[Edu-sig] number-line graphics for teaching arithmetic

[Jeffrey Elkner]

Hi Fred!

James Kaylin, Donald Oellerich, and Ryan Stephans (three Yorktown
students
who are also on this list) are working on creating just the kind of
thing your
talking about.  They are currently investigating the new livewires
modules, which
you can get at:

http://www.livewires.org.uk/python

They have already written a program which displays a simple xy plane and
randomly plots a point.  They then prompt the user for the coordinates
of the
point, and display the point entered by the user.  We will have more to
say
after we have had more time to experiment, but it would be great if you
would
join us in our efforts.

jeff elkner
yorktown high school
arlington, va


On 28 Dec 2000 10:40:32 -0600, Fred Yankowski wrote:
> My 7-year-old son is learning arithmetic and I'd like him to be able
> to play with some kind of interactive number line program in order to
> learn some visualizations of arithmetic.  I'm thinking that this group
> -- with its keen interest in Python and graphics -- might have some
> suggestions of how I could find/create such a program.
> 
> Here are some scenarios of use:
> 
> + Child types "8 + 5" into a text box (or describes that same
> calculation in some point&click interface).  Program then displays a
> number line with a vector drawn from 0 to 8, labeled with the quantity
> "8", and another vector drawn from 8 to 13, labeled "5".
> 
> + Child types "16 - 9".  Program displays a vector from 0 to 16 and
> another vector of length 9 from 16 back to 7.
> 
> + As above, but program also draws an additional vector to represent
> the sum of the original vectors.
> 
> + Working from the graphic for "8 + 5", the child drags the right-most
> end of the "5" vector.  The program interactively redraws the "5"
> vector, relabeling it to new lengths based on current pointer
> location.  Only whole-number points on the number line can be
> selected.
> 
> As you can see, this is quite trivial.  The goal (at least at first)
> is not to teach programming, but rather to provide an interactive
> visualization of basic arithmetic.  Even so, Python seems
> well-suited.  So what graphic packages might work well with Python to
> allow me to do this?  The ability to deploy the resulting application
> via a web page would be a big plus, but not essential.  (Thinking
> about that last point, perhaps Flash might be the way to go in the
> long run.)
> 
> -- 
> Fred Yankowski           fred@OntoSys.com      tel: +1.630.879.1312
> Principal Consultant     www.OntoSys.com       fax: +1.630.879.1370
> OntoSys, Inc             38W242 Deerpath Rd, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
> 
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