[Edu-sig] 3d and Python

[Kirby Urner]

Sorry, lagging -- had to go back and read the Croquet thread in the archive
because for some reason my spam filter is killing edu-sig posts.  Having
studied the filters, I still don't see why.

I'm not sure what Arthur's objection is to big money backing software
projects aimed at the education market.  What's the difference between
Disney doing it and Microsoft doing it, and are Magic School Bus CDs a bad
thing?  It's already a huge market, and I think each product should be
judged on its merits.  And it's rare that we find anything so elaborate as a
complete curriculum, except in publishing -- and that's big money too.

Disney's imprint is entirely missing from Squeak in any case.  Had they
really gotten behind it, the interface would be stocked with stock
characters:  Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and the rest of the cast.  The
emphasis would be on animating them somehow.  That'd be the predictable
outcome.  But Squeak is way too esoteric at the moment.  It's a poorly
understood product, for the most part.  Disney never managed to overcome
that.

As for Croquet, it looks a lot like ActiveWorlds (
http://www.activeworlds.com/ ) but far far behind in terms of development.
Maybe I'm wrong about the genre -- two screen shots (what I found at the
Croquest site) does not an informed impression make.

I've found ActiveWorlds useful in the past, especially AW EDU.  Friends and
I spent hours "playing ball" in these worlds, showing up as avatars,
constructing, providing tours to visiting delegations.  We even did a
conference or two, entirely within the context of a virtual 3d world.  This
was about content, information sharing, but not specifically about
programming.  Lots of hard fun.

I think with early education, there's no getting around the need to work on
basics:  coordinate systems and the mathematical routines we use with them.
This provides a level of fluency which translates into many computer
languages.  I favor starting with a language that is pretty clear and clean
(e.g. Python) and then seeing the same ideas expressed in others.  

I have no problem with SmallTalk being used for this, but I haven't seen
enough SmallTalk material (Squeak or not-Squeak) to give me confidence that
just this little piece of it (coordinate geometry and related algorithms) is
being developed as kid-centric content -- the way Logo was, for example (3d
Logo still has its appeal).

I've tried to lay down some tracks through Python World along these lines
(http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/cp4e.html) including a lot of 3d stuff
(mostly static, but some VPython).  

The emphasis is on doing the programming, not being the passive consumer of
awesomely complicated code written by teams of professionals (or even by one
professional).

However, if a backer comes along and decides my curriculum needs to be done
in cartoon form, with Donald Duck explaining subclasses and polymorphism (I
know, that'd be unbearable -- we'd probably have to invent new characters),
I'm not going to dismiss that out of hand as a negative, even if it makes me
less adorable in Arthur's assessment.  

As a general rule, I push for more educational programming on all fronts,
including cartoons (this PBS math-focused series -- Cyberchase -- ain't so
bad).  PBS also has a stash of video clips for teachers that I regard as a
step in the right direction.

Kirby