Hi,
I am struggling around with interactive online py tutorials
with https://launchpad.net/projects/intro-to-code
(ith might become securely sandboxed soon, as pypy made it possible
http://blog.sandbox.lt/en/WSGI%20and%20PyPy%20sandbox :)
but one more thing is I'd like to let access xturtle functionality online
- one possible way could be triggering tkinter to save its canvas to ps,
and then convert them with imagemagic and show via web (animated gif or static)
- but if pyjamas can render GUI for js
(http://www.google.lt/search?&q=pyjamas+python ),
mayby there is a way to **translate turtle commands to processing.js analogues**
http://ejohn.org/blog/processingjs/
would it be difficult -- how do you think?
--
Jurgis Pralgauskis
tel: 8-616 77613;
jabber: jurgis(a)akl.lt; skype: dz0rdzas;
Don't worry, be happy and make things better ;)
http://sagemath.visiems.lt
I've been haunting the math-teach list, as usual,
suggesting we take a page from AP computer
science and build our math around an interlinked,
themed, consistent set of story problems -- rather
than making these "meaningless" (deliberately).
The opponents in this debate bring up the specter
of political manipulation, propaganda, tainted "pure
math" with someone's good ideas about applications.
My approach to math teaching, as readers here
know (some of 'em), is to bake OO into the matrix
pretty early, meaning the idea of "math objects"
(vectors, polyhedrons, rational numbers) connects
to our Pythonic notion of types.
Here's some background reading for any wanting
to sample the more detailed nuances of this thread
(on-going, and for over a decade for sure).
http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=2289577&tstart=0
(most posters long time veterans of this list, with
carved out positions)
I also take it a step further in that the story problems
under consideration often have a strong "off your
duff" component, in that your mathematical reasoning
translates into physical expenditure of energy.
Yes, sounds a lot like summer camp (the "self
quantification movement" also syncs up).
http://fastwonderblog.com/2011/07/30/crunching-the-numbers-open-source-comm…http://hashtags.foxepractice.com/healthcare-hashtag-analytics.php?hashtag=Q…http://www.4dsolutions.net/presentations/urnermindstorm.pdf
Kirby
Lots of buzz on PSF list about Python and Raspberry Pi.
I know from independent sources that Python has attracted
considerable attention in the UK education community. Also,
the BBC Micro also came out around this time and our
PSF chairman is in the UK to help celebrate its anniversary
(50th? -- getting there). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro
In having a public charter, unlike private advertiser based
broadcasters such as Fox, the BBC is rather different from
any USA channels, including PBS. Its forays into public
policy and initiatives, such as the Computer Literacy Project
of the 1980s, out of which the BBC Micro was born, is not
mirrored in the USA.
Raspberry Pi doesn't currently run Python but there is
some thought that it should.
I haven't researched the GNU / Stallman take yet, though I
know he's unhappy about the sell-out of Linux distros to
closed source video drivers, which appear as proprietary
blobs (already compiled binaries) with no source. The
Raspberry Pi uses secret code to drive its GPU so is
not technically a purely FLOSS project (as of today
anyway).
Debian has a long history of working with not-free annexes
so this will feel like home to most Debian developers.
I'm glad the BBC has a mandate to serve the public in
the UK with interesting and innovative gadgets. That's the
kind of R&D we like to see, including with closed source
components (I have access to closed source games
galore). Even if the UK versions seem obsolete more
quickly, because leading edge (like the XO), the follow-on
products have the BBC to thank for opening world markets
( = the human imagination) to these new concepts.
Kirby
Here's an excerpt from a post to a bfi.org related group in follow-up to Pycon:
"""
In other news, related in that micro-engineering is at the basis of
all of this, I have recently returned from PyCon 2012, more
technically the US Pycon of that year, but which will be moving to
Montreal in 2014, so North American more than just US.
Brazil and Argentina have their own Pycons. Chairman Steve, my close
neighbor in Portland, was at both of those in 2011. I need new
passport pictures if I'm to be going anywhere far away like that.
David Koski, our list owner, phoned me around the time he was getting
these most excellent shots of the TC Howard dome in Ohio.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/6834704198/in/set-721576292062994…
I was in the meantime sparring (in a friendly way) with the ESRI guy
about why we'd call the Fuller Map "crazy" (he had it on screen) when
as geeks we're always gawking at how big Greenland really isn't.
This was during Q&A in a well attended session on the basics of GIS.
I'd heard similar content at a Portland Barcamp, and also at Metro
(Food Not Bombs on my nametag).
http://pyvideo.org/video/887/a-gentle-introduction-to-gis (start
around 26 minutes to get the background leading up to my question -- I
come in at 29 mins 10 secs or so, to 30 mins 30 secs).
Portlanders are fairly adept with these tools.
"""
Lots about Bucky Fuller (RBF) related stuff because I'm bfi.org's
first web master, long ago (Drupal not even invented yet).
( not news to folks here -- like I've been writing about rbf.py and
sundries -- e.g. hypertoons -- for like decades )
Anyway, the above was from a report back to that little readership.
Barry Warsaw's talk on the future of mailman was of interest, given
that's what drives our little list here.
Did we want something besides plaintext for edu-sig? On mathfuture
we're using all kinds of colors.
"Listservs" still rule (mail groups have a lot going for them) -- I
had some new links on that, but where'd they go?
Next time perhaps.
Kirby
I just looked for Bof stuff on the Pycon pages, and only found the Open
space page. I made an entry for edu-sig at the conventional time, Saturday
night. I did *not* see how to instantiate the page that I refer to there.
I do not understand the system this year.
Hopefully someone will actually create and give open editing access to the
page I refer to:
https://us.pycon.org/2012/community/openspaces/edu-sig
Are people up for dinner and conversation back at the venue afterward? I
liked it on the wiki page in past years where educators signed in and gave
a bit of info about themselves. I hope that works out this year. if not,
at least I would like to here from folks on the listserv.
I am not familiar with the area. In the past a reservation for dinner well
ahead of time was a good thing. Anyone more knowledgeable?
--
Dr. Andrew N. Harrington
Computer Science Department
Loyola University Chicago
Lakeshore office in the Math Department: 205 Loyola Hall
http://www.cs.luc.edu/~anh
Phone: 773-915-7999
Fax: 312-915-7998
aharrin(a)luc.edu
