From kirby.urner at gmail.com Fri Oct 3 18:00:07 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 09:00:07 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Curriculum Repository Frameworks (needed?) Message-ID: RE: WEB FRAMEWORKS FOR CURRICULUM DELIVERY Here's a window into my business world where I'm thinking out loud about web frameworks in education and curriculum writing (I'm a curriculum writer), the subject having come up in my Portland context when McCarty recently suggested I use Moodle again (for a repository), and Tara (a grad from that school) says "Winterhaven is crazy about using Moodle" but in a tone that suggested "over the top" (same tone she uses when saying I'm crazy about Britney Spears). In thinking about it, I wrote the reply to Anna Roys below (she's running the TECC pilot, still on the drawing boards in a lot of ways). Now, having thought about it some more (and this isn't the first time), I want to revise and extend: SOLUTIONS MAY BE SUBJECT SPECIFIC I think it's especially likely that gnu math teachers such as myself will go for a spare, austere, not so web frameworky system, simply because it's our job to teach XHTML, CSS, WSGI and related APIs, so from the point of view of "making it accessible" we like to show how we code up from scratch, like a chef in the kitchen (per Ratatouille -- hi Jody). However, in other subject areas, such as chemistry or home economics, the teacher may not have the time or patience for "hand coding" and said web framework is a godsend. NOT EITHER/OR It's not either/or in other words. Too many so-called "religious wars" begin with either/or as a premise, and it's phony. It's not Ruby or Python, not Java or Jython, not Scheme or LISP, not Smalltalk or J, although in any given special case circumstance, yes, the crew may elect one over the other. And sometimes technologies fade, like SQL is more the industry standard than MUMPS anymore, even in health care (MUMPS named for Massachusettes General). I think my point is gnu math teachers are training future developers, future geeks. It's in "building one to throw it away", programming for the fun of it, loving it, that you come to discover the true value of frameworks, which is in customizing them for different clients, each with special needs. Rather than have an end user's perspective, our students think in terms of serving people, adding to their happiness and satisfaction (we hope -- we work to not over promise and therefore disillusion). RE PEDAGOGY We're also into XP techniques (e.g. pair programming) in age appropriate ways i.e. take a page from the constructionists in having students develop their team working skills. The career of the solo coder may be glorious and fun, but when they're still young like this, we want to keep doors open to some of those "team only" careers (not every coding solution is accessible to the solo developer, although open source culture already ensures that we're sharing tools and know-how, so the teams may be surprisingly small (one of the lessons I teach @ Saturday Academy)). CONCLUSION Yes, web frameworks are very much needed, included those like Edu2.0, geared specifically to teachers. However, some of the most proficient in Internet technology will choose not to use them, and not because they're luddites, quite the opposite. Caveat: I've not mentioned environments like Second Life or, in my case, Active Worlds ( http://www.activeworlds.com/edu/ ), as places to serve curriculum. That's a somewhat different topic, engines like Croquet not being the same animal as webapps like Django or Ruby on Rails. Kirby Urner 4dsolutions.net ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: kirby urner Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 4:14 PM Subject: Re: Using Edu20 for online Board of Directors Meetings? Maybe not a good idea? To: Anna Roys Cc: [ xxx ] I'm not persuaded "one stop shopping frameworks" (e.g. Moodle) are the way to go, am starting with new Python proteges here in Portland and planning to use mostly email, sharing links as I see fit. Of course tutoring < > classroom teaching (not the same thing), but an old fashioned lesson plans, jazzed up with lots of URLs, and put on-line in the classroom folder, needn't involve any fancy framework, even open source free. Homespun and simple carries the day, lots of times, plus different teachers have different teaching styles (as much a reality as student learning styles, which I also believe in honoring, though limits apply). Two cents from the lower 48.... Kirby Urner 4dsolutions.net On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 3:06 PM, Anna Roys wrote: > Rachel, > > I am getting no response from edu20 today. Last summer I received almost > immediate response each time. I am wondering if this is not such a good > place for us to try get our work done. A great vision for free e-learning, > but maybe the site is no longer maintained well enough for our use? > > Did any of you receive anything from edu20? > > Please remind us what was your suggestion for where to carry on our online > meetings and how do we proceed? > > Anna > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mpaul213 at gmail.com Sat Oct 4 03:22:44 2008 From: mpaul213 at gmail.com (michel paul) Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 18:22:44 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 Message-ID: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> In our 'more motivated' Alg 2 classes we use Paul Foerster's *Algebra Trigonometry* text. I really like what he does, but it's clearly from another age. He integrates programming into the curriculum, but it's all in BASIC. Following is something I sent to my dept chair and colleagues that teach the same course. So far, no responses. Important point - they don't even pay any attention to these problems that involve BASIC. They just ignore them. However, I find it interesting that this is the text they consider the best for our 'more motivated' students. It has really been fascinating looking at what Foerster did regarding the integration of programming into the curriculum. So many of his examples could be written as one-liners in Python. Last night was 'Back to School Night'. That's when we put on a little 10-minute show about our course. I attempted to explain to parents how computational thinking is changing how science thinks about the physical world, how this is creating brand new inter-disciplinary majors like computational biology, how CS is the new mathematics, that this Python stuff is not something on top of the Algebra, it IS Algebra. Lots of great response. That was good. Definitely some got it. But it's still so weird juggling world views. ================================================ Problem 32, pg. 92: Write a program to find the equation of a line between two points. The input should be the two coordinates of the two points. The output should be the equation in slope-intercept form. The program should be able to handle cases where the slope is either zero or infinite. Here's Foerster's suggested solution in BASIC. I'm sure you can understand it. Any competent math teacher should: 10 INPUT "TYPE X1, Y1"; X1, Y1 15 INPUT "TYPE X2, Y2"; X2, Y2 20 RI = Y2 - Y1 25 RU = X2 - X1 30 IF RI = 0 THEN 60 35 IF RU = 0 THEN 70 40 M = RI / RU 45 B = Y1 - M*X1 50 PRINT "Y = ";M;"X + ";B 55 GOTO 75 60 PRINT "Y = "; Y1 65 GOTO 75 70 PRINT "X = "; X1 75 END Wow, that sure is old! : ) Here's the same solution in Python: x0, y0 = input('Enter x0, y0 --->') x1, y1 = input('Enter x1, y1 --->') rise = y1 - y0 run = x1 - x0 if rise == 0: print 'y =', y0 elif run == 0: print 'x =', x0 else: m = rise/run b = y0 - m*x0 print 'y =', m, 'x +', b You can see the same logic, but it's a bit shorter. That's because there's no use of GOTO. The elimination of GOTO was one of the important features in the development of PASCAL, and ever since those days GOTO has been considered bad style. It produces crazy and cumbersome code. Functional organization is far superior. You can see that the Python version is just as easy to read, or easier, than the BASIC. So, you can use Python in this simple procedural sort of way. However, Python supports various paradigms, so you can also organize things functionally: def slope_intercept(A, B): x0, y0 = A x1, y1 = B rise, run = y1 - y0, x1 - x0 if run == 0: return None, x0 m = rise/run; b = y0 - m*x0 return m, b And even here, the code is longer than it needs to be. You can cut it down to: def slope_intercept(A, B): rise, run = A[1] - B[1], A[0] - B[0] if run == 0: return None, A[0] return rise/run, A[1] - rise/run*A[0] And you can even cut it down more, but that's not the point. This accomplishes the same thing as the original, just without printing the equations. You would then call this function to obtain the values of m and b for printing, if that's what you wanted to do, or, you could chain this function together with other functions to construct something more complex. It's what functional analysis is all about. You consider I/O stuff decoration. It's not the important part mathematically speaking. Functional decomposition of tasks ---> sure sounds like Analysis to me! : ) Isn't it essentially the same kind of thinking? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andre.roberge at gmail.com Sat Oct 4 03:51:03 2008 From: andre.roberge at gmail.com (Andre Roberge) Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 22:51:03 -0300 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> 2008/10/3 michel paul : [SNIP] > > Here's the same solution in Python: > > x0, y0 = input('Enter x0, y0 --->') > x1, y1 = input('Enter x1, y1 --->') > rise = y1 - y0 > run = x1 - x0 > if rise == 0: print 'y =', y0 > elif run == 0: print 'x =', x0 > else: > m = rise/run > b = y0 - m*x0 > print 'y =', m, 'x +', b > I find that this (and even more so for the other solutions below) not as readable as it should be. For me, if/elif/else really gain from being indented, and blank lines can also add to divide the program into "functional unit". So I would write instead: x0, y0 = input('Enter x0, y0 ---> ') x1, y1 = input('Enter x1, y1 ---> ') rise = y1 - y0 run = x1 - x0 if rise == 0: print 'y =', y0 elif run == 0: print 'x =', x0 else: m = float(rise)/run # avoid dividing two integers ... b = y0 - m*x0 print "y = %f x + %f" % (m, b) with perhaps some thoughts given to having a set number of decimal places for the floats. Just a thought... Andr? > You can see the same logic, but it's a bit shorter. That's because there's > no use of GOTO. The elimination of GOTO was one of the important features > in the development of PASCAL, and ever since those days GOTO has been > considered bad style. It produces crazy and cumbersome code. Functional > organization is far superior. > > You can see that the Python version is just as easy to read, or easier, than > the BASIC. So, you can use Python in this simple procedural sort of way. > However, Python supports various paradigms, so you can also organize things > functionally: > > def slope_intercept(A, B): > x0, y0 = A > x1, y1 = B > rise, run = y1 - y0, x1 - x0 > if run == 0: return None, x0 > m = rise/run; b = y0 - m*x0 > return m, b > > And even here, the code is longer than it needs to be. You can cut it down > to: > > def slope_intercept(A, B): > rise, run = A[1] - B[1], A[0] - B[0] > if run == 0: return None, A[0] > return rise/run, A[1] - rise/run*A[0] > > And you can even cut it down more, but that's not the point. > > This accomplishes the same thing as the original, just without printing the > equations. You would then call this function to obtain the values of m and > b for printing, if that's what you wanted to do, or, you could chain this > function together with other functions to construct something more complex. > It's what functional analysis is all about. You consider I/O stuff > decoration. It's not the important part mathematically speaking. > > Functional decomposition of tasks ---> sure sounds like Analysis to me! : > ) Isn't it essentially the same kind of thinking? > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > From krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu Sat Oct 4 08:30:45 2008 From: krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu (=?UTF-8?Q?Ivan_Krsti=C4=87?=) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 02:30:45 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Oct 3, 2008, at 9:22 PM, michel paul wrote: > ever since those days GOTO has been considered bad style. It > produces crazy and cumbersome code. (This generalization is patently incorrect. *Bad* use of GOTO tends to create more spectacular problems in code organization than bad use of a number of other language features, which is why GOTO has earned its reputation. When used correctly, goto is almost a necessity for clean, understandable code in the face of certain flow complexities such as nested loops or multiple "fail, shared cleanup, return" situations within the same function.) -- Ivan Krsti? | http://radian.org From mpaul213 at gmail.com Sat Oct 4 15:46:41 2008 From: mpaul213 at gmail.com (michel paul) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 06:46:41 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> m = float(rise)/run # avoid dividing two integers ... ... print "y = %f x + %f" % (m, b) with perhaps some thoughts given to having a set number of decimal places for the floats. Certainly, these things makes sense, but given the strange mindset I'm trying to work in, a secondary math curriculum that is already skeptical about the relevance of programming in math classes in the first place, worrying about formatting issues would just further alienate both colleagues and students. They want things to be as simple as possible, otherwise, they immediately lose interest. So it's a tricky balance. One detail too much, and it's overload for them. As it is, the float vs. integer division issue will disappear with Python 3K, and I think that will be good for easier integration into math classes. For math classes I think it's more pertinent to focus on functional interactions and not on IO issues, and that was what I was trying to get at. What I have found fascinating is how similar students and teachers are. You know how math students will ask, "How am I ever gonna USE this?" Well, that's the same response I would initially receive from math colleagues when mentioning Python. In both cases, the questioner seldom really wants an answer, they just want to express their disinterest. But thankfully, this is changing. My colleagues might still not be interested in pursuing it themselves, but at least at this point they realize that it isn't just BS. On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 6:51 PM, Andre Roberge wrote: > 2008/10/3 michel paul : > > [SNIP] > > > > > > Here's the same solution in Python: > > > > x0, y0 = input('Enter x0, y0 --->') > > x1, y1 = input('Enter x1, y1 --->') > > rise = y1 - y0 > > run = x1 - x0 > > if rise == 0: print 'y =', y0 > > elif run == 0: print 'x =', x0 > > else: > > m = rise/run > > b = y0 - m*x0 > > print 'y =', m, 'x +', b > > > > I find that this (and even more so for the other solutions below) not > as readable as it should be. For me, if/elif/else really gain from > being indented, and blank lines can also add to divide the program > into "functional unit". So I would write instead: > > x0, y0 = input('Enter x0, y0 ---> ') > x1, y1 = input('Enter x1, y1 ---> ') > > rise = y1 - y0 > run = x1 - x0 > > if rise == 0: > print 'y =', y0 > elif run == 0: > print 'x =', x0 > else: > m = float(rise)/run # avoid dividing two integers ... > b = y0 - m*x0 > print "y = %f x + %f" % (m, b) > > with perhaps some thoughts given to having a set number of decimal > places for the floats. > > Just a thought... > > Andr? > > > > > You can see the same logic, but it's a bit shorter. That's because > there's > > no use of GOTO. The elimination of GOTO was one of the important > features > > in the development of PASCAL, and ever since those days GOTO has been > > considered bad style. It produces crazy and cumbersome code. Functional > > organization is far superior. > > > > You can see that the Python version is just as easy to read, or easier, > than > > the BASIC. So, you can use Python in this simple procedural sort of way. > > However, Python supports various paradigms, so you can also organize > things > > functionally: > > > > def slope_intercept(A, B): > > x0, y0 = A > > x1, y1 = B > > rise, run = y1 - y0, x1 - x0 > > if run == 0: return None, x0 > > m = rise/run; b = y0 - m*x0 > > return m, b > > > > And even here, the code is longer than it needs to be. You can cut it > down > > to: > > > > def slope_intercept(A, B): > > rise, run = A[1] - B[1], A[0] - B[0] > > if run == 0: return None, A[0] > > return rise/run, A[1] - rise/run*A[0] > > > > And you can even cut it down more, but that's not the point. > > > > This accomplishes the same thing as the original, just without printing > the > > equations. You would then call this function to obtain the values of m > and > > b for printing, if that's what you wanted to do, or, you could chain this > > function together with other functions to construct something more > complex. > > It's what functional analysis is all about. You consider I/O stuff > > decoration. It's not the important part mathematically speaking. > > > > Functional decomposition of tasks ---> sure sounds like Analysis to me! > : > > ) Isn't it essentially the same kind of thinking? > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 mpaul213 at gmail.com Sat Oct 4 15:55:27 2008 From: mpaul213 at gmail.com (michel paul) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 06:55:27 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <40ea4eb00810040655n12e4c432w885c45cbe1004113@mail.gmail.com> Thanks, it's good to be clear about these things. I hate perpetuating old myths. I'd say that in the context of secondary math classes a good reason to use GOTO would probably never arise? What I want to do is use programming in these classes in a way that resembles the algebra as much as possible. As far as I can see, pretty much all of the old BASIC things that would appear in math texts using GOTO can be re-written and made more functional, pun intended. On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 11:30 PM, Ivan Krsti? < krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> wrote: > On Oct 3, 2008, at 9:22 PM, michel paul wrote: > >> ever since those days GOTO has been considered bad style. It produces >> crazy and cumbersome code. >> > > (This generalization is patently incorrect. *Bad* use of GOTO tends to > create more spectacular problems in code organization than bad use of a > number of other language features, which is why GOTO has earned its > reputation. When used correctly, goto is almost a necessity for clean, > understandable code in the face of certain flow complexities such as nested > loops or multiple "fail, shared cleanup, return" situations within the same > function.) > > -- > Ivan Krsti? | http://radian.org > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macquigg at ece.arizona.edu Mon Oct 6 00:40:46 2008 From: macquigg at ece.arizona.edu (David MacQuigg) Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:40:46 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: <40ea4eb00810040655n12e4c432w885c45cbe1004113@mail.gmail.co m> References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20081005151917.02bfbff0@mail.ece.arizona.edu> The best discussion I have seen on the "Phony GOTO Debate", as Steve McConnell calls it, is in his book "Code Complete", 2nd ed. chapter 17 "Unusual Control Structures". Without taking sides, he summarizes the arguments for and against, shows examples of really bad code, examples where GOTO is really beneficial, and a final summary of guidelines for using GOTO. I would try to avoid the topic with beginning students, but if they have already been using BASIC, and have questions like - Where is the GOTO in Python, then it needs to be discussed in a balanced, non-dogmatic way. This is a forum on education, so it is appropriate to discuss whether and how to present a topic like this, but I hope we don't try to rehash the original debate. I doubt there is anything more to be said beyond what is in McConnell. At 06:55 AM 10/4/2008 -0700, michel paul wrote: >Thanks, it's good to be clear about these things. I hate perpetuating old myths. > >I'd say that in the context of secondary math classes a good reason to use GOTO would probably never arise? What I want to do is use programming in these classes in a way that resembles the algebra as much as possible. As far as I can see, pretty much all of the old BASIC things that would appear in math texts using GOTO can be re-written and made more functional, pun intended. > >On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 11:30 PM, Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> wrote: >>On Oct 3, 2008, at 9:22 PM, michel paul wrote: >>>ever since those days GOTO has been considered bad style. It produces crazy and cumbersome code. >> >>(This generalization is patently incorrect. *Bad* use of GOTO tends to create more spectacular problems in code organization than bad use of a number of other language features, which is why GOTO has earned its reputation. When used correctly, goto is almost a necessity for clean, understandable code in the face of certain flow complexities such as nested loops or multiple "fail, shared cleanup, return" situations within the same function.) >> >>-- >>Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | http://radian.org From kirby.urner at gmail.com Mon Oct 6 16:56:48 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 07:56:48 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2008/10/4 michel paul > > For math classes I think it's more pertinent to focus on functional > interactions and not on IO issues, and that was what I was trying to get at. > I'm enjoying this thread. My spin in Pythonic Math has been to suggest "dot notation" become accepted as math notation, and with it the concept of namespaces, which I tell my students is one of the most important mathematical concepts they'll ever learn. We look at how several languages deal with the problem (of name collisions, of disambiguation), including Java's "reverse URL" strategy e.g. net.4dsolutions.mathobjects.vector or whatever.[1] I tend to look at .py modules as "fish tanks" i.e. ecosystems, with both internal and external (import) dependencies, with the user of said fish tank being somewhat the biologist, in testing to find out what's in there, what the behaviors are. Starting with the math module is of course apropos, discussing the functions, not shying away from trig even pre high school, no reason to withhold about cosine just because they're "young" (this is actually a prime time to gain exposure to these useful and time-tested ideas). Because of my "fish tank" idea, and using the math module as a model, I don't encourage "self prompting" i.e. using raw_input for much of anything. We need to "feed the fish" directly, i.e. pass arguments directly to functions, with f ( ) looking like a creature with a mouth, ready to eat something. fish( ). Regarding GOTO, sometime last month I think it was, I told the story of assembler (JMP) and spaghetti code, Djikstra to the rescue, further developments. It's through story telling that we get more of the nuance. I'm a big believer in using this "time dimension" even if not doing anything computer (hard to imagine) i.e. the lives of mathematicians, their historical context, why they did what they did -- critical content, not side-bar dispensible, not optional reading.[2] Metaphor: education systems are like those old Heinlein moving sidewalks (science fiction), where you can't jump on the fast-moving one at the center from zero, have to slide from walk to walk, each one a little faster, and likewise when a approaching a destination, start to slow down. By including more content from geek world, getting more of a footprint for the circus I work in, I'm giving a sense of one of those fast moving sidewalks at the core of our infrastructure (coded reflexes, superhumanly fast business processes). Math pre-college should be a door into all sorts of careers (starring roles) that include numerate activities. It's not about Ivory Tower PhD mathematicians having exclusive access to future recruits, shoving the rest of us aside because our skills are "impure" (not pure math). What passes for "pure math" would be something to study in college, after getting a broad sampling ahead of time, good overview, the job of a pre-specializing curriculum. In the meantime, if your school doesn't give a clear window into computer science in over four years of numeracy training, then hey, its probably a *very* slow moving sidewalk (more 1900s pedantic and plodding than fast paced like TV).[3] Kirby [1] Like when I do the IEEE lecture on Nov 4 at the Armory (theater), I'll be talking about coxeter.4d versus einstein.4d versus bucky.4d -- three namespaces, named for thinkers, in which the concept of "four dimensional" makes sense -- but in quite different language games. (a) [2] I like telling the story of those Italian Renaissance era polynomial solvers, a proprietary model in which mathematicians were like race horses, gained owner-patrons who would stable them, let them work out, then they'd have like "cock fights" in the village square, to see how could solve whatever third of fourth degree polynomial fastest. Without this kind of focus, polynomials wouldn't have the momentum they still have to this day, as a key math topic pre-college (and another kind of "math object" from a Pythonic math point of view).