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Mary,<br><br>
I think elements of Python programming would fit very nicely with
fractions, probability and all the number sense topics you listed (as
well as problem solving strategies).<br><br>
Gary Litvin<br>
<a href="http://www.skylit.com/" eudora="autourl">www.skylit.com<br><br>
</a>At 09:43 AM 7/1/2011, mary.dooms@comcast.net wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Thank you to everyone who has
responded to my inquiry. I truly appreciate your willingness to help.
<br><br>
Our math curriculum addresses the Illinois state standards, however
within the next 3 years we will be moving to the Common Core.<br><br>
A breakdown of the curriculum is below:<br><br>
<b>Advanced math (1 section) supported by McDougal-Littel Course 2
textbook<br>
</b>
<a href="http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/msmath_2_na/book_home.htm?state=IL" eudora="autourl">
http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/msmath_2_na/book_home.htm?state=IL</a>
<br><br>
Integers (order of operations)<br>
Fractions/Decimals/Percents<br>
Algebra (1 and 2 step equations, simplifying, distributive property,
inequalities)<br>
Geometry (polygons, angles, surface area, volume)<br>
Ratios and Proportions<br>
Probability<br>
<br>
<b>Standard Math (3 sections) Supported by McDougal-Littel Course 1
textbook<br>
</b>
<a href="http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/msmath_1_na/book_home.htm?state=IL" eudora="autourl">
http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/msmath_1_na/book_home.htm?state=IL</a>
<br><br>
Problem Solving Strategies <br>
Fraction operations<br>
Decimal operations<br>
Geometry <br>
Number Sense (Prime factorization, GCF, LCM, Divisibility Rules)<br><br>
Our district is generally supportive to adding new software to the school
computers, however requests are only honored during school breaks
(winter, spring, summer) as they want to keep the computers available for
student use and MAPS testing.
(<a href="http://www.nwea.org/" eudora="autourl">http://www.nwea.org/</a>
) :-(<br><br>
My plan is to begin with my advanced math students. <br><br>
On a side note, I have enjoyed reading the personal stories you have been
sharing. Mine is that my first job out of college was working for the now
defunct Teletype Corporation, a part of the now defunct Western Electric,
a part of the now defunct Bell System, a part of the perhaps soon to be
defunct AT&T?! I spent ten years in public relations, took time off
to raise children, then returned to the workforce to teach middle
school.<br><br>
Again, I appreciate your support, and I look forward to collaborating
with you.<br><br>
<br>
<hr>
<b>From: </b>mokurai@earthtreasury.org<br>
<b>To: </b>"kirby urner" <kirby.urner@gmail.com><br>
<b>Cc: </b>edu-sig@python.org<br>
<b>Sent: </b>Friday, July 1, 2011 1:32:45 AM<br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Edu-sig] Python and pre-algebra<br><br>
On Fri, July 1, 2011 1:41 am, kirby urner wrote:<br>
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 8:03 PM, <mokurai@earthtreasury.org>
wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> On Wed, June 29, 2011 7:15 pm, mary.dooms@comcast.net
wrote:<br>
>> ><br>
>> > I teach 6th grade math and Python was suggested as a way to
apply<br>
>> > pre-algebra concepts in a programming context. My
programming<br>
>> background<br>
>> > consists of one C++ programming class. How do I begin?<br>
>><br>
>> Python is one of several excellent options. Others are Logo,
Smalltalk,<br>
>> and APL, all of which are available at no cost. I worked on a
free APL<br>
>> for<br>
>> 8-bit computers before the Free Software movement got started,
and I<br>
>> have<br>
>> friends working on APLs for current computers to put under the
GPL.<br>
>><br>
><br>
> APL was my first love at Princeton, back when most people
(including<br>
> me) had to use punch cards.<br><br>
You and jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan. He wants to create an
APL-based<br>
computer music education program.<br><br>
At Yale in 1963 we only had octal and FORTRAN. Later on, Yale hired
Alan<br>
Perlis away from Carnegie-Mellon to be Chairman of the Computer
Science<br>
Department. He made APL the first language for all CS students.<br>
<br>
> It was the interactivity I loved, among<br>
> other aspects. Logo the same way. Grew into dBase later,
always<br>
> interactive, a dialog. Languages divide into those which
respond,<br>
> conversationally, and those which must be looked at as
non-conversational.<br>
> Python joined the ranks of the conversationals.<br><br>
LISP was the first. On the other hand, Waterloo University in Canada<br>
created a FORTRAN interpreter for use in classes, to go with its
APL,<br>
Pascal, and others.<br><br>
>> Assuming that your students know no Python, you could use the
Sugar Labs<br>
>> Turtle Art approach to math and programming to get started.
