From kirby.urner at gmail.com Sun Jul 6 20:36:12 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 11:36:12 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Mystery Number 6174 Message-ID: Yutaka Nishiyama has this interesting article in the March 2006 issue of Plus, entitled 'Mysterious number 6174'. The theorem in this article is as follows: any 4-digit positive integer, stipulating all 4 digits *not* be the same one, may be distilled to 6174 by the following process: extract the largest and smallest two integers from the 4 digits and subtract the smaller from the larger, and repeat as necessary. >>> funtopic.converge() 2283: 8322 - 2238 == 6084 6084: 8640 - 0468 == 8172 8172: 8721 - 1278 == 7443 7443: 7443 - 3447 == 3996 3996: 9963 - 3699 == 6264 6264: 6642 - 2466 == 4176 4176: 7641 - 1467 == 6174 >>> funtopic.converge() 9822: 9822 - 2289 == 7533 7533: 7533 - 3357 == 4176 4176: 7641 - 1467 == 6174 >>> funtopic.converge() 6685: 8665 - 5668 == 2997 2997: 9972 - 2799 == 7173 7173: 7731 - 1377 == 6354 6354: 6543 - 3456 == 3087 3087: 8730 - 0378 == 8352 8352: 8532 - 2358 == 6174 Here's one way to test the result. Think of a different way? def somenum(n = 4): digits = range(10) ans = [] good = False # no exit pass (yet) while True: for i in range(n): ans.append(choice(digits)) # pick any n digits firstdigit = ans[0] # not much chance all digits the same # compare first to rest, pass test on first # exception for i in range(1,n+1): if firstdigit != ans[i]: good = True # exit pass break if good: break # has exit pass return "".join([str(i) for i in ans]) def converge(closer = 6174): ournum = somenum() while True: smallest = sorted(list(ournum)) highest = reversed(smallest) strhi, strlo = "".join(highest), "".join(smallest) diff = int(strhi) - int(strlo) print( "%s: %s - %s == %s" % (ournum, strhi, strlo, diff) ) if diff == closer: return ournum = str(diff) Kirby Related reading: http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/01/aguirre-wrath-of-god-movie-review.html From Scott.Daniels at Acm.Org Sun Jul 6 22:54:34 2008 From: Scott.Daniels at Acm.Org (Scott David Daniels) Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:54:34 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Mystery Number 6174 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: kirby urner wrote: > Yutaka Nishiyama has this interesting article in the March 2006 issue > of Plus, entitled 'Mysterious number 6174'. > > The theorem in this article is as follows: any 4-digit positive > integer, stipulating all 4 digits *not* be the same one, may be > distilled to 6174 by the following > process: extract the largest and smallest two integers from the 4 > digits and subtract the smaller from the larger, and repeat as > necessary. ... > Here's one way to test the result. Think of a different way? def counts(limit=7, closer=6174): counts = [0] * limit exceptions = set() for ournum in range(10000): start = quad = ''.join(sorted('%04d' % ournum)) if quad[0] == quad[3] or quad in exceptions: continue for distance in range(limit): diff = int(''.join(reversed(quad))) - int(quad) if diff == closer: break quad = ''.join(sorted('%04d' % diff)) else: exceptions.add(start) counts[distance] += 1 return counts, sorted(exceptions) -Scott From tim.peters at gmail.com Sun Jul 6 23:32:53 2008 From: tim.peters at gmail.com (Tim Peters) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 17:32:53 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] Mystery Number 6174 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1f7befae0807061432n5cf7c7afka6e9d78b453df989@mail.gmail.com> [kirby urner] > Yutaka Nishiyama has this interesting article in the March 2006 issue > of Plus, entitled 'Mysterious number 6174'. > > The theorem in this article is as follows: any 4-digit positive > integer, stipulating all 4 digits *not* be the same one, may be > distilled to 6174 by the following > process: extract the largest and smallest two integers from the 4 > digits and subtract the smaller from the larger, and repeat as > necessary. > >>>> funtopic.converge() > 2283: 8322 - 2238 == 6084 > 6084: 8640 - 0468 == 8172 > 8172: 8721 - 1278 == 7443 > 7443: 7443 - 3447 == 3996 > 3996: 9963 - 3699 == 6264 > 6264: 6642 - 2466 == 4176 > 4176: 7641 - 1467 == 6174 > ... > Here's one way to test the result. Think of a different way? I'd rather write code to /find/ that result ;-) See below for one way to do that. > def somenum(n = 4): > digits = range(10) > ans = [] > good = False # no exit pass (yet) > > while True: > > for i in range(n): > ans.append(choice(digits)) # pick any n digits > > firstdigit = ans[0] > # not much chance all digits the same > # compare first to rest, pass test on first > # exception > for i in range(1,n+1): > if firstdigit != ans[i]: > good = True # exit pass > break > > if good: break # has exit pass > > return "".join([str(i) for i in ans]) Just noting that this part is simpler as (and fixing n at 4 for simplicity): def somenum(): import random while True: n = random.randrange(10000) if n % 1111: return "%04d" % n Note that all 4 digits are the same if and only if n is a multiple of 1111. > ... To find a result like this, you have to analyze the cycles that arise when iterating n = f(n) for a suitable function `f`. Function repeat() below does that pretty generally, assuming only that the values `n` can be set members and dict keys. The NDigits class drives repeat() with the right kind of stuff for this specific problem. # Repeat # n = iterate(n) # until it falls into a cycle (some value of n is seen again). For all # n generated, n2repeat[n] is set to that repeated value. In addition, # if some n along the way is already a key in n2repeat, the iteration # stops early, and n2repeat[n] is used as the repeated value. def repeat(n, iterate, n2repeat): sofar = set() while n not in n2repeat and n not in sofar: sofar.add(n) n = iterate(n) if n in n2repeat: repeated = n2repeat[n] else: assert n in sofar repeated = n for n in sofar: n2repeat[n] = repeated class NDigits(object): def __init__(self, ndigits): self.ndigits = ndigits # Format to convert integer to string with `ndigits` digits, # zero-filled (if needed) on the left. self.format = "%0" + str(ndigits) + "d" def step(self, n): lo = sorted(n) hi = "".join(reversed(lo)) lo = "".join(lo) return self.format % (int(hi) - int(lo)) def tryall(self): n2repeat = {} fmt = self.format for n in xrange(10**self.ndigits): n = fmt % n repeat(n, self.step, n2repeat) repeat2ns = dict((r, 0) for r in set(n2repeat.itervalues())) for r in n2repeat.itervalues(): repeat2ns[r] += 1 for r in sorted(repeat2ns): print r, "reached by", repeat2ns[r], "inputs" Finally, a bit of code to drive that, for number of digits from 1 through 7: for ndigits in range(1, 8): print "trying", ndigits, "digits" driver = NDigits(ndigits) driver.tryall() print Perhaps not surprisingly, the output shows that 2-digit integers have an "attractor" (09) too, and also 3-digit integers (495). However 5- and 6-digit integers do not have a (unique) attractor. And that made the output for 7-digit integers surprising indeed! trying 1 digits 0 reached by 10 inputs trying 2 digits 00 reached by 10 inputs 09 reached by 90 inputs trying 3 digits 000 reached by 10 inputs 495 reached by 990 inputs trying 4 digits 0000 reached by 10 inputs 6174 reached by 9990 inputs trying 5 digits 00000 reached by 10 inputs 53955 reached by 3190 inputs 63954 reached by 48480 inputs 74943 reached by 48320 inputs trying 6 digits 000000 reached by 10 inputs 549945 reached by 1950 inputs 631764 reached by 62520 inputs 851742 reached by 935520 inputs trying 7 digits 0000000 reached by 10 inputs 8429652 reached by 9999990 inputs From mdipierro at cs.depaul.edu Sun Jul 6 23:39:54 2008 From: mdipierro at cs.depaul.edu (Massimo Di Pierro) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 16:39:54 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] Mystery Number 6174 In-Reply-To: <1f7befae0807061432n5cf7c7afka6e9d78b453df989@mail.gmail.com> References: <1f7befae0807061432n5cf7c7afka6e9d78b453df989@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <73200C53-9ECD-4F2C-9275-D0245E4BE54E@cs.depaul.edu> This is interesting trying 7 digits 0000000 reached by 10 inputs 8429652 reached by 9999990 inputs The probability of a single fixed point in in 10**7 numbers is quite small. On Jul 6, 2008, at 4:32 PM, Tim Peters wrote: > trying 7 digits > 0000000 reached by 10 inputs > 8429652 reached by 9999990 inputs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From metolone+gmane at gmail.com Sun Jul 6 23:50:24 2008 From: metolone+gmane at gmail.com (Mark Tolonen) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 14:50:24 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Mystery Number 6174 References: Message-ID: "kirby urner" wrote in message news:f604188c0807061136j32aa6797oef31101da4406d6d at mail.gmail.com... > Yutaka Nishiyama has this interesting article in the March 2006 issue > of Plus, entitled 'Mysterious number 6174'. > > The theorem in this article is as follows: any 4-digit positive > integer, stipulating all 4 digits *not* be the same one, may be > distilled to 6174 by the following > process: extract the largest and smallest two integers from the 4 > digits and subtract the smaller from the larger, and repeat as > necessary. > >>>> funtopic.converge() > 2283: 8322 - 2238 == 6084 > 6084: 8640 - 0468 == 8172 > 8172: 8721 - 1278 == 7443 > 7443: 7443 - 3447 == 3996 > 3996: 9963 - 3699 == 6264 > 6264: 6642 - 2466 == 4176 > 4176: 7641 - 1467 == 6174 >>>> funtopic.converge() > 9822: 9822 - 2289 == 7533 > 7533: 7533 - 3357 == 4176 > 4176: 7641 - 1467 == 6174 >>>> funtopic.converge() > 6685: 8665 - 5668 == 2997 > 2997: 9972 - 2799 == 7173 > 7173: 7731 - 1377 == 6354 > 6354: 6543 - 3456 == 3087 > 3087: 8730 - 0378 == 8352 > 8352: 8532 - 2358 == 6174 > > Here's one way to test the result. Think of a different way? > > def somenum(n = 4): > digits = range(10) > ans = [] > good = False # no exit pass (yet) > > while True: > > for i in range(n): > ans.append(choice(digits)) # pick any n digits > > firstdigit = ans[0] > # not much chance all digits the same > # compare first to rest, pass test on first > # exception > for i in range(1,n+1): > if firstdigit != ans[i]: > good = True # exit pass > break > > if good: break # has exit pass > > return "".join([str(i) for i in ans]) > > def converge(closer = 6174): > ournum = somenum() > while True: > smallest = sorted(list(ournum)) > highest = reversed(smallest) > strhi, strlo = "".join(highest), "".join(smallest) > diff = int(strhi) - int(strlo) > print( "%s: %s - %s == %s" % (ournum, strhi, strlo, diff) ) > if diff == closer: return > ournum = str(diff) > > Kirby > > Related reading: > http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/01/aguirre-wrath-of-god-movie-review.html The following tests all possible 4-digit combos, excluding "all 4 digits *not* be the same one". It turns out seven iterations is the maximum it takes to converge for any number. def converge(n, maxiter=7): i = 0 # iteration count while n != 6174 and i < maxiter: i += 1 L=list(str(n).zfill(4)) min_n = int(''.join(sorted(L))) max_n = int(''.join(sorted(L, reverse=True))) n = max_n - min_n return n == 6174 for n in [i for i in xrange(10000) if i % 1111 != 0]: if not converge(n): print 'FAILED' break else: print 'PASSED' From tim.peters at gmail.com Mon Jul 7 00:07:17 2008 From: tim.peters at gmail.com (Tim Peters) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 18:07:17 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] Mystery Number 6174 In-Reply-To: <73200C53-9ECD-4F2C-9275-D0245E4BE54E@cs.depaul.edu> References: <1f7befae0807061432n5cf7c7afka6e9d78b453df989@mail.gmail.com> <73200C53-9ECD-4F2C-9275-D0245E4BE54E@cs.depaul.edu> Message-ID: <1f7befae0807061507w740bb9fbke759774ef9f2040e@mail.gmail.com> [Massimo Di Pierro] > This is interesting [Tim Peters] >> trying 7 digits >> 0000000 reached by 10 inputs >> 8429652 reached by 9999990 inputs [Massimo] > The probability of a single fixed point in in 10**7 numbers is quite small. Well, note that the program was looking for cycles, not for fixed points. In fact, the only 7-digit fixed point is 0000000. 8429652 is not a fixed point, but turns out it's part of a cycle everything other than multiples of 1111111 eventually falls into: 8429652 -> 7619733 -> 8439552 -> 7509843 -> 9529641 -> 8719722 -> 8649432 -> 7519743 -> 8429652 It may be easier to think about the 2-digit results, where again 00 is the only fixed point, but everything other than multiples of 11 eventually falls into a cycle containing 09: 09 -> 81 -> 63 -> 27 -> 45 -> 09 From tim.peters at gmail.com Mon Jul 7 06:38:08 2008 From: tim.peters at gmail.com (Tim Peters) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 00:38:08 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] Mystery Number 6174 In-Reply-To: <1f7befae0807061507w740bb9fbke759774ef9f2040e@mail.gmail.com> References: <1f7befae0807061432n5cf7c7afka6e9d78b453df989@mail.gmail.com> <73200C53-9ECD-4F2C-9275-D0245E4BE54E@cs.depaul.edu> <1f7befae0807061507w740bb9fbke759774ef9f2040e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1f7befae0807062138i2b94898fn443a1775f11707e5@mail.gmail.com> [Tim Peters] >>> ... >>> trying 7 digits >>> 0000000 reached by 10 inputs >>> 8429652 reached by 9999990 inputs [Massimo Di Pierro] >> This is interesting >> >> The probability of a single fixed point in in 10**7 numbers is quite small. [Tim] > [elaborates, but doesn't really explain anything ;-)] I think a key point here is to realize how few inputs there "really" are. For example, there are 5040 (== factorial(7)) 7-digit numbers that all sort to 1234567. So all of those lead to the same sequence of iterates, after the first position. In fact, across the 10 million 7-digit numbers, there are fewer than 12 thousand unique values remaining after sorting. A fancier version of the program I posted exploits that, generating (just) the unique values directly. This vastly slashes computation costs, allowing quick computation of what happens. The output makes what's happening a lot clearer (well, to me ;-)). I'll cut it off here after the output for 12-digit inputs; trying 1 digits 10 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 0 trying 2 digits 55 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 00 90 inputs (45 unique) end in cycle: 09 81 63 27 45 trying 3 digits 220 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 000 990 inputs (210 unique) end in cycle: 495 trying 4 digits 715 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 0000 9,990 inputs (705 unique) end in cycle: 6174 trying 5 digits 2,002 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 00000 3,190 inputs (108 unique) end in cycle: 53955 59994 48,320 inputs (1,004 unique) end in cycle: 74943 62964 71973 83952 48,480 inputs (880 unique) end in cycle: 63954 61974 82962 75933 trying 6 digits 5,005 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 000000 1,950 inputs (30 unique) end in cycle: 549945 62,520 inputs (352 unique) end in cycle: 631764 935,520 inputs (4,613 unique) end in cycle: 851742 750843 840852 860832 862632 642654 420876 trying 7 digits 11,440 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 0000000 9,999,990 inputs (11,430 unique) end in cycle: 8429652 7619733 8439552 7509843 9529641 8719722 8649432 7519743 trying 