<div dir="ltr"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2008/10/7 Matt K <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:matt.kameron@gmail.com">matt.kameron@gmail.com</a>></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div dir="ltr"><br>(3) <b style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">A practical question</b> - can any <b><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">high/middle-school</span> </b>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.</div>
</blockquote><div><br>Not a teacher now, but... <br></div><div><br>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...<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>(Hope this was coherent; still working on my first cuppa joe.)<br></div></div><br>-- <br>cordially,<br>Anna<br>--<br>Walking through the water. Trying to get across.<br>Just like everybody else.<br>
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