Mailman 3 December 2003 - Edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] re: Python Programming: An Introduction to ComputerScience
by Laura Creighton 19 Dec '03

19 Dec '03

In a message of Thu, 18 Dec 2003 10:43:49 PST, "Kirby Urner" writes: > >I dunno Arthur -- doesn't seem a cut and dried an issue to me. > >Open source is a relatively recent phenomenon and until recently, just about >any language learning was going to involve using some commercial brand of >licensed software. Oft times, it was a university that was the licensee, >so students didn't have a sense of paying for it (separately), but that was >before PCs came along. ?? Before PCs came along, open source was the norm at universities, and all the universities I knew were teaching some sort of 'teaching langauge', generally one they wrote themselves, or Pascal. 'Commercial programming' when it was done by people employed by businesses, was in general done in COBOL or RPG. Scientists used FORTRAN. University computer science departments didn't concern themselves with such wordly things. The universities did indeed pay for the mainframes, and the operating systems which ran on them, of course. The big switch happened when computer science departments became flooded with people who wanted to be programmers, and they decided that it would be a good idea to teach languages that people wanted to learn because they would use them on the job, rather than languages you were guaranteed to never ever see again unless you got a job at your university. <snip> Laura

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Re: Edu-sig Digest, Vol 5, Issue 20
by arkamir＠softhome.net 19 Dec '03

19 Dec '03

Only a very miniscule amount of teenagers spend time writing viruses. I would prefer to see 1,000 people using my program then pissing of 2 million just for my amusment. (Or just 1 person) I am one of the 3-5 people who can actually program at my school. And only 1 of 3 who can actually use linux. Most kids are just too dumb to program. They spend the whole day skateboarding and hitting on girls or gaming. They just dont care enough about there education. Others struggle with just the regular curriculum, and I dont know if teaching them to program will help.

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re: Python Programming: An Introduction to ComputerScience
by Arthur 19 Dec '03

19 Dec '03

Kirby writes: >I dunno Arthur -- doesn't seem a cut and dried an issue to me. I had recently come across this for the first time, though it is apparently famous (and probably apocryphal): I have been looking for an opportunity to throw it your way, but give up on finding the proper opening. """ Isaac Newton's assistant at Cambridge claimed that during five years he saw Newton laugh only once. Newton had loaned a copy of Euclid to an acquaintance, and the gentleman asked what use it was to study Euclid, "upon which Sir Isaac was very merry. """ And VB sucks. Art

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re: Python Programming: An Introduction to ComputerScience
by Arthur 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Jeff writes: >VB is used by the Business department, which has more students than CS >at our school (and in the world at large, too Can we be outraged that VB is being taught on the public dime? VB is aggressively non-generic in many ways. If Chevy decided it was in their business interest to have its own kind of engine which ran on witch oil, and the shop classes then followed up by teaching kids only how to work on Chevies... Can we be outraged that a sense of outrage is being lost as to this issue? Can we at least be strategically outraged ;) Art

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re: Python Programming: An Introduction to ComputerScience
by Arthur 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Michael writes - >There's also a group in the middle that would be more willing to do learn >math and science, if it were a little less abstract and boring. The same is true as to computer programming. What does being able to print "Hello World" to the screen do for me, after all. The beauty is, teaching science with programming and programming with science, can bring both subject areas (if we choose to consider them to be separate subject areas) alive in ways not otherwise possible. Does this qualify as Synergy, Kirby? Art

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The National Computational Science Institute
by Arthur 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

The National Computational Science Institute http://www.computationalscience.org/ is working under a 2.75 million NSF grant to provide education to educators about the use of computational science as an educational tool in a variety of science related disciplines. """ The initial target audience for NCSI are teams of faculty from predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUI's), minority serving institutions (MSI's), and community colleges whose students are either the next generation of scientists and engineers, the next generation of K-12 teachers, or both. """ I happen to agree with that "educating the educators" is a good target at this stage of things. Leverages the effort. These folks, however, don't seem to know about Python. Or have not incorporated into their thinking, anyway. I actually think that Python - certainly as opposed to Java - will make these kinds of efforts more productive and realistic. Art

