[Edu-sig] OO in K-12

[Kirby Urner]

At 12:22 PM 09/15/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>At the considerablel risk of sounding one note -
>
>Look, for example, at O'Reilly's Java in a NutShell.  Java's OO is
>introduced via geometric objects.  A drawable circle, inheriting from
>an abstract circle, if I remember correctly.

Yes, I have that.  Bruce uses a similar approach in 'Thinking in 
Java' and 'Thinking in C++'.

But as per my question, this is another example of NOT using the
biological analogy to any significant degree.  I'm looking for
example texts that DO use this analogy.

>The beauty being you then see the object you created,
>as an object as you created it, etc and etc.

Yes, I use polyhedra for this same purpose -- more difficult and
challenging to program than simply circles or squares, but also
a lot more fun to play with.

>I might have mentioned (ha-ha) that I worked up something
>called PyGeo that tried to build on this approach.
>
>Why doesn't the concept work for you?

I have a bias in favor of spatial over planar approaches to geometry [1]
-- but then I think PyGeo is/was spatial as well, so that's not a 
problem at all.

I'm not aware of any problems I have with PyGeo (at one time maybe...), 
nor with the traditional geometric and/or engineering analogies used 
to introduce OO.  

It's just that animals have their attraction and I think it might 
make some lights go on (with insights about _biology_, not just about
computer languages), for these connections to be made more explicitly
in the curriculum (I'm thinking of younger kids especially).

Kirby

[1] From: http://www.egroups.com/message/mathpolemica/19 

   This idea of going Polyhedra -> Plane Geometry instead of the other
   way around is reflective of my bias in general, which is to go
   Wholes -> Parts rather than Parts -> Wholes. In the more 
   conventional geometry texts, the polyhedra are always towards 
   the back, plus there's only a rather primitive selection. Most
   early grades, including Montesorri implementations, rest content 
   with the rectangular prism, cone, sphere, cylinder, triangular 
   prism, cube, pyramid (square based). I consider this an 
   impoverished and artificially dumbed-down initial vocabulary -- 
   plus the K-6 texts hardly ever mention Euler's Law, which I 
   consider a grave omission.