[Edu-sig] Losing the plot

[ahimsa]

On Thu, 2003-01-23 at 20:16, Patrick K. O'Brien wrote:

> My understanding is that the official CP4E effort has been abandoned, for 
> now, due to insufficient funding. This list remains, and several 
> individuals keep the dream alive. PyGeo is one man's admirable attempt to 
> bring 3-d geometric manipulations to the masses (I hope that's an accurate 
> description). Others here have their pet projects. I like to think that my 
> PyCrust project helps make Python that much more approachable to novices.
> 
> I think interested parties should pursue their interests and lobby for 
> support in the best tradition of Open Source. Or lend a hand to existing 
> projects. There's plenty that can be done. What are your interests?

Hello Patrick
Thanks for getting back to me about my query.
It was my impression from sifting through the documentation that the
CP4E project was dormant due to funding issues, which is a real shame. I
would certainly advocate for it to be extended here in the UK, and using
OSS and Python would be a pretty low-cost way of doing so.
Unfortunately, I have neither the skill nor experience with which to
carry that forward here coming from a social science background and with
Python being my first language and being a novice at that to boot!!
It is probably a little too early in my learning arc for me to get
involved in projects, although I am quite happy to discuss different
roles that I could do in existing projects if some project team is
looking for some assistance (e.g. documentation or advocacy or a tester
for the novice-ease of use factor?). 
It has been of interest to me that in various readings that I have
started over the last few months, there have been several references
from different sources about how computer programming is an extension of
the cognitive psychology of problem solving. I would extend this and
suggest that comp programming is similar to, or a branch of,
epistemology: it concerns the construction and negotiation of problem
frames and solutions to those problems, and really underscores the
processes by which we organise the world, its data, and - to top it off
- how we organise our thinking processes (analysis, hypothesis,
antithesis, synthesis - the usual Aristotlean process). From this
perspective, I think that teaching school kids how to program is not
only great vis-a-vis the development of computer/digital savvy (as was
suggested in the EDU_SIG docs), but also a significant step forward into
advancing structured cognitive training for kids (and adults too) to
assist them in the analysis of problems, the proposition and testing of
solutions and a meta-analytic perspective in terms of the construction,
relevance, and flow of data/cognitive constructs: computer science meets
George Kelly in education.
Anyway, I ramble ... 
To close this off, I guess that I'll sit back and lurk for a while and
keep hacking away at learning both Python and Linux, take courses where
I can (anyone teaching Python in SE London?) and read, read, read.
BTW, Patrick - I surfed over to the sourceforge site to check out
PyCrust (lol!!) and apprantly they are no longer carrying the files and
didn't have a forward link that I could see. Can you give me an
alternate link to check it out please.
All the best
Andrew

-- 
ahimsa <ahimsa@onetel.net.uk>