(b) [3] Marshall McLuhan wasn't just blowing smoke. People who grow up on a lot of TV are geared differently and in the early 21st century a lot of what "school" is about is asserting the value system of a pre-TV era (pre computer, pre calculator...). To "side with the kids" would be entirely subversive of traditional classroom thinking, would involve a lot more learning how to make televisions (multi-track) not just passively viewing it. In my model numeracy classes, making "math shorts" (like on Sesame Street) and uploading 'em to YouTube, for peers to admire (peers thousands of miles away perhaps -- no problemo) is a big part of the action. (a) FYI here's the bio of Kirby that went out to subscribers: An IEEE Oregon Section event "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe" with exclusive presentation by local Buckminster scholar and consultant to the playwright, Kirby Urner Tuesday, November 4, 2008 on the Mezzanine at Portland Center Stage Gerding Theater at the Armory 128 NW Eleventh Avenue, Portland, OR 97209 Hors d'oeuvres Reception: 5:30 p.m. Presentation and Discussion: 6:00 p.m. Theater Performance: 7:30 p.m. $49 per person. Tickets are limited. Please register by October 14, 2008. For more information and to register go to . We regret that we cannot offer refunds for cancellations received after October 14. ----- R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe Written and directed by D.W. Jacobs from the life, work and writings of R. Buckminster Fuller Play: "Everything you've learned in school as 'obvious' becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe." - Buckminster Fuller Does humanity have the chance to endure successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how? This is the question framed by Buckminster Fuller, the engineer, designer, poet, and philosopher who, among other things, was Mensa's second president and invented the geodesic dome. Join us for an unforgettable journey inside one of the most remarkable minds of the 20th century in a one-man show that blends videos, lectures, poetry and a healthy dash of humanist humor. A hero of the sustainability movement, Bucky framed many of the great ideas of his time and ours. This is your chance to get to know the man behind the world-saving mission. Presentation: How has the literature developed since the publication of 'Grunch of Giants' in 1983 and what are likely outcomes and future directions projects Fuller started over a lifetime of heavy lifting? Speaker: Kirby Urner started exploring Fuller's work in earnest following his earning a BA in philosophy from Princeton University, while serving as a high school math teacher in Jersey City. He's served as a contributing editor for McGraw-Hill, Rockefeller Center, political activist for Project VOTE! in Washington DC, and computer programmer for myriad governmental and nonprofit organizations in Greater Portland. Working in cahoots with Kiyoshi Kuromiya, Fuller's lieutenant on a couple of key books, he snagged the domain name bfi.org and served as the Buckminster Fuller Institute's first web wrangler. His 'Synergetics on the Web' is one of the main stops for Bucky scholars to this day (*www.grunch.net/synergetics*). Kirby is an IEEE member. (b) yes, tell them early that we have no "closed form algebraic solution" to fifth degree polynomials, but that doesn't keep Python from being useful in implementing some of the progessive approximations for root-finding, such as you get under the hood with Mathematica et al. I've got a prototypical Polynomial class out there somewhere that self solves pretty well, maybe others here do too. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu Mon Oct 6 22:28:40 2008 From: krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu (=?UTF-8?Q?Ivan_Krsti=C4=87?=) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 16:28:40 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: [Kirby, I find it very difficult to follow your messages; they tend to be long and meandering. I'm certain I'm not the only one. Please try to be more directly on-topic and succinct.] On Oct 6, 2008, at 10:56 AM, kirby urner wrote: > What passes for "pure math" would be something to study in college, > after getting a broad sampling ahead of time, good overview, the job > of a pre-specializing curriculum. Speaking with no experience teaching mathematics, only learning it, this statement strikes me as sheer nonsense. It's like saying "what passes for painting would be something to study in college, after getting a broad sampling of brushes, stroke techniques and paint chemistry ahead of time, all without ever seeing an actual painting." This isn't a discussion that's particularly on-topic for Python's edu- sig, so I won't belabor it much. I share the views expressed at some length in Paul Lockhart's excellent "A mathematician's lament" (). In summary, if you don't show kids that mathematics is something beautiful, how are they supposed to have anything but bored disregard for the seemingly meaningless mechanics they're taught for 8 years before college? Fractions don't qualify as beauty. Many aspects of pure mathematics do. -- Ivan Krsti? | http://radian.org From kirby.urner at gmail.com Mon Oct 6 22:47:39 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 13:47:39 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Ivan Krsti? < krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> wrote: > [Kirby, I find it very difficult to follow your messages; they tend to be > long and meandering. I'm certain I'm not the only one. Please try to be more > directly on-topic and succinct.] > [ they have been lately, yes, though if you go back in the archive you'll find more succinct ones ] > > On Oct 6, 2008, at 10:56 AM, kirby urner wrote: > >> What passes for "pure math" would be something to study in college, after >> getting a broad sampling ahead of time, good overview, the job of a >> pre-specializing curriculum. >> > > > Speaking with no experience teaching mathematics, only learning it, this > statement strikes me as sheer nonsense. It's like saying "what passes for > painting would be something to study in college, after getting a broad > sampling of brushes, stroke techniques and paint chemistry ahead of time, > all without ever seeing an actual painting." More I'm saying mathematics has a long and proud history outside of Ivory Tower specialties, a johnny come lately invention, whereas Leibniz, to take an example, was what we'd today call a polymath. Pre-college we do polymath, until you're old enough to make your own choices and maybe not get suckered by folks who talk a brave talk, but seem to dish out the same crufty / stale pablum year after year, left to their own devices, despite tremendous advances in the literature. > > > This isn't a discussion that's particularly on-topic for Python's edu-sig, > so I won't belabor it much. I share the views expressed at some length in > Paul Lockhart's excellent "A mathematician's lament" (< > http://radian.org/~krstic/LockhartsLament.pdf>). > In summary, if you don't show kids that mathematics is something beautiful, > how are they supposed to have anything but bored disregard for the seemingly > meaningless mechanics they're taught for 8 years before college? Fractions > don't qualify as beauty. Many aspects of pure mathematics do. Continued fractions do, especially: IDLE 1.2.1 >>> from __future__ import division >>> 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1)))))) 0.61904761904761907 >>> 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1)))))) 0.61538461538461542 >>> 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1))))))))) 0.6179775280898876 [ much easier when you have color-coded parentheses checking, like in IDLE ] Better in Akbar font. We appear to be approaching something, from above and below. Kirby > > > -- > Ivan Krsti? | http://radian.org > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mpaul213 at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 05:09:26 2008 From: mpaul213 at gmail.com (michel paul) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 20:09:26 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> > > My spin in Pythonic Math has been to suggest "dot notation" become accepted > as math notation I absolutely agree with this. In about 5 weeks I'll be giving a California Math Council presentation that I titled *Fractions are Objects, not Unfinished Division Problems*. I submitted the proposal with the attitude of 'who cares? Let's just see what happens.' Surprise! They accepted. OK, so now I have to have something to say. : ) I think the theme of 'dot notation' as a kind of standard math notation would be valuable. Generally, I want to present 1. The importance of 'computational thinking' as a math standard 2. Python as a vehicle for this Thanks very much for any helpful suggestions along these lines. - Michel 2008/10/6 kirby urner > 2008/10/4 michel paul > > >> >> For math classes I think it's more pertinent to focus on functional >> interactions and not on IO issues, and that was what I was trying to get at. >> > > > I'm enjoying this thread. > > My spin in Pythonic Math has been to suggest "dot notation" become accepted > as math notation, and with it the concept of namespaces, which I tell my > students is one of the most important mathematical concepts they'll ever > learn. We look at how several languages deal with the problem (of name > collisions, of disambiguation), including Java's "reverse URL" strategy e.g. > net.4dsolutions.mathobjects.vector or whatever.[1] > > I tend to look at .py modules as "fish tanks" i.e. ecosystems, with both > internal and external (import) dependencies, with the user of said fish tank > being somewhat the biologist, in testing to find out what's in there, what > the behaviors are. > > Starting with the math module is of course apropos, discussing the > functions, not shying away from trig even pre high school, no reason to > withhold about cosine just because they're "young" (this is actually a prime > time to gain exposure to these useful and time-tested ideas). > > Because of my "fish tank" idea, and using the math module as a model, I > don't encourage "self prompting" i.e. using raw_input for much of anything. > We need to "feed the fish" directly, i.e. pass arguments directly to > functions, with f ( ) looking like a creature with a mouth, ready to eat > something. fish( ). > > Regarding GOTO, sometime last month I think it was, I told the story of > assembler (JMP) and spaghetti code, Djikstra to the rescue, further > developments. It's through story telling that we get more of the nuance. > I'm a big believer in using this "time dimension" even if not doing anything > computer (hard to imagine) i.e. the lives of mathematicians, their > historical context, why they did what they did -- critical content, not > side-bar dispensible, not optional reading.[2] > > Metaphor: education systems are like those old Heinlein moving sidewalks > (science fiction), where you can't jump on the fast-moving one at the center > from zero, have to slide from walk to walk, each one a little faster, and > likewise when a approaching a destination, start to slow down. > > By including more content from geek world, getting more of a footprint for > the circus I work in, I'm giving a sense of one of those fast moving > sidewalks at the core of our infrastructure (coded reflexes, superhumanly > fast business processes). Math pre-college should be a door into all sorts > of careers (starring roles) that include numerate activities. It's not > about Ivory Tower PhD mathematicians having exclusive access to future > recruits, shoving the rest of us aside because our skills are "impure" (not > pure math). > > What passes for "pure math" would be something to study in college, after > getting a broad sampling ahead of time, good overview, the job of a > pre-specializing curriculum. In the meantime, if your school doesn't give a > clear window into computer science in over four years of numeracy training, > then hey, its probably a *very* slow moving sidewalk (more 1900s pedantic > and plodding than fast paced like TV).[3] > > Kirby > > [1] Like when I do the IEEE lecture on Nov 4 at the Armory (theater), I'll > be talking about coxeter.4d versus einstein.4d versus bucky.4d -- three > namespaces, named for thinkers, in which the concept of "four dimensional" > makes sense -- but in quite different language games. (a) > > [2] I like telling the story of those Italian Renaissance era polynomial > solvers, a proprietary model in which mathematicians were like race horses, > gained owner-patrons who would stable them, let them work out, then they'd > have like "cock fights" in the village square, to see how could solve > whatever third of fourth degree polynomial fastest. Without this kind of > focus, polynomials wouldn't have the momentum they still have to this day, > as a key math topic pre-college (and another kind of "math object" from a > Pythonic math point of view).(b) > > [3] Marshall McLuhan wasn't just blowing smoke. People who grow up on a > lot of TV are geared differently and in the early 21st century a lot of what > "school" is about is asserting the value system of a pre-TV era (pre > computer, pre calculator...). To "side with the kids" would be entirely > subversive of traditional classroom thinking, would involve a lot more > learning how to make televisions (multi-track) not just passively viewing > it. In my model numeracy classes, making "math shorts" (like on Sesame > Street) and uploading 'em to YouTube, for peers to admire (peers thousands > of miles away perhaps -- no problemo) is a big part of the action. > > > (a) FYI here's the bio of Kirby that went out to subscribers: > > An IEEE Oregon Section event > > "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe" > > with exclusive presentation by local Buckminster scholar and consultant to > the playwright, Kirby Urner Tuesday, November 4, 2008 on the Mezzanine at > Portland Center Stage Gerding Theater at the Armory > > 128 NW Eleventh Avenue, Portland, OR 97209 > > Hors d'oeuvres Reception: 5:30 p.m. > > Presentation and Discussion: 6:00 p.m. > > Theater Performance: 7:30 p.m. > > $49 per person. Tickets are limited. > > Please register by October 14, 2008. For more information and to register > go to . > > We regret that we cannot offer refunds for cancellations received after > October 14. > > > > ----- > > R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe > > Written and directed by D.W. Jacobs from the life, work and writings of R. > Buckminster Fuller > > > > Play: > > "Everything you've learned in school as 'obvious' becomes less and less > obvious as you begin to study the universe." - Buckminster Fuller > > Does humanity have the chance to endure successfully on planet Earth, and > if so, how? This is the question framed by Buckminster Fuller, the engineer, > designer, poet, and philosopher who, among other things, was Mensa's second > president and invented the geodesic dome. Join us for an unforgettable > journey inside one of the most remarkable minds of the 20th century in a > one-man show that blends videos, lectures, poetry and a healthy dash of > humanist humor. A hero of the sustainability movement, Bucky framed many of > the great ideas of his time and ours. This is your chance to get to know the > man behind the world-saving mission. > > > > Presentation: > > How has the literature developed since the publication of 'Grunch of > Giants' in 1983 and what are likely outcomes and future directions projects > Fuller started over a lifetime of heavy lifting? > > > > Speaker: > > Kirby Urner started exploring Fuller's work in earnest following his > earning a BA in philosophy from Princeton University, while serving as a > high school math teacher in Jersey City. He's served as a contributing > editor for McGraw-Hill, Rockefeller Center, political activist for Project > VOTE! in Washington DC, and computer programmer for myriad governmental and > nonprofit organizations in Greater Portland. Working in cahoots with Kiyoshi > Kuromiya, Fuller's lieutenant on a couple of key books, he snagged the > domain name bfi.org and served as the Buckminster Fuller Institute's first > web wrangler. His 'Synergetics on the Web' is one of the main stops for > Bucky scholars to this day (*www.grunch.net/synergetics*). Kirby is an > IEEE member. > > (b) yes, tell them early that we have no "closed form algebraic solution" > to fifth degree polynomials, but that doesn't keep Python from being useful > in implementing some of the progessive approximations for root-finding, such > as you get under the hood with Mathematica et al. I've got a prototypical > Polynomial class out there somewhere that self solves pretty well, maybe > others here do too. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Tue Oct 7 06:45:58 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 21:45:58 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > Continued fractions do, especially: > > IDLE 1.2.1 > >>> from __future__ import division > >>> 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1)))))) > 0.61904761904761907 > >>> 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1)))))) > 0.61538461538461542 > >>> 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + > 1))))))))) > 0.6179775280898876 > Just to extend here a bit, these generators are not computationally efficient; there's a much better way to do continued fractions, in terms of algorithms, Tim Peters showing me some ropes early on in this archive, Cut-the-Knot a pretty good website as I recall, plus several others... However, sometimes computational efficiency isn't the point so much as conceptual transparency, and in this respect I think these two have pedagogical value: In Python 3.x... IDLE 3.0a2 >>> from continued import * >>> dir() ['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', '__package__', 'continued_1', 'continued_2'] >>> thegen = continued_2() # less pathological >>> for i in range(10): print ( next ( thegen) ) 1/(1 + 0)=1.0 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0))=0.5 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0)))=0.666666666667 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0))))=0.6 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0)))))=0.625 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0))))))=0.615384615385 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0)))))))=0.619047619048 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0))))))))=0.617647058824 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0)))))))))=0.618181818182 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0))))))))))=0.61797752809 >>> thegen = continued_1() # the first thing I tried >>> for i in range(10): print ( next ( thegen) ) 1/(1 + 0)=1.0 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0))=0.5 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0))))=0.6 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0))))))))=0.617647058824 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 0))))))))))))))))=0.6180338134 Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in for i in range(10): print ( next ( thegen) ) File "/home/kirby/continued.py", line 4, in continued_1 yield expr % 0 + "=" + str (eval (expr % "0") ) MemoryError >>> def continued_1( ): expr = "1/(1 + %s)" while True: yield expr % 0 + "=" + str (eval (expr % "0") ) expr = expr % expr # doubles in size, overflow quickly def continued_2( ): expr = "1/(1 + %s)" while True: yield expr % 0 + "=" + str (eval (expr % "0") ) expr = expr % "1/(1 + %s)" # more incremental, converges more slowly Kirby Princeton '80 (noticing krstic's harvard.edu) PS: for those not up on this abstruse topic, we're approaching 1/phi in the above examples where phi == (1 + math.sqrt( 5 ))/2 > > [ much easier when you have color-coded parentheses checking, like in IDLE > ] > > Better in Akbar font. We appear to be approaching something, from above > and below. > > Kirby > > > >> >> >> -- >> Ivan Krsti? | http://radian.org >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MDiPierro at cs.depaul.edu Tue Oct 7 07:05:52 2008 From: MDiPierro at cs.depaul.edu (DiPierro, Massimo) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 00:05:52 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> , <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I agree with this 1. The importance of 'computational thinking' as a math standard 2. Python as a vehicle for this But it is important to make a distinction: a) a math formula represents a relation between objects and the objects math speaks about (with very few exceptions) do not have a finite representation, only an approximate representation (think of rational numbers, Hilbert spaces, etc.) b) an algorithm represents a process on how to manipulate those objects and/or their approximate representation. While math and math teaching could benefit from focusing more on process and computations (and there python can play an important role) rather than relations, it is important not to trivialize things. For example: In math a fraction is an equivalence class containing an infinite number of couples (x,y) equivalent under (x,y)~(x',y') iff x*y' = y*x'. Any element of the class can be described using, for example, a python tuple or other python object. The faction itself cannot. It is important to not to loose sight of the distinctions. Math is gives us the ability to handle and tame the concept of infinite, something that computers have never been good at. Massimo ________________________________________ From: edu-sig-bounces+mdipierro=cs.depaul.edu at python.org [edu-sig-bounces+mdipierro=cs.depaul.edu at python.org] On Behalf Of michel paul [mpaul213 at gmail.com] Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 10:09 PM To: kirby urner Cc: edu-sig at python.org Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 My spin in Pythonic Math has been to suggest "dot notation" become accepted as math notation I absolutely agree with this. In about 5 weeks I'll be giving a California Math Council presentation that I titled Fractions are Objects, not Unfinished Division Problems. I submitted the proposal with the attitude of 'who cares? Let's just see what happens.' Surprise! They accepted. OK, so now I have to have something to say. : ) I think the theme of 'dot notation' as a kind of standard math notation would be valuable. Generally, I want to present 1. The importance of 'computational thinking' as a math standard 2. Python as a vehicle for this Thanks very much for any helpful suggestions along these lines. - Michel 2008/10/6 kirby urner > 2008/10/4 michel paul > For math classes I think it's more pertinent to focus on functional interactions and not on IO issues, and that was what I was trying to get at. I'm enjoying this thread. My spin in Pythonic Math has been to suggest "dot notation" become accepted as math notation, and with it the concept of namespaces, which I tell my students is one of the most important mathematical concepts they'll ever learn. We look at how several languages deal with the problem (of name collisions, of disambiguation), including Java's "reverse URL" strategy e.g. net.4dsolutions.mathobjects.vector or whatever.[1] I tend to look at .py modules as "fish tanks" i.e. ecosystems, with both internal and external (import) dependencies, with the user of said fish tank being somewhat the biologist, in testing to find out what's in there, what the behaviors are. Starting with the math module is of course apropos, discussing the functions, not shying away from trig even pre high school, no reason to withhold about cosine just because they're "young" (this is actually a prime time to gain exposure to these useful and time-tested ideas). Because of my "fish tank" idea, and using the math module as a model, I don't encourage "self prompting" i.e. using raw_input for much of anything. We need to "feed the fish" directly, i.e. pass arguments directly to functions, with f ( ) looking like a creature with a mouth, ready to eat something. fish( ). Regarding GOTO, sometime last month I think it was, I told the story of assembler (JMP) and spaghetti code, Djikstra to the rescue, further developments. It's through story telling that we get more of the nuance. I'm a big believer in using this "time dimension" even if not doing anything computer (hard to imagine) i.e. the lives of mathematicians, their historical context, why they did what they did -- critical content, not side-bar dispensible, not optional reading.[2] Metaphor: education systems are like those old Heinlein moving sidewalks (science fiction), where you can't jump on the fast-moving one at the center from zero, have to slide from walk to walk, each one a little faster, and likewise when a approaching a destination, start to slow down. By including more content from geek world, getting more of a footprint for the circus I work in, I'm giving a sense of one of those fast moving sidewalks at the core of our infrastructure (coded reflexes, superhumanly fast business processes). Math pre-college should be a door into all sorts of careers (starring roles) that include numerate activities. It's not about Ivory Tower PhD mathematicians having exclusive access to future recruits, shoving the rest of us aside because our skills are "impure" (not pure math). What passes for "pure math" would be something to study in college, after getting a broad sampling ahead of time, good overview, the job of a pre-specializing curriculum. In the meantime, if your school doesn't give a clear window into computer science in over four years of numeracy training, then hey, its probably a *very* slow moving sidewalk (more 1900s pedantic and plodding than fast paced like TV).