this sad, and stifling of free debate. People may want to discuss things privately, and not just via NCETM.

[[Part of what was deleted was my ‘Statement of Interest’, as I was involved in Maths Year 2000 and Count On when their websites topped Google’s world ‘maths’ list, and won two national BETT Awards for “Best Educational Website” etc.. I therefore know what (seven-figure) investments went into these projects and how much they were appreciated. It seems scandalous to remove them. My off-forum contact details can be found by Googling “Bibby 330334”]]
20 October 2008 13:41
The NCETM moderation policy is in place to ensure that posts and comments do not cause any difficulties for any members of the NCETM user community. We do not encourage the posting of personal email addresses or telephone numbers. If one member wishes to contact another, this can be done through the portal, and a further step to exchange personal contact details can then be made. If anyone would like to email in comments directly to the NCETM this can also be done through info@ncetm.org.uk.

All comments which contain personal contact details are removed from the portal by the moderation team. The user is always notified of this in a courteous manner, and the reason for the post removal is fully explained. The user is also invited to re-post their comment, requesting the omission of personal contact details.

The NCETM encourages the user community to post comments about the value of the Count On resources. Steps are being taken to ensure these resources are re-hosted and made freely available to the mathematics teaching community.
26 October 2008 14:43
First a comment on the sad demise of Counton. I feel sorry it has gone not just because it was a good site not supported by the government after 2000. I also feel worried because of the way it has been handled in this way by NCETM. Following on logically, I despair about the future of management of mathematical education in the UK. To explain further:

I had a number of pages on different topics and was part of the orginal MathsYear2000 project. The reason for setting up the website which evolved into Counton was to provide inspirational material for STUDENTS and possibly teachers too.

It was a central site. OK, the material might be distributed elsewhere, but one site is a focus. That focus is now lost and the NCETM management of the project shows a lack of vision; one might say shortsightedness. If they were not prepared to manage it as it was because it was not part of the NCETM aims, then it should not have been taken on in the first place. To have taken the action to close it is shere vandalism.

The moderator quote "although we are fully committed to ensuring that teachers and students continue to have free access to the Count On resources in future." is just not living in the real world. It reflects the way the NCETM does not appear to understand the way the internet is used. This may explain what I consider to be a poorly designed and managed website. I will express more of this in a separate comment in response to others above.
26 October 2008 15:01
I would like to comment on the moderation replies and what seems to be a level of control that is reminiscent of Stalinist Russia. Confusion is added by seeming to reply, but the statements are meaningless.

Firstly, it is impossible to contact anyone who has made a comment. Profiles do not allow you to make contact.

What on earth does "If one member wishes to contact another, this can be done through the portal, " mean? If you are going to say this, then you need to say how. To say this then blocking the means to do it is bizarre.

Secondly, searching for Counton on the site does not lead you to this set of comments. Is this bad search management or blocking debate?

I would read the moderator comment "The NCETM moderation policy is in place to ensure that posts and comments do not cause any difficulties for any members of the NCETM user community." as the NCETM management is covering its own back not the community.

This high level of control seems to suggest a high level of insecurity within NCETM. Such a lack of democracy does not bode well for the improvement of Mathematics teaching in the UK. Any student of history will tell you that lack of democracy (eg Communist Russia/China, Eastern Germany, Saddam in Iraq) results in stagnation.

Please get you act together fo all our sakes




26 October 2008 15:19
Stalinist? I wouldn't put it quite like that, but removing email addresses etc. is less than conducive to easy discussion.

Also, this policy of removing addresses seems to be new in implementation - I put my details up a year or so ago on another NCETM page and they are still there - see
http://www.ncetm.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=14&module=com&mode=103&compid=5268&comtid=4763#com5268

(That page also showed a nice photo of yours truly which this page does not .... How sad! :)

More to the point however, is why Count On has been removed _before_ its replacement has been secured. Surely it could have been left up while NCETM sorted out the things to which it has committed itself, e.g. "... the site is being taken down. Some of the content will be added to the NCETM portal in the next few months and we will provide links to it from this page once it is available. We are also in discussion with a number of partner organisations about them hosting more of the content...."

I understand that NCETM took over Count On several months ago already. Even if NCETM lives up to the above commitments, it seems Count On will have been severely dismembered and will no longer be an integral whole. The many millions of public money did produce a good world-beating site. Why did NCETM take it over in order to destroy it?
01 November 2008 14:19
It does seem a shame that you have taken it down before replacing things - seems the wrong way round to me. Very disappointing.
03 November 2008 09:34
Count On has been incredibly useful, and much of the material remains very relevant. It seems a great shame that if the project has come to an end, the site just gets taken down - with the danger that good things, that people put time and effort into devising, are lost.
I would have thought that teachers finding resources and incorporating them into their teaching, perhaps in collaboration with colleagues, would constitute a powerful form of CPD.
03 November 2008 09:50
This is all quite shocking. I was the coordinator for London maths events for maths year 2000. It was a wonderful thing to see people engage with maths activities simply because they found them (mainly in shopping centres, when they'd actually come to shop!). The count on site recreated this ambiance of interesting stuff to do. I can think of no possible justification for dismantling the site. The idea that some of it is out-of-date is about as silly as saying that Newtonian Mechanics is out-of-date. These ideas remain good ideas, regardless of where the national Curriculum happens to be. The site as it stood could be reinstated tomorrow, it presumably remains as a complete site on someone's server. So, come on NCETM do the right thing and put it back up, so the huge numbers of users can continue to benefit from a resource they freely chose to use because it was really good.
03 November 2008 12:54
Oh dear! Why bother going to the effort to dismantle a perfectly working and much loved website? Please leave it alone!
03 November 2008 13:49
I agree with all the comments already logged. Busy teachers need to be able to find what they are familiar with in the place they last got it from. The idea that they should go to "recommend a resource" to ask for something they already know about is crazy. With the National Strategy going through the same process of website renewal, with some useful resources already off the radar, there will be many very frustrated maths teachers around.
05 November 2008 10:23
I have really enjoyed using the count on stuff in the last few years and the kids have loved it. I'm in a new job now and have just tried to get on to the site and share it with a new audience. I am so disappointed to find that it is no longer accessible. Since you have now recognised that this is a widely used (and loved!) resource, then surely you could reopen the site until alternative provision is found for hosting the materials. Alternatively, interested parties should be able to obtain a copy of the materials for installing on their own computers or computer networks. I think you have made a major miscalculation here.
06 November 2008 12:32
As a Maths performer I refer people to counton all the time and I for one, would love to have had to the chance to be included in the online maths performer list! I know counton has not been modified for a long time but it has CERTAINLY been used and was highly optimised by the search engines. Surely it would cost less to update it than to "start all over again".

smilez and gigglz

Bubblz
08 November 2008 21:16
NCETM is supposed to be promoting CPD of mathematics teachers and good teaching in mathematics by making available sources of course providers and resources for teaching. So what is the rationale for taking off CountOn.org?
Yes I know you appear to be providing alternative resources and will add the content of CountON on the NCETM portal. Why not wait till you have done so before taking CountOn off line?
11 November 2008 16:22
Is this page a record? Supportive comments for CountOn seem to have had more contributors than any other page I've ever seen on the NCETM site :)
13 November 2008 00:27
I am in the USA so I'm not sure about the origins of this project. I do know that I can still access the games and other resources through this web address: http://www.mathsyear2000.org/games/
I don't know if this is also temporary but at least it works here.
13 November 2008 08:00
Many thanks - http://www.mathsyear2000.org/games/ does work in the UK.
Now I can also look at the other resources mentioned above that I did not previously know about
13 November 2008 10:40
Please can people who are as dismayed as I am by this presentation of the NCETM view of mathematics and mathematics education, follow the link recommended at the top of this thread to: useful websites and free resources. I did so today (13.11.08) and the top link is to a DCSF report and all of the remainder are links to curriculum focussed materials produced by the NCETM and located on the NCETM site. There are a huge quantity of 'useful websites and free resources'. It is very troubling that the NCETM would wish to claim that the most useful are the ones it provides itself. I sense an urgent need to connect with a maths education community who will not satisfied with this level of control.
13 November 2008 19:18
Yet another disappointed user of counton. Please can we have it back!
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