8 digits 24,310 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 00000000 599,536 inputs (300 unique) end in cycle: 63317664 2,371,040 inputs (321 unique) end in cycle: 97508421 48,247,316 inputs (12,051 unique) end in cycle: 86526432 64308654 83208762 48,782,098 inputs (11,628 unique) end in cycle: 86326632 64326654 43208766 85317642 75308643 84308652 86308632 trying 9 digits 48,620 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 000000000 34,440 inputs (30 unique) end in cycle: 554999445 51,389,136 inputs (2,388 unique) end in cycle: 864197532 948,576,414 inputs (46,192 unique) end in cycle: 865296432 763197633 844296552 762098733 964395531 863098632 965296431 873197622 865395432 753098643 954197541 883098612 976494321 874197522 trying 10 digits 92,378 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 0000000000 4,306,680 inputs (264 unique) end in cycle: 6333176664 41,045,760 inputs (169 unique) end in cycle: 9975084201 558,293,820 inputs (3,582 unique) end in cycle: 9775084221 9755084421 9751088421 644,450,820 inputs (5,718 unique) end in cycle: 9753086421 1,058,345,520 inputs (9,004 unique) end in cycle: 8765264322 6543086544 8321088762 1,291,432,626 inputs (13,110 unique) end in cycle: 8655264432 6431088654 8732087622 2,476,855,476 inputs (21,583 unique) end in cycle: 8633086632 8633266632 6433266654 4332087666 8533176642 7533086643 8433086652 3,925,269,288 inputs (38,938 unique) end in cycle: 8653266432 6433086654 8332087662 trying 11 digits 167,960 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 00000000000 7,444,117,296 inputs (9,432 unique) end in cycle: 86431976532 30,759,712,236 inputs (53,134 unique) end in cycle: 87331976622 86542965432 76320987633 96442965531 87320987622 96653954331 86330986632 96532966431 61,796,170,458 inputs (105,384 unique) end in cycle: 88431976512 87641975322 86541975432 86420987532 96641975331 trying 12 digits 293,930 essentially unique inputs 10 inputs (10 unique) end in cycle: 000000000000 697,950 inputs (30 unique) end in cycle: 555499994445 57,413,664 inputs (312 unique) end in cycle: 633331766664 556,839,360 inputs (169 unique) end in cycle: 999750842001 6,771,885,120 inputs (529 unique) end in cycle: 997530864201 10,397,350,260 inputs (1,632 unique) end in cycle: 997750842201 997550844201 997510884201 14,186,684,160 inputs (2,281 unique) end in cycle: 977750842221 975550844421 975110888421 23,752,825,668 inputs (12,423 unique) end in cycle: 865552644432 643110888654 877320876222 28,903,840,680 inputs (5,939 unique) end in cycle: 975330866421 35,851,244,880 inputs (8,636 unique) end in cycle: 975510884421 977510884221 977550844221 37,978,377,360 inputs (12,157 unique) end in cycle: 876552644322 654310886544 873210887622 76,745,507,520 inputs (22,871 unique) end in cycle: 877652643222 655430865444 832110888762 91,728,976,482 inputs (19,930 unique) end in cycle: 977530864221 975530864421 975310886421 124,802,255,728 inputs (36,177 unique) end in cycle: 876532664322 654330866544 833210887662 125,925,387,258 inputs (41,233 unique) end in cycle: 865532664432 643310886654 873320876622 171,533,411,258 inputs (52,153 unique) end in cycle: 863330866632 863332666632 643332666654 433320876666 853331766642 753330866643 843330866652 250,807,302,642 inputs (77,448 unique) end in cycle: 865332666432 643330866654 833320876662 From mdipierro at cs.depaul.edu Wed Jul 9 21:58:33 2008 From: mdipierro at cs.depaul.edu (Massimo Di Pierro) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 14:58:33 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] web2py 1.38 Message-ID: <931AF363-FAA0-4166-9681-6D2885C231AB@cs.depaul.edu> Hello everybody, I posted web2py version 1.38 (www.web2py.com). It is a web framework originally developed at DePaul University as a teaching tool. If you are familiar with Django or Rails than you know what this is about. web2py is very easy to use because you unzip it, click it, and it starts web server, database, and you do everything through the web interface. Python is in the package and has no dependencies. The original idea behind web2py was not that of teaching how to use a web framework but to make the role of the framework so easy and transparent that it can be used as a tool for teaching intro to python programming. Even students without programming experience understand the concept of URL, Input/Output, storage. In web2py a function is called when you visit a url. The output is the resulting web page. They edit the code as they edit a wiki page. Instead of building sample loops over prime numbers, you can as easily loop and build an RSS feed, etc. If you want to use it let me know and I will send you a draft version of the book. Massimo From andre.roberge at gmail.com Wed Jul 9 22:11:05 2008 From: andre.roberge at gmail.com (Andre Roberge) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 17:11:05 -0300 Subject: [Edu-sig] Fwd: [crunchy-discuss] Croquant: a set of MoinMoin plugins for an integration with Crunchy In-Reply-To: <4873EB54.10702@gmail.com> References: <4873EB54.10702@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7528bcdd0807091311t49a7a657q59befc2d6c9f41c1@mail.gmail.com> Hi everyone, Florian Bir?e (see below) has completed parts of his Google Summer of Code project. If you are interested in having a wiki to store python snippets (they could be doctest-based problems) as learning tools and have students use Crunchy to run and modify the code snippets, this is the tool for you. Cheers, Andr? P.S. Croquant is French for Crunchy. :-) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Florian Bir?e Date: Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 7:33 PM Subject: [crunchy-discuss] Croquant: a set of MoinMoin plugins for an integration with Crunchy To: moin-user at lists.sourceforge.net Cc: crunchy-discuss at googlegroups.com Hello, I proud to announce the 1.0 release of Croquant . Croquant is a set of MoinMoin plugins (currently one parser, three macros and one theme) to allow to use a MoinMoin wiki to write tutorials for Crunchy (). Crunchy is a software which transform a static html tutorial to learn the python language into a dynamic tutorial with the python interpreter embedded inside. With MoinMoin and Croquant, a tutorial can be written in an easy and collaborative way. This is a part of my Google Summer of Code 2008 for Crunchy. All feedback is welcome! Cheers, -- Thesa ~ Florian Bir?e e-mail : florian at biree.name Messagerie Instantan?e Jabber/XMPP/Google Talk : florian.biree at jabber.fr Site web : http://florian.biree.name/ Carnet web : http://filyb.info/ -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc URL: From dj9027 at gmail.com Thu Jul 10 04:21:24 2008 From: dj9027 at gmail.com (deepu john) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:21:24 +0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning In-Reply-To: <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> References: <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> Message-ID: <8bd328930807091921x298d70c4pc5f409314712efb1@mail.gmail.com> Hello, # Had this email sent earlier, which got trapped by the spam filter as I was not a member of edu-sig. I have a wish and / a suggestion which I hope will help newbies/noobies deal with the learning curve of python. I have a background in one of the biological sciences and had always wanted to learn programming to do useful things in my profession. I learnt more concepts about programming in the past few months using python than any other programming language I tried to learn in the past. (VB.NET often DIMmed my hope of useful programming and a cup of java often only made me PUBLICally VOID after listening to programming STATIC (er... noise). :). I am pretty amazed by what I can do with python just with what I have learnt so far. Listening to some podcasts like the python 411 gives us newbies good highlights about some features of this language. Some discussions like - about threads, pygame, simpy, are simply just exciting to listen to. Wished there was an audiobook by some python expert discussing and high lighting concepts in programming using python. Since python is basically "Executable pseudocode", why not someone create an audio book about the basics of this language? Or at-least a companion to an already existing book or yet to be published book, so that newbies like us can get the highlights of what is to be expected when we sit down at the computer and try out the code. It would have been extremely useful to have an audiobook about python which one can listen to while sitting in a tram, waiting at a doctors office, walking on the treadmill, driving a car.... The same topics that will take about an hour to read through in a book can be listened through in 10 or 15 minutes. Hope someone will do it soon, that then python would become the only programming language that can be learnt by listening! Thanks for listening :Deepu John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macquigg at ece.arizona.edu Thu Jul 10 19:48:28 2008 From: macquigg at ece.arizona.edu (David MacQuigg) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:48:28 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning In-Reply-To: <8bd328930807091921x298d70c4pc5f409314712efb1@mail.gmail.co m> References: <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20080710103122.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> At 06:21 AM 7/10/2008 +0400, deepu john wrote: >It would have been extremely useful to have an audiobook about python which one can listen to while sitting in a tram, waiting at a doctors office, walking on the treadmill, driving a car.... The same topics that will take about an hour to read through in a book can be listened through in 10 or 15 minutes. > >Hope someone will do it soon, that then python would become the only programming language that can be learnt by listening! Can you really learn Python this way? Try writing some code after listening to a verbal explanation only. Even if you have amazing powers to visualize what you hear, the verbal description, even for something as simple as a for-loop, would be tedious. There is a reason programming books are written the way they are - programming is a visual thing for most people, even a tactile thing, at least for me. If I don't actually write some code, I quickly forget what I have just read. That said, it would be nice to have more tutorials written for targeted audiences, like biological scientists. A well-written tutorial integrates the code and words in a way that your thoughts are not disrupted by having to find an example buried in a complex figure on another page. The best person to write a tutorial for biological scientists is a biological scientist who has just learned Python. Go for it!! I'll be glad to read and offer suggestions. -- Dave From kirby.urner at gmail.com Thu Jul 10 21:21:36 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:21:36 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20080710103122.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> References: <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20080710103122.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> Message-ID: I wanted to thank web2py author Massimo Di Pierro for cluing me re Vimeo, a higher bandwidth "tube service" that isn't putting my Python for Math Teachers intros behind a PayPal firewall (what happened on ShowMeDo, where I also archive. also higher rez than YouTube). http://www.vimeo.com/user595710/videos ( lower rez Google Video versions: http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/01/python-for-math-teachers.html ) Python 411 has been a good source of podcasts for my iPod, which I usually keep with me, at the gym, on the plane, in the car, so I can listen to interviews with luminaries mostly, not so much listening to read-aloud source code, or even pseudo code. We each have different mixes of sensory input we prefer, when learning, sometimes gets in the way, sometimes just what the doctor ordered, so as a teacher I try not to dictate too stringently, as if it were my way or the high way. On the other hand, when it comes to media *production* I need to stick with my talents and/or team up with simpaticos who help make up for my weaknesses, capable software also a boon (made these initial three with Camtasia Studio, open to FOSS on my Ubuntu Dell especially). Kirby 4Dstudios On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 10:48 AM, David MacQuigg wrote: > At 06:21 AM 7/10/2008 +0400, deepu john wrote: > >>It would have been extremely useful to have an audiobook about python which one can listen to while sitting in a tram, waiting at a doctors office, walking on the treadmill, driving a car.... The same topics that will take about an hour to read through in a book can be listened through in 10 or 15 minutes. >> >>Hope someone will do it soon, that then python would become the only programming language that can be learnt by listening! > > Can you really learn Python this way? Try writing some code after listening to a verbal explanation only. Even if you have amazing powers to visualize what you hear, the verbal description, even for something as simple as a for-loop, would be tedious. > > There is a reason programming books are written the way they are - programming is a visual thing for most people, even a tactile thing, at least for me. If I don't actually write some code, I quickly forget what I have just read. > > That said, it would be nice to have more tutorials written for targeted audiences, like biological scientists. A well-written tutorial integrates the code and words in a way that your thoughts are not disrupted by having to find an example buried in a complex figure on another page. The best person to write a tutorial for biological scientists is a biological scientist who has just learned Python. Go for it!! I'll be glad to read and offer suggestions. > > -- Dave > > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > From ccosse at gmail.com Thu Jul 10 21:45:00 2008 From: ccosse at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Charles_Coss=E9?=) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:45:00 -0600 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20080710103122.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> References: <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20080710103122.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 11:48 AM, David MacQuigg wrote: > Can you really learn Python this way? Try writing some code after listening to a verbal explanation only. Even if you have amazing powers to visualize what you hear, the verbal description, even for something as simple as a for-loop, would be tedious. > If you are stuck in a car for an hour each day and you want to listen to such an audio book, then it's a 0,1 proposition. You could at least learn about object-oriented thinking, and qualitative features of the language. It would be a good challenge to attempt to make programming understandable, to a degree, through an audiobook. > -- Dave > > Good Idea! Charles Cosse From varmaa at gmail.com Thu Jul 10 22:04:00 2008 From: varmaa at gmail.com (Atul Varma) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:04:00 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning In-Reply-To: References: <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20080710103122.