[Edu-sig] More yakking from Portland (usa.or.pdx)

[kirby urner]

So I've started a whole new blog, cram packed w/ dah math stuff:

http://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/  ( it's actually subtitled
"philosophy talk" but there's lots of math-related content )

Please feel free to click on the Google ads at the bottom to make me
rich.  I'm still blue with the news from Reed College that my PHP is
too weak, or why else wouldn't I get that Open Source Developer
position (scan of the ad buried in my Photostream someplace).  Hint:
they wanted a maintenance technician not a visionary professor who
mentions R. Buckminster Fuller on his resume (I was the Fuller
Institute's first web wrangler, long ago -- bfi.org -- other
responsibilities).  It woulda been a big leap after 15 years in the
private sector as a client-based business, but you have to understand,
Reed is a great school (applied there as a high schooler, got
accepted, but went to Princeton instead, so poetic justice I guess).

David Koski was right:  you *can* export those "xtranormal movies"  to
YouTube (icon based scripting language -- not talking about Icon the
computer language, but little symbols, sequenced) so my Objectifying
in Python prototype is now much more accessible.  I'll be projecting
it tonight at CubeSpace at our Portland Python User Group meeting,
lugging speakers (gotta have good sound), as a part of my Pycon
Preview.  I'm gonna race through my slides just like I did with the
engineering group and Mario Livio, visiting MVP (see CSN blog:
http://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/2009/02/glass-bead-game.html )

Here's the xtranormal movie (again)
http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/02/regarding-objectifying.html
(blog embedded)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p698mXuHmTs

Anyway, the UK needs ed reform just as surely as the USA and I'm
sensing a kind of division of labor emerging, with the UK handling the
early algebra piece, very friendly to programming, and our open source
capital (Portland) leading the nation in some of the more GIS/GPS type
pieces, like with those dodecacams, Google Streets, Python appengine
and like that.  You all saw my clever advertising for OS Bridge right?
 http://osgarden.appspot.com/ .  I have source code and credits in the
About section.  Managed to modify py2html, need to add a link, to
PyFontify as well (they'll both autocolorize on the fly, thanks to
themselves, very cool).

So yeah, the entry I just posted to my CSN blog is about
Constructivism.  I don't mention the XO per se, but I do go over some
of the history.
http://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/2009/02/about-constructivism.html

My next plan is to see if Saturday Academy wants to serve as a
training hub for adult teachers with day jobs in public schools, most
of which already have some budget for in-service but don't use it on
anything FOSS-related, even though that's a big part of our economy
and what we're training up for around here, people moving here to do
development and design work.

Every kid should feel empowered to write server-side scripts in the
cloud, is sort of my attitude.  That's a way to get your identity out
there, without the constraints of Facebook, Myspace... like it's not
either/or.  Being able to script from scratch, in PHP even if that's
your bag (Reed's ad put PHP at the forefront), is a reward for having
learned programming in math class, which in turn is a way of learning
math skills (and geography) that'd be useful later in life,
interpreting "math skills" to include file management in general,
including bill paying and home economics.

Of course the XOs fit right in to this vision, as portals to said cloud.

I'll be posting more frequently in the countdown to Pycon.  Tizard @
Stanford is doing a fine job of promoting our little Python for
Teachers, although unless you're into education arcana and esoterica
that's not going to mean much, this is not Britney Spears.  Here's the
other YouTube I'm going to project (with audio) and PPUG tonight,
which is supposed to focus on VPython (and it will, just want to give
context, show how I use it in Saturday Academy classes.

Yeah, kinda random, just archiving some of my activities and thoughts.
 The blogs are more formal, upgraded the templates, installed Google
Analytics on all of them, not just Grain of Sand.  Averaging like 800
unique visitors each 30 day period, something like that.  They like my
movie reviews sometimes.

Off to see Gordon next, good friend, interesting geek.  Ah, the
cleaning team has just arrived, gotta make this home office ship shape
for tomorrow as MVP Anna Roys is swinging through from TECC/Alaska.
tecc-alaska.org   There's still interest in ramping up on the Python
but I'm just a local yokel in Portland, don't get to fly around (or
drive (bizmo scenario)) showing how that's done -- except that's the
idea in Chicago, provided there's some interest.

Kirby