[3] Kirby [1] Like when I do the IEEE lecture on Nov 4 at the Armory (theater), I'll be talking about coxeter.4d versus einstein.4d versus bucky.4d -- three namespaces, named for thinkers, in which the concept of "four dimensional" makes sense -- but in quite different language games. (a) [2] I like telling the story of those Italian Renaissance era polynomial solvers, a proprietary model in which mathematicians were like race horses, gained owner-patrons who would stable them, let them work out, then they'd have like "cock fights" in the village square, to see how could solve whatever third of fourth degree polynomial fastest. Without this kind of focus, polynomials wouldn't have the momentum they still have to this day, as a key math topic pre-college (and another kind of "math object" from a Pythonic math point of view).(b) [3] Marshall McLuhan wasn't just blowing smoke. People who grow up on a lot of TV are geared differently and in the early 21st century a lot of what "school" is about is asserting the value system of a pre-TV era (pre computer, pre calculator...). To "side with the kids" would be entirely subversive of traditional classroom thinking, would involve a lot more learning how to make televisions (multi-track) not just passively viewing it. In my model numeracy classes, making "math shorts" (like on Sesame Street) and uploading 'em to YouTube, for peers to admire (peers thousands of miles away perhaps -- no problemo) is a big part of the action. (a) FYI here's the bio of Kirby that went out to subscribers: An IEEE Oregon Section event "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe" with exclusive presentation by local Buckminster scholar and consultant to the playwright, Kirby Urner Tuesday, November 4, 2008 on the Mezzanine at Portland Center Stage Gerding Theater at the Armory 128 NW Eleventh Avenue, Portland, OR 97209 Hors d'oeuvres Reception: 5:30 p.m. Presentation and Discussion: 6:00 p.m. Theater Performance: 7:30 p.m. $49 per person. Tickets are limited. Please register by October 14, 2008. For more information and to register go to . We regret that we cannot offer refunds for cancellations received after October 14. ----- R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe Written and directed by D.W. Jacobs from the life, work and writings of R. Buckminster Fuller Play: "Everything you've learned in school as 'obvious' becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe." - Buckminster Fuller Does humanity have the chance to endure successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how? This is the question framed by Buckminster Fuller, the engineer, designer, poet, and philosopher who, among other things, was Mensa's second president and invented the geodesic dome. Join us for an unforgettable journey inside one of the most remarkable minds of the 20th century in a one-man show that blends videos, lectures, poetry and a healthy dash of humanist humor. A hero of the sustainability movement, Bucky framed many of the great ideas of his time and ours. This is your chance to get to know the man behind the world-saving mission. Presentation: How has the literature developed since the publication of 'Grunch of Giants' in 1983 and what are likely outcomes and future directions projects Fuller started over a lifetime of heavy lifting? Speaker: Kirby Urner started exploring Fuller's work in earnest following his earning a BA in philosophy from Princeton University, while serving as a high school math teacher in Jersey City. He's served as a contributing editor for McGraw-Hill, Rockefeller Center, political activist for Project VOTE! in Washington DC, and computer programmer for myriad governmental and nonprofit organizations in Greater Portland. Working in cahoots with Kiyoshi Kuromiya, Fuller's lieutenant on a couple of key books, he snagged the domain name bfi.org and served as the Buckminster Fuller Institute's first web wrangler. His 'Synergetics on the Web' is one of the main stops for Bucky scholars to this day (www.grunch.net/synergetics). Kirby is an IEEE member. (b) yes, tell them early that we have no "closed form algebraic solution" to fifth degree polynomials, but that doesn't keep Python from being useful in implementing some of the progessive approximations for root-finding, such as you get under the hood with Mathematica et al. I've got a prototypical Polynomial class out there somewhere that self solves pretty well, maybe others here do too. _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig at python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig From kirby.urner at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 07:42:49 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 22:42:49 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:05 PM, DiPierro, Massimo wrote: > > I agree with this > > 1. The importance of 'computational thinking' as a math standard > 2. Python as a vehicle for this > > But it is important to make a distinction: > > a) a math formula represents a relation between objects and the objects math speaks about (with very few exceptions) do not have a finite representation, only an approximate representation (think of rational numbers, Hilbert spaces, etc.) > b) an algorithm represents a process on how to manipulate those objects and/or their approximate representation. > There's a whole philosophy of mathematics, and of language more generally, implicit in your (a) and (b), inheriting from both realism (as in "the reality of Platonic objects") and nominalism (as in "nouns point to things" -- with "pointing" considered entirely non-problematic). The linguistic turn (named by Rorty), launched by Nietzsche and culminating in Wittgenstein's later works, is about undoing some of these gestalts, returning us to a more operational view of how language works in the world (or doesn't). This is getting way off topic I'm sure some are thinking, and I agree, so just lets admit we don't all come to mathematics from the same perspective, and that this is as it should be. > While math and math teaching could benefit from focusing more on process and computations (and there python can play an important role) rather than relations, it is important not to trivialize things. For example: > > In math a fraction is an equivalence class containing an infinite number of couples (x,y) equivalent under (x,y)~(x',y') iff x*y' = y*x'. > Any element of the class can be described using, for example, a python tuple or other python object. The faction itself cannot. The way I'd put it is the class Rat (rational number class) spells out what fractions might do, in terms of __add__, __mul__ and so on, but then there's no limit on the number of fraction objects you might want to build from this blueprint, i.e. the type of object is distinct from the instances, in a pleasing, teachable, lexical way. At least as relevant as Bertrand Russell's stuff if you ask me, this object oriented paradigm. And yes, no limit on the number of tuples that map to that tuple in lowest terms, which is where gcd comes in, gotta teach that. Pre college algebra with no introduction to Euclid's Algorithm for the GCD is laughably idiotic and I openly sneer at the idea when I think no one is looking. > > It is important to not to loose sight of the distinctions. Math is gives us the ability to handle and tame the concept of infinite, something that computers have never been good at. > > Massimo I like Knuth's take, lectures at MIT (audio on the web, maybe video too as I recall), which is very into finitude. Accepting finitude takes courage too. I'm glad our computers are harnessing it, leaving humans to their fantasies of greater greatness. Kirby From matt.kameron at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 15:51:35 2008 From: matt.kameron at gmail.com (Matt K) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 23:51:35 +1000 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <53b2477a0810070651p3f5d74f0h6d0367a323da52fe@mail.gmail.com> I'm changing pace slightly, after making 2 points: (1) Dot notation *does* exist in Maths. Its just called "subscript" notation instead. But its the same thing. I try to make a habit of using subscripts (and sub-subscripts) as much as possible because it shows the same logical relationship. (2) The fractions you show don't have beauty. In continued fractions, its *recursion *that has the mathematical beauty. (3) *A practical question* - can any *high/middle-school *teachers give me clear pros/cons of using programming as a tool to teach algebra? I'm rewriting the Year 8 maths program for next year (13-14 year olds) and am considering trialling using Python. The students are the school are very tech-savvy and I wouldn't aim to teach them anything more than formulas really... formulas, basic IO and some ifs. Maybe (maybe) could do a basic for i in range(20) loop, but nothing more than that. Note that I am the computing teacher in the school; the majority of my teaching is the computing studies subjects for older students (15-18 year olds). On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 3:42 PM, kirby urner wrote: > On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:05 PM, DiPierro, Massimo > wrote: > > > > I agree with this > > > > 1. The importance of 'computational thinking' as a math standard > > 2. Python as a vehicle for this > > > > But it is important to make a distinction: > > > > a) a math formula represents a relation between objects and the objects > math speaks about (with very few exceptions) do not have a finite > representation, only an approximate representation (think of rational > numbers, Hilbert spaces, etc.) > > b) an algorithm represents a process on how to manipulate those objects > and/or their approximate representation. > > > > There's a whole philosophy of mathematics, and of language more > generally, implicit in your (a) and (b), inheriting from both realism > (as in "the reality of Platonic objects") and nominalism (as in "nouns > point to things" -- with "pointing" considered entirely > non-problematic). > > The linguistic turn (named by Rorty), launched by Nietzsche and > culminating in Wittgenstein's later works, is about undoing some of > these gestalts, returning us to a more operational view of how > language works in the world (or doesn't). > > This is getting way off topic I'm sure some are thinking, and I agree, > so just lets admit we don't all come to mathematics from the same > perspective, and that this is as it should be. > > > While math and math teaching could benefit from focusing more on process > and computations (and there python can play an important role) rather than > relations, it is important not to trivialize things. For example: > > > > In math a fraction is an equivalence class containing an infinite number > of couples (x,y) equivalent under (x,y)~(x',y') iff x*y' = y*x'. > > Any element of the class can be described using, for example, a python > tuple or other python object. The faction itself cannot. > > The way I'd put it is the class Rat (rational number class) spells out > what fractions might do, in terms of __add__, __mul__ and so on, but > then there's no limit on the number of fraction objects you might want > to build from this blueprint, i.e. the type of object is distinct from > the instances, in a pleasing, teachable, lexical way. At least as > relevant as Bertrand Russell's stuff if you ask me, this object > oriented paradigm. > > And yes, no limit on the number of tuples that map to that tuple in > lowest terms, which is where gcd comes in, gotta teach that. Pre > college algebra with no introduction to Euclid's Algorithm for the GCD > is laughably idiotic and I openly sneer at the idea when I think no > one is looking. > > > > > It is important to not to loose sight of the distinctions. Math is gives > us the ability to handle and tame the concept of infinite, something that > computers have never been good at. > > > > Massimo > > I like Knuth's take, lectures at MIT (audio on the web, maybe video > too as I recall), which is very into finitude. > > Accepting finitude takes courage too. I'm glad our computers are > harnessing it, leaving humans to their fantasies of greater greatness. > > 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 annaraven at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 16:08:25 2008 From: annaraven at gmail.com (Anna Ravenscroft) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 07:08:25 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: <53b2477a0810070651p3f5d74f0h6d0367a323da52fe@mail.gmail.com> References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> <53b2477a0810070651p3f5d74f0h6d0367a323da52fe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2008/10/7 Matt K > > > (3) *A practical question* - can any *high/middle-school *teachers give me > clear pros/cons of using programming as a tool to teach algebra? I'm > rewriting the Year 8 maths program for next year (13-14 year olds) and am > considering trialling using Python. The students are the school are very > tech-savvy and I wouldn't aim to teach them anything more than formulas > really... formulas, basic IO and some ifs. Maybe (maybe) could do a basic > for i in range(20) loop, but nothing more than that. > Not a teacher now, but... My first experience programming was doing quadratic equations on punchcards. I loved it. It allowed me to learn much more about the equations than if I had to only do them by hand. (Note that I thought quadratic equations were pretty kewl and used to do them for fun while babysitting...) I still find myself turning to the computer to run an equation and see what it really does when the physical mechanics of doing it by hand isn't in the way... Unfortunately, I was left with the impression that you could *only* do equations unless you went on to become a wizard. So there is a downside, imho, to teaching programming only as part of the math classes. I wish I'd had some in other classes (literature, for example) to help me realize I could use programming more widely. (Hope this was coherent; still working on my first cuppa joe.) -- cordially, Anna -- Walking through the water. Trying to get across. Just like everybody else. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From matt.kameron at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 16:18:17 2008 From: matt.kameron at gmail.com (Matt K) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 00:18:17 +1000 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> <53b2477a0810070651p3f5d74f0h6d0367a323da52fe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <53b2477a0810070718sd95cb0fo1d697f463d6f9ccf@mail.gmail.com> Anna, is what you describe programming (as in Python) or using graphing software (as in Maple/Matlab)? I am not certain which you are referring to by reading your email. I think the difference is significant - the latter converts an equation to a graph, the former might show students the generalisation of an algorithm. The downside you describe won't be an issue these days (at least in my school) - Python is so powerful that kids will start playing around with it out of my control - plus they always see what the kids who are older than them are doing. On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:08 AM, Anna Ravenscroft wrote: > > > 2008/10/7 Matt K >> >> >> (3) *A practical question* - can any *high/middle-school *teachers give >> me clear pros/cons of using programming as a tool to teach algebra? I'm >> rewriting the Year 8 maths program for next year (13-14 year olds) and am >> considering trialling using Python. The students are the school are very >> tech-savvy and I wouldn't aim to teach them anything more than formulas >> really... formulas, basic IO and some ifs. Maybe (maybe) could do a basic >> for i in range(20) loop, but nothing more than that. >> > > Not a teacher now, but... > > My first experience programming was doing quadratic equations on > punchcards. I loved it. It allowed me to learn much more about the equations > than if I had to only do them by hand. (Note that I thought quadratic > equations were pretty kewl and used to do them for fun while babysitting...) > I still find myself turning to the computer to run an equation and see what > it really does when the physical mechanics of doing it by hand isn't in the > way... > > Unfortunately, I was left with the impression that you could *only* do > equations unless you went on to become a wizard. So there is a downside, > imho, to teaching programming only as part of the math classes. I wish I'd > had some in other classes (literature, for example) to help me realize I > could use programming more widely. > > (Hope this was coherent; still working on my first cuppa joe.) > > -- > cordially, > Anna > -- > Walking through the water. Trying to get across. > Just like everybody else. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dhagrow at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 17:26:07 2008 From: dhagrow at gmail.com (Miguel Turner) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:26:07 -0600 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country Message-ID: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> Hello to all, I'm posting here because I am planning on teaching a programming class to kids in a small town in Honduras. I am a Peace Corps volunteer currently living in a town of about 2,500 people. I studied CS in college and originally joined the Peace Corps when I learned that they have been seeking volunteers with technical backgrounds for some years now in order to develop the use of technology in third world countries. Needless to say, I am facing a number of challenges and I thought it would be helpful to seek out some advice, and maybe see if there was anyone who has been or is in a similar situation. I've been a huge fan of Python since I taught it to myself over 3 years ago, and I've used it often, since. I enjoy working in C and Assembly, but Python was like a breath of fresh air. So, I'm already sold on the idea of Python as a first language and basically everything about CP4E. I recently read John Miller's excellent dissertation on computer literacy, which is what motivated me to post here. The colegio (middle/high school) in my town has maybe 150 students, and 8 working, donated computers. There is currently a computer teacher who gives very basic lessons in Windows and Microsoft Office to the 20 or so high schoolers. The town has 1 public internet connection at an internet cafe with 3 computers and a satellite dish. Very few families have personal computers and far fewer can afford to connect to the internet via mobile phone, which is the cheapest option available. In short, there is very little exposure to computers here. It is not unusual to find kids who struggle with using a mouse. But there are also some kids who like to spend their time at the internet cafe chatting and downloading music to their cellphones (plenty of those here). The lack of computers and internet is the first challenge, though not one I can do much about. Another is language. I speak Spanish well enough, though I do anticipate difficulties when trying to explain programming concepts in ways that make sense in this culture. There is also the fact that most documentation, code, and the language itself, are all in English. I'm aware of some books that have been translated, but I'm mainly concerned with how frustrating it will be for the students to debug their programs when all of the error messages are in English. Another major challenge is the educational system, and indeed, the educational culture here. It's a bit complicated, so I will just say that only about 8% of kids make it through high school and most of those will graduate without ever seeing algebra. The worst of it is that it's hard to find people who actually want to learn, or even think. When I showed the computer teacher here Guido van Robot she said, "doesn't all that thinking make your head hurt?" This is reflected in the lack of self-confidence a lot of the kids have that they're smart enough to learn difficult things. It's very frustrating, but it makes me think that a programming course would be all the more worthwhile, assuming I can get past enough of that sort of thinking to get started. Practicality is also very important here. Given that, and the generally low level of education, I am interested in integrating other subjects into the class, such as algebra, reading material, and whatever I can include that might be more directly related to local life. I don't intend programming to be an end, so much as the means to an end. I have considered, in some depth, using another method for teaching programming, such as Alice or Guido van Robot. Perhaps in another post I can give my reasons for deciding against those and going with Python. I've looked at the OLPC project too, but, unfortunately, it doesn't look like that will be making it to Honduras for a while. My biggest concern, it must be said, is that I have no real teaching experience - I'm a programmer. I'm sure I can muddle through until I can get the hang of it, but given all the other challenges I have to face, I'm not sure the kids (or the teachers) will have the patience to stick with me until I do. So, I'd appreciate recommendations for good teaching resources, as well. I could say much more, but I only wanted to introduce myself. Hopefully someone can give me some idea how far up the creek I am, though I'd be happy to hear comments on anything that I've brought up. I'm open to criticism as well, if anyone has any compelling reasons for why this might not be a good idea. I know most, or all, of these kids will never become programmers, but that's not the point, is it? Thanks for reading, Miguel Turner From winstonw at stratolab.com Tue Oct 7 17:39:19 2008 From: winstonw at stratolab.com (Winston Wolff) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 11:39:19 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country In-Reply-To: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> References: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi Miguel- We teach computer programming with Python at Stratolab, but I like to start with Scratch first. ( scratch.mit.edu ) Scratch builds the higher level programming concepts without the burden of learning syntax. Scratch programmers learn problem solving, if-then logic, loops, an variables. With Scratch, students get something working quickly, which builds their motivation. Then the ones who really enjoy it can move on to Python. Many are content using Scratch, which I think is fine. Also Scratch's hardware requirements are relatively modest. For the kids who move to Python, graphics are a great way to go--it provides a lot of positive feedback. PyGame is rather low level. I use my own MoonUnit wrapper around PyGame ( http://stratolab.com/misc/makebot ), but LiveWires is similar. As far as teaching tips, do you live anywhere near NYC? -Winston On Oct 7, 2008, at 11:26 AM, Miguel Turner wrote: > Hello to all, > > I'm posting here because I am planning on teaching a programming > class to kids in a small town in Honduras. I am a Peace Corps > volunteer currently living in a town of about 2,500 people. I > studied CS in college and originally joined the Peace Corps when I > learned that they have been seeking volunteers with technical > backgrounds for some years now in order to develop the use of > technology in third world countries. Needless to say, I am facing a > number of challenges and I thought it would be helpful to seek out > some advice, and maybe see if there was anyone who has been or is in > a similar situation. > > I've been a huge fan of Python since I taught it to myself over 3 > years ago, and I've used it often, since. I enjoy working in C and > Assembly, but Python was like a breath of fresh air. So, I'm already > sold on the idea of Python as a first language and basically > everything about CP4E. I recently read John Miller's excellent > dissertation on computer literacy, which is what motivated me to > post here. > > The colegio (middle/high school) in my town has maybe 150 students, > and 8 working, donated computers. There is currently a computer > teacher who gives very basic lessons in Windows and Microsoft Office > to the 20 or so high schoolers. The town has 1 public internet > connection at an internet cafe with 3 computers and a satellite > dish. Very few families have personal computers and far fewer can > afford to connect to the internet via mobile phone, which is the > cheapest option available. In short, there is very little exposure > to computers here. It is not unusual to find kids who struggle with > using a mouse. But there are also some kids who like to spend their > time at the internet cafe chatting and downloading music to their > cellphones (plenty of those here). > > The lack of computers and internet is the first challenge, though > not one I can do much about. Another is language. I speak Spanish > well enough, though I do anticipate difficulties when trying to > explain programming concepts in ways that make sense in this > culture. There is also the fact that most documentation, code, and > the language itself, are all in English. I'm aware of some books > that have been translated, but I'm mainly concerned with how > frustrating it will be for the students to debug their programs when > all of the error messages are in English. > > Another major challenge is the educational system, and indeed, the > educational culture here. It's a bit complicated, so I will just say > that only about 8% of kids make it through high school and most of > those will graduate without ever seeing algebra. The worst of it is > that it's hard to find people who actually want to learn, or even > think. When I showed the computer teacher here Guido van Robot she > said, "doesn't all that thinking make your head hurt?" This is > reflected in the lack of self-confidence a lot of the kids have that > they're smart enough to learn difficult things. It's very > frustrating, but it makes me think that a programming course would > be all the more worthwhile, assuming I can get past enough of that > sort of thinking to get started. > > Practicality is also very important here. Given that, and the > generally low level of education, I am interested in integrating > other subjects into the class, such as algebra, reading material, > and whatever I can include that might be more directly related to > local life. I don't intend programming to be an end, so much as the > means to an end. > > I have considered, in some depth, using another method for teaching > programming, such as Alice or Guido van Robot. Perhaps in another > post I can give my reasons for deciding against those and going with > Python. I've looked at the OLPC project too, but, unfortunately, it > doesn't look like that will be making it to Honduras for a while. > > My biggest concern, it must be said, is that I have no real teaching > experience - I'm a programmer. I'm sure I can muddle through until I > can get the hang of it, but given all the other challenges I have to > face, I'm not sure the kids (or the teachers) will have the patience > to stick with me until I do. So, I'd appreciate recommendations for > good teaching resources, as well. > > I could say much more, but I only wanted to introduce myself. > Hopefully someone can give me some idea how far up the creek I am, > though I'd be happy to hear comments on anything that I've brought > up. I'm open to criticism as well, if anyone has any compelling > reasons for why this might not be a good idea. I know most, or all, > of these kids will never become programmers, but that's not the > point, is it? > > Thanks for reading, > Miguel Turner > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig Winston Wolff Stratolab - Computer Courses for Teens and Kids (646) 827-2242 - http://stratolab.com From ccosse at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 18:00:34 2008 From: ccosse at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Charles_Coss=E9?=) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 10:00:34 -0600 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country In-Reply-To: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> References: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> Message-ID: Greetings Miguel, Sounds like fun down there in Honduras. I just visited Costa Rica with my kids earlier this summer, and ran into some Peace Corps tech teachers down there. Myself, I'm an RPCV (Kenya 1991-1993) and have been implementing the 3rd Peace Corps goal ever since by developing OpenSource Education Software in Python (www.asymptopia.org). Actually, there you might be interested in TuxWordSmith which is almost Scrabble and plays in many language combos, including Spanish/English and English/Spanish. I'd be happy to correspond and perhaps help you with some supplies if you need ... gotta run, but I'm here. Hope to hear from you. Charles Cosse -- AsymptopiaSoftware | Software at theLimit www.asymptopia.org On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 9:26 AM, Miguel Turner wrote: > Hello to all, > > I'm posting here because I am planning on teaching a programming class to > kids in a small town in Honduras. I am a Peace Corps volunteer currently > living in a town of about 2,500 people. I studied CS in college and > originally joined the Peace Corps when I learned that they have been seeking > volunteers with technical backgrounds for some years now in order to develop > the use of technology in third world countries. Needless to say, I am facing > a number of challenges and I thought it would be helpful to seek out some > advice, and maybe see if there was anyone who has been or is in a similar > situation. > > I've been a huge fan of Python since I taught it to myself over 3 years ago, > and I've used it often, since. I enjoy working in C and Assembly, but Python > was like a breath of fresh air. So, I'm already sold on the idea of Python > as a first language and basically everything about CP4E. I recently read > John Miller's excellent dissertation on computer literacy, which is what > motivated me to post here. > > The colegio (middle/high school) in my town has maybe 150 students, and 8 > working, donated computers. There is currently a computer teacher who gives > very basic lessons in Windows and Microsoft Office to the 20 or so high > schoolers. The town has 1 public internet connection at an internet cafe > with 3 computers and a satellite dish. Very few families have personal > computers and far fewer can afford to connect to the internet via mobile > phone, which is the cheapest option available. In short, there is very > little exposure to computers here. It is not unusual to find kids who > struggle with using a mouse. But there are also some kids who like to spend > their time at the internet cafe chatting and downloading music to their > cellphones (plenty of those here). > > The lack of computers and internet is the first challenge, though not one I > can do much about. Another is language. I speak Spanish well enough, though > I do anticipate difficulties when trying to explain programming concepts in > ways that make sense in this culture. There is also the fact that most > documentation, code, and the language itself, are all in English. I'm aware > of some books that have been translated, but I'm mainly concerned with how > frustrating it will be for the students to debug their programs when all of > the error messages are in English. > > Another major challenge is the educational system, and indeed, the > educational culture here. It's a bit complicated, so I will just say that > only about 8% of kids make it through high school and most of those will > graduate without ever seeing algebra. The worst of it is that it's hard to > find people who actually want to learn, or even think. When I showed the > computer teacher here Guido van Robot she said, "doesn't all that thinking > make your head hurt?" This is reflected in the lack of self-confidence a lot > of the kids have that they're smart enough to learn difficult things. It's > very frustrating, but it makes me think that a programming course would be > all the more worthwhile, assuming I can get past enough of that sort of > thinking to get started. > > Practicality is also very important here. Given that, and the generally low > level of education, I am interested in integrating other subjects into the > class, such as algebra, reading material, and whatever I can include that > might be more directly related to local life. I don't intend programming to > be an end, so much as the means to an end. > > I have considered, in some depth, using another method for teaching > programming, such as Alice or Guido van Robot. Perhaps in another post I can > give my reasons for deciding against those and going with Python. I've > looked at the OLPC project too, but, unfortunately, it doesn't look like > that will be making it to Honduras for a while. > > My biggest concern, it must be said, is that I have no real teaching > experience - I'm a programmer. I'm sure I can muddle through until I can get > the hang of it, but given all the other challenges I have to face, I'm not > sure the kids (or the teachers) will have the patience to stick with me > until I do. So, I'd appreciate recommendations for good teaching resources, > as well. > > I could say much more, but I only wanted to introduce myself. Hopefully > someone can give me some idea how far up the creek I am, though I'd be happy > to hear comments on anything that I've brought up. I'm open to criticism as > well, if anyone has any compelling reasons for why this might not be a good > idea. I know most, or all, of these kids will never become programmers, but > that's not the point, is it? > > Thanks for reading, > Miguel Turner > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > From vceder at canterburyschool.org Tue Oct 7 18:03:14 2008 From: vceder at canterburyschool.org (Vern Ceder) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:03:14 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country In-Reply-To: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> References: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> Message-ID: <48EB8842.7030708@canterburyschool.org> Good luck Miguel, we're all pulling for you. My advice teaching-wise would be to go slow with the initial concepts. To someone who has never coded at all variables, lists, loops, etc are somewhat alien concepts, while once you know how to program, the same concepts seem trivial. So be patient and attentive to whether or not they're getting it, and be ready to explain (and illustrate and have them practice) the same thing several different ways. Cheers, Vern Ceder Miguel Turner wrote: > Hello to all, > > I'm posting here because I am planning on teaching a programming class > to kids in a small town in Honduras. I am a Peace Corps volunteer > currently living in a town of about 2,500 people. I studied CS in > college and originally joined the Peace Corps when I learned that they > have been seeking volunteers with technical backgrounds for some years > now in order to develop the use of technology in third world countries. > Needless to say, I am facing a number of challenges and I thought it > would be helpful to seek out some advice, and maybe see if there was > anyone who has been or is in a similar situation. > > I've been a huge fan of Python since I taught it to myself over 3 years > ago, and I've used it often, since. I enjoy working in C and Assembly, > but Python was like a breath of fresh air. So, I'm already sold on the > idea of Python as a first language and basically everything about CP4E. > I recently read John Miller's excellent dissertation on computer > literacy, which is what motivated me to post here. > > The colegio (middle/high school) in my town has maybe 150 students, and > 8 working, donated computers. There is currently a computer teacher who > gives very basic lessons in Windows and Microsoft Office to the 20 or so > high schoolers. The town has 1 public internet connection at an internet > cafe with 3 computers and a satellite dish. Very few families have > personal computers and far fewer can afford to connect to the internet > via mobile phone, which is the cheapest option available. In short, > there is very little exposure to computers here. It is not unusual to > find kids who struggle with using a mouse. But there are also some kids > who like to spend their time at the internet cafe chatting and > downloading music to their cellphones (plenty of those here). > > The lack of computers and internet is the first challenge, though not > one I can do much about. Another is language. I speak Spanish well > enough, though I do anticipate difficulties when trying to explain > programming concepts in ways that make sense in this culture. There is > also the fact that most documentation, code, and the language itself, > are all in English. I'm aware of some books that have been translated, > but I'm mainly concerned with how frustrating it will be for the > students to debug their programs when all of the error messages are in > English. > > Another major challenge is the educational system, and indeed, the > educational culture here. It's a bit complicated, so I will just say > that only about 8% of kids make it through high school and most of those > will graduate without ever seeing algebra. The worst of it is that it's > hard to find people who actually want to learn, or even think. When I > showed the computer teacher here Guido van Robot she said, "doesn't all > that thinking make your head hurt?" This is reflected in the lack of > self-confidence a lot of the kids have that they're smart enough to > learn difficult things. It's very frustrating, but it makes me think > that a programming course would be all the more worthwhile, assuming I > can get past enough of that sort of thinking to get started. > > Practicality is also very important here. Given that, and the generally > low level of education, I am interested in integrating other subjects > into the class, such as algebra, reading material, and whatever I can > include that might be more directly related to local life. I don't > intend programming to be an end, so much as the means to an end. > > I have considered, in some depth, using another method for teaching > programming, such as Alice or Guido van Robot. Perhaps in another post I > can give my reasons for deciding against those and going with Python. > I've looked at the OLPC project too, but, unfortunately, it doesn't look > like that will be making it to Honduras for a while. > > My biggest concern, it must be said, is that I have no real teaching > experience - I'm a programmer. I'm sure I can muddle through until I can > get the hang of it, but given all the other challenges I have to face, > I'm not sure the kids (or the teachers) will have the patience to stick > with me until I do. So, I'd appreciate recommendations for good teaching > resources, as well. > > I could say much more, but I only wanted to introduce myself. Hopefully > someone can give me some idea how far up the creek I am, though I'd be > happy to hear comments on anything that I've brought up. I'm open to > criticism as well, if anyone has any compelling reasons for why this > might not be a good idea. I know most, or all, of these kids will never > become programmers, but that's not the point, is it? > > Thanks for reading, > Miguel Turner > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig -- This time for sure! -Bullwinkle J. Moose ----------------------------- Vern Ceder, Director of Technology Canterbury School, 3210 Smith Road, Ft Wayne, IN 46804 vceder at canterburyschool.org; 260-436-0746; FAX: 260-436-5137 From winstonw at stratolab.com Tue Oct 7 18:11:00 2008 From: winstonw at stratolab.com (Winston Wolff) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 12:11:00 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country In-Reply-To: <48EB8842.7030708@canterburyschool.org> References: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> <48EB8842.7030708@canterburyschool.org> Message-ID: <5FAF5FE9-9833-4772-BF77-C87207D921F7@stratolab.com> Variables especially are such a central concept to programmers that I found it difficult to teach. It seemed obvious to me but students had a lot of trouble with them. Loops and if-then statements are easy to see what they do, but the uses of variables are much more abstract. For example using variables to determine state takes a while to understand. But beyond just programming, I find that the process of programming is a great place to teach many other general skills--learning to solve problems, to break down problems into pieces, working in teams, communication, attention to detail. -Winston On Oct 7, 2008, at 12:03 PM, Vern Ceder wrote: > Good luck Miguel, we're all pulling for you. > > My advice teaching-wise would be to go slow with the initial > concepts. To someone who has never coded at all variables, lists, > loops, etc are somewhat alien concepts, while once you know how to > program, the same concepts seem trivial. So be patient and attentive > to whether or not they're getting it, and be ready to explain (and > illustrate and have them practice) the same thing several different > ways. > > Cheers, > Vern Ceder > > Miguel Turner wrote: >> Hello to all, >> I'm posting here because I am planning on teaching a programming >> class to kids in a small town in Honduras. I am a Peace Corps >> volunteer currently living in a town of about 2,500 people. I >> studied CS in college and originally joined the Peace Corps when I >> learned that they have been seeking volunteers with technical >> backgrounds for some years now in order to develop the use of >> technology in third world countries. Needless to say, I am facing a >> number of challenges and I thought it would be helpful to seek out >> some advice, and maybe see if there was anyone who has been or is >> in a similar situation. >> I've been a huge fan of Python since I taught it to myself over 3 >> years ago, and I've used it often, since. I enjoy working in C and >> Assembly, but Python was like a breath of fresh air. So, I'm >> already sold on the idea of Python as a first language and >> basically everything about CP4E. I recently read John Miller's >> excellent dissertation on computer literacy, which is what >> motivated me to post here. >> The colegio (middle/high school) in my town has maybe 150 students, >> and 8 working, donated computers. There is currently a computer >> teacher who gives very basic lessons in Windows and Microsoft >> Office to the 20 or so high schoolers. The town has 1 public >> internet connection at an internet cafe with 3 computers and a >> satellite dish. Very few families have personal computers and far >> fewer can afford to connect to the internet via mobile phone, which >> is the cheapest option available. In short, there is very little >> exposure to computers here. It is not unusual to find kids who >> struggle with using a mouse. But there are also some kids who like >> to spend their time at the internet cafe chatting and downloading >> music to their cellphones (plenty of those here). >> The lack of computers and internet is the first challenge, though >> not one I can do much about. Another is language. I speak Spanish >> well enough, though I do anticipate difficulties when trying to >> explain programming concepts in ways that make sense in this >> culture. There is also the fact that most documentation, code, and >> the language itself, are all in English. I'm aware of some books >> that have been translated, but I'm mainly concerned with how >> frustrating it will be for the students to debug their programs >> when all of the error messages are in English. >> Another major challenge is the educational system, and indeed, the >> educational culture here. It's a bit complicated, so I will just >> say that only about 8% of kids make it through high school and most >> of those will graduate without ever seeing algebra. The worst of it >> is that it's hard to find people who actually want to learn, or >> even think. When I showed the computer teacher here Guido van Robot >> she said, "doesn't all that thinking make your head hurt?" This is >> reflected in the lack of self-confidence a lot of the kids have >> that they're smart enough to learn difficult things. It's very >> frustrating, but it makes me think that a programming course would >> be all the more worthwhile, assuming I can get past enough of that >> sort of thinking to get started. >> Practicality is also very important here. Given that, and the >> generally low level of education, I am interested in integrating >> other subjects into the class, such as algebra, reading material, >> and whatever I can include that might be more directly related to >> local life. I don't intend programming to be an end, so much as the >> means to an end. >> I have considered, in some depth, using another method for teaching >> programming, such as Alice or Guido van Robot. Perhaps in another >> post I can give my reasons for deciding against those and going >> with Python. I've looked at the OLPC project too, but, >> unfortunately, it doesn't look like that will be making it to >> Honduras for a while. >> My biggest concern, it must be said, is that I have no real >> teaching experience - I'm a programmer. I'm sure I can muddle >> through until I can get the hang of it, but given all the other >> challenges I have to face, I'm not sure the kids (or the teachers) >> will have the patience to stick with me until I do. So, I'd >> appreciate recommendations for good teaching resources, as well. >> I could say much more, but I only wanted to introduce myself. >> Hopefully someone can give me some idea how far up the creek I am, >> though I'd be happy to hear comments on anything that I've brought >> up. I'm open to criticism as well, if anyone has any compelling >> reasons for why this might not be a good idea. I know most, or all, >> of these kids will never become programmers, but that's not the >> point, is it? >> Thanks for reading, >> Miguel Turner >> _______________________________________________ >> Edu-sig mailing list >> Edu-sig at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > -- > This time for sure! > -Bullwinkle J. Moose > ----------------------------- > Vern Ceder, Director of Technology > Canterbury School, 3210 Smith Road, Ft Wayne, IN 46804 > vceder at canterburyschool.org; 260-436-0746; FAX: 260-436-5137 > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig Winston Wolff Stratolab - Computer Courses for Teens and Kids (646) 827-2242 - http://stratolab.com From da.ajoy at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 18:14:45 2008 From: da.ajoy at gmail.com (Daniel Ajoy) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:14:45 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:26:30 -0500, wrote: > There is > also the fact that most documentation, code, and the language itself, > are all in English. I'm aware of some books that have been translated, > but I'm mainly concerned with how frustrating it will be for the > students to debug their programs when all of the error messages are in > English. There are Logos in Spanish, for example FMSLogo (which is free) http://neoparaiso.com/logo/versiones-logo.html and there are Logo books in English and Spanish. FMSLogo is a very close descendant of MSWLogo and there are teaching materials for MSWLogo here: http://neoparaiso.com/logo/mswlogo.html many things under: Trabajo con Logo http://neoparaiso.com/logo/#sect5 can be applied to any version of Logo I own three books of Logo in Spanish. I found them in old-books stores. Daniel From winstonw at stratolab.com Tue Oct 7 18:18:47 2008 From: winstonw at stratolab.com (Winston Wolff) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 12:18:47 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country In-Reply-To: References: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3BCFA2B9-CE87-45A1-ABB8-552039AA061F@stratolab.com> Miguel- Here's a PDF of what we try to teach in the first few courses using Scratch. We cover the "Programming Skills I " in 20 hours of lab time. Programming Skills II takes much longer. http://stratolab.com/static/misc/Stratolab%20Programming%20Skills.pdf -Winston On Oct 7, 2008, at 11:39 AM, Winston Wolff wrote: > Hi Miguel- > > We teach computer programming with Python at Stratolab, but I like > to start with Scratch first. ( scratch.mit.edu ) Scratch builds > the higher level programming concepts without the burden of learning > syntax. Scratch programmers learn problem solving, if-then logic, > loops, an variables. With Scratch, students get something working > quickly, which builds their motivation. Then the ones who really > enjoy it can move on to Python. Many are content using Scratch, > which I think is fine. Also Scratch's hardware requirements are > relatively modest. > > For the kids who move to Python, graphics are a great way to go--it > provides a lot of positive feedback. PyGame is rather low level. I > use my own MoonUnit wrapper around PyGame ( http://stratolab.com/misc/makebot > ), but LiveWires is similar. > > As far as teaching tips, do you live anywhere near NYC? > > -Winston Winston Wolff Stratolab - Computer Courses for Teens and Kids (646) 827-2242 - http://stratolab.com From macquigg at ece.arizona.edu Tue Oct 7 18:33:30 2008 From: macquigg at ece.arizona.edu (David MacQuigg) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:33:30 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country In-Reply-To: <5FAF5FE9-9833-4772-BF77-C87207D921F7@stratolab.com> References: <48EB8842.7030708@canterburyschool.org> <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> <48EB8842.7030708@canterburyschool.org> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20081007092354.02bb4878@mail.ece.arizona.edu> At 12:11 PM 10/7/2008 -0400, Winston Wolff wrote: >Variables especially are such a central concept to programmers that I >found it difficult to teach. It seemed obvious to me but students had >a lot of trouble with them. I think Python would be especially beneficial in this situation. Unlike other languages, variables in Python are nothing but labels that you can "stick onto" an object. The sticky note analogy should be very easy. Kids are very good at making up names for things. From annaraven at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 18:36:16 2008 From: annaraven at gmail.com (Anna Ravenscroft) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 09:36:16 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: <53b2477a0810070718sd95cb0fo1d697f463d6f9ccf@mail.gmail.com> References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> <53b2477a0810070651p3f5d74f0h6d0367a323da52fe@mail.gmail.com> <53b2477a0810070718sd95cb0fo1d697f463d6f9ccf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 7:18 AM, Matt K wrote: > Anna, is what you describe programming (as in Python) > Back then it was basic. ;-) > or using graphing software (as in Maple/Matlab)? > Never used it. > I am not certain which you are referring to by reading your email. > Sorry - I thought the punchcards was pretty telling... ;-) > > I think the difference is significant - the latter converts an equation to > a graph, the former might show students the generalisation of an algorithm. > > The downside you describe won't be an issue these days (at least in my > school) - Python is so powerful that kids will start playing around with it > out of my control - plus they always see what the kids who are older than > them are doing. > > Yep. It's nice to have a language you *can* do more than just equations with without it being painful. -- cordially, Anna -- Walking through the water. Trying to get across. Just like everybody else. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kirby.urner at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 18:52:34 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 09:52:34 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: <53b2477a0810070651p3f5d74f0h6d0367a323da52fe@mail.gmail.com> References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> <53b2477a0810070651p3f5d74f0h6d0367a323da52fe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2008/10/7 Matt K : > I'm changing pace slightly, after making 2 points: > > (1) Dot notation does exist in Maths. Its just called "subscript" notation > instead. But its the same thing. I try to make a habit of using subscripts > (and sub-subscripts) as much as possible because it shows the same logical > relationship. > Subscript in the sense of "dictionary key" more than "index into sequence" as the former is more like __dict__ or __module__ (namespace ideas), the latter more like a sequence wherein order matters (namespaces are more cardinal than ordinal, more like dictionaries, e.g. an arbitrary mix of Klingon and Chinese characters as subscripts, no collation assumed). > (2) The fractions you show don't have beauty. In continued fractions, its > recursion that has the mathematical beauty. I think rank and file math teachers over-hype this "beauty" business, then hypocritically suppress fractals pre-college, even in the face of obvious public demand and clear relevance to the complex plane, an IB topic at least. Why not just say "interesting" or even "cute". In my own curriculum writing, I try harder to be less disappointing to youth e.g. > > (3) A practical question - can any high/middle-school teachers give me clear > pros/cons of using programming as a tool to teach algebra? I'm rewriting the I've taught high school math professionally (elite Catholic academy)... Remember our gnu math curriculum aims at comprehension of RSA pre-college (the public key thing). We actually assign 'Cryptonomicon' as required reading in some electives. So you need group theory, Fermat's Little Theorem (don't have to prove it), Euler's (more general). Not any of it in exhaustive detail of course, just a first pass, opening doors, showing there's life after calculus. > Year 8 maths program for next year (13-14 year olds) and am considering > trialling using Python. The students are the school are very tech-savvy and > I wouldn't aim to teach them anything more than formulas really... formulas, > basic IO and some ifs. Maybe (maybe) could do a basic for i in range(20) > loop, but nothing more than that. Lots of sequences to get going (polyhedral and figurate numbers especially, per Oregon Curriculum Network web pages). Generators useful. OEIS is available to each student, for independent study. Vectors require VPython. > > Note that I am the computing teacher in the school; the majority of my > teaching is the computing studies subjects for older students (15-18 year > olds). I'm a math teacher for Saturday Academy, or was doing that recently (lots of public write-ups). More recently I've been developing a Python Briefing for mature adults only, mostly teachers who already know a thing or two about math and computer science, though rarely as much as I do (grin). Kirby From kirby.urner at gmail.com Tue Oct 7 19:38:19 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 10:38:19 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <7528bcdd0810031851y4bec41f5t78b1738fd2e32207@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> <53b2477a0810070651p3f5d74f0h6d0367a323da52fe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 9:52 AM, kirby urner wrote: << SNIP >> > I think rank and file math teachers over-hype this "beauty" business, > then hypocritically suppress fractals pre-college, even in the face of > obvious public demand and clear relevance to the complex plane, an IB > topic at least. Why not just say "interesting" or even "cute". In my > own curriculum writing, I try harder to be less disappointing to youth > e.g. Sorry, missing link: http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2008/10/pythonic-math.html Connects to Kraftwerk and some multi-lingual counting exercises, important for getting into greek (tetra, penta, hexa...) and hence Polyhedra, a starting point for our geometry curriculum (the purely flat stuff comes later, as less intuitive). Kirby From aharrin at luc.edu Tue Oct 7 20:58:14 2008 From: aharrin at luc.edu (Andrew Harrington) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 13:58:14 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country In-Reply-To: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> References: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> Message-ID: Miguel, Look at the data on the Sugar installations for thousands of kids in Peru. The Sugar environment is certainly localized for Spanish and takes little resources. laptop.org sugarlabs.org Andy On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Miguel Turner wrote: > Hello to all, > > I'm posting here because I am planning on teaching a programming class to > kids in a small town in Honduras. I am a Peace Corps volunteer currently > living in a town of about 2,500 people. I studied CS in college and > originally joined the Peace Corps when I learned that they have been seeking > volunteers with technical backgrounds for some years now in order to develop > the use of technology in third world countries. Needless to say, I am facing > a number of challenges and I thought it would be helpful to seek out some > advice, and maybe see if there was anyone who has been or is in a similar > situation. > > I've been a huge fan of Python since I taught it to myself over 3 years > ago, and I've used it often, since. I enjoy working in C and Assembly, but > Python was like a breath of fresh air. So, I'm already sold on the idea of > Python as a first language and basically everything about CP4E. I recently > read John Miller's excellent dissertation on computer literacy, which is > what motivated me to post here. > > The colegio (middle/high school) in my town has maybe 150 students, and 8 > working, donated computers. There is currently a computer teacher who gives > very basic lessons in Windows and Microsoft Office to the 20 or so high > schoolers. The town has 1 public internet connection at an internet cafe > with 3 computers and a satellite dish. Very few families have personal > computers and far fewer can afford to connect to the internet via mobile > phone, which is the cheapest option available. In short, there is very > little exposure to computers here. It is not unusual to find kids who > struggle with using a mouse. But there are also some kids who like to spend > their time at the internet cafe chatting and downloading music to their > cellphones (plenty of those here). > > The lack of computers and internet is the first challenge, though not one I > can do much about. Another is language. I speak Spanish well enough, though > I do anticipate difficulties when trying to explain programming concepts in > ways that make sense in this culture. There is also the fact that most > documentation, code, and the language itself, are all in English. I'm aware > of some books that have been translated, but I'm mainly concerned with how > frustrating it will be for the students to debug their programs when all of > the error messages are in English. > > Another major challenge is the educational system, and indeed, the > educational culture here. It's a bit complicated, so I will just say that > only about 8% of kids make it through high school and most of those will > graduate without ever seeing algebra. The worst of it is that it's hard to > find people who actually want to learn, or even think. When I showed the > computer teacher here Guido van Robot she said, "doesn't all that thinking > make your head hurt?" This is reflected in the lack of self-confidence a lot > of the kids have that they're smart enough to learn difficult things. It's > very frustrating, but it makes me think that a programming course would be > all the more worthwhile, assuming I can get past enough of that sort of > thinking to get started. > > Practicality is also very important here. Given that, and the generally low > level of education, I am interested in integrating other subjects into the > class, such as algebra, reading material, and whatever I can include that > might be more directly related to local life. I don't intend programming to > be an end, so much as the means to an end. > > I have considered, in some depth, using another method for teaching > programming, such as Alice or Guido van Robot. Perhaps in another post I can > give my reasons for deciding against those and going with Python. I've > looked at the OLPC project too, but, unfortunately, it doesn't look like > that will be making it to Honduras for a while. > > My biggest concern, it must be said, is that I have no real teaching > experience - I'm a programmer. I'm sure I can muddle through until I can get > the hang of it, but given all the other challenges I have to face, I'm not > sure the kids (or the teachers) will have the patience to stick with me > until I do. So, I'd appreciate recommendations for good teaching resources, > as well. > > I could say much more, but I only wanted to introduce myself. Hopefully > someone can give me some idea how far up the creek I am, though I'd be happy > to hear comments on anything that I've brought up. I'm open to criticism as > well, if anyone has any compelling reasons for why this might not be a good > idea. I know most, or all, of these kids will never become programmers, but > that's not the point, is it? > > Thanks for reading, > Miguel Turner > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > -- Andrew N. Harrington Director of Academic Programs Computer Science Department Loyola University Chicago 512B Lewis Towers (office) Snail mail to Lewis Towers 416 820 North Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60611 http://www.cs.luc.edu/~anh Phone: 312-915-7982 Fax: 312-915-7998 gdp at cs.luc.edu for graduate administration upd at cs.luc.edu for undergrad administration aharrin at luc.edu as professor -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gregor.lingl at aon.at Tue Oct 7 22:45:08 2008 From: gregor.lingl at aon.at (Gregor Lingl) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:45:08 +0200 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country In-Reply-To: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> References: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> Message-ID: <48EBCA54.9080907@aon.at> Hello Miguel, Python 2.6, which was released one week ago, comes with a new turtle module. Perhaps this is something, you and your kids would like as it is pure educational Python software based on Tkinter. One of it's design goals was to provide easy access to graphics, thus avoiding the need to tinker around with the administrative overhead to create Tkinter-canvases and the like. It covers a considerable subset of MSW-Logo, but has an even nicer animation of the turtles - it's 'drawing devices', which give a good graphical feedback about the correct working and also possible bugs of the programmers ideas. Moreover it can be used in procedural or object oriented programming style. It can also be used interactively from IDLE, provided you use it with the -n switch, for "no subprocess". A link like (for Windows) C:\Python26\pythonw.exe C:\\Python26\Lib\idlelib\idle.pyw -n will do it. For instance: >>> from turtle import * # imports all the turtle-graphcis functions >>> forward(100) >>> left(120) >>> forward(100) >>> right(240) >>> shape("turtle") >>> fd(100) >>> lt(840) >>> Sequences of a few elementary turtle graphics functions can be used to compose rather eleborate drawings. All the turtle-graphics functions are also available as turtle-methods, eg.: >>> from turtle import Turtle >>> bob = Turtle() >>> ted = Turtle() >>> ted.left(180) >>> bob.color("red") >>> ted.color("blue") >>> ted.begin_fill() >>> for edge in 1,2,3,4: for turtle in bob, ted: turtle.forward(120) turtle.left(90) >>> ted.end_fill() (These examples just for whetting your appetite) Moreover the module has an online-help via docstrings and provides the possibility to replace the english docstrings with ones that are translated to another language. (Alas, these do not exist in spanish yet, but if someone wishes to do the translation I could give some hints on how to proceed.) The loading of these foreign-language-help ist configured via a turtle.cfg file which also allows to configure several other properties of the module at startup, such as window size, canvas size (with scrollbars if necessary), turtle-shapes and even a 'logo'-mode which provides orientation and angle-measurement like in MSW-Logo. The standard configuration is as to ensure compatibility with the old turtle module which was part of Python until 2.5 The module has also been ported to Python 3.0 and will be part of that Python version which will be released presumably at the beginning of December. If you want to try out the module with Python 2.5, you can find it here: http://svn.python.org/view/python/trunk/Lib/lib-tk/turtle.py?rev=66686&view=log The online-docs (which are included in the distribution as well) you can find here: http://docs.python.org/library/turtle.html#module-turtle A sequence of turtle graphics demo scripts covering a wide range from easy to rather sophisticated (including a demo-viewer script) you can find here: http://svn.python.org/view/python/trunk/Demo/turtle/ If you - or somebody else has any questions I'll be happy to help. Best regards, Gregor > From jjposner at snet.net Wed Oct 8 22:14:00 2008 From: jjposner at snet.net (John Posner) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:14:00 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 63, Issue 11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001c92982$686f9440$394ebcc0$@net> Miguel, > > Python 2.6, which was released one week ago, comes with a new turtle > module. Perhaps this is something, you and your kids would like as it > is pure educational Python software based on Tkinter. One of it's design > goals was to provide easy access to graphics ... Gregor's new Turtle module is, indeed, terrific. If some students need a gentler introduction, take a look at the point-and-click front end that I added ("ClixTur" at http://www.geocities.com/jjphoogrp). Students can begin by creating drawings pretty much as they would in KidPix or Paint or Visio. (OK, it's a bit more primitive, because there are no dragging operations). As they click, a transcript of the Python code being executed appears in a separate window. The students can use this code to: * "play back" the transcript, to recreate their drawings This is very simple, but it gets across the idea of a stored program. And the high speed of the playback will be fun for younger students. * make revisions to the Python/Turtle code, and see what differences they produce in the drawing This kind of introduction to programming is much less intimidating than starting with a blank page. And it's just about as satisfying, especially if you generated the original code yourself with the point-and-click interface. Best of luck, John Posner From echerlin at gmail.com Wed Oct 8 23:11:32 2008 From: echerlin at gmail.com (Edward Cherlin) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 14:11:32 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Python 2.6 Turtle module and Sugar TurtleArt (was Re: Edu-sig Digest, Vol 63, Issue 11) Message-ID: How would you compare this turtle module with the TurtleArt activity in Sugar? It is available in .deb and .rpm packages for Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora, and also in .xo bundles, installable with xo-get.py. Sugar Labs is working with other Linux distributions to make Sugar packages available as widely as possible. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/TurtleArt http://wiki.laptop.og/go/Xo-get On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:14 PM, John Posner wrote: > Miguel, > >> >> Python 2.6, which was released one week ago, comes with a new turtle >> module. Perhaps this is something, you and your kids would like as it >> is pure educational Python software based on Tkinter. One of it's design >> goals was to provide easy access to graphics ... > > > Gregor's new Turtle module is, indeed, terrific. If some students need a > gentler introduction, take a look at the point-and-click front end that I > added ("ClixTur" at http://www.geocities.com/jjphoogrp). > > Students can begin by creating drawings pretty much as they would in KidPix > or Paint or Visio. (OK, it's a bit more primitive, because there are no > dragging operations). As they click, a transcript of the Python code being > executed appears in a separate window. The students can use this code to: > > * "play back" the transcript, to recreate their drawings > > This is very simple, but it gets across the idea of a stored program. And > the high speed of the playback will be fun for younger students. > > * make revisions to the Python/Turtle code, and see what differences they > produce in the drawing > > This kind of introduction to programming is much less intimidating than > starting with a blank page. And it's just about as satisfying, especially if > you generated the original code yourself with the point-and-click interface. > > Best of luck, > John Posner > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > -- Don't panic.--HHGTTG, Douglas Adams fivethirtyeight.com, 3bluedudes.com Obama still moving ahead in EC! http://www.obamapedia.org/ Join us! http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai For the children From dhagrow at gmail.com Wed Oct 8 23:27:37 2008 From: dhagrow at gmail.com (Miguel Turner) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 15:27:37 -0600 Subject: [Edu-sig] CP4E in a third world country In-Reply-To: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> References: <48EB7F8F.8030900@gmail.com> Message-ID: <8de19be10810081427x660732c0k526408d005ac7a89@mail.gmail.com> Thanks to everyone for the support. I hope no one minds if I write a general reply. Winston Wolff wrote: > We teach computer programming with Python at Stratolab, but I like to start with Scratch first. I've looked at Scratch, but I haven't yet had a chance to try it out. My plan is to start with high school kids, and depending on how well that goes and how much time I have, I will try to work my way down to younger kids. As I do I may be more inclined to try things like Scratch, but, to start at least, I want to avoid giving the impression that I am just teaching them how to use a toy or play a game. Not that those things aren't important. In the broader scope of the class I do want to introduce games, including board and card games. The only games kids here play are action games on gaming consoles, and soccer. Daniel Ajoy wrote: > There are Logos in Spanish, for example FMSLogo (which is free) Gregor Lingl wrote: > Python 2.6, which was released one week ago, comes with a new turtle module. I have a soft spot for Logo. It's how I fell in love with programming in 5th grade. I have been following Python development, so I was aware of the new turtle module, though I hadn't seen the demos. It's amazing what you can do with so little code, and the GUI for the demo browser is something along the lines of what I'd want in an IDE for the students. I can certainly see using it once the students have a firm grounding in the basics. I think that would be preferable to a seperate version of Logo, so that I'm not forcing my students to switch environments. Winston Wolff wrote: > For the kids who move to Python, graphics are a great way to go--it provides a lot of positive feedback. PyGame is rather low level. I use my own MoonUnit wrapper around PyGame ( http://stratolab.com/misc/makebot ), but LiveWires is similar. I do intend to introduce graphics as early as possible. I've used Pygame before. In fact, I once wrote a minimal GUI framework in SDL, which is the library Pygame is based on. I also like what the Pyglet developers are doing. I'm inclined to start with the turtle module, though, if only because it's functions relate easily to drawing with a pencil. I have seen MakeBot and LiveWires before. I wanted to try MakeBot last night, but ran into an error (see postscript). Vern Ceder wrote: > My advice teaching-wise would be to go slow with the initial concepts. To someone who has never coded at all variables, lists, loops, etc are somewhat alien concepts, while once you know how to program, the same concepts seem trivial. That's the plan. Patience, persistence, and a little creativity. At one point I tried a very simple exercise in Guido van Robot with 3 high school kids, and was surprised to find that they were struggling with the idea that the robot followed the instructions sequentially. So, my expectations have been tempered a bit. Andrew Harrington wrote: > Look at the data on the Sugar installations for thousands of kids in Peru. The Sugar environment is certainly localized for Spanish and takes little resources. For some reason I skipped over the thought that Sugar would run on other machines, even though I know it's based on Fedora. But there's so much more to XO than Sugar. Would you say that even on it's own Sugar offers significant advantages over, say, Edubuntu? And if so, would that be true for older kids? Regardless, I will try to grab a copy, though bandwidth is a luxury here. Charles Coss? wrote: > Actually, there you might be interested in TuxWordSmith which is almost Scrabble and plays in many language combos, including Spanish/English and English/Spanish. I will take a look, thanks. As for supplies, there are always things lacking in a place like this, as I'm sure you know. For the class, at least, I think I can manage with what's available. Thanks again for all your responses, Miguel Turner P.S. -- MakeBot error This was right after installing to the default location: MakeBot 2008-10-07 22:42:06 INFO Checking folder "C:\Program Files\Stratolab\MakeBot-1.4\Builders" for builder files. (core.builders) MakeBot 2008-10-07 22:42:06 DEBUG details=[Errno 2] The system cannot find the file specified (core.builders) MakeBot 2008-10-07 22:42:06 ERROR Error in MakeBot: Here is the stacktrace: File "main.py", line 360, in ? File "wx\_core.pyc", line 7749, in __init__ File "wx\_core.pyc", line 7346, in _BootstrapApp File "main.py", line 139, in OnInit File "main.py", line 168, in init_windows File "main.py", line 275, in new_document File "wxgui\mbdocument.pyc", line 281, in __init__ File "core\builders.pyc", line 219, in find_builders File "core\builders.pyc", line 111, in __init__ exceptions.IndexError: list index out of range (__main__) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jjposner at snet.net Thu Oct 9 14:16:51 2008 From: jjposner at snet.net (John Posner) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 05:16:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Edu-sig] Python 2.6 Turtle module and Sugar TurtleArt (was Re: Edu-sig Digest, Vol 63, Issue 11) Message-ID: <970849.85792.qm@web83104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> [ resending from correct email account ] > How would you compare this turtle module with the TurtleArt activity > in Sugar? It is available in .deb and .rpm packages for Ubuntu, > Debian, and Fedora, and also in .xo bundles, installable with > xo-get.py. Sugar Labs is working with other Linux distributions to > make Sugar packages available as widely as possible. > > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/TurtleArt > http://wiki.laptop.og/go/Xo-get Edward, I've had no experience with OLPC. :-( I was not familiar with these packages, so I downloaded the Sugar emulator for Windows at wiki.laptop.org, and played with the TurtleArt activity for a while. So with those minimal credentials, here's my 15-second opinion: The basic drawing capabilities of the TurtleArt activity and Gregor's Turtle module are roughly comparable. The Turtle module has many more bells and whistles, such as