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> Message-ID: <361b27370807101304h318856aeob3ca1fee05dd3eaf@mail.gmail.com> For what it's worth, Kernighan and Plauger's "The Elements of Programming Style" claim that "If someone could understand your code when read aloud over the telephone, it's clear enough. If not, then it needs rewriting." I first came across this quote when reading Graham Nelson's paper "Natural Language, Semantic Analysis, and Interactive Fiction", which describes a programming language called Inform 7 that would be particularly easy to teach using only audio: http://www.inform-fiction.org/I7Downloads/Documents/WhitePaper.pdf It's not Python, of course, and works written using Inform 7 aren't usually very algorithmic in nature. In fact, I think that it's more mathematics in general, rather than programming specifically, that is hard to convey with only audio, but this could be because I've only ever learned it visually. Allowing the listener to easily rewind the audio seems like a must-have, as it often takes people a variable amount of time to understand mathematical concepts, especially when they're continuously being built on top of one another. - Atul On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 12:45 PM, Charles Coss? wrote: > On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 11:48 AM, David MacQuigg > wrote: >> Can you really learn Python this way? Try writing some code after listening to a verbal explanation only. Even if you have amazing powers to visualize what you hear, the verbal description, even for something as simple as a for-loop, would be tedious. >> > > If you are stuck in a car for an hour each day and you want to listen > to such an audio book, then it's a 0,1 proposition. You could at > least learn about object-oriented thinking, and qualitative features > of the language. It would be a good challenge to attempt to make > programming understandable, to a degree, through an audiobook. > >> -- Dave >> >> > > Good Idea! > Charles Cosse > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > From jeff at taupro.com Fri Jul 11 10:37:14 2008 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:37:14 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning In-Reply-To: References: <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20080710103122.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> Message-ID: <48771BBA.7040401@taupro.com> > On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 11:48 AM, David MacQuigg > > If you are stuck in a car for an hour each day and you want to listen > to such an audio book, then it's a 0,1 proposition. You could at > least learn about object-oriented thinking, and qualitative features > of the language. It would be a good challenge to attempt to make > programming understandable, to a degree, through an audiobook. This is an interesting challenge so I may try to put something together. I've been wanting to do something anyway that focuses on the philosophy and meaning of programming, as opposed to the specific syntax, and I've got the programming background to do that. An elegant program sings to me. It also fits into the keynote of PyCon 2007 by Robert "r0ml" Lefkowitz re programming literacy, whether you can ever "speak" a program or is it only a written form of communication. I took that as a challenge. ;-) It may require the development of a certain vocabulary specific to programming, similar to how graphic symbols like flowchart blocks and other diagramming elements have arisen. -Jeff From macquigg at ece.arizona.edu Fri Jul 11 16:41:58 2008 From: macquigg at ece.arizona.edu (David MacQuigg) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:41:58 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning In-Reply-To: <48771BBA.7040401@taupro.com> References: <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20080710103122.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20080711071454.01711190@mail.ece.arizona.edu> At 03:37 AM 7/11/2008 -0500, Jeff Rush wrote: >>On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 11:48 AM, David MacQuigg >>If you are stuck in a car for an hour each day and you want to listen >>to such an audio book, then it's a 0,1 proposition. You could at >>least learn about object-oriented thinking, and qualitative features >>of the language. It would be a good challenge to attempt to make >>programming understandable, to a degree, through an audiobook. Please be careful about quoting. The above words are not mine. >This is an interesting challenge so I may try to put something together. I've been wanting to do something anyway that focuses on the philosophy and meaning of programming, as opposed to the specific syntax, and I've got the programming background to do that. An elegant program sings to me. There is certainly much to be done that would fit nicely into an audio format, and not require syntax details - philosophy, opinion, experiences, comparisons (different web frameworks, for example). Even an experienced programmer would enjoy hearing, for example, on how to chose a relational database from the many available in Python. I see three levels of interaction - casual listening (music, news, etc.), concentrated listening (maybe with frequent pauses and replays), and full interaction (viewing code, working exercises, etc.). I would focus on the first two levels, and avoid any need for visual interaction. Although it is possible to display snippets of code with the new iPods, that would limit the audience too much, and would be inappropriate while driving, which is the biggest chunk of "free time" for most of us. >It also fits into the keynote of PyCon 2007 by Robert "r0ml" Lefkowitz re programming literacy, whether you can ever "speak" a program or is it only a written form of communication. I took that as a challenge. ;-) It may require the development of a certain vocabulary specific to programming, similar to how graphic symbols like flowchart blocks and other diagramming elements have arisen. Your counting too much on the listener's ability to visualize, and retain a mental image despite interruptions and distractions. If you need code, make it a separate module, to be used later at a computer. The audio could provide the motivation for the later, more concentrated effort. -- Dave From carl1207 at umn.edu Fri Jul 11 16:31:00 2008 From: carl1207 at umn.edu (Matt Carlson) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:31:00 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning In-Reply-To: <48771BBA.7040401@taupro.com> Message-ID: Hi, I like the idea of a companion to an existing book. The audiobook might be more useful as a supplement to a programming text rather than a replacement for it. Instead of trying to explain programming generally or finding a way to usefully recite code, it might be interesting to hear discussion of a specific programming problem. The problem could be introduced visually while in front of a computer, and then taken along in memory while away. I'm new to both Python and programming, but I've already had the experience of thinking about how to solve a programming problem while walking to work or driving somewhere. I would be surprised if other, more experienced programmers don't do this as well. Also, since I started learning Python, I've wondered about how programming is talked about among people who are working on a project together. At least for those who work in the same physical location, a programming language probably also extends into spoken language. I'm guessing people don't speak code to each other, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are more and less understandable ways of talking about programming. These could be different between languages too. I would be very interested to know if people talk about Python differently than they talk about C or some other language. So, what would happen if an expert Python programmer sat down next to you on the train while you were thinking through a problem? Maybe the audiobook could let you in on this conversation. It could work many different ways. Maybe there is a recording of a newbie (similar in skill level to the listener) explaining the problem to an expert, and then a discussion between the two about how to work through the problem. Maybe it is a discussion between peers. Maybe it works like those foreign language learning tapes where a pause is added that gives the listener time to think or respond. Whichever way it's done, the value would be in building off of the memory of a specific problem, and then taking what is learned back to the computer and the normal visual environment. I've learned a lot mulling over problems by myself until I eventually find a solution, but it might not be bad to occasionally get some help. Beyond that, if I ever actually did find myself sitting next to an expert programmer, I might be a little more prepared to discuss our common interest. Matt From kirby.urner at gmail.com Sat Jul 12 01:59:12 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:59:12 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] IDLE fonts Message-ID: When I first start a Python class, e.g. for Saturday Academy, we go to the configure IDLE screen. I often do this while projecting, as I'm also blowing up the projected font to something more pedagogically large (suitable for reading from the back row). Understandably, once students see they're free to choose a different font, many of them do so. I tend to make noises about how some are more readable than others, am definitely a proponent of fixed width, although I'm willing to bow to personal preferences. When I move around from one computer to another, helping students with bugs, I'm often confronted with an assortment of different typefaces. I'm thinking next time to go in the other direction and encourage experimenting with some truly different looking fonts -- but not so different that the code becomes unreadable (not ding bats). I think we're all somewhat attuned to the psychological attributes of different fonts, e.g. Comic Sans has a different "atmosphere" than New York Times or Courier New. Before I show off what I consider to be a fun and useful IDLE font, suitable for future classes, I'd like to poll other subscribers as to whether they do anything unusual in the fonts department, either for the benefit of new students, or for themselves. I'll follow up on Monday. Kirby From roys.anna at gmail.com Sat Jul 12 23:36:21 2008 From: roys.anna at gmail.com (Anna Roys) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:36:21 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 60, Issue 4 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi all! I am new to your list. A piece of my background includes teaching in K12 Computer labs (multiple disciplines). I am a Python newbie, however, I am very interested in learning Python so I can teach it to middle and high school students. Please see my response embedded in message below: RE: Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:59:12 -0700 From: "kirby urner" Subject: [Edu-sig] IDLE fonts To: "edu-sig at python.org" Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 "When I first start a Python class, e.g. for Saturday Academy, we go to the configure IDLE screen. I often do this while projecting, as I'm also blowing up the projected font to something more pedagogically large (suitable for reading from the back row)." Anna writes: I think this is very important - as teachers, we lose the attention of some students simply because they cannot see our projections. I do the same as you - increase font size first and survey if all can see what is projected. I often grab bits of knowledge on the screen and ask questions that can only be answered if it is part of a students prior learning or they can read it for themselves. I also ask my students to stand up if they agree with my statements. I do this off and on throughout my sessions - this gets their blood pumping and often picks up those students who are starting to drift away from engagement. Kirby writes: "Understandably, once students see they're free to choose a different font, many of them do so. I tend to make noises about how some are more readable than others, am definitely a proponent of fixed width, although I'm willing to bow to personal preferences." Anna writes: I see this as helpful in one way and detrimental in another. For example some students let my voice trail into to "wah wah" and just play with fonts and lose the lesson objectives all together - not good. I have the same problem with having the internet a click and window shrink away. K-12 students are slick and can quickly "hide" what they are really doing as I circulate around the lab during practice time . (Not to say that whatever they are doing in the "background is not learning, but it is not the lesson objective I had for a particular session) My goal is always 100% student engagement. Sometimes if I have been "lecturing" for more than 15 minutes I give the students a two minute "break" where they can play with fonts, do a quick google search or whatever and then backtrack with them a bit on the lesson of the day and then go forward. This seems to help some. Font preference are an interesting topic - Why do some people prefer some fonts over others? Personally, I find font choice has to do with emotion and personalties as well as choosing the correct choice for a particular audience. For K-12 students it seems to often be - just exploring the world of fonts. Kirby writes: "When I move around from one computer to another, helping students with bugs, I'm often confronted with an assortment of different typefaces. I'm thinking next time to go in the other direction and encourage experimenting with some truly different looking fonts -- but not so different that the code becomes unreadable (not ding bats)." Anna writes: Depending on the level of the students, I often use font play as an anticipatory set, asking students what their preferences are - just to get everyone's full attention and to coerce a relaxed feeling in my lab. Kirby writes: "I think we're all somewhat attuned to the psychological attributes of different fonts, e.g. Comic Sans has a different "atmosphere" than New York Times or Courier New." Anna wrties: I agree that the psychological attributes of different fonts do impact us, but maybe different fonts impact each of us differently and maybe even change from day to day. My students seem to be fascinated by any font that they do not typically find in textbooks. Looking at fonts from the perspective of being an adult student, myself, rather than as a facilitator in a K-12 computer lab, my preference would be what ever can be clearly read and is not "fancy". For me "fancy" is more for my whimsical creative side than my logic orientated side. I have also found that colored fonts can be useful in teaching K12. I often use "color memories" to help tie new learning and build on prior learning. I have used this in teaching in various disciplines and have found it effective. I can ask a question to my students testing what they have absorbed of my lesson objective and although they may not be able to tell me a specific "bit of knowledge" they can give me a color association. I then take that color association and use it to step back to the content I was testing for understanding. I then carry on with other content for a few minutes and then come back and re-phrase the same question a little differently using a color association and Voila! - all students have the content I intended to deliver. In the Education circles I have often heard this type of instruction delivery referred to as "associative learning" Kirby writes: "Before I show off what I consider to be a fun and useful IDLE font, suitable for future classes, I'd like to poll other subscribers as to whether they do anything unusual in the fonts department, either for the benefit of new students, or for themselves. I'll follow up on Monday." Kirby -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macquigg at ece.arizona.edu Sun Jul 13 00:29:16 2008 From: macquigg at ece.arizona.edu (David MacQuigg) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:29:16 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] IDLE fonts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20080712073154.