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Introduction to Programming for the Physical Sciences
by Arthur 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Just as a for example: http://www.physics.umd.edu/courses/Phys165/williams/ I came across this just now somewhat by accident, by the way. Not searching for an example to post. So I can only expect that a true search would find many. But almost all would be at the undergraduate college level. Not K-12. That's where the "market" is saying the action is for this kind of thing. And I trust the market, here. Art

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Re: [Edu-sig] re: Python Programming: An Introduction to ComputerScience
by Laura Creighton 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message of Sat, 13 Dec 2003 13:09:10 PST, "Kirby Urner" writes: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: edu-sig-bounces(a)python.org [mailto:edu-sig-bounces@python.org] On >> Behalf Of Jeffrey Elkner >> Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2003 12:28 PM >> To: Edu-sig >> Cc: Toby Donaldson >> Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] re: Python Programming: An Introduction to >> ComputerScience >> >> I completely agree with Toby on this. I've already managed to make >> Python the CS1 language at Yorktown High, but it hasn't reached beyond >> the hard core geek community. If we really want to popularize it to a >> broader audience, it needs to fill the space taken by VB (at the high >> school) or what Logo used to do (at the middle school). > >I guess I don't see how Logo makes a good case. It never went anywhere m >uch >beyond middle school. No Hubble stuff is done in Logo. > >I guess my question is, what's being used outside the "hard core geek >community" that CS1 doesn't reach? VB? Or is it just that programming >itself is still not a very widespread activity, using any language? I think the second. > >In my view, we need more programming in the mathematics curriculum, which >means recognizing that writing programs is likewise a way of writing >mathematics. Or, more accurately, I'd say both kinds of writing are similar >kinds of symbolic activity which deserve a prime spot in K-12 education. > >In the math curriculum, the real competition is not some other language, >but >calculators (I guess the TI programming language might count -- but my >impression is more HS math teachers than students actually bother with th >e >programming part). > >Numeracy, the equivalent of literacy with regard to prose and poetry, >involves programming, mathematics, data visualizations, puzzle solving, >logic, simulations, and other such. Numeracy and literacy connect at many >levels. > >Kirby I think that a problem we have is that programming is seen to be tied to math, and numeracy, (as is problem solving in general) rather that literacy, and the arts and humanities in general. I think that we could make a tremendous push for the number of people who are programming at all if we made courses on 'data mining for the humanities' and the like. How to write programs to take the information from some website and do something useful with it. The problem I see when teaching non-technical people how to program, is how little their expectation of 'what programming would be good for' has to do with the sort of problems that they have in their lives. But I have a small following of 'grandmothers who have taught themselves some python'. They needed a computer program to take a list of their friends and then make mime attatchments of the digital pictures they had made of their grandchildren, and mail them to everybody on their mailing list without having to mouse click and do things by hand, which takes hours. But not too many non-nerds know that programming is good for repetative tasks like this. Laura

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re: Education Arcade
by Arthur 16 Dec '03

16 Dec '03

>So my view is that simulations are good, but much better ... My view is largely otherwise, but I suspect we can agree on some more fundamental issues. The stakes involved are enormous - financial and cultural. According to my simulation, those with interests in the outcome are quite actively influencing this debate, and can be expected to do so more aggressively in the future. It is not a subterranean plot. It is simply the way of the world. And in this particular case the weight of those with a direct interest in the outcome are very much on one side of the scale. In other debates, the circumstances are different and the influences more evenly distributed. I would probably be considerably less strident if I thought the debate had a reasonable chance of being conducted on an even playing field. And decided on its merits. I do not. According to my simulation, the fact that educational spending, as a broad category, is second only to health care is of considerable relevance. I believe the merits of the Waldorfian view on technology in the K to 9 (let's say) classroom (and certainly those more moderate, but with leanings in the Waldorfian direction) will quite likely be underrepresented (and underfunded). And I am a sucker for a lost cause. Sounds very Leftist, probably. But, education has traditionally been, to a reasonable extent, insulated from the marketplace. Some of us feel that tradition or ideal is under siege in connection with the technology issue, more and more. But that Left or Right categories actually don't apply. Art

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,,Be strong and youthful, feel incredible!! o
by Parker Sumner 15 Dec '03

15 Dec '03

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