the nifty stamp() routine. The TurtleArt activity has its own visual programming language (see note below), which by necessity is pretty rudimentary. By contrast, Gregor's Turtle module gets to use all the facilities of Python for program construction. And the Turtle module has an event model, allowing the user to interact with the turtle(s) on the drawing canvas. NOTE: the first provisional name for Lotus 1-2-3 was VPL ("visual programming language"). I'm sure that for many people, putting a @SUM() function at the bottom of a column of numbers was the alpha and omega of their programming experience. Best, John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From matt.kameron at gmail.com Thu Oct 9 14:40:32 2008 From: matt.kameron at gmail.com (Matt K) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 22:40:32 +1000 Subject: [Edu-sig] Algebra 2 In-Reply-To: References: <40ea4eb00810031822p620fcddet53003087862fb838@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810040646j13d4e487l6d0267a868d9bdd8@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810062009v61f0ea61t31908aa5a13dc191@mail.gmail.com> <53b2477a0810070651p3f5d74f0h6d0367a323da52fe@mail.gmail.com> <53b2477a0810070718sd95cb0fo1d697f463d6f9ccf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <53b2477a0810090540j4ca6cb3fqb8336bb0b68dfc2e@mail.gmail.com> *To Anna:* Thanks for the clarification. I can understand that punchcard *should* be clear to me - but to me I've never seen or used one in my life; I only hear of them in fairytales with abbucusses and dragons. *To Kirby: *You can always subscript with words instead of just letters! That enables you to have more meaning. (more below) *To Kirby and Andrew:* I really like the idea but it sounds like you guys are talking at far far higher levels that I can achieve. The *stronger* students I'll be teaching, who *choose* to do an elective in computing, will come to properly understand loops only in about 2 years. I've tried to teach recursion to about 4 students while I've been a teacher, and only 2 have ever worked it out - and those students were exceptional. Things like classes are hidden from the students almost entirely until the final year, and even then they are only taught "as needed". Which is why things like generators and classes for fractions are out. The syntax for that would just be too confusing. We're looking at the level of algebra with these kids where they have mostly learnt to add like terms and are perhaps beginning to factorise a simple common factor. Nothing like difference of two squares... just the beginnings. They'll start to do algebraic fractions and perhaps begin to appreciate the form y = mx + b. But, it sounds like you've both done it with some success with significantly older (and smarter) students. I think you've motivated me to try it and see what happens! *To Andrew: *I wouldn't expect to see results in a test. Really, if they're trying to be good at tests, the *best* way to do it is by rote. But if we're teaching a deep understanding (which we of course are!) then this will perhaps help - although I wouldn't expect the results to be apparent for a while. A solid understanding of algerbra will really help them once they get into the graphing topic intensely, which is 2 years later. Further thoughts are welcome of course! Thanks heaps! Matt On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 2:36 AM, Anna Ravenscroft wrote: > > > On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 7:18 AM, Matt K wrote: > >> Anna, is what you describe programming (as in Python) >> > > Back then it was basic. ;-) > > >> or using graphing software (as in Maple/Matlab)? >> > > Never used it. > > >> I am not certain which you are referring to by reading your email. >> > > Sorry - I thought the punchcards was pretty telling... ;-) > >> >> I think the difference is significant - the latter converts an equation to >> a graph, the former might show students the generalisation of an algorithm. >> >> The downside you describe won't be an issue these days (at least in my >> school) - Python is so powerful that kids will start playing around with it >> out of my control - plus they always see what the kids who are older than >> them are doing. >> >> Yep. It's nice to have a language you *can* do more than just equations > with without it being painful. > > > -- > cordially, > Anna > -- > Walking through the water. Trying to get across. > Just like everybody else. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mpaul213 at gmail.com Thu Oct 9 17:00:23 2008 From: mpaul213 at gmail.com (michel paul) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 08:00:23 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] r Message-ID: <40ea4eb00810090800s3fbfe0f4sbbdcdd1662d5e9b8@mail.gmail.com> Here's more regarding student notes = concept outlines that RUN. In dealing with sample vs population variance, in both cases we are talking about an average, but our traditional notation tends to obscure that fact. It's easy to see that population variance is the mean of the squared deviations, but the sample formula tends to blur that concept. The result at a high school level has been to appreciate the resulting messy formula but to then thankfully turn to some kind of magic black box that will perform those calculations for you. Well, I think that's dumb. Instead of using software packages or other kinds of black boxes to magically generate results, let's use our our own thoughts to generate definitions. This can be done as a class discussion. I first needed a term for finding the sum(L)/(n - 1). That certainly is a kind of mean, but there doesn't seem to be an official term for it. So, I decided to call it an 'adjusted' mean. If there is a better term for this, please let me know. For the time being, I can say that variance is ALWAYS the mean of the squared deviations. It's just that if you're dealing with a sample, you find the 'adjusted' mean of the squared deviations. So now we have a nice suite of mostly one-liner functions that handle things we've studied up through the Pearson correlation coefficient. In the following, 'sample' is a global boolean variable. The concepts are most easily expressed in population form, but most frequently applied using sample form. This puts the two together. Caveat: this is not meant to be definitive code. Not at all. It is only meant to be code that illustrates concepts. Feedback welcomed. As I said to my dept chair, certainly there are many software packages that already exist that will find these things for you, but could the code behind them serve as a math student's notes??? No way! - Michel ======================================= sample = True def mean(L): return sum(L)/len(L) def adjusted_mean(L): return sum(L)/(len(L) - 1) def deviations(L): return [x - mean(L) for x in L] def squares(L): return [x**2 for x in L] def variance(L): if sample: return adjusted_mean(squares(deviations(L))) else: return mean(squares(deviations(L))) def stdev(L): return sqrt(variance(L)) def zscores(L): return [deviation/stdev(L) for deviation in deviations(L)] def X(L): return [x for (x, y) in L] def Y(L): return [y for (x, y) in L] def r(L): if sample: return adjusted_mean([zx*zy for (zx, zy) in zip(zscores(X(L)), zscores(Y(L)))]) else: return mean([zx*zy for (zx, zy) in zip(zscores(X(L)), zscores(Y(L)))]) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andre.roberge at gmail.com Fri Oct 10 04:00:52 2008 From: andre.roberge at gmail.com (Andre Roberge) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 23:00:52 -0300 Subject: [Edu-sig] Crunchy 1.0 alpha 1 released Message-ID: <7528bcdd0810091900i422a8872s5c05972dff5bdf91@mail.gmail.com> Hi everyone, Crunchy version 1.0 alpha 1 has been released. Crunchy is an application that transforms normally static Python tutorial (html files, or reStructuredText ones - if docutils is installed on your computer) into interactive sessions within your browser (Firefox). It is available from http://code.google.com/p/crunchy/ This release includes: * Completely revamped user interface * Support for multiple simultaneous users, each being able to set their own preferences * Increased security on multi-users computer (as users now have to log in) * A number of interactive elements including Python interpreters, editors, doctest, unittest (new), integration with code quality analyzers such as pylint, pychecker and pyflakes (all new - you need to have any one of these installed on your computer). * Some experimental features such as an interface to pdb, the Python debugger, and an early prototype (incomplete) for having time-limited exams. * etc. Crunchy now makes use of Pygments to style the code. As a result, it is possible to embed (and style) code snippets in a large number of programming language. However, only Python code can be executed (for now...). Crunchy now also makes use of jQuery and various plugins. As usual, suggestions for improvements, bug reports and other comments are welcome. Cheers, Andr? From gregor.lingl at aon.at Fri Oct 10 14:55:03 2008 From: gregor.lingl at aon.at (Gregor Lingl) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:55:03 +0200 Subject: [Edu-sig] Edu-Sig web page on www.python.org Message-ID: <48EF50A7.2080001@aon.at> Hi all, does anybody know who is currently maintaing the Edu-Sig related web page on www.python.org? http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/ I'd just like to suggest to the maintainer, that turtle.py, which now (i. e. since Python 2.6) belongs to Python's standard library deserves to be mentioned there in the list "Of interest of educators." Best regards, Gregor From kirby.urner at gmail.com Fri Oct 10 17:27:54 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:27:54 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Edu-Sig web page on www.python.org In-Reply-To: <48EF50A7.2080001@aon.at> References: <48EF50A7.2080001@aon.at> Message-ID: Right, and then there was that cool thesis out of Greece that went by recently, would like to get that nailed as well. Best wishes in your quest. Kirby On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 5:55 AM, Gregor Lingl wrote: > Hi all, > > does anybody know who is currently maintaing the Edu-Sig related > web page on www.python.org? > > http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/ > > I'd just like to suggest to the maintainer, that turtle.py, which now > (i. e. since Python 2.6) belongs to Python's standard library deserves > to be mentioned there in the list "Of interest of educators." > > Best regards, > Gregor > > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > From jasonrbriggs at gmail.com Fri Oct 10 17:39:53 2008 From: jasonrbriggs at gmail.com (Jason Briggs) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:39:53 +0100 Subject: [Edu-sig] Edu-Sig web page on www.python.org In-Reply-To: References: <48EF50A7.2080001@aon.at> Message-ID: <82C6689D-E711-492E-BAAC-F7158F07F7D0@gmail.com> As usual, managed to reply from my wrong email address.... Anyway... Wouldn't mind getting my free book a mention there either actually.... so if you find out who the maintainer is, please let the list know. J On 10 Oct 2008, at 16:27, kirby urner wrote: > Right, and then there was that cool thesis out of Greece that went by > recently, would like to get that nailed as well. Best wishes in your > quest. > > Kirby > > > On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 5:55 AM, Gregor Lingl > wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> does anybody know who is currently maintaing the Edu-Sig related >> web page on www.python.org? >> >> http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/ >> >> I'd just like to suggest to the maintainer, that turtle.py, which now >> (i. e. since Python 2.6) belongs to Python's standard library >> deserves >> to be mentioned there in the list "Of interest of educators." >> >> Best regards, >> Gregor >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Edu-sig mailing list >> Edu-sig at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >> > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig From kirby.urner at gmail.com Fri Oct 10 17:45:21 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:45:21 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Edu-Sig web page on www.python.org In-Reply-To: <82C6689D-E711-492E-BAAC-F7158F07F7D0@gmail.com> References: <48EF50A7.2080001@aon.at> <82C6689D-E711-492E-BAAC-F7158F07F7D0@gmail.com> Message-ID: Maybe we should nominate an edu-sig person like Gregor and/or Anna to pool our suggestions and bring them before a higher authority, even the BDFL himself in some cases (not sure how that works). I think anything so cumbersome as a PEP, for website improvements, would be overkill, but something like a tech support or issue ticket... Just thinking of how it works in some of my silos. Kirby On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 8:39 AM, Jason Briggs wrote: > As usual, managed to reply from my wrong email address.... Anyway... > > Wouldn't mind getting my free book a mention there either actually.... so if > you find out who the maintainer is, please let the list know. > > J > > On 10 Oct 2008, at 16:27, kirby urner wrote: > >> Right, and then there was that cool thesis out of Greece that went by >> recently, would like to get that nailed as well. Best wishes in your >> quest. >> >> Kirby >> >> >> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 5:55 AM, Gregor Lingl wrote: >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> does anybody know who is currently maintaing the Edu-Sig related >>> web page on www.python.org? >>> >>> http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/ >>> >>> I'd just like to suggest to the maintainer, that turtle.py, which now >>> (i. e. since Python 2.6) belongs to Python's standard library deserves >>> to be mentioned there in the list "Of interest of educators." >>> >>> Best regards, >>> Gregor >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Edu-sig mailing list >>> Edu-sig at python.org >>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Edu-sig mailing list >> Edu-sig at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > From kirby.urner at gmail.com Wed Oct 15 04:25:13 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:25:13 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Live from CubeSpace (PPUG, Portland, Oregon) Message-ID: Greetings edu-siggers -- I'm here at CubeSpace at Python 3K release party (2.6 also), Jason just having introduced the program, already getting into new advance formatting conventions. I'm here with a sponsor, introducing to PDX open source culture, what better way than PPUG. I'll be giving my presentation in a few minutes. Although much is left to the imagination when you only have the slides, I'm giving a link anyway: http://www.4dsolutions.net/presentations/Py3K.pdf We're into spoofing apocalyptic mindsets here in Portland, a Halloween theme ala X-Day (Bob Dobbs), hence "The Writhe" (a new dance -- maybe revive it in 2012). Kirby From kirby.urner at gmail.com Thu Oct 16 01:22:28 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:22:28 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Live from CubeSpace (PPUG, Portland, Oregon) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Just to follow-up on the post below, here's a link to a PPUG thread regarding last night's festivities (most of which I missed): http://mail.python.org/pipermail/portland/2008-October/000492.html Tonight I'm heading down to preview this Bucky play, see Doug again: http://www.pcs.org/bucky/ In Portland occulture ( pdxocculture.com ), these two connect (Pythonic Math and Fuller's philosophy), but that's hardly mainstream. You can dig back in the archives as to how I connect them, but basically I use the same volumes table, per my grunch.net/synergetics/volumes.html etc. More in my blogs if curious. Urner out. On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 7:25 PM, kirby urner wrote: > Greetings edu-siggers -- > > I'm here at CubeSpace at Python 3K release party (2.6 also), Jason > just having introduced the program, already getting into new advance > formatting conventions. I'm here with a sponsor, introducing to PDX > open source culture, what better way than PPUG. > > I'll be giving my presentation in a few minutes. Although much is > left to the imagination when you only have the slides, I'm giving a > link anyway: > > http://www.4dsolutions.net/presentations/Py3K.pdf > > We're into spoofing apocalyptic mindsets here in Portland, a Halloween > theme ala X-Day (Bob Dobbs), hence "The Writhe" (a new dance -- maybe > revive it in 2012). > > Kirby > From roberto03 at gmail.com Thu Oct 16 13:15:06 2008 From: roberto03 at gmail.com (roberto) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:15:06 +0200 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses Message-ID: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> hello (i am rather new in python ...) i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged 14-17 (high school) and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via this great programming language; i need some help from you and moreover if you are aware of books already covering these need thank you in advance -- roberto OS: GNU/Linux, Debian From mpaul213 at gmail.com Fri Oct 17 00:55:46 2008 From: mpaul213 at gmail.com (michel paul) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:55:46 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> This would be a great text for a high school math/CS class: Math for the Digital Age . - Michel On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:15 AM, roberto wrote: > hello > (i am rather new in python ...) > > i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged > 14-17 (high school) > and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental > concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; > i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) > > so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via > this great programming language; > > i need some help from you and moreover if you are aware of books > already covering these need > > thank you in advance > -- > roberto > OS: GNU/Linux, Debian > _______________________________________________ > 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 alan.gauld at btinternet.com Thu Oct 16 19:53:13 2008 From: alan.gauld at btinternet.com (Alan Gauld) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:53:13 +0100 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: "roberto" wrote > i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged > 14-17 (high school) > and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental > concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; > i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) > > so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via > this great programming language; Try the Python edu-sig mailing list. It is for those using Python in education. There are probably others there who have done this already. Alan G From alan.gauld at btinternet.com Fri Oct 17 01:11:04 2008 From: alan.gauld at btinternet.com (Alan Gauld) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:11:04 +0100 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: "michel paul" wrote > This would be a great text for a high school math/CS class: Math > for the > Digital Age . Wow! How did they persuade the publishers to do that? I got so much hassle for trying to use two high level languages, but I didn't even consider trying to teach Python by comparing it to 8088 assembler!! That's really brave. -- Alan Gauld Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld From igor at tamarapatino.org Fri Oct 17 02:16:14 2008 From: igor at tamarapatino.org (Igor =?iso-8859-1?Q?T=E1mara?=) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:16:14 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20081017001614.GZ17353@tamarapatino.org> Hi, roberto> hello roberto> (i am rather new in python ...) roberto> roberto> i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged roberto> 14-17 (high school) roberto> and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental roberto> concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; roberto> i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) roberto> I don't have a book, but sometimes we can get interest from students, when they are able to construct nice things with easy-to-use libraries as visual-python. http://www.gfc.edu.co/~nattor/jueguito.html Take a look at a game a student made last year, she was 16yo, and the complete game was completed in three weeks or so, she had experience with python, but visual-python was new to her, the physics concepts were in her head already :). The page is in spanish, but the screencasting shows how to use it. You can download it via "Descargar juego", you'll need obviously python-visual lib, apt-get it. You can interact with blender via python too, but we haven't experienced it with our students yet. roberto> so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via roberto> this great programming language; roberto> roberto> i need some help from you and moreover if you are aware of books roberto> already covering these need roberto> roberto> thank you in advance She used pygame for another game she made, and this year our students are finishing more pygame games. roberto> -- roberto> roberto roberto> OS: GNU/Linux, Debian roberto> _______________________________________________ roberto> Edu-sig mailing list roberto> Edu-sig at python.org roberto> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig -- Recomiendo Structio para obtener herramientas gratuitas para instituciones educativas http://structio.sourceforge.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Digital signature URL: From echerlin at gmail.com Fri Oct 17 11:19:33 2008 From: echerlin at gmail.com (Edward Cherlin) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 02:19:33 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:15 AM, roberto wrote: > hello > (i am rather new in python ...) Have you looked at NumPy and SciPy yet? Or anything written using them? > i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged > 14-17 (high school) > and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental > concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; > i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) > > so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via > this great programming language; > > i need some help from you and moreover if you are aware of books > already covering these need > > thank you in advance > -- > roberto > OS: GNU/Linux, Debian > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > -- Don't panic.--HHGTTG, Douglas Adams fivethirtyeight.com, 3bluedudes.com Obama still moving ahead in EC! http://www.obamapedia.org/page/Smears Join us! http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai For the children Silent Thunder (??/??????????????? ) is my name And Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination. From amolj.1306 at gmail.com Fri Oct 17 11:30:39 2008 From: amolj.1306 at gmail.com (Amol Jadhav) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:00:39 +0530 Subject: [Edu-sig] Scapy on Windows Message-ID: <76eccaa60810170230t3c415086j9f4b03e53932e82b@mail.gmail.com> Hi, I'm having lot of trouble to get Scapy run on Windows. I have tried to do all thisthings. Scapy says it cannot find gnupot and pcap module. Although I installed gnuplot I still don't know why it can't find it? Then comes the pcap module, this is more troublesome than anything else; it made me install Visual Studio 2003 still it can't be installed, it is not able to find some damn header files. Is their any way out? If you have done some hack please let me know. - Amol -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kirby.urner at gmail.com Fri Oct 17 14:56:50 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 05:56:50 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Scapy on Windows In-Reply-To: <76eccaa60810170230t3c415086j9f4b03e53932e82b@mail.gmail.com> References: <76eccaa60810170230t3c415086j9f4b03e53932e82b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I'm guessing most of us on this list aren't using Scapy so you might get a quicker answer if you found a bevy of Scapy users on some Scapy list. I assume you know about sys.path and your gnuplot is on it? Not an expert on anything Visual Studio though, as my Visual FoxPro was never subsumed by that framework. Kirby 2008/10/17 Amol Jadhav : > Hi, > > I'm having lot of trouble to get Scapy run on Windows. I have tried to do > all this things. Scapy says it cannot find gnupot and pcap module. Although > I installed gnuplot I still don't know why it can't find it? Then comes the > pcap module, this is more troublesome than anything else; it made me install > Visual Studio 2003 still it can't be installed, it is not able to find some > damn header files. Is their any way out? If you have done some hack please > let me know. > - > Amol > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > From mpaul213 at gmail.com Sat Oct 18 04:46:56 2008 From: mpaul213 at gmail.com (michel paul) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:46:56 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] pseudo code that runs Message-ID: <40ea4eb00810171946l38c899fr89e9cf2143bed5a9@mail.gmail.com> For reasons I won't bore you with, my principal and dept chair called a meeting with me regarding my use of Python in math classes. Bottom line - a positive dialog. My principal asked, "What is Python?" I gave him as good an answer as I could at that moment. Later, after some reflection, this is the answer I wish I could have given. However, it is the answer that I just emailed to him. : ) I hope further positive dialog results from this. 