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> At 04:59 PM 7/11/2008 -0700, kirby urner wrote: >When I move around from one computer to another, helping students with >bugs, I'm often confronted with an assortment of different typefaces. > >I'm thinking next time to go in the other direction and encourage >experimenting with some truly different looking fonts -- but not so >different that the code becomes unreadable (not ding bats). > >I think we're all somewhat attuned to the psychological attributes of >different fonts, e.g. Comic Sans has a different "atmosphere" than New >York Times or Courier New. > >Before I show off what I consider to be a fun and useful IDLE font, >suitable for future classes, I'd like to poll other subscribers as to >whether they do anything unusual in the fonts department, either for >the benefit of new students, or for themselves. I have tried a few of the dozens of fonts in IDLE, but found none better than the default Fixedsys. This must be the one they optimized for IDLE. In other tools, like TextPad, I prefer Courier New, but it is surprisingly BAD in IDLE! I guess there really is no standard line weight, or whatever, for "Courier New". It all depends on how it is tweaked for a particular program. As for offering students dozens of fonts, I say too many fonts are at best a distraction, at worst a source of ambiguity as to what symbol is actually intended. Find a font that will clearly distinguish the characters O0l1Z2S5, and stick with it. We are teaching programming, not website design. Fixed width is the most readable, and essential for tables and indented code, but a compact (proportional-spaced) font like Arial, can add 50% more text on a page. The gain for code is much less, because most lines are shorter than the page width. From mpaul213 at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 02:07:43 2008 From: mpaul213 at gmail.com (michel paul) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:07:43 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] IDLE fonts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <40ea4eb00807121707j7e9e6fedsfccfece36337871b@mail.gmail.com> I also show students how to change fonts and colors - and like you say, they LOVE doing it. But other than to tell them to be careful in changing syntax coloring, as you don't want to lose useful distinctions of keywords and so on, I don't really do anything special with it. I'll be interested in your follow up on this. I thought your iChing unicode demo from awhile back was amazing. Now here's something weird I've noticed along the lines of changing fonts - there's no way to do that using 2.5.2 in OSX? I've been using 2.5.2 on both my home computer (OSX) and my school-issued computer (Windows). I just happened to notice one day in OSX that I couldn't find any options or preferences listed anywhere in the menus, and I was quite used to having it. I found that weird. And just now I'm double-checking it, and, nope! Nowhere. Nada. But here's a weird twist on that - I recently downloaded VPython for OSX. They finally created an OSX installer, and I'm grateful. I was having trouble trying to get VPython going on my Mac using Fink. For some reason I just couldn't get it to happen. So now, when I open VPython, the version of Idle also says 2.5.2, but, just like you'd expect, there is an Options section in the menu bar. So, I change my font there, and then when I open the standard Idle, yep, the font has changed accordingly! Bizarre. On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 4:59 PM, kirby urner wrote: > When I first start a Python class, e.g. for Saturday Academy, we go to > the configure IDLE screen. I often do this while projecting, as I'm > also blowing up the projected font to something more pedagogically > large (suitable for reading from the back row). > > Understandably, once students see they're free to choose a different > font, many of them do so. I tend to make noises about how some are > more readable than others, am definitely a proponent of fixed width, > although I'm willing to bow to personal preferences. > > When I move around from one computer to another, helping students with > bugs, I'm often confronted with an assortment of different typefaces. > > I'm thinking next time to go in the other direction and encourage > experimenting with some truly different looking fonts -- but not so > different that the code becomes unreadable (not ding bats). > > I think we're all somewhat attuned to the psychological attributes of > different fonts, e.g. Comic Sans has a different "atmosphere" than New > York Times or Courier New. > > Before I show off what I consider to be a fun and useful IDLE font, > suitable for future classes, I'd like to poll other subscribers as to > whether they do anything unusual in the fonts department, either for > the benefit of new students, or for themselves. > > I'll follow up on Monday. > > Kirby > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kirby.urner at gmail.com Sun Jul 13 09:14:14 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:14:14 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] IDLE fonts In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20080712073154.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20080712073154.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 3:29 PM, David MacQuigg wrote: > I have tried a few of the dozens of fonts in IDLE, but found none better than the default Fixedsys. This must be the one they optimized for IDLE. In other tools, like TextPad, I prefer Courier New, but it is surprisingly BAD in IDLE! I guess there really is no standard line weight, or whatever, for "Courier New". It all depends on how it is tweaked for a particular program. > Then there's the whole discussion of fonts, what's TrueType (ttf), can you use those in Linux, how to install, what's different on Mac and so forth. Programmers concerned with fonts in end user documents, such as when synthesizing PDFs on the fly with ReportLab, need to know which fonts do or don't support which Unicode codepoints. Python is legitimately invested here, so depending on the type of programming course, we might justify the time. > As for offering students dozens of fonts, I say too many fonts are at best a distraction, at worst a source of ambiguity as to what symbol is actually intended. Find a font that will clearly distinguish the characters O0l1Z2S5, and stick with it. We are teaching programming, not website design. Fixed width is the most readable, and essential for tables and indented code, but a compact (proportional-spaced) font like Arial, can add 50% more text on a page. The gain for code is much less, because most lines are shorter than the page width. > I'm finding it easier to bring a new TrueType font into IDLE on Windows than on Ubuntu, despite having added a softlink from a subdirectory returned by xset -q into /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-misc, where I've got my font. Wing-101 and OpenOffice are having no trouble finding it. I'll keep noodling. Getting more font savvy is an important step when coding mostly outside of Latin-1, a favorite way to get into Python in some schools and/or math labs. Kirby From jjposner at snet.net Mon Jul 14 03:56:11 2008 From: jjposner at snet.net (John Posner) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:56:11 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] IDLE fonts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005701c8e554$ca770370$ed59a8c0@jposner> > ... Find a font that will clearly distinguish the characters O0l1Z2S5, > and stick with it. Amen to that, David. I'm a tech-writer in my day job, and just to make sure, I sometimes document a command option like this: -l ("dash-ell") or -1 ("dash-one") This reminds me of the escape sequences for one of the font cartridges used by the original H-P LaserJet printer (mid 1908s). The sequences were absolutely "pessimal": full of zeroes, capital "O"s, lowercase "l"s, and the digit "1"s. It's like they were trying hard to discourage you from using their product! -John From kirby.urner at gmail.com Mon Jul 14 18:44:16 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:44:16 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] IDLE fonts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 4:59 PM, kirby urner wrote: << SNIP >> > Before I show off what I consider to be a fun and useful IDLE font, > suitable for future classes, I'd like to poll other subscribers as to > whether they do anything unusual in the fonts department, either for > the benefit of new students, or for themselves. > > I'll follow up on Monday. > > Kirby > OK, so here it is Monday, and my font of choice for future classes, for projecting especially, is Akbar font, patterned after the handwriting of Matt Goening. However, I should make sense of this by reminding folks of my audience: future cartoonists in ToonTown (PDX), learning about animation pipelines, real time and render time, and MVC thinking. We mostly focus on the relevant mathematics such as how does when beget rotation among a nest of vectors, but instead of silly hamster-brained calculators (such as those from Texas Instruments) we use real computers running Python (such as those from Hewlett-Packard). Given Groening is the creator of The Simpsons, that our original Homer was from Silverton, that we're a Town into toon making (ala O'Reilly's Make: magazine), it makes sense to dabble in such a locally idiomatic font. As a gnu math teacher, I work in a "virtual gulag" of geek schools, spread around internationally, sharing lesson planning ideas with my peers in South Africa (or wherever). So feel free to ignore, as you may not have any interest in our peculiar curriculum network (not for everyone!). See you at OSCON some of you, if my sponsorship comes through, business deal through Chicago, high level, we shall see... Kirby Related reading: http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/07/idle-language-games.html (about this font I'm enjoying) http://4dsolutions.net/ocn/pymath.html (the toontown math I'm into) http://worldgame.blogspot.com/search?q=Homer (some blog mentions of Homer) http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2008/06/chronofile.html (Oregonian boast toonification of PDX) From kirby.urner at gmail.com Mon Jul 14 19:25:38 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:25:38 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] IDLE fonts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > OK, so here it is Monday, and my font of choice for future classes, > for projecting especially, is Akbar font, patterned after the > handwriting of Matt Goening. Um, Groening. Plus I wanted to extol one of the virtues, which is Akbar isn't messing up my Chinese characters either, here's a link to a screen fragment (we tend to do stuff with I Ching around animation, in Tk or whatever, good intro to permutations and binary, what got Leibniz going in some ways (a student thereof)). Link: http://www.4dsolutions.net/presentations/iching_in_akbar.png I'd welcome more input on what fonts are good outside of Latin-1, especially within IDLE though we also plan on continuing to use Wing-101 on edubuntu in some classrooms. Re using Akbar font (non-exclusively of course), I think a lot of the same theories are behind the O'Reilly Head First series, but with allusions in Knuth, where he draws those perfect squares, then makes them a little irregular and tilted, somehow looks better, more savvy, more sophisticated... (volume 3 right?). As we say around here (zip code 97214) "Keep Portland Weird" (Austin TX has a similar zip code). In brief you want fonts and features with a "human touch" (looks more like handwriting) as a purely "machine look" (everything "done in the factory") removes that hand-crafted aspect of intelligence, seems more like some "AI hell" wherein computers rule (i.e. the humans got too stupid to hold up their side in the equations, like those Eloi in Wall*E). Psychologically, it helps to have "that human touch" -- even if it's all still just bits and bytes at the end of the day. Kirby PS: note the friendly fonts used with these eToys units, Ubuntu in general good at font friendliness (part of the look and feel). http://www.kusasa.org/content/etoys/etoys.html More reading: http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/11/unicode.html (unicode hype) http://www.slate.com/id/2192535/pagenum/all/ (good on allure of fonts) http://obfuscators.org/2008/04/obfuscation-weird-languages-and-code.html (more on aesthetics) From kirby.urner at gmail.com Tue Jul 15 17:35:16 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:35:16 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning In-Reply-To: References: <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20080710103122.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> Message-ID: A follow-up to the posting below: Ian Ozsvald of ShowMeDo has been good about hunting me down to correct this misinformation. Apparently, that one day I couldn't access all my videos was a glitch, some "Club logic" getting in the way that only pertains to other videos. All my videos are available for free to anyone, and at higher screen resolution than on YouTube or Google Video here: http://showmedo.com/videos/series?name=JkD78HdCD The higher rez is important for showing source code, other screen stuff, which tends to be too fuzzy on YouTube. I encourage others here to consider ShowMeDo as a way to distribute educational Python videos. Jeff Rush already does this effectively. Kirby On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 12:21 PM, kirby urner wrote: > I wanted to thank web2py author Massimo Di Pierro for cluing me re > Vimeo, a higher bandwidth "tube service" that isn't putting my Python > for Math Teachers intros behind a PayPal firewall (what happened on > ShowMeDo, where I also archive. also higher rez than YouTube). > > http://www.vimeo.com/user595710/videos > > ( > lower rez Google Video versions: > http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/01/python-for-math-teachers.html > ) From ian at showmedo.com Tue Jul 15 20:18:58 2008 From: ian at showmedo.com (Ian Ozsvald) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:18:58 +0100 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning In-Reply-To: References: <2F2C981A-CDC4-469C-8633-849A568EA561@gmail.