We are thirty years past the trauma of the New Math. Much has changed and more changes are forthcoming. With proliferation of the Web and computers and advances in software technology, education is bound to become more personalized. New means of presenting educational material are becoming commonplace. Sure it may.
Positional systems provide fruitful soil for development of mathematical contents.
The puzzle with self-documenting sentences in the June's column is just one example. Mastery of conversion techniques from base 10 into another base is not required. If it does, we have a good candidate for an answer to the what question. According to the object oriented way of thinking , this is the primary question. For want of a better argument, I cordially refer to Smullyan's quote any one who thinks that positional numeration is not a good answer to the what question.