Turtle Art<br>
>> was<br>
>> designed for children to use for math, programming, and art, and
has<br>
>> natural ways to move to Logo, Python, or Etoys/Smalltalk. FORTH,
too,<br>
>> but<br>
>> most people don't want to know that. ^_^ (FORTH love if honk
then)<br>
><br>
> I was a math teacher in a day school for humans of the female<br>
> persuasion, as one of the trusted male faculty (most were not
male),<br>
> but this was long before the Free Software movement (GNU /
GPL),<br>
> was still at the start of the first computer revolution. No
Internet<br>
> yet, at least not for ordinary civilians like me.<br><br>
My father was using timesharing, and allowed me on at 300 bps.<br><br>
> I dreamed of hypertext (read Computer Lib / Dream Machines<br>
> by Ted Nelson)<br><br>
I met Ted when he gave an invited speech at the APL91 Conference at
Stanford.<br><br>
> and joined IGC with a guest account at New<br>
> Jersey Institute of Technology. Proto-internet,
pre-listserv. In<br>
> the meantime, snailmailers were proto-typing listservs via<br>
> Action Linkage. Anyone remember? You'd mail your post
to<br>
> the anchor, who'd photocopy the lot and mail back out to<br>
> subscribers. The whole listserv phenomenon, happening<br>
> through snailmail.<br><br>
Pierre de Fermat operated as listserv for all of the top mathematicians
of<br>
Europe before the journals got started.<br><br>
> Lots of ethnography as yet unwritten.<br>
><br>
> Mid 1980s.<br>
><br>
> 'A Network Nation' by Turoff and Starr Roxanne Hiltz.<br>
>
<a href="http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/Vita/vita2005.html#a30" eudora="autourl">
http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/Vita/vita2005.html#a30</a><br>
><br>
> I lived behind Loew's Theater on Journal Square, the main<br>
> PATH station in Jersey City. By 1985, I was back in
Portland,<br>
> having been raised there through 2nd grade.<br>
><br>
>><br>
>> The question is, which pre-algebra concepts? Do you have a
curriculum<br>
>> standard or a particular textbook in mind? Are there other
topics of<br>
>> interest?<br>
>><br>
>> I can write TA or mixed TA/Python examples, and show students
how to do<br>
>> the same, and we could work together on lesson plans to share in
the<br>
>> Sugar<br>
>> Labs Replacing Textbooks program. There are others with an
interest in<br>
>> doing this.<br>
>><br>
><br>
> Then I worked at McGraw-Hill (after some stuff in between), 28th
floor,<br>
> Rockefeller Center, Manhattan, editing textbooks, testing
educational<br>
> computer games, contributing curriculum writing (Logo,
BASIC).<br><br>
We need you to do that again as we find out what children can learn
with<br>
computer aid at earlier stages of development than we thought.<br><br>
> Back then, we thought computers were soon to take the math
teaching<br>
> world by storm. Little did we suspect that the North Americans
would be<br>
> conquered by Texas Instruments, leaving the innovation vista to<br>
> other cultures and/or subversive counter-cultures still
operational<br>
> in some areas.<br><br>
Thousands of dollars for a computer, under $100 for a calculator. No<br>
contest. HP was content with the engineering market and didn't want
to<br>
challenge TI to a retail war.<br><br>
> OLPC (One Laptop per Child) was one attempt to break the TI
lock<br>
> on teacher imaginations. For the most part, it failed in North
America.<br>
> The resistance was too great. No breakfast cereal boxes
featured<br>
> the XO. Nothing on the backs of Kellogs or General
Mills. No<br>
> donated G1G1 commercials during Saturday Morning cartoons.<br>
>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFmQP3JimAE&feature=related" eudora="autourl">
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFmQP3JimAE&feature=related</a><br>
>
<a href="http://youtu.be/XSH_5YP0tU8" eudora="autourl">
http://youtu.be/XSH_5YP0tU8</a><br><br>
Ah, but what will happen when we have free digital textbook
replacements,<br>
so that netbooks cost less than printed textbooks? Better education
at<br>
lower cost. Can politicians resist that?<br><br>
> Few ever got a clue. Teachers fell further and further
behind.<br>
><br>
> The situation was so bad in Hillsboro (personal anecdote), home<br>
> of Intel in Oregon (Aloha plant) that the police got into the
home<br>
> schooling business, tried to do outreach to tomorrow's gangland<br>
> by setting up a Linux Lab in West Precinct (where I came in, as<br>
> a contract instructor).<br><br>
I have an idea for going after homeschooling networks with OLPCs and<br>
Sugar, also.<br><br>
> The schools had proved incompetent to do their jobs (educating<br>
> for the future), so the Chief of Police was stepping in (he was<br>
> 2nd generation Chinese immigrant).<br>
><br>
> I lectured about this Hillsboro experiment to the London
Knowledge<br>
> Lab on my way to the Shuttleworth Foundation meeting with<br>
> Helen King et al, our benevolent dictator, Guido, another
member<br>
> of our merry party (Scheme also represented).<br><br>
I met Guido at a BayPiggies meeting (Bay Area Python Interest Group)
at<br>
Google, where I mentioned to the audience that both Guido and I were<br>
trying to compile sugar-jhbuild, and reporting to one of the mailing<br>
lists, and that I had not been able to do it. He chimed in from the<br>