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20080710103122.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> Message-ID: <487CEA12.3080904@showmedo.com> Hi Kirby, thanks for the clarification. As discussed in email, I still have no idea what happened on that day - I didn't find any bugs in our code and we'd never hide submitted videos behind a PayPal wall, that'd be unthinkable. Whatever happened, it appeared to be transitory and couldn't be reproduced, as we discussed in May. Just for the record - we consider it a privilege to host freely submitted screencasts. We make them freely available (always have done, always will do), we don't add adverts to the pages nor do we profit/resell them - they're entirely free so that others can get them easily. As Kirby says we host at a much higher resolution and screensize than YouTube. You're also free to embed any of the free videos into your own sites. Everything that comes in is checked so that no rubbish gets published (we're anti-YouTube in that respect), we're very proud of the collection that has grown over the last few years. There are over 300 Python videos (http://showmedo.com/videos/python), we're getting to the point where there is something of interest for most people. We welcome submissions, just get in contact if you'd like a hand with tools or techniques. We would love to see more screencasts on using Python for education, experimentation is welcome. One of our authors (Horst Jens) has his school-kids make videos (you see them on the webcam) with Python as a part of their lessons: http://showmedo.com/videos/?author=71 Cheers, Ian (co-founder of ShowMeDo) kirby urner wrote: > A follow-up to the posting below: > > Ian Ozsvald of ShowMeDo has been good about hunting me down to correct > this misinformation. > > Apparently, that one day I couldn't access all my videos was a glitch, > some "Club logic" getting in the way that only pertains to other > videos. > > All my videos are available for free to anyone, and at higher screen > resolution than on YouTube or Google Video here: > > http://showmedo.com/videos/series?name=JkD78HdCD > > The higher rez is important for showing source code, other screen > stuff, which tends to be too fuzzy on YouTube. > > I encourage others here to consider ShowMeDo as a way to distribute > educational Python videos. > > Jeff Rush already does this effectively. > > Kirby > > > On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 12:21 PM, kirby urner wrote: >> I wanted to thank web2py author Massimo Di Pierro for cluing me re >> Vimeo, a higher bandwidth "tube service" that isn't putting my Python >> for Math Teachers intros behind a PayPal firewall (what happened on >> ShowMeDo, where I also archive. also higher rez than YouTube). >> >> http://www.vimeo.com/user595710/videos >> >> ( >> lower rez Google Video versions: >> http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/01/python-for-math-teachers.html >> ) From andre.roberge at gmail.com Tue Jul 15 20:51:57 2008 From: andre.roberge at gmail.com (Andre Roberge) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:51:57 -0300 Subject: [Edu-sig] Looking for beta tester Message-ID: <7528bcdd0807151151l386ec333k5f21be88747ae0f3@mail.gmail.com> Hello everyone, Crunchy [1] is *soon* going to be able to run as a server handling multiple users [2]. Actually, it could always do that ... but not in a way that allowed users to have different configuration settings ... and, under some conditions, for older releases of Crunchy, variables defined by one user could get "leaked" to another user ... but I digress. Anyway, since Crunchy is soon going to be able to run a server handling multiple users (read: students logging from a pc to a classroom server), it would be really nice to have some people interested in trying it out and giving us feedback. If you think you could do this (even it has to wait until September until you are ready...), I would really be interested in hearing from you. Cheers, Andr? [1] Version 0.9.9.1 of Crunchy can be found at http://code.google.com/p/crunchy/ Much interesting work has been done and is currently done as part of Google Summer of Code 2008 and a new release should be coming out soon. [2] There is one little, tiny, minuscule, limitation in running Crunchy as a server. Normally, a teacher would want the students to run their code samples within Crunchy. However, a student could launch a *separate* Python application from Crunchy, for example a game written using pyglet. The "problem" is that the application gets launched on the computer running Crunchy ... which would be the server. If you are a teacher directly connected to the server, and have students launch applications that they write, this would mean that the students' apps would compete with your own game^H^H^H^H^H serious application for screen space. From dj9027 at gmail.com Wed Jul 16 09:37:14 2008 From: dj9027 at gmail.com (deepu john) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:37:14 +0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] Suggestion for Python learning Message-ID: <8bd328930807160037q7c4b5360s418e1f6b12f9c685@mail.gmail.com> Hi, A suggestion for python books with a touch of philosophy. Wished authors could use analogies from spreadsheet applications (that crunch data just like computers crunch data using programming languages ) or opensource programs when explaining stuff like datastructures, variables, functions, methods, Object orientation, GUI... It could acheive two things, give an intro into how spreadsheets work for those who do not know spreadsheets (probably good for kids to learn about spreadsheets) and will help a python enthusiast/newbie visualize programming concepts like functions, methods, datastructures, decorators, generators... It doesn't make someone, especially kids or people with no programming background much sense to learn from any programming language that a function foo can return "bar" or foo.foobar() returns void. When I stumbled into python, I was also learning 3D. One of the functions in the program I was using was object instancing. ie make a sphere, create instances of it, modify the source sphere and the changes are reflected on the instances. I think newbies will find it easier to grasp keywords like "instantiation" easier to understand if shown something like this in a software application. I used such analogies to teach my nephew who in school has to learn an object oriented programming language. If OpenOffice and Blender (May be not blender cos not everyone wants to learn 3D animation) are opensource programs we can use the concepts they use to build such applications and explain them in a pythonic way rather than newcomers learning the raw language using the analogies of "foobar" and then trying to make sense of "foobar" in resolve programming problems in daily life. Good to see in python we have lots of beginner tutorials @ http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/NonProgrammers . But was wondering if some one who is new to programming have to go through each tutorial explanation of a concept through different tutorials at different locations? Wished a wiki-/pedia could aggregate explanations of each concept in python in one location and python enthusiasts from different verses of life could contribute their own explanations for the topic. So a topic on functions could have it explained the python way, the foobar way, a bioinformatics way or a weatherman's way.... all in one location. The spirit of Opensource is to share the knowledge for a common goal? Sincerely admire the openSource community of a colony of Bacteria and for that matter any openSource community. An experience by one is shared by the rest of the colony so that future generations are smarter than their parents. The experience is shared in a format easily understandable for the rest of the colony. Given that fact, us in Medicine can never cure Cancer or Infections because them cells are smarter than us. They share their knowledge to kill us, We don't share our knowledge to kill them. We share knowledge in only hierarchies designed by aggregating, segregating and congregating individuals. And our knowledge formats take half of our life time to learn the language. Not sure what gets lost when we become independent multicellular individuals that such individuals hesitate to share their knowledge with other individuals of a colony (society, nation or species) ! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kirby.urner at gmail.com Wed Jul 16 21:19:22 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:19:22 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] IDLE fonts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 9:44 AM, kirby urner wrote: << SNIP >> > We mostly focus on the relevant mathematics such as how does when > beget rotation among a nest of vectors, but instead of silly > hamster-brained calculators (such as those from Texas Instruments) we > use real computers running Python (such as those from > Hewlett-Packard). > Apropos of this, I've linked to my Chicago talk on the Pycon channel from edu-sig before, but this ShowMeDo version isn't entirely redundant, in that it's a sharper encoding, higher bandwidth than on YouTube: http://tinyurl.com/5kveyb It's the sixth in my Python for Math Teachers series, contains proposals for juggling more technology skills without losing sight of the relevant abstractions. A related recent posting (got some good feedback off list, more public discussion would be welcome): http://mail.geneseo.edu/pipermail/math-thinking-l/2008-July/001278.html Kirby From dj9027 at gmail.com Thu Jul 17 07:21:01 2008 From: dj9027 at gmail.com (deepu john) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:21:01 +0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] Follow up to a previous post : "Suggestion for python learning" Message-ID: <8bd328930807162221q2839cd84v54a90ff6bcd7a5d6@mail.gmail.com> >>> from dj9027 >> to Python 411 >> date Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 11:19 AM >>> subject Thanks for the podcasts on python >>> mailed-by gmail.com >>> ..... >>> Its my favourite mp3's to listen to when "using the treadmill". Can't think of anything else that would make the time spent on the treadmill more productive. >>> Listening to the podcasts and focussing on the subject really takes my mind off the monotonous "workflow" on the treadmill. >>> Wished I could get an entire python book for noobies in an audiobook format !! >>> ...... >>> Thanks again for your informative podcasts. >>> Regards >>> John Deepu >>> >>>from dj9027 >>to guido at python.org >>>date Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 5:23 PM >>>subject executable pseudocode >>>mailed-by gmail.com >>> >>>Hello, >>>..... >>>And I sincerely do not know where else to suggest this idea. >>>Unfortunately, I don't have many techie friends who are well versed in python to ask this question. >>>Had it suggested to some podcasters earlier this week. >>>Not sure how well the idea was taken.. Rather than waiting for the idea to percolate through people, thought I would send it to the top level to get a quick result. >>> >>>Since python is "Executable Pseudocode", why not have an audio book that discusses or teaches python to newbies. >>> >>> >>>Best regards, >>>:Dj >>> >>from Guido van Rossum >>>to dj9027 >>>date Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 7:02 PM >>>subject Re: executable pseudocode >>>mailed-by gmail.com >>> >>>Hi DJ, >>> >>>Thanks for writing. I suggest you post the suggestion to >>>edu-sig at python.org. They'll also be interested in helping you with >>>other questions. >>> >>> >>> Guido Beware of the quotes, those words WERE MINE. Dave, The edu-sig digests I got did not have your questions on them. >>>David MacQuigg wrote: >>>Can you really learn Python this way? Try writing some code after listening to a verbal explanation only. I was talking about non-computer, non-techie, non-whiz guys and girls here. We dont spend the whole day at work infront of a computer like my techie friends do. Wished I could also, so I can visualize, think and try programming all at the same time. That said IT IS difficult to visualize programming concepts when sitting infront of a computer the few hours we get from our regular day at work. To your question, I really find it easier to think about programming and its applications when I listen to podcasts like python 411. Seeing if my thoughts work will be when I get time to sit infront of the computer do the "Code". I feel that audio discussions take away the deciphering part of the "Coding" process. :Deepu From tjd at sfu.ca Thu Jul 17 22:52:36 2008 From: tjd at sfu.ca (Toby Donaldson) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:52:36 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] alpha release of carcode (v3) Message-ID: Carcode, a project aimed at helping beginners learn to program by controlling an animated robot car, has just been released in alpha: http://code.google.com/p/carcode/wiki/README Here are some screenshots: http://code.google.com/p/carcode/wiki/Screenshots This release is entirely the work of Carlos Daniel Ruvalcaba Valenzuela, who has been doing a great job on carcode as part of this year's Google Summer of Code. Toby -- Dr. Toby Donaldson School of Computing Science Simon Fraser University (Surrey) From winstonw at stratolab.com Fri Jul 18 00:14:19 2008 From: winstonw at stratolab.com (Winston Wolff) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:14:19 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] alpha release of carcode (v3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Toby- What are you trying to teach with CarCode? I'm wondering how it programming compares to Scratch ( http://scratch.mit.edu )? Is it intended to compliment learning programming with Scratch? -Winston On Jul 17, 2008, at 4:52 PM, Toby Donaldson wrote: > Carcode, a project aimed at helping beginners learn to program by > controlling an animated robot car, has just been released in alpha: > > http://code.google.com/p/carcode/wiki/README > > Here are some screenshots: > > http://code.google.com/p/carcode/wiki/Screenshots > > This release is entirely the work of Carlos Daniel Ruvalcaba > Valenzuela, who has been doing a great job on carcode as part of this > year's Google Summer of Code. > > Toby > -- > Dr. Toby Donaldson > School of Computing Science > Simon Fraser University (Surrey) > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig Winston Wolff Stratolab - Kids exploring computers, comics, and robots (646) 827-2242 - http://stratolab.com From winstonw at stratolab.com Fri Jul 18 00:43:48 2008 From: winstonw at stratolab.com (Winston Wolff) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:43:48 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] alpha release of carcode (v3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ah, so it is an exercise in programming Python, that is very interesting. Much better than teaching how to add numbers with Python. I'll check it out. -Winston On Jul 17, 2008, at 6:28 PM, Toby Donaldson wrote: > It's intended just as a "microworld" for programming exercises for > beginning Python programmers (not necessarily