[Edu-sig] Calculators = Bottleneck

[kirby urner]

I just posted another essay to the Math Forum on why I consider
calculators and the faux controversies around them, to be a
serious bottleneck:

http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=5589504&tstart=0

I've taken this line at OSCONs, encouraging collaboration across
language communities to help address deficiencies in the current
numeracy curricula, including in K-12 (pre-college).

Uniting against calculators, in favor of computer languages, helps
keep us from religious wars about "which language".

An older overview essay, a longer one, is linked from Jim Roepcke's
site here:  http://jim.roepcke.com/6828

(note that I didn't manage to deliver the presentation that went
with that paper at Pycon 2004 in DC, as my late wife had just
been diagnosed with cancer, so I flew back to Portland, missing
Pycon (she and I came to DC together for Pycon 2005, where
I talked more informally about hypertoons)).

Kirby