[Edu-sig] [ANN] rur-ple: pre-release of new lessons.

[Arthur]

kirby urner wrote:

> Hi Andre ---
>
> My plan is to introduce my daughter to Python using the robot theme.  
> Your curriculum is an obvious place to start.  I will be starting a 
> more in depth investigation of your work in the near future.
>
> My longer term hope is to see some physical robot offerings on the 
> market (in addition to the screen based ones) with some kind of Python 
> capability -- perhaps just a module with pre-defined motions the user 
> might resequence or trigger based on events (sensor inputs), per Lego 
> Mindstorms example.
>
> Also, I'm hoping the screen-based options become more visually 
> sophisticated, ala the Sims genre, i.e. we could script theater, 
> complete with dialog and sound, using Python (yes, this is Alice 
> territory).
>
> Arthur, before you blow your stack, this theater or playhouse genre 
> isn't about learning or teaching programming necessarily.  It's about 
> scripting plays and sharing them with your friends. 

What I would tend to blow my stack about is more the notion of pushing 
things off into to future... as if the barriers was technological.

if:

IDLE 1.1.2     
 >>> from visual import *
 >>> display(background=color.white)
<visual.ui.display object at 0x0927D150>
 >>> sphere(color=color.blue)
<visual.primitives.sphere object at 0x0927D120>

ain't enough to get a kid excited, the kid is simply jaded.

A fancier technology - Croquet? - plays better to the jaded, perhaps.

seems to me with some certainty that playing to jaded sensibilities  is 
not the role that educators should play.

> An important fact to keep in mind, as we explore the space of 
> potentially marketable products.

didn't know we were.

Art