kids). There are no > plans to make it anything more than a Python package. > > Toby > > On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 3:14 PM, Winston Wolff > wrote: >> Hi Toby- >> >> What are you trying to teach with CarCode? I'm wondering how it >> programming >> compares to Scratch ( http://scratch.mit.edu )? Is it intended to >> compliment learning programming with Scratch? >> >> -Winston >> >> >> On Jul 17, 2008, at 4:52 PM, Toby Donaldson wrote: >> >>> Carcode, a project aimed at helping beginners learn to program by >>> controlling an animated robot car, has just been released in alpha: >>> >>> http://code.google.com/p/carcode/wiki/README >>> >>> Here are some screenshots: >>> >>> http://code.google.com/p/carcode/wiki/Screenshots >>> >>> This release is entirely the work of Carlos Daniel Ruvalcaba >>> Valenzuela, who has been doing a great job on carcode as part of >>> this >>> year's Google Summer of Code. >>> >>> Toby >>> -- >>> Dr. Toby Donaldson >>> School of Computing Science >>> Simon Fraser University (Surrey) >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Edu-sig mailing list >>> Edu-sig at python.org >>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >> >> Winston Wolff >> Stratolab - Kids exploring computers, comics, and robots >> (646) 827-2242 - http://stratolab.com >> >> > > > > -- > Dr. Toby Donaldson > School of Computing Science > Simon Fraser University (Surrey) Winston Wolff Stratolab - Kids exploring computers, comics, and robots (646) 827-2242 - http://stratolab.com From echerlin at gmail.com Fri Jul 18 01:20:31 2008 From: echerlin at gmail.com (Edward Cherlin) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:20:31 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] alpha release of carcode (v3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Toby Donaldson wrote: > Carcode, a project aimed at helping beginners learn to program by > controlling an animated robot car, has just been released in alpha: How does this differ from the animated robot car in Etoys, which can be programmed using snap-together tiles? > http://code.google.com/p/carcode/wiki/README > > Here are some screenshots: > > http://code.google.com/p/carcode/wiki/Screenshots > > This release is entirely the work of Carlos Daniel Ruvalcaba > Valenzuela, who has been doing a great job on carcode as part of this > year's Google Summer of Code. > > Toby > -- > Dr. Toby Donaldson > School of Computing Science > Simon Fraser University (Surrey) > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > -- Edward Cherlin End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay From tjd at sfu.ca Fri Jul 18 01:32:17 2008 From: tjd at sfu.ca (Toby Donaldson) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:32:17 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] alpha release of carcode (v3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Edward Cherlin wrote: > On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Toby Donaldson wrote: >> Carcode, a project aimed at helping beginners learn to program by >> controlling an animated robot car, has just been released in alpha: > > How does this differ from the animated robot car in Etoys, which can > be programmed using snap-together tiles? It uses Python instead of Smalltalk as the programming language. Plus it does not let you design the car. Toby -- Dr. Toby Donaldson School of Computing Science Simon Fraser University (Surrey) From krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu Fri Jul 18 15:00:57 2008 From: krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu (=?UTF-8?Q?Ivan_Krsti=C4=87?=) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:00:57 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] alpha release of carcode (v3) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6BD15E42-2A77-44FB-A825-DE636110844B@solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> On Jul 17, 2008, at 7:32 PM, Toby Donaldson wrote: >> How does this differ from the animated robot car in Etoys, which can >> be programmed using snap-together tiles? > > It uses Python instead of Smalltalk as the programming language. Plus > it does not let you design the car. This question and the response are begging to be turned into a koan :) -- Ivan Krsti? | http://radian.org From macquigg at ece.arizona.edu Fri Jul 18 23:01:55 2008 From: macquigg at ece.arizona.edu (David MacQuigg) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:01:55 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] web2py 1.38 In-Reply-To: <931AF363-FAA0-4166-9681-6D2885C231AB@cs.depaul.edu> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20080717094534.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> Hello Massimo, I'm really impressed with web2py. Even with the huge productivity advantage of Python, this is still a big project. My first impression, after a few hours, is that this could be our "Rails on Python" - a simple web framework for those of us who know Python, but don't want to learn Ruby for just for one nifty program. I'm going through the cookbook.pdf tutorial now, and running into some snags. I see some of these were corrected in your latest 1.39 release, and some were due to my typing errors in transcribing the example code to my machine. I'll send you more details in a few days, but for those on this list who might be making the same mistakes - be very careful about those hard-to-see symbols like _ and ) vs }. These are very difficult to see in the cookbook.pdf document. You might want to download the example files, and do cut-and-paste instead of typing. Make sure you get version 1.39. The download didn't work in 1.38. Off topic: Why did they called it Ruby on Rails? Seems like the greatness of Rails has very little to do with Ruby and everything to do with good program design - properly encapsulating all the details not really necessary for a typical web app developer. The name "web2py" doesn't really grab my attention. How about Rails on Python, or something else a little more memorable than web2py? -- Dave At 02:58 PM 7/9/2008 -0500, Massimo Di Pierro wrote: >Hello everybody, > >I posted web2py version 1.38 (www.web2py.com). It is a web framework >originally developed at DePaul University as a teaching tool. If you >are familiar with Django or Rails than you know what this is about. > >web2py is very easy to use because you unzip it, click it, and it >starts web server, database, and you do everything through the web >interface. Python is in the package and has no dependencies. > >The original idea behind web2py was not that of teaching how to use a >web framework but to make the role of the framework so easy and >transparent that it can be used as a tool for teaching intro to >python programming. Even students without programming experience >understand the concept of URL, Input/Output, storage. In web2py a >function is called when you visit a url. The output is the resulting >web page. They edit the code as they edit a wiki page. Instead of >building sample loops over prime numbers, you can as easily loop and >build an RSS feed, etc. > >If you want to use it let me know and I will send you a draft version >of the book. > >Massimo >_______________________________________________ >Edu-sig mailing list >Edu-sig at python.org >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig From tonyt at logyst.com Sat Jul 19 19:24:19 2008 From: tonyt at logyst.com (Tony Theodore) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:24:19 +1000 Subject: [Edu-sig] web2py 1.38 In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20080717094534.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> References: <931AF363-FAA0-4166-9681-6D2885C231AB@cs.depaul.edu> <5.2.1.1.0.20080717094534.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> Message-ID: <22166b750807191024k4e01c011i839a8c26b5e6383c@mail.gmail.com> > Off topic: Why did they called it Ruby on Rails? Seems like the greatness > of Rails has very little to do with Ruby and everything to do with good > program design - properly encapsulating all the details not really necessary > for a typical web app developer. I think it's the "on Rails" that really defines the framework. There's always a proscribed way of doing things; you don't have to navigate and/or understand the plethora of alternatives, just stay on track. As you observe, it lowers the barrier for typical web apps (at least those that benefit from the complexity of a framework). The name "web2py" doesn't really grab my attention. How about Rails on > Python, or something else a little more memorable than web2py? > In my mind, web2py sums it up pretty well - Web 2.0 in Python. MVC, ajax, trivial deployment (even back to cgi on GAE), all "web2ish" attributes. It might interest you that it was initially called Gluon. Just my thoughts, Regards, Tony -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From varmaa at gmail.com Sat Jul 19 19:49:50 2008 From: varmaa at gmail.com (Atul Varma) Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:49:50 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] web2py 1.38 In-Reply-To: <22166b750807191024k4e01c011i839a8c26b5e6383c@mail.gmail.com> References: <931AF363-FAA0-4166-9681-6D2885C231AB@cs.depaul.edu> <5.2.1.1.0.20080717094534.01703a60@mail.ece.arizona.edu> <22166b750807191024k4e01c011i839a8c26b5e6383c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <361b27370807191049h7b2b8fbetb515d5737b1616e4@mail.gmail.com> 2008/7/19 Tony Theodore : > In my mind, web2py sums it up pretty well - Web 2.0 in Python. MVC, ajax, > trivial deployment (even back to cgi on GAE), all "web2ish" attributes. It > might interest you that it was initially called Gluon. > That's really interesting, because over the past year or so of reading about web2py, I had always assumed that it meant "web-to-python", in the style of command-line tools like "rst2html" (which converts restructured text to html); this was also confusing, because it seemed like "py2web" would be more appropriate. Looking at the website now, I see no mention of the phrase "web 2.0", so perhaps the marketing materials may want to make the connection more evident. - Atul -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kirby.urner at gmail.com Wed Jul 23 18:06:05 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:06:05 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] posting from OSCON 2008 Message-ID: Assembled geeks are settling in for morning keynotes, but rather than repeat whats in the blogs, including mine, I'll use this space to register some satisfaction with the social networking side. I've been comparing notes with Duncan McGreggor of divmod for example, a Twisted guy (Electric Duncan blog), discovered some pleasing overlap when it comes to native cultures (Lakota in his case, showed him the medicine wheel in my Chicago talk video feed, like at showmedo). Steve Holden kindly joined me at the Linus Pauling House (LP = x2 Nobel winner, chemistry & peace, a no nukes guy, vitamin C nut) where I gave a lightning talk, after a brief tour, and before beers.** I flipped through the same butcher papers I'd used at my last conference at Oregon State, mentions the P4E and HP4E projects (where I tend to go with Python, tons on file already (open source flight plan)). As I was mentioning to Anna of Alaska recently (TECC file), we're moving towards autonomy in casinos network circles, in terms of having local talent write some new games (still lots of import / export, self-sufficiency doesn't mean isolation, means changing comparative advantage equations, as economists put it). Or, to make a long story short, a Pygame slot machine, studied in math class, might go a long way towards achieving these goals (more in my controlroom yesterday). http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2008/07/python-project.html Fun story: when I got home after the keynotes last night (Holden, Shuttleworth, R0ml, Conway -- Holden did State of the Snake in a superfast manner, way cool), my mom, 78, said she hoped Drupal got mentioned, because as a web wrangler with wilpf.org, she really appreciates Drupal. Well, just so happens one of the coveted Google O'Reilly awards went to a Drupal MVP, Angela Byron. Kirby ** LPH is where this group called Wanderers converges, lots of 'em geeks, such as that Keith Lofstrom character, also around here somewhere. From kirby.urner at gmail.com Wed Jul 23 20:33:21 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:33:21 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Changing Education (OSCON panel) Message-ID: I'm going to publish my notes for Changing Education... Open Content, Open Hardware, Open Source curricula, from Portland Ballroom 252. Schmidt, Cooper, Shuttleworth, Keats, Kurshan, Wiley and Behlendorf are our panelists (not saying we know them all... yet). Each speaker is introducing themselves with three tag words, like licensing, poverty, literacy, freedom, collaboration, Africa. OSC means Open Source Curriculum. "Community before code" was a fun slogan. Foo Conference just ended, some of this discussion is a continuation of those threads, but less North America focused, is our moderator's hope. The question on history (when did this "movement" get started) -- I'd have to echo R0ml and point to liberal academic cultures in general, where Stallman had his roots, UC Berkeley a big influence (one of the panelists). People build for each other, appreciate the role synergy plays, and so off course we should be open, not in lock down mode. Backsteps in 70s, 80s, 90s. How extensive is the use of open source anyway, in education? Compared to the US? Mark Shuttleworth is saying one of the most extraordinary tools is Moodle (award for that guy last night). One of Mark's key words is certification, similar to accreditation, in the sense of curriculum content having imprimaturs from various sources (governments?). Push versus pull is something we hear about. E-Textbooks are a buzzword, but who's building these in practice? Are we talking about mashups? Is a web site an e-text? Why or why not? Curriki is growing: http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome Indonesia etc. Education institutions are monolithic island structures (silos), with technology's decentralizing effects starting to erode them the way they've eroded many corporate institutions. Scarcity drives aggregation, hoarding of resources, the genesis of the professoriate. This is starting to break down -- semi-permeable and permeable membrane metaphors. Not just teaching, but accrediting the people who learn from them, is incipient. All this hearkens back to the discussions I've been having with Steve Holden around Python certification. It's not about developing a monolithic Microsoft University of University of Phoenix. Schools develop a rep by "minting students" meaning you find out over time what a certification really means. Schools don't have to ask permission of other schools before putting their stamp on a transcript or c.v., e.g. Saturday Academy hands out certificates with "currency value" when it comes to applying for college (proves you've not been wasting your time -- at least constitutes evidence). Teachers really want a bigger role in content development, whereas publishers are hungry for content, so there's an obvious synergy here, with teachers playing the role of open source developers, hired guns in the sense that publishers have some say about what gets their imprimatur (many schools are also publishers, as are many private companies, not that schools aren't themselves companies in many cases). Teachers identifying as curriculum writers (as I do) will be banding and branding, doing OSCs. What about "suspect curricula"? How do we develop "trust". Mark is tackling that one, thinking opening up is a great strategy for improving content. Teachers often will not touch material that hasn't been certified. They only teach approved materials. Can we identify things which will be "contentious" like Intelligent Design? Mark sees contention more as the exception, Wikipedia more the model. Ideology is a problem in "corner cases" only -- might be a blind spot on Mark's spot, given "certification" is in itself a tool of control, keeps controversies suppressed. One of our panelists is espousing the goal of having 100% open source materials in its curriculum. Any remaining gaps to be plugged, 9th grade kicking off in 2009. Curriki is likewise K-12 focussed, historically. What we're seeing is a generation of open source developers old enough to be bending their model towards teaching, i.e. using our new muscle and savvy around keeping software free and open is feeding into the education world, setting new standards wherein "open source" is in itself a point in its favor. Using a free market approach, where the community has feedback as to whether a curriculum is any good. Many governments are nervous about letting teachers just go for it, as the potential for inciting tensions between ethnic groups is quite high. Strong bias and opinion colors courseware, inevitably, and governments often want a top-down way of controlling quality. The idea of a "global curriculum" is inappropriate and dumb, but the practice of openness and adaptability means each community has the ability to import and export. Expanding the Internet is a great way to build teacher quality. Realistically, OLPC notwithstanding, it's the teacher community that is gaining access first. Many countries are experiencing an acute teacher shortage -- the certifications coming over the Internet might be just the ticket in many cases, in terms of giving them career boosts. Mark: it's increasing difficult to censor TV, audit radio. The moderator is talking about Unschool, an organization that allows students to start customizing their own curricula even without parental knowledge. Different cultures are in different places in terms how willing they are to motivate change. On the other hand, there's that quote from this morning (Tim had it) about history moving faster than the people living it (future shock in other words -- we don't always get asked, before we have to adapt). This web page is being displayed, Mark encouraging us to take a look: http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/ I think a strong teacher in a school with good access is in a position to offer dynamite open and closed curricula. Not every school will put all its best stuff on line, like that Pueblo Museum in New Mexico, warns tourists up front that not everything is explained in the museum (not the appropriate context for explaining everything). Open Content License -- big in Africa. How can we contribute? LiteracyBridge.org -- has some cute little hardware that still needs software. Mark: both philosophy and practice, with the latter including workflows for aggregating and certifying. Content management frameworks in education, still a hotbed for innovation in need of new code. OpenHighSchool.org Vendors have a role (like 4dsolutions.net -- plug), usually tied to sales of some product. New brands of vendor will recognize that this isn't just about selling new "stuff" to teachers. So what *is* the business model then? How do content providers get rewarded or compensated, or do they? Scholarships to teachers, who vote with their feet, meaning kudos back to the vendors of highest repute? In spending tuition money upstream, teachers net access and goodies downstream (get value in exchange). Is that the model? I need to move my car, risking a parking ticket. Kirby From kirby.urner at gmail.com Wed Jul 23 23:33:44 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:33:44 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Free Software in Africa Message-ID: Here's another "as it happens" for the archive, taking in a talk on Creating and Supporting Free Software in Africa by Prof Derek Keats, University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa -- in some ways a continuation of the previous edu-sig session. About 20 of us in the audience. He's a "CIO" and initiated African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources (AVOIR). He'll probably podcast the audio, as he's recording to his iPod. Most of the world is not like Stanford. Let's start with "alarming perspectives". Making areal displays with numbers, e.g. numbers per capita with tertiary education, results in many distorted maps (worldmapper.org). Shanty towns around Cape Town is more his school's focus. There's a lack of critical mass in many areas, such as computer science. How to solve? Through collaboration (the only way). Building new universities and staffing them can't happen quickly enough. Free and open source software, applying lessons learned to building community, infrastructure, is the vision of AVOIR (pan-African FOSS). AVOIR is "established as a network for capacity building in FOSS engineering". Key links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisimba http://avoir.uwc.ac.za/ http://ics.uwc.ac.za Twitter: dkeats Facebook: Derek Keats email: dkeats at uwc.ac.za Phase 1 (2005-2008) has involved networking universities around Chisimba, a Web 2.0 AJAX application with attendant software (13 nodes so far). Kabul Polytechnic is part of the alliance (eQuality Alliance). Picture of training workshop in Kabul, re the portal, eLearning. Georgia Tech another partner... KEWL training in the Philippines. We haven't seen the interface yet (we're getting to it), am trying to visualize what Chisimba looks like (booth 818 here at OSCON). Word for "framework" in Malawi. Chisimba is highly modular, per Debian community (ala Synaptic), includes a package management system. Implements MVC. Yes, there's Python involved, hooked to gstreamer. Also: CURL, FFmpeg, Java... lots of toyz, went by pretty fast. Now Keats is demoing the remote package management component. You can start a new eLearning environment in just minutes, given enough bandwidth. Everything else is component based, e.g. adding a blog or some other resource is a matter of mouse clicks. Some components allow real time audio, shared white board annotation, filtering. With cut and paste, you can embed the live component in a blog, in a moodle or whatever. www.dkeats.com for more examples. USAID, Sun Microsystems, Geek Corps are part of the alliance somehow (USAID focused on animal health). University of Nairobi, NOLNET in Namibia are working on implementing AVOIR, as is National University of Rwanda. Electronic Thesis and Dissertation system is another of the components. Sun is providing hardware in six of the thirteen partner institutions so far. Social Content and Networking for Schools connects like 50 schools in poor areas to create an intranet (not connected to Internet) with social networking and eLearning. Social tools help curriculum content to grow. Chisimba reminds me of Plone, sort of, but it's built very specifically for customized eLearning environments. Sometimes Chisimba users become potential interns, helping with Chisimba's development. Those who've become interns have contributed usable code without exception. Realtime podcasting application is a 3-click process. Start, Stop, Publish. Bandwidth is the biggest challenge. Some institutions don't realize the value of networks. Culturally, there's often a tendency to keeping quiet, to be deferential, whereas on the Internet you're encouraged to be more egalitarian (out of necessity in a lot of ways). Salary structures and high turnover are other problems. People move on before they have time to become Chisimba developers. Questions: what about OLPC (one laptop per child). Getting computing resources to students is a good thing, not limited to the XO initiative. Providing labs on a massive scale is the only way to provide a lot of access in many cases, as the students have no access to laptops. This is where Sun comes in, in some cases. Government funding has been problematic in that the South African department with jurisdiction has had some turnover, some friends have left. Why start a new framework? In part to encourage local participation, hard to break in to ongoing open source projects in some cases. A goal here was to be self-managing, running all aspects, including the version control, servers. Sometimes it's just easier to start from scratch. AVOIR is about developing competence and confidence among young African software developers. It's an exercise in community building, as well as a project aimed at producing quality software (they go together). I asked about fonts, internationalization. A lot of the languages just use Latin-1 characters, but in Afghanistan they're working on the Farsi translation (of Chisimba). The Chisimba package itself is sophisticated about language issues, uses UTF-8. The animal health project has a mobile devices API although Dr. Keats isn't sure how far they've come along with that. Kirby From echerlin at gmail.com Thu Jul 24 01:10:36 2008 From: echerlin at gmail.com (Edward Cherlin) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:10:36 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Free Software in Africa In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 2:33 PM, kirby urner wrote: > Here's another "as it happens" for the archive, taking in a talk on > Creating and Supporting Free Software in Africa by Prof Derek Keats, > University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa -- in some ways a > continuation of the previous edu-sig session. About 20 of us in the > audience. > > He's a "CIO" and initiated African Virtual Open Initiatives and > Resources (AVOIR). He'll probably podcast the audio, as he's > recording to his iPod. > > Most of the world is not like Stanford. Let's start with "alarming > perspectives". Making areal displays with numbers, e.g. numbers per > capita with tertiary education, results in many distorted maps > (worldmapper.org). Shanty towns around Cape Town is more his school's > focus. There's a lack of critical mass in many areas, such as > computer science. How to solve? Through collaboration (the only > way). Building new universities and staffing them can't happen > quickly enough. Free and open source software, applying lessons > learned to building community, infrastructure, is the vision of AVOIR > (pan-African FOSS). AVOIR is "established as a network for capacity > building in FOSS engineering". Some more inter-related resources: * Fantsuam Foundation runs a computer school in Nigeria that is turning out certified professionals. http://www.fantsuam.org/ * The One Laptop Per Child community is doing Open Source education software development, and also rethinking textbooks and curricula for delivery by computer. OLPC partners are working on how to deliver these capabilities to even the poorest and most remote villages, including engineering appropriate technologies in electrical generation and Internet, with microfinance support. Their varied projects need IT people; mechanical, electrical, and wireless engineers; teachers, textbook writers, and other educators; subject-matter experts for every possible area of education; development economists; and much more. Red Hat, Debian, and Ubuntu are supporting these efforts. Richard Stallman has switched from an old IBM Thinkpad to an OLPC XO as his principal computer. http://lists.laptop.org/ http://lists.sugarlabs.org/ *OneVillage Foundation Ghana is working with University of Education, Winneba, on IT education, teacher training, and wireless field trials. Kafui Prebbie, the head of OVF Ghana and Winneba Linux Users Group, recently moderated a discussion on these issues: Can Ghana Lead The World With Technology? That was the question on the lips of everyone in the packed auditorium of the Kofi Annan Center of Excellence in ICT on the 17th of July, 2008 when the Center in partnership with the mPedigree Network held a Technology Transformation Seminar under the theme: World-Class Innovation Made in Ghana. In a rousing opening address, the moderator of the occasion Kafui Prebbie, an ICT Educator at the University of Winneba who has consulted for several international organisations, described the challenge that faced in Ghana in the following terms: "We Must Innovate or We will Die". http://www.onevillagefoundation.org/ovf/ovf_ghana_index.html http://www.uew.edu.gh/ http://www.wilugghana.org/ourstory.html See also Commonwealth of Learning (col.org/), NEPAD (nepad.org/, and the recent growth in fiber optic cable projects for both the east (2 projects) and west (5 at last report) coasts of Africa. One cable on the west side was previously laid and is in full operation. Fiber is also coming to landlocked African countries such as Rwanda. https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=bsp&ver=1qygpcgurkovy#11b3768b0dad0452_topstory Race to build a West Coast fibre promises to push international bandwidth prices to new lows Four international fibre projects are racing to complete ahead of each other on the west coast of Africa to give some much needed additional capacity and price competition to SAT3. The drop in bandwidth prices could be spectacular. (If you want to subscribe to News Update, either in English or French, go to http://www.balancingact-africa.com/mailing_list/subscribe.php.) SES has announced new satellites to link Africa with Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Plans, maps, and service descriptions at http://www.ses-newskies.com/ SES is offering satellite bandwidth to countries in Africa deploying OLPC XOs in their school systems. > Key links: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisimba > http://avoir.uwc.ac.za/ > http://ics.uwc.ac.za > Twitter: dkeats > Facebook: Derek Keats > email: dkeats at uwc.ac.za > > Phase 1 (2005-2008) has involved networking universities around > Chisimba, a Web 2.0 AJAX application with attendant software (13 nodes > so far). Kabul Polytechnic is part of the alliance (eQuality > Alliance). Picture of training workshop in Kabul, re the portal, > eLearning. Georgia Tech another partner... KEWL training in the > Philippines. > > We haven't seen the interface yet (we're getting to it), am trying to > visualize what Chisimba looks like (booth 818 here at OSCON). Word > for "framework" in Malawi. Chisimba is highly modular, per Debian > community (ala Synaptic), includes a package management system. > Implements MVC. Yes, there's Python involved, hooked to gstreamer. > Also: CURL, FFmpeg, Java... lots of toyz, went by pretty fast. > > Now Keats is demoing the remote package management component. > > You can start a new eLearning environment in just minutes, given > enough bandwidth. Everything else is component based, e.g. adding a > blog or some other