audience that he had failed to build it also.<br><br>
> This was a meeting about South Africa, making long term plans
even<br>
> then (government officials were part of Mark's entourage).<br><br>
The Shuttleworth Foundation funded development of a suite of digital<br>
learning resources for high school math and sciences for South
Africa.<br><br>
>> > Are lesson plans and small programs available, for
example,<br>
>><br>
>> Probably. There are well over 100,000 digital learning resources
on the<br>
>> Net. You can find some of them on pages linked from<br>
>><br>
>>
<a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources" eudora="autourl">
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources</a><br>
>><br>
>> We will need a substantial number of teachers to review them,
compare<br>
>> them, and select those that do the best job making concepts
clear in<br>
>> ways that will stay with students.<br>
><br>
> The South African model was shaping up to serve auto-didacts.<br>
><br>
> Kids who could self teach would stand the best chance.<br><br>
I would like to see how much of that we can help children learn,
given<br>
that they learn languages and cultures, among other things, with no
formal<br>
instruction.<br><br>
> The teachers were proving hopeless. Adult teachers could not
be<br>
> expected adapt to these technologies in sufficient time in
sufficient<br>
> number. Those were the facts on the ground.<br><br>
I don't think that that is necessarily so, and I intend to have our<br>
Replacing Textbooks project create a sufficient set of teacher
training<br>
materials also. On some points, however, we might have to wait until
some<br>
of our XO students enter teachers colleges.<br><br>
> It's not like anyone wanted it to be this way. One had to make
the<br>
> best of a bad situation.<br>
><br>
>><br>
>> > where students could write and<br>
>> > "drop in" a script that includes integers and the
output would not<br>
>> only<br>
>> > calculate it, but see the relevance of it in a real world
situation?<br>
>><br>
>> There are many ways to do that. One of the weirder ones is my
Turtle Art<br>
>> Turing Machine for addition. ^_^<br>
>><br>
>>
<a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt/Tutorials/Turtle_Art_Turing_Machine" eudora="autourl">
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt/Tutorials/Turtle_Art_Turing_Machine</a>
<br>
>><br>
>> More directly to your needs, Pippy is a Sugar activity that
shows a<br>
>> number of Python examples that students can edit. For
example,<br>
>><br>
>> Fibonacci<br>
>> a, b = 0, 1<br>
>> while b< 1001:<br>
>> print b,<br>
>> a, b = b, a+b<br>
>><br>
>> Changing the 0, 1 in the first line changes this from a
generator of<br>
>> Fibonacci numbers to a generator of the related Lucas numbers.
There is<br>
>> a Pascal's Triangle program. Plotted mod 2, it reveals a
Sierpinski<br>
>> fractal.<br>
><br>
> "Generator" also has a technical meaning in Python, such
that one<br>
> might actually write a Fibonacci generator (of the
GeneratorType).<br>
><br>
>><br>
>> Relevant Python resources include NumPy and PyGame.<br>
>><br>
>> > Or, perhaps, the program controls a "wheelchair"
robot and students<br>
>> would<br>
>> > write scripts to drive the robot at a certain speed
considering the<br>
>> slope<br>
>> > of a ramp?<br>
>><br>
>> See the Etoys tutorial challenge for programming a
"car", and the robot<br>
>> program in Uruguay with robots controlled by Sugar
software.<br>
><br>
> Alan Kay was at that Shuttleworth meeting in Kensington. I'm
sure<br>
> there've been many follow-up meetings which I've not been privy to,
plus<br>
> I've continued to meet with Oregon-based colleagues.<br><br>
I met Alan Kay at the 40th anniversary of Doug Engelbart's Mother of
All<br>
Demos at Stanford. I had met Doug previously, and was apparently the
first<br>
to show him an XO.<br><br>
> I also work with an outfit in Sonoma County, where Python is
concerned.<br>
><br>
>><br>
>>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/4827926508/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/4827926508/</a><br>
>> XO turned into a robot thanks to the Butiá project<br>
>><br>
>> > As you can see, I am a novice, but I see great potential
and am<br>
>> > willing to learn.<br>
>><br>
>> Delighted to meet you.<br>
>><br>
><br>
> Ed writes a lot of good posts on many a math-related list. I
recommend<br>
> paying attention to his thinking (I know I do).<br><br>
Thanks, Kirby.<br><br>
> Kirby<br>
> _______________________________________________<br>
> Edu-sig mailing list<br>
> Edu-sig@python.org<br>
>
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><br><br>
<br>
-- <br>
Edward Mokurai<br>
(&#40664;&#38647;/&#2343;&#2352;&#2381;&#2350;&#2350;&#2375;&#2328;&#2358;&#2348;&#2381;&#2342;&#2327;&#2352;&#2381;&#2332;/&#1583;&#1726;&#1585;&#1605;&#1605;&#1740;&#1711;&#1726;&#1588;&#1576;&#1583;&#1711;&#1585;<br>
&#1580;) Cherlin<br>
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.<br>
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.<br>
<a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks" eudora="autourl">
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks</a><br><br>
<br>
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