[Edu-sig] Pygame etc.

[kirby urner]

On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 7:33 PM, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:

> Andrius, I, and a fairly high-powered group of others have been
> working on a strategy for the world. The basic elements that I am
> working on right now are renewable electric power, WiMax for Internet
> connections, microfinance, and OLPC. Later I propose to work on
> linking schools around the world and teaching the students how to go
> into business together. Each component supports the others better than
> linearly to increase the community's total access to economic
> opportunity even in the poorest and most remote villages. We have
> others working on community, agriculture, health, and various other
> components of a complete set of solutions.

I agree with the need for an integrated approach.  My paper for the
Shuttleworth Summit had a lot about using energy as a unifying concept
(not an original idea) and linking energy to money (also not original with
me -- part of the systems theory movement within economics, tracing
back through Kenneth Boulding and others, as you probably know).[1]

> Your plan looks interesting. I have Wikied some thoughts about what
> textbooks should turn into when we have a known software base
> including SciPy, and also some thoughts about what should happen to
> the curriculum as we find out more about how to make subjects
> accessible at ever-earlier ages. There is some work on Kindegarten
> Calculus, for example, teaching the concepts but not the apparatus.
> Alan Kay has a demo in which ten-year olds are pointed in two
> directions, in simulation and in real life, and then encouraged to
> combine the results in order to figure out that Galilean gravity means
> constant acceleration. If you then get children to look at water
> fountains (something the Greeks failed to notice properly) and show
> them how to model Galilean relativity with constant horizontal motion,
> they get to discover parabolic motion. Relating that to conic sections
> visually is easy, but the proofs have to wait until later.

My sense of it is that lesson planners around the world are not waiting
for any consensus to emerge, are just barreling ahead.  Did you know
RMS was through Sri Lanka in January?  Great FOSS community in
that neck of the woods.

Anyway, it's great as a gnu math teacher ([nt] -- not trademarked),
to be able to take advantage of a fully enabled web browser (Java,
Shockwave, Flash... Crunchy Frog) if fortunate, even more goodies
if more fortunate still (I enjoy lending my XO to children, just got it
back from Baibi (long way to go [2])).

I'm mostly focusing close to home with my field testing (lots of
reports in my journals), as this is the bioregion / economy I'm already
the most integrated into, plus Portland's been called an "open source
capital" (so why would I want to move?) but I'm certainly sharing ideas
with counterparts elsewhere (lots of two way streets).

We've got a charter high school running Edubuntu, which I hope
gets some attention at the upcoming Ubuntu conference (coincides
with OSCON).  I've been working the TECC in Alaska which I talk
about in my Chicago talk, congrats to Anna on passing that test
(we talked today).[3][4]  Still not sure how Pythonic we'll get with
those, whereas with Saturday Academy I've trailblazed rather
extensively, taking a break this summer though.[5]

Kirby

[1]  http://urnerk.webfactional.com/presentations/urnermindstorm.pdf
[2]  http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/04/quaker-spectrum.html
[3]  http://youtube.com/watch?v=hbeHdg8mtdc
[4]  http://tecc-alaska.org/
[5]  http://www.saturdayacademy.org/

>
> --
> 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
>