resource is a matter of mouse clicks. Some > components allow real time audio, shared white board annotation, > filtering. With cut and paste, you can embed the live component in a > blog, in a moodle or whatever. www.dkeats.com for more examples. > > USAID, Sun Microsystems, Geek Corps are part of the alliance somehow > (USAID focused on animal health). University of Nairobi, NOLNET in > Namibia are working on implementing AVOIR, as is National University > of Rwanda. Electronic Thesis and Dissertation system is another of > the components. Sun is providing hardware in six of the thirteen > partner institutions so far. > > Social Content and Networking for Schools connects like 50 schools in > poor areas to create an intranet (not connected to Internet) with > social networking and eLearning. Social tools help curriculum content > to grow. > > Chisimba reminds me of Plone, sort of, but it's built very > specifically for customized eLearning environments. Sometimes > Chisimba users become potential interns, helping with Chisimba's > development. Those who've become interns have contributed usable code > without exception. > > Realtime podcasting application is a 3-click process. Start, Stop, Publish. > > Bandwidth is the biggest challenge. Some institutions don't realize > the value of networks. Culturally, there's often a tendency to > keeping quiet, to be deferential, whereas on the Internet you're > encouraged to be more egalitarian (out of necessity in a lot of ways). > Salary structures and high turnover are other problems. People move > on before they have time to become Chisimba developers. > > Questions: what about OLPC (one laptop per child). Getting computing > resources to students is a good thing, not limited to the XO > initiative. Providing labs on a massive scale is the only way to > provide a lot of access in many cases, as the students have no access > to laptops. This is where Sun comes in, in some cases. > > Government funding has been problematic in that the South African > department with jurisdiction has had some turnover, some friends have > left. > > Why start a new framework? In part to encourage local participation, > hard to break in to ongoing open source projects in some cases. A > goal here was to be self-managing, running all aspects, including the > version control, servers. Sometimes it's just easier to start from > scratch. AVOIR is about developing competence and confidence among > young African software developers. It's an exercise in community > building, as well as a project aimed at producing quality software > (they go together). > > I asked about fonts, internationalization. A lot of the languages > just use Latin-1 characters, but in Afghanistan they're working on the > Farsi translation (of Chisimba). The Chisimba package itself is > sophisticated about language issues, uses UTF-8. > > The animal health project has a mobile devices API although Dr. Keats > isn't sure how far they've come along with that. > > Kirby > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig -- Edward Cherlin End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay From roys.anna at gmail.com Thu Jul 24 05:26:28 2008 From: roys.anna at gmail.com (Anna Roys) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:26:28 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 60, Issue 13 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thank you Kirby and Edward. As an education reform visionary, I am very inspired by what I read today on this list. As my time allows, I will play an energetic role in promoting open source learning in K-12 environments, not only in the schools where I teach, but in other welcoming environments. Anna -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lac at openend.se Fri Jul 25 14:36:12 2008 From: lac at openend.se (Laura Creighton) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:36:12 +0200 Subject: [Edu-sig] looking for references Message-ID: <200807251236.m6PCaCJh007554@theraft.openend.se> I am looking for a study I used to know which demonstrated that the introduction of a grading scheme had a damaging effect on the ability of educators to actually teach students. Anybody got some references lying around? Laura From kirby.urner at gmail.com Fri Jul 25 22:41:24 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:41:24 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] posting from OSCON 2008 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 9:06 AM, kirby urner wrote: << SNIP >> > As I was mentioning to Anna of Alaska recently (TECC file), we're > moving towards autonomy in casinos network circles, in terms of having > local talent write some new games (still lots of import / export, > self-sufficiency doesn't mean isolation, means changing comparative > advantage equations, as economists put it). Or, to make a long story > short, a Pygame slot machine, studied in math class, might go a long > way towards achieving these goals (more in my controlroom yesterday). > > http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2008/07/python-project.html So I finally got around to searching for a Pygame slot machine, and of course found one (smile). The code is quite easy to follow and is therefore easily modified. I've enhanced the above blog post with a brief embedded YouTube and repointed a link to Stefan Jeremic's posting, in turn linked to his source code. The balance of my OSCON #10 experience focused a lot on demo- graphics and recruiting a new ethnic mix, e.g. Emma Hogbin's excellent presentation: http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/07/women-and-foss.html That seems a quasi-inevitable trend in any case, including right here in Portland, which is now much abuzz with news of open source economics -- e.g. we were the focus of a radio show this morning. http://action.publicbroadcasting.net/opb/posts/list/1356610.page Given this is a boom sector, at least in relative terms, and actively seeking new markets, an influx of "fresh blood" is very much in the cards (and per Shuttleworth's keynote, that's a goal in any case, so don't expect a lot of public complaining when it happens, though privately some may whine (or whinge as the case may be)). Many thanks to those of you who came up and introduced yourselves. Our edu-sig community appears to be thriving, both on and off list. Kirby From da.ajoy at gmail.com Sat Jul 26 17:11:39 2008 From: da.ajoy at gmail.com (Daniel Ajoy) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:11:39 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] looking for references In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I am looking for a study I used to know which demonstrated that > the introduction of a grading scheme had a damaging effect on the > ability of educators to actually teach students. Anybody got > some references lying around? > > Laura Punished by rewards Daniel From john.zelle at wartburg.edu Sat Jul 26 18:40:09 2008 From: john.zelle at wartburg.edu (John Zelle) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:40:09 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] looking for references In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1217090409.14024.2.camel@zelle> Barry Schwartz's book, The Cost of Living: How Market Freedom Erodes the Best Things in Life, has a chapter titled "The Debasing of Education: Turning Play into Work" that summarizes various evidence and makes a similar argument along these lines. On Sat, 2008-07-26 at 10:11 -0500, Daniel Ajoy wrote: > > I am looking for a study I used to know which demonstrated that > > the introduction of a grading scheme had a damaging effect on the > > ability of educators to actually teach students. Anybody got > > some references lying around? > > > > Laura > > > Punished by rewards > > > Daniel > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > From lac at openend.se Sat Jul 26 19:17:52 2008 From: lac at openend.se (Laura Creighton) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:17:52 +0200 Subject: [Edu-sig] looking for references In-Reply-To: Message from "Daniel Ajoy" of "Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:11:39 CDT." References: Message-ID: <200807261717.m6QHHq0t015644@theraft.openend.se> In a message of Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:11:39 CDT, "Daniel Ajoy" writes: >> I am looking for a study I used to know which demonstrated that >> the introduction of a grading scheme had a damaging effect on the >> ability of educators to actually teach students. Anybody got >> some references lying around? >> >> Laura > > >Punished by rewards > > >Daniel Thank you! Laura From echerlin at gmail.com Sun Jul 27 06:02:54 2008 From: echerlin at gmail.com (Edward Cherlin) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 21:02:54 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] looking for references In-Reply-To: <200807261717.m6QHHq0t015644@theraft.openend.se> References: <200807261717.m6QHHq0t015644@theraft.openend.se> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Laura Creighton wrote: > In a message of Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:11:39 CDT, "Daniel Ajoy" writes: >>> I am looking for a study I used to know which demonstrated that >>> the introduction of a grading scheme had a damaging effect on the >>> ability of educators to actually teach students. Anybody got >>> some references lying around? >>> >>> Laura >> >> >>Punished by rewards Thanks. I added it to http://sugarlabs.org/go/EducationTeam/Education_Bibliographies We could use any further references of this kind that list members know of. Go ahead and add anything, and we'll reorganize it at some point. >>Daniel > > Thank you! > > Laura > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > -- Edward Cherlin End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay From da.ajoy at gmail.com Sun Jul 27 18:30:44 2008 From: da.ajoy at gmail.com (Daniel Ajoy) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:30:44 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] looking for references In-Reply-To: <200807261717.m6QHHq0t015644@theraft.openend.se> References: <200807261717.m6QHHq0t015644@theraft.openend.se> Message-ID: >>Punished by rewards Here is another one: http://www.shearonforschools.com/gold_star_junkies.htm Gold Star Junkies By David Ruenzel Daniel From kirby.urner at gmail.com Mon Jul 28 21:26:49 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:26:49 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Nat's report from NZ (OSCON follow-up) Message-ID: So per this post to Math Forum I'm taking pretty seriously this feedback from New Zealand, Nat Torkington reporting (during a keynote), regarding what works and what doesn't in CP4E and/or P4E pedagogy. http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=6312197&tstart=0 Discoveries: robots are lame, Logo blows, scratch.mit.edu followed by process.org makes a good pipeline. Of course some kids love robots, likewise turtles, so none of this makes sense without a goal up front, which in Nat's case was "training future hackers". Why I take Nat this seriously is it's hard to imagine a more personable geek with better people skills, what it takes to be an O'Reilly conference chair I'd imagine. So I can factor out a lot of the ego I'd expect from more biased and/or blinded individual. In the end, I sensed a willingness to make peace with robotics, provided the stuff works better, isn't crap. His argument was they'll pour on the hours, delaying gratification in ways only kids can, only to have the assembly not work as advertised, through for no apparent fault in construction i.e. they did all the steps, and still a no go. Too complicated, gets ugly. Per my Chicago talk (showmedo etc.), I'm not working with the same demographic in terms of age (could be New Zelanders -- as when working with Bernie **), am more focused on an older set, with stronger math skills thanks to earlier teachers. Why he didn't like Logo is it demands too much "degree-angle" thinking, all those 30-60-90 conventions, which eight year olds maybe don't have, thanks to withholding such material until much later (when learning to read a clock is when it should start, in conjunction with discussions about the Earth's spinning, i.e. 1st & 2nd grades, 24 hour dial clocks good to have handy). By the time students get to Python, I think we can assume "clock arithmetic" (another name for modulo arithmetic) and at least an inkling of what's in the math module, if not cmath (come later, as we navigate through NQRC). My only competition, at this level, are calculators on the low end, Mathematica / MathCad on the high end (Matlab isn't competition, given how Python and Matlab inter-operate already). sociality.tv might be going with ML (?), plus Ruby is strong with some of my Saturday Academy geeks, but I'm not too worried about the fate of our snake, even though Nat poked fun at its cryptic error messages (again, Guido never claimed 8 year olds were his target audience when inventing this creature). Per a conversation with Steve Holden, I go "everything is a snake in Python" in my intro, because I use "snake" to mean "generic object" -- because of all the __ribs__ (special names). Per rms, hackers like these kinds of jokes, even if they're not recursive in nature (not saying this one isn't -- kinda like the joke in 'Cars' (everything is a car in 'Cars', even the bugs)). Kirby ** Bernie Gunn, geochemist par excelance: http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2004/12/view-from-middle-earth.html From kirby.urner at gmail.com Mon Jul 28 22:45:02 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:45:02 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Nat's report from NZ (OSCON follow-up) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:26 PM, kirby urner wrote: << SNIP >> > sociality.tv might be going with ML (?), plus Ruby is strong with some > of my Saturday Academy geeks, but I'm not too worried about the fate > of our snake, even though Nat poked fun at its cryptic error messages > (again, Guido never claimed 8 year olds were his target audience when > inventing this creature). Should have done some more homework, looks like sociality.tv is set to expire August 8. Here's a more up to date web address: http://tizard.stanford.edu/groups/sociality/ Related: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Kindergarten_Calculus http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=8142 > Per a conversation with Steve Holden, I go "everything is a snake in > Python" in my intro, because I use "snake" to mean "generic object" -- > because of all the __ribs__ (special names). Per rms, hackers like > these kinds of jokes, even if they're not recursive in nature (not > saying this one isn't -- kinda like the joke in 'Cars' (everything is > a car in 'Cars', even the bugs)). > Also: """ Leveraging experience with animals is another way to go (it's not either/or). Because every object has a __rib__ cage (inheriting from object), we might say "everything is a snake" in Python (meaning an object with __ribs__). Some snakes quack like ducks though. """ http://www.nabble.com/Python-for-Beginners-p17395508.html > Kirby > > ** Bernie Gunn, geochemist par excelance: > http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2004/12/view-from-middle-earth.html >