'what is Python?' Python is a vehicle for computational thinking. The point isn't Python or any particular language. The point is computational thinking. My point isn't just programming or using Python as a 'tool'. There's something else. It might be called 'functional analysis'. This is what computational thinking is all about. There's a whole lot of good educational ground getting addressed there, not just 'mathematical'. Being able to articulate a mathematical concept in the terms of a sequence of computations is, ironically, what the kids are trying to get at themselves. They want to be told what to 'do'. Well, that's precisely what a computational language lets you say. 'Literacy' is about language, and both mathematical and technological literacy is involved in the exercise of computational reasoning. That's what I'm trying to get at. There's a kind of coding known as 'pseudo-coding'. It's just a way of organizing ideas. It isn't traditional algebra, it isn't Java, it isn't C++ ... it isn't any particular language. It's basically traditional algebra ++. : ) I'm quite serious about this. It is 21st century algebra. Python has often been described as 'pseudo-code that runs'. I find that significant for a whole lot of educational reasons. - Michel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mpaul213 at gmail.com Sat Oct 18 06:30:54 2008 From: mpaul213 at gmail.com (michel paul) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:30:54 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <40ea4eb00810172130h2ebb4839ke02e188103e2b6fe@mail.gmail.com> "We should abandon the vision that physicists seek an ultimate mathematical description of the universe since it is not obvious that it exists. The job of the physicist is that of modeling phenomena within the physical scales of observed events. For some systems, the modeling can be done more effectively using algorithms." This is very interesting. Thanks for sending it. On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 7:14 PM, Massimo Di Pierro wrote: > Hi Paul, > > this is a document I write as a summary of a meeting I attended in 2006 at > Argonne National Laboratory about revising the Physics curriculum. If it is > of any use you can do anything you want with it. > > Massimo > > > > > On Oct 16, 2008, at 5:55 PM, michel paul wrote: > > This would be a great text for a high school math/CS class: Math for the > Digital Age . > > - Michel > > On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:15 AM, roberto wrote: > >> hello >> (i am rather new in python ...) >> >> i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged >> 14-17 (high school) >> and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental >> concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; >> i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) >> >> so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via >> this great programming language; >> >> i need some help from you and moreover if you are aware of books >> already covering these need >> >> thank you in advance >> -- >> roberto >> OS: GNU/Linux, Debian >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 echerlin at gmail.com Sat Oct 18 07:03:41 2008 From: echerlin at gmail.com (Edward Cherlin) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:03:41 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: <40ea4eb00810172130h2ebb4839ke02e188103e2b6fe@mail.gmail.com> References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810172130h2ebb4839ke02e188103e2b6fe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2008/10/17 michel paul : > "We should abandon the vision that physicists seek an ultimate mathematical > description of the universe since it is not obvious that it exists. I disagree with this attitude. We can seek an ultimate mathematical description, since it is not obvious that it does not exist. We should also be aware that we do not have one, and have some idea of the range of validity of our models. This will help us to avoid mathematical absurdities, particularly the infinities that result from calculations on unphysical point masses and point charges. > The job > of the physicist is that of modeling phenomena within the physical scales of > observed events. True much of the time. Another part of the job is to model outside the scale of the observed, and go make the new observations needed, as in the case of General Relativity. > For some systems, the modeling can be done more effectively > using algorithms." As a mathematician, I don't know what that means. Every algorithm can be represented by a system of equations in a number of ways, and every system of equations can be solved, at least approximately, by various algorithms. As a teacher, I know very well what it means. Some representations are easier to understand, or easier to work with, or easier to learn from. Various thinkers, including Babbage, Whitehead, and Iverson, have commented on the effects of the way we represent problems on our ability to think about them, and not only they but luminaries from Fibonacci to Einstein have labored to invent or teach new notations and representations. > This is very interesting. Thanks for sending it. > > On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 7:14 PM, Massimo Di Pierro > wrote: >> >> Hi Paul, >> this is a document I write as a summary of a meeting I attended in 2006 at >> Argonne National Laboratory about revising the Physics curriculum. If it is >> of any use you can do anything you want with it. >> Massimo >> >> >> >> On Oct 16, 2008, at 5:55 PM, michel paul wrote: >> >> This would be a great text for a high school math/CS class: Math for the >> Digital Age. >> >> - Michel >> >> On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:15 AM, roberto wrote: >>> >>> hello >>> (i am rather new in python ...) >>> >>> i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged >>> 14-17 (high school) >>> and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental >>> concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; >>> i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) >>> >>> so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via >>> this great programming language; >>> >>> i need some help from you and moreover if you are aware of books >>> already covering these need >>> >>> thank you in advance >>> -- >>> roberto >>> OS: GNU/Linux, Debian >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Edu-sig mailing list >>> Edu-sig at python.org >>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >> >> >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > -- Don't panic.--HHGTTG, Douglas Adams fivethirtyeight.com, 3bluedudes.com Obama still moving ahead in EC! http://www.obamapedia.org/page/Smears Join us! http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai For the children Silent Thunder (??/??????????????? ) is my name And Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination. From roberto03 at gmail.com Sat Oct 18 11:16:54 2008 From: roberto03 at gmail.com (roberto) Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:16:54 +0200 Subject: [Edu-sig] [Tutor] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: <20505737.1224162633033.JavaMail.root@mswamui-swiss.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <20505737.1224162633033.JavaMail.root@mswamui-swiss.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4bcde3e10810180216l5e52deb9x2344ff6fc63e2d15@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Ken Oliver wrote: > For a starting place, you may want to look at "Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python" by Maria and Gary Litvin. ISBN 978-0-9727055-8-5 > > Both authors are very helpful and often contribute to math and CS electronic discussion groups. Communications possible through information below: > great, it seems that's a well focused book around my needs i'll send feedback to the authors (and the list as well) thank you > > -----Original Message----- >>From: roberto >>Sent: Oct 16, 2008 7:15 AM >>To: "edu-sig at python.org" >>Cc: tutor at python.org >>Subject: [Tutor] school physics/math courses >> >>hello >>(i am rather new in python ...) >> >>i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged >>14-17 (high school) >>and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental >>concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; >>i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) >> >>so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via >>this great programming language; >> >>i need some help from you and moreover if you are aware of books >>already covering these need >> >>thank you in advance >>-- >>roberto >>OS: GNU/Linux, Debian >>_______________________________________________ >>Tutor maillist - Tutor at python.org >>http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor > > -- roberto OS: GNU/Linux, Debian From MDiPierro at cs.depaul.edu Sat Oct 18 16:31:38 2008 From: MDiPierro at cs.depaul.edu (Massimo Di Pierro) Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 09:31:38 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810172130h2ebb4839ke02e188103e2b6fe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <0AF6B568-EB3C-4D6D-921E-A67B3AB30EDA@cs.depaul.edu> On Oct 18, 2008, at 12:03 AM, Edward Cherlin wrote: > 2008/10/17 michel paul : >> "We should abandon the vision that physicists seek an ultimate >> mathematical >> description of the universe since it is not obvious that it exists. > > I disagree with this attitude. We can seek an ultimate mathematical > description, since it is not obvious that it does not exist. We should > also be aware that we do not have one, and have some idea of the range > of validity of our models. This will help us to avoid mathematical > absurdities, particularly the infinities that result from calculations > on unphysical point masses and point charges. a consequence of the Godel theorem is that even if a complete mathematical description of the universe exists, and we find it, we cannot prove it is complete. We can only prove it works for those phenomena we have observed. I say the goal if to seek a comprehensive effective theory that describes and explains observed phenomena. > >> The job >> of the physicist is that of modeling phenomena within the physical >> scales of >> observed events. > > True much of the time. Another part of the job is to model outside the > scale of the observed, and go make the new observations needed, as in > the case of General Relativity. General relativity describes observed phenomena. It was so even at times of Einstein (orbit of planets) > >> For some systems, the modeling can be done more effectively >> using algorithms." > > As a mathematician, I don't know what that means. Every algorithm can > be represented by a system of equations in a number of ways, and every > system of equations can be solved, at least approximately, by various > algorithms. Mathematical formulas described relations between quantities. Algorithms described a process (for example a process to solve a mathematical formula). If you believe you can find a ultimate model for everything, it has to be described in mathematical terms. If you believe you cannot do better than explain known events observed with a finite precision, then numerical algorithms provide an efficient way to model the physics. I am not saying one can have one without the other. I am saying it is easier to teach Newton's gravity using Euler's approximate algorithm that it is to do it using symbolic integration. > As a teacher, I know very well what it means. Some representations are > easier to understand, or easier to work with, or easier to learn from. > Various thinkers, including Babbage, Whitehead, and Iverson, have > commented on the effects of the way we represent problems on our > ability to think about them, and not only they but luminaries from > Fibonacci to Einstein have labored to invent or teach new notations > and representations. I agree. Massimo From echerlin at gmail.com Sun Oct 19 01:57:54 2008 From: echerlin at gmail.com (Edward Cherlin) Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:57:54 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] [Tutor] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: <48FA0996.7000800@gmail.com> References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810172130h2ebb4839ke02e188103e2b6fe@mail.gmail.com> <48FA0996.7000800@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 9:06 AM, bob gailer wrote: > Edward Cherlin wrote: >> >> [snip] >> >> As a teacher, I know very well what it means. Some representations are >> easier to understand, or easier to work with, or easier to learn from. >> Various thinkers, including Babbage, Whitehead, and Iverson, have >> commented on the effects of the way we represent problems on our >> ability to think about them, and not only they but luminaries from >> Fibonacci to Einstein have labored to invent or teach new notations >> and representations. >> > > I'm glad to see Iverson amongst Babbage and Whitehead. Turing Award lecture, Notation as a Tool of Thought. > In 1974 I was > introduced to his invention: APL. That transformed how I thought about > problems and expressed algorithms. I still wish for some way to bring some > of that magic into Python. See NumPy and SciPy, which used APL for some design ideas. If we can get some people together on this idea, we can add more APL to Python. Perl6 will have some of this, but that's a knotty business that I am staying out of. I'm working on getting a GPLed APL for the OLPC XO. Arthur Whitney is writing one. I was the founder of I-APL, Ltd, and Managing Editor of APL News for Springer-Verlag. I have the copyrights on Iverson's textbooks for Arithmetic, Algebra, and Calculus, and intend to put them out under Creative Commons licenses. I need to recruit more people--mathematicians, teachers, APLers, and others--to work on these projects. > I found it interesting to hear (in the migration to Python 3) that the > Python reduce function was not used a lot or well understood. I certainly > use and understand it. > A brief tutorial for any who have read this far and are curious: In > Python one may combine the elements of a list using sum() (if the > sum is desired). For other functions one uses reduce. To get the > product of the elements of a list Y: reduce(operator.mul, Y). In APL > reduce is / and multiply is x so one writes x/Y. (Classic APL had only > upper case for names). And underscored upper-case. Y? The XO has a ?? key, so we can write this correctly: ?/Y ?/3 4 0.75 > I can write and comprehend x/Y much faster than the wordy equivalent. > > And Y can be an array of 0 or more dimensions. +/Y computes the "row sum" > giving an array of one less dimensions*. So if Y were: > 1 2 3 > 4 5 6 > the row sum is 6 15. > * if the number of dimensions is 0 (a "scalar" value) the result is the > scalar value unchanged. We also have primitives for matrix products, evaluating polynomials, matrix inverse, least squares, and a good deal more. Most people hate APL, because it exposes the math inherent in programming, and most people assume that for that reason they cannot learn APL. However, Iverson wrote his Arithmetic textbook for an IBM-funded experiment in using APL as the math notation in an elementary school. > -- > Bob Gailer > Chapel Hill NC 919-636-4239 > > When we take the time to be aware of our feelings and needs we have more > satisfying interactions with others. That's what we call meditation in Buddhism. > Nonviolent Communication provides tools for this awareness. > > As a coach and trainer I can assist you in learning this process. > > What is YOUR biggest relationship challenge? > > -- Silent Thunder (??/??????????????? ) is my name And Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination. From kirby.urner at gmail.com Sun Oct 19 07:22:24 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 22:22:24 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] [Tutor] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810172130h2ebb4839ke02e188103e2b6fe@mail.gmail.com> <48FA0996.7000800@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Edward Cherlin wrote: > On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 9:06 AM, bob gailer wrote: << SNIP >> >> I'm glad to see Iverson amongst Babbage and Whitehead. > > Turing Award lecture, Notation as a Tool of Thought. > >> In 1974 I was >> introduced to his invention: APL. That transformed how I thought about >> problems and expressed algorithms. I still wish for some way to bring some >> of that magic into Python. > > See NumPy and SciPy, which used APL for some design ideas. If we can > get some people together on this idea, we can add more APL to Python. > > Perl6 will have some of this, but that's a knotty business that I am > staying out of. > > I'm working on getting a GPLed APL for the OLPC XO. Arthur Whitney is > writing one. I was the founder of I-APL, Ltd, and Managing Editor of > APL News for Springer-Verlag. I have the copyrights on Iverson's > textbooks for Arithmetic, Algebra, and Calculus, and intend to put > them out under Creative Commons licenses. > > I need to recruit more people--mathematicians, teachers, APLers, and > others--to work on these projects. > I see Python as a lot like APL, in terms of small, action-packed units, e.g. data structures, with highly orthogonal (combinatorially rich) behaviors. I've worked with Iverson on J, admire Roger Hui's math teaching in that language. APL was a first love thought, showed me that not every language is like FORTRAN, praise Allah. http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/cp4e.html is mostly Python, but there's some J there too. In my model intro class, I envision Python and J as a "dynamic duo" in that they give students a sense of the spectrum, the broad range among computer languages -- not saying other dynamic duos not up to the job, go for it etc. Kirby From aharrin at luc.edu Sun Oct 19 16:54:47 2008 From: aharrin at luc.edu (Andrew Harrington) Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 09:54:47 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Math for the Digital Age looks great for getting both discrete math concepts and Python into a HS. That is a very different emphasis than physical sciences. If you are specifically doing physics and other continuous math, I would not recommend Math for the Digital Age. It does not appear to cover any concepts used by physical scientists, like vectors and speed. I'm not sure what would be a good Physics+Python intro. There may be some suggestion on the SciPy pages. Andy 2008/10/16 michel paul > This would be a great text for a high school math/CS class: Math for the > Digital Age . > > - Michel > > > On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:15 AM, roberto wrote: > >> hello >> (i am rather new in python ...) >> >> i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged >> 14-17 (high school) >> and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental >> concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; >> i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) >> >> so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via >> this great programming language; >> >> i need some help from you and moreover if you are aware of books >> already covering these need >> >> thank you in advance >> -- >> roberto >> OS: GNU/Linux, Debian >> _______________________________________________ >> Edu-sig mailing list >> Edu-sig at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > -- Andrew N. Harrington Director of Academic Programs Computer Science Department Loyola University Chicago 512B Lewis Towers (office) Snail mail to Lewis Towers 416 820 North Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60611 http://www.cs.luc.edu/~anh Phone: 312-915-7982 Fax: 312-915-7998 gdp at cs.luc.edu for graduate administration upd at cs.luc.edu for undergrad administration aharrin at luc.edu as professor -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kirby.urner at gmail.com Sun Oct 19 17:44:13 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 08:44:13 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: We do quite a bit with vectors in my Saturday Academy classes, proposing to cover some of these topics in a Pycon tutorial so geeks might see how we do it. Lots of emphasis on real time versus render time animation techniques, basically game engine versus ray tracer, using VPython and POV-Ray respectively, Python the glue language, model-view-controller an organizing heuristic. This is all high school level, but then the students I get are self-selecting, so more interested in this stuff that average we might assume. Physics is very doable with discrete math concepts, adapting from continuous math explorations. The preponderance of evidence would suggest we live in a discrete, non-continuous universe, or in any case enough of a case might be made such that students needn't feel inferior for using digital tools to study science. We'll still do closed form integrations and so on. Where number crunching is concerned, we're talking limited precision measurements i.e. discrete numbers again. Kirby 2008/10/19 Andrew Harrington : > Math for the Digital Age looks great for getting both discrete math concepts > and Python into a HS. That is a very different emphasis than physical > sciences. If you are specifically doing physics and other continuous math, > I would not recommend Math for the Digital Age. It does not appear to cover > any concepts used by physical scientists, like vectors and speed. I'm not > sure what would be a good Physics+Python intro. There may be some > suggestion on the SciPy pages. > > Andy > > 2008/10/16 michel paul >> >> This would be a great text for a high school math/CS class: Math for the >> Digital Age. >> >> - Michel >> >> On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:15 AM, roberto wrote: >>> >>> hello >>> (i am rather new in python ...) >>> >>> i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged >>> 14-17 (high school) >>> and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental >>> concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; >>> i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) >>> >>> so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via >>> this great programming language; >>> >>> i need some help from you and moreover if you are aware of books >>> already covering these need >>> >>> thank you in advance >>> -- >>> roberto >>> OS: GNU/Linux, Debian >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Edu-sig mailing list >>> Edu-sig at python.org >>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Edu-sig mailing list >> Edu-sig at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >> > > > > -- > Andrew N. Harrington > Director of Academic Programs > Computer Science Department > Loyola University Chicago > 512B Lewis Towers (office) > Snail mail to Lewis Towers 416 > 820 North Michigan Avenue > Chicago, Illinois 60611 > > http://www.cs.luc.edu/~anh > Phone: 312-915-7982 > Fax: 312-915-7998 > gdp at cs.luc.edu for graduate administration > upd at cs.luc.edu for undergrad administration > aharrin at luc.edu as professor > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > From gregor.lingl at aon.at Sun Oct 19 23:16:44 2008 From: gregor.lingl at aon.at (Gregor Lingl) Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:16:44 +0200 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <48FBA3BC.5080403@aon.at> roberto schrieb: > hello > (i am rather new in python ...) > > i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged > 14-17 (high school) > and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental > concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; > i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) > > so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via > this great programming language; > > Hi Roberto, I've done a few short scripts which might be interesting to you. Take them as examples, which you may use, modify or simply take for inspiration to do something similar. The first one, together with an example - tdemo_planet_and_moon.py - which you might find here: http://svn.python.org/view/python/trunk/Demo/turtle/ are simulations of gravitational three-body-systems. tdemo_sierpinsky.py is a script which draws a colorful sierpinsky-triangle and uses a simple 3D-Vector class. (BTW the gravitation-scripts above use a 2DVector class which is included in the turtle module.) tdemo_spaceship.py is sort of a game which I've used in my physics classes to let my students experience how to drive a spaceship in agravic space. (Try to drive it along a circlular orbit!) Before this, my students in a computer science class had programmed it, so it's code might be worth to be polished a bit ;-) Another mathematically interesting example is the script tdemo_chaos.py which you can also find at the link mentioned above. It shows that the result of some 80 iterations of an algebraic expression depends extremely on the way it is realized in python (that means of the order of arithmetic operations). All those examples use the turtle module which is part of the Python standard library since Python 2.6. This module is devised to provide very easy access to graphics which might be of importance if you do mathematics and physics, because it allows to avoid some 'bureaucratic' overhead which is necessary to use Toolkits like Tkinter and others. Thus you can concentrate more easily on the mathematical and physical contents of you curriculum. Maybe it might be useful to create some sort of repository in the web for small classroom dedicated math- and physics related Python scripts? Regards, Gregor > i need some help from you and moreover if you are aware of books > already covering these need > > thank you in advance > -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: tdemo_planets.py URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: tdemo_sierpinski.py URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: tdemo_spaceship.py URL: From kirby.urner at gmail.com Sun Oct 19 23:47:22 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:47:22 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] More preaching to the choir... Message-ID: Here's a pointer to some related writings @ Math Forum, which I used to tell Arthur S. (this archive) was more like "center ring" in my circus, i.e. where math teachers meet irrespective of caring about geek subculture, computers etc.: http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1845616&tstart=0 Re planets in orbit, another interesting implementation, already field tested, multiplies complex numbers of unit radius, begetting rotation, then scales appropriately. Of course these orbits are merely circular, so not that realistic, so apply some field distortion if wanting elliptic (not something we tried). Here's some code: http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/python/orbits.py Kirby 4D -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From echerlin at gmail.com Mon Oct 20 00:30:23 2008 From: echerlin at gmail.com (Edward Cherlin) Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 15:30:23 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] More preaching to the choir... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2008/10/19 kirby urner : > > > Here's a pointer to some related writings @ Math Forum, which I used to tell > Arthur S. (this archive) was more like "center ring" in my circus, i.e. > where math teachers meet irrespective of caring about geek subculture, > computers etc.: > > http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1845616&tstart=0 > > Re planets in orbit, another interesting implementation, already field > tested, multiplies complex numbers of unit radius, begetting rotation, then > scales appropriately. Of course these orbits are merely circular, so not > that realistic, so apply some field distortion if wanting elliptic (not > something we tried). I did a simulation of elliptical orbits in TutSim on the Apple II in 1982. It isn't that hard. I know of several different ways of programming it, using inverse-square gravity, Kepler's law of equal areas, and other equivalent mathematical representations. I set up a three-body simulation in which one object was thrown out and the other two settled into elliptical orbits around their barycenter, after a chaotic early period. There are such simulations in a number of languages, including Python and Smalltalk, where students can vary parameters and watch the results. Some of this is in the Sugar software for the OLPC XO. A. K. Dewdney's book The Planiverse describes simulations of inverse linear gravity in 2D, and others have done inverse cube gravity in 4D. You can get weird weather, seasons, and climate effects on planets in 4D with two independent axes of rotation, depending in particular on whether the rotation periods and the revolution period are close to or far from simple integer ratios. > Here's some code: > http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/python/orbits.py > > Kirby > 4D > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > -- Edward Mokurai Cherlin http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai http://www.amazon.com/xo Give One, Get One, from Nov. 17 From kirby.urner at gmail.com Mon Oct 20 01:41:24 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:41:24 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] More preaching to the choir... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yes, not that hard, agreed. I think we're in the right headspace, here on edu-sig, re teaching physics / math and so on with all this well known content, plus adding more experimental fun around the edges, ala programming just for the fun of it (ab attitude we highly encourage). Given how OO makes "objects" so concrete (per Concrete Mathematics) it's not so unrealistic to suggest adding some quaternions to the mix, just one more animal in our zoomorphic kingdom (or queendom, not pretending to know). Given XO is hardware with access to the cloud (by design) it's unnecessary to map curriculum to it or any other hardware device, as this isn't about hardware in the first place, but curriculum, and there's so much already out there, much of it very pre-computer in flavor, yet nevertheless relevant, Hamilton's brief included, Kepler's and so on. That being said, I like the idea of equipment especially designed with the needs of young children in mind. I was gleeful that so many adults found the XO frustrating to use because of the tiny keys. That's the whole point -- it's for them, not you. Of course in this sense there's a need for Sugar friendly apps, and/or new kinds of Sugar. I'm eager to find out more. All that's really needed, in terms of equipment, is a decent browser and Python itself (if teaching Python). In addition to writing stuff for laptops (multiple platform), I'm aiming at the LCD (or "flatscreen") market, piping directly to coffee shops (e.g. booths), so an intimate group might study together without bringing any hardware whatsoever. The same LCD plays music and does Apple style visualizations i.e. isn't just for "study hall" activities (these might be small screens, between HD and iPod, XO a source of ideas). So now that we know what the future looks like, I'm wondering how geeks will spontaneously self-organize to deliver a quality product. I imagine more Rich Data Structures will be a part of it, as in canned Periodic Table modules, with XML i/o if not natively XML -- I'm somewhat influenced by Ruby's anti-XMLism, GIS data re cities (example @ my site), insectavora and so on. However, I'm not expected all the stress of development to fall on open source developers. Much of this stuff will be kept under wraps and niche marketed under more restrictive licensing, simply because there's a market for it and open source isn't the answer to every prayer, even if it is to so many. Several of us here wear multiple hats in that regard e.g. contribute to open source yet support clients who don't choose to compete in that arena -- describes my situation at least. I'll be interested to hear more about what develops in those projects I learned about at the most recent OSCON, as many of those *were* open source, just not based anywhere close to Portland. As you might imagine, I have a hard time keeping up even just with what goes on in my home town. Kirby Urner Fine Grind Productions On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 3:30 PM, Edward Cherlin wrote: > 2008/10/19 kirby urner : > > > > > > Here's a pointer to some related writings @ Math Forum, which I used to > tell > > Arthur S. (this archive) was more like "center ring" in my circus, i.e. > > where math teachers meet irrespective of caring about geek subculture, > > computers etc.: > > > > http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1845616&tstart=0 > > > > Re planets in orbit, another interesting implementation, already field > > tested, multiplies complex numbers of unit radius, begetting rotation, > then > > scales appropriately. Of course these orbits are merely circular, so not > > that realistic, so apply some field distortion if wanting elliptic (not > > something we tried). > > I did a simulation of elliptical orbits in TutSim on the Apple II in > 1982. It isn't that hard. I know of several different ways of > programming it, using inverse-square gravity, Kepler's law of equal > areas, and other equivalent mathematical representations. I set up a > three-body simulation in which one object was thrown out and the other > two settled into elliptical orbits around their barycenter, after a > chaotic early period. There are such simulations in a number of > languages, including Python and Smalltalk, where students can vary > parameters and watch the results. Some of this is in the Sugar > software for the OLPC XO. > > A. K. Dewdney's book The Planiverse describes simulations of inverse > linear gravity in 2D, and others have done inverse cube gravity in 4D. > You can get weird weather, seasons, and climate effects on planets in > 4D with two independent axes of rotation, depending in particular on > whether the rotation periods and the revolution period are close to or > far from simple integer ratios. > > > Here's some code: > > http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/python/orbits.py > > > > Kirby > > 4D > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Edu-sig mailing list > > Edu-sig at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > > > > > > > -- > Edward Mokurai Cherlin > http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai > http://www.amazon.com/xo > Give One, Get One, from Nov. 17 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From roberto03 at gmail.com Mon Oct 20 12:19:30 2008 From: roberto03 at gmail.com (roberto) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:19:30 +0200 Subject: [Edu-sig] [Tutor] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810161555uf9e94deg81e78ebe7c2f0bb1@mail.gmail.com> <40ea4eb00810172130h2ebb4839ke02e188103e2b6fe@mail.gmail.com> <48FA0996.7000800@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4bcde3e10810200319l1474dc97p6b38b16929839b5d@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 1:57 AM, Edward Cherlin wrote: > On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 9:06 AM, bob gailer wrote: >> Edward Cherlin wrote: >>> >>> [snip] >>> >>> As a teacher, I know very well what it means. Some representations are >>> easier to understand, or easier to work with, or easier to learn from. >>> Various thinkers, including Babbage, Whitehead, and Iverson, have >>> commented on the effects of the way we represent problems on our >>> ability to think about them, and not only they but luminaries from >>> Fibonacci to Einstein have labored to invent or teach new notations >>> and representations. >>> >> >> I'm glad to see Iverson amongst Babbage and Whitehead. > > Turing Award lecture, Notation as a Tool of Thought. > >> In 1974 I was >> introduced to his invention: APL. That transformed how I thought about >> problems and expressed algorithms. I still wish for some way to bring some >> of that magic into Python. > > See NumPy and SciPy, which used APL for some design ideas. If we can > get some people together on this idea, we can add more APL to Python. > > I'm working on getting a GPLed APL for the OLPC XO. Arthur Whitney is > writing one. I was the founder of I-APL, Ltd, and Managing Editor of > APL News for Springer-Verlag. I have the copyrights on Iverson's > textbooks for Arithmetic, Algebra, and Calculus, and intend to put > them out under Creative Commons licenses. > > I need to recruit more people--mathematicians, teachers, APLers, and > others--to work on these projects. thanks for the hints, Edward and if you may give me more details about the projects you pointed, i'll check if they can be coupled with mine in the future; i am deeply interested in getting python and CS way of thinking into high school math learning and everything related is well accepted i am a HS math teacher and i like to experiment a lot with those young guys who can stand the trial teaching -- roberto OS: GNU/Linux, Debian From roberto03 at gmail.com Mon Oct 20 12:27:17 2008 From: roberto03 at gmail.com (roberto) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:27:17 +0200 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: <48FBA3BC.5080403@aon.at> References: <4bcde3e10810160415j29aaf0f3t4f0de060ddb3652f@mail.gmail.com> <48FBA3BC.5080403@aon.at> Message-ID: <4bcde3e10810200327l6285a83ahf0be71e3f8ac8501@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 11:16 PM, Gregor Lingl wrote: > > > roberto schrieb: >> >> hello >> (i am rather new in python ...) >> >> i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged >> 14-17 (high school) >> and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental >> concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; >> i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) >> >> so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via >> this great programming language; >> >> > > Hi Roberto, > > I've done a few short scripts which might be interesting to you. Take > them as examples, which you may use, modify or simply take for > inspiration to do something similar. thank you, i'll look carefully at them > > The first one, together with an example - tdemo_planet_and_moon.py - > which you might find here: > > http://svn.python.org/view/python/trunk/Demo/turtle/ > > are simulations of gravitational three-body-systems. > great, since i am intended to HS students, programs should deal with HS physics taking into account the background and the students' learning styles > tdemo_sierpinsky.py is a script which draws a colorful sierpinsky-triangle > and uses a simple 3D-Vector class. (BTW the gravitation-scripts above use > a 2DVector class which is included in the turtle module.) > > tdemo_spaceship.py is sort of a game which I've used in my physics classes > to let my students experience how to drive a spaceship in agravic space. > (Try > to drive it along a circlular orbit!) Before this, my students in a computer > science > class had programmed it, so it's code might be worth to be polished a bit > ;-) > > Another mathematically interesting example is the script tdemo_chaos.py > which > you can also find at the link mentioned above. It shows that the result of > some > 80 iterations of an algebraic expression depends extremely on the way it is > realized in python (that means of the order of arithmetic operations). > > All those examples use the turtle module which is part of the Python > standard > library since Python 2.6. This module is devised to provide very easy > access to graphics which might be of importance if you do mathematics and > physics, because it allows to avoid some 'bureaucratic' overhead which is > necessary to use Toolkits like Tkinter and others. Thus you can concentrate > more easily on the mathematical and physical contents of you curriculum. > > Maybe it might be useful to create some sort of repository in the web > for small classroom dedicated math- and physics related Python scripts? definitively, i think we should gather together at list a comprehensive list of efforts on the topic; something similar is the page in http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/ but, probably, you think about a simple repository of contributed scripts -- roberto OS: GNU/Linux, Debian From da.ajoy at gmail.com Tue Oct 21 17:47:25 2008 From: da.ajoy at gmail.com (Daniel Ajoy) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:47:25 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] school physics/math courses In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Oct 2008 05:00:03 -0500, wrote: > From: roberto > > hello > (i am rather new in python ...) > > i am about to start a course of physics and math for students aged > 14-17 (high school) > and i am deeply interested in the possibilty of teaching fundamental > concepts of these subjects via teaching programming; > i chose python (i won't change my mind ...) > > so i am looking for resources on how to deal with these topics via > this great programming language; concepts like: * methods for solving triangles (53-64) * parabolic movement (69-72) * derivatives (75-76) can be presented by asking the students to draw the corresponding figures in this page: http://neoparaiso.com/logo/ejercicios-de-geometria.html using the turtle module. Daniel From kirby.urner at gmail.com Tue Oct 21 19:11:05 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:11:05 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] More on namespaces and dot notation... Message-ID: In preparing for this IEEE talk I'm delivering on Nov 4 (USA election night) @ Armory, venue for this play I'm involved with, I'm looking at "namespaces" and "dot notation" as integral concepts within contemporary philosophy (where I have much background). For example, early in the 1900s, the academic community was in much ferment over this idea of a "fourth dimension", with many fringe elements, esoteric think tanks etc., entering the fray. Linda D. Henderson did a good book on this, spun as art history, includes characters such as Claude Bragdon, P.D. Ouspensky among others. Roll the tape forward, and we have two different, yet well established namespaces wherein a "fourth dimension" occurs, one associated with Minkowski, later Einstein, another associated with sphere packing, e.g. (0,1,0,0,0,0) would be the center of a sphere, with (1,0,0,0,0,0) a neighboring sphere in n-dimensional space, the n relating to n == len(coord_tuple) being a true statement. So, using dot notation, we might write einstein.4d to signify the relativistic imaginary time literature championed in our time by Stephen Hawking, and exyz.4d to signify a fourth dimension per extended Euclideanism, well explained in that book by Sloane and J.H. Conway, published by Springer-Verlag (the exact title escapes me at the moment). Of course given the content of the IEEE talk (the play), I'll be adding yet another namespace into the mix, talking about fuller.4d, maybe changing exyz.4d to Coxeter.4d for this audience, for arcane historical reasons. The names we give namespaces is itself part of the namespace e.g. 'import math as toolbox' (except at my grunch.net/synergetics which is like an old museum exhibit by this time, and through which many people find me). or whatever. For purposes of discussion, and apropos edu-sig, you could look at all of the above as branching off 'import this' and wanting to explain *exactly why* Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those! Kirby From enbody at cse.msu.edu Tue Oct 21 20:14:47 2008 From: enbody at cse.msu.edu (Richard Enbody) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:14:47 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] BOF at SIGCSE 2009 Message-ID: <48FE1C17.5080100@cse.msu.edu> Greetings, I am putting together a proposal for a Birds-of-a-Feather meeting at SIGCSE 2009 on use of Python in CS1 courses. There is a place for additional discussion leaders. Anyone interested in helping me lead a BOF? The deadline for the BOF proposal is Monday, Oct 27. Discussion leaders must commit to being at SIGCSE 2009 (March 4-7 in Chattanooga, TN http://www.cs.arizona.edu/groups/sigcse09/) My draft title is: "Is Python appropriate for CS1?" Contact me directly at enbody at cse.msu.edu, if you are interested. In any case, if this BOF happens, I hope that any Edu-sig folk at SIGCSE will attend and add their $0.02 Cheers, -rich enbody at cse.msu.edu From kirby.urner at gmail.com Wed Oct 22 04:43:47 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:43:47 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] Data Mazes! Message-ID: Here's an admittedly somewhat odd-ball pass time: create a generator that hides in "x" in some deeply nested data structure, then come up with a key for retrieving that "x" (might be a buried treasure!). For example: If: x = "Yes!" maze = [(),(),{'a':0},([[{'a':1,'b':{('a','b'):{('a','b'):[[{'a':1,'b':{('a','b'):[(),(),{'a':0},([[{'a':1,'b':[[{'a':1,'b':{('a','b'):x, ('c','d'):2}},0],(1,)]},0],(1,)],)], ('c','d'):2}},0],(1,)], ('c','d'):2}, ('c','d'):2}},0],(1,)],)] then: maze[3][0][0][0]["b"][("a","b")][("a","b")][0][0]["b"][("a","b")][3][0][0][0]["b"][0][0]["b"][("a","b")] would be a solution. Another example: >>> maze = [[{'a':1,'b':[[{'a':1,'b':[(),(),{'a':0},([(),(),{'a':0},([(),(),{'a':0},([[{'a':1,'b':[[{'a':1,'b':[[{'a':1,'b':[(),(),{'a':0},([(),(),{'a':0},(x,)],)]},0],(1,)]},0],(1,)]},0],(1,)],)],)],)]},0],(1,)]},0],(1,)] Solution: >>> maze[0][0]["b"][0][0]["b"][3][0][3][0][3][0][0][0]["b"][0][0]["b"][0][0]["b"][3][0][3][0] 'Yes!' OK, I warned you this was dumb. The fun part was writing a generator to spit out maze/solution pairs. Kirby From jurgis at akl.lt Fri Oct 31 14:20:58 2008 From: jurgis at akl.lt (Jurgis Pralgauskis) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:20:58 +0200 Subject: [Edu-sig] edu-sig page is orphaned? In-Reply-To: <34f4097d0810310534k6658289fy9d95094d8089cc63@mail.gmail.com> References: <34f4097d0810310534k6658289fy9d95094d8089cc63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <34f4097d0810310620g40f69a64y3df7fae932e65b7b@mail.gmail.com> Hello, http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/ in Resources PyBiblio link leads to Error 404 IDLE "page" looks also strange (though I understand it doesnt have direct dependence from edusig page) Software Carpentry leads to old page (as I know http://swc.scipy.org/ is quite newer) PyGeo link is also error 404 http://pw1.netcom.com/~ajs/ in the editors section PyScripter is a must (it is the best opensource pyeditor I know on windows for intermediate students) - PyScripter http://wiki.python.org/moin/PyScripter - Crunchy http://crunchy.sourceforge.net/ is very nice project For more fun programming (somewhere close to PyGame): - PyGlet http://www.pyglet.org/ - MakeBot (http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2008-October/008808.html http://stratotools.python-hosting.com/browser/trunk/makebot/) - no mention of Turtle, why?!! now should be ;) http://bugs.python.org/issue1513695 http://www.geocities.com/jjphoogrp/clixtur.html and alongside I know a book, thtat uses turtle a lot http://www.briggs.net.nz/log/writing/snake-wrangling-for-kids/ edusig mailinglist addres could be at the top, as this is main spot of activity :) I hope, that smb, that is responsible for edu-sig page, could quite easily integrate (some of) these proposals :) -- Jurgis Pralgauskis Don't worry, be happy and make things better ;) From kirby.urner at gmail.com Fri Oct 31 14:51:46 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 06:51:46 -0700 Subject: [Edu-sig] edu-sig page is orphaned? In-Reply-To: <34f4097d0810310620g40f69a64y3df7fae932e65b7b@mail.gmail.com> References: <34f4097d0810310534k6658289fy9d95094d8089cc63@mail.gmail.com> <34f4097d0810310620g40f69a64y3df7fae932e65b7b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I am largely responsible for the page as it currently exists, in terms of content, but threw that together a long time ago by now, around the time the site went from cvs to svn, and before the face lift wherein the new twin-snake logo was phased in. Since that time, I've suggested we work out a new management setup, but only in my capacity as one more edu-sig subscriber (I've never been the listowner here, albiet I've been one of the most prolific posters to date). I would also encourage web savvy educators to do their own edu-sig type pages, having Python as a focus if that's their area of expertise i.e. one way to promote change at Python.org would be to not wait, demo your dream web page in another domain, give the community more templates to choose from, in terms of where to take it next. Walking my own talk, I co-sponsor an Oregon Curriculum Network site with a "cp4e" page ( http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/cp4e.html -- not just about Python, but mostly is). Kirby 4dsolutions.net On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 6:20 AM, Jurgis Pralgauskis wrote: > Hello, > > http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/ > in Resources PyBiblio link leads to Error 404 > IDLE "page" looks also strange (though I understand it doesnt have > direct dependence from edusig page) > > Software Carpentry leads to old page (as I know http://swc.scipy.org/ > is quite newer) > > PyGeo link is also error 404 http://pw1.netcom.com/~ajs/ > > in the editors section PyScripter is a must (it is the best opensource > pyeditor I know on windows for intermediate students) > - PyScripter http://wiki.python.org/moin/PyScripter > > - Crunchy http://crunchy.sourceforge.net/ is very nice project > > For more fun programming (somewhere close to PyGame): > > - PyGlet http://www.pyglet.org/ > - MakeBot (http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2008-October/008808.html > http://stratotools.python-hosting.com/browser/trunk/makebot/) > > - no mention of Turtle, why?!! > now should be ;) > http://bugs.python.org/issue1513695 > http://www.geocities.com/jjphoogrp/clixtur.html > and alongside I know a book, thtat uses turtle a lot > http://www.briggs.net.nz/log/writing/snake-wrangling-for-kids/ > > edusig mailinglist addres could be at the top, as this is main spot of > activity :) > > I hope, that smb, that is responsible for edu-sig page, > could quite easily integrate (some of) these proposals :) > > -- > Jurgis Pralgauskis > Don't worry, be happy and make things better ;) > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >