[Edu-sig] meeting the author of Math Adventures in Python

[kirby urner]

Twas my privilege to meet again with Peter Farrell (California)
this morning, and his twin bro from Bean Town (Boston).  They're
heading out tomorrow, as is my visiting family, as we close out
2018.

Peter wrote Hacking Math Class with Python and No Starch Press
is about ready to release Math Adventures in Python.  I've been
reviewing a PDF version.

What I'm facing myself is whether I think "writing games" is a best
doorway into coding.  For some, it clearly is.

However I always feel I'm shirking my real duties as a generalist
when I make it the point of MIT Scratch, or Codesters (Python
compiling to JavaScript) to make games and not math.

It's not either/or of course, and math leads to art pretty quickly.
That's a STEM to PATH bridge in my lexicon (more on Medium).

The hybrid of math and coding we're seeing in Farrell's books,
among others, seems more predictive of what's happening in
the core curriculum versus in these after school elective programs
I've been providing.

Peter has a better situation:  the students come to him, and
he's free to work in and test his math teaching ideas. That's
what I'd like too.  I'll talk to my bosses.

Peter and I first met at Pycon Portland 2017.  Speaking of which,
OSCON 2019 is still accepting talk proposals, I'm supposed to be
spreading the word (which I am).

Peter and I both look up to Daniel Shiffman of Coding Train, who
has been incorporating more Python in his Youtubes of late.
https://thecodingtrain.com/  His stuff gets very mathy sometimes.

Kirby

Follow-up:

http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2018/12/another-math-summit.html
(related blog post the shows book cover)
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