[Edu-sig] K-16 CS/math hybrid

[Lloyd Hugh Allen]

On 5/10/05, André Roberge <andre.roberge at gmail.com> wrote:
> Arthur wrote:
> >
> >>Behalf Of Kirby Urner
> >>Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] K-16 CS/math hybrid
> >
> >
> >>Children understand about conventions.  I draw an invisible line on the
> >>car
> >>seat:  sister stays on her side, I stay on mine.  But there's no electric
> >>fence (much as we might wish there to be).  Java provides electric fences.
> >>Python provides lines in the sand.  Children know the difference.
> >
> >
> > If someone insisted on wasting their time on designing a programming
> > language for children, I would strongly recommend them limiting its options
> > -  certainly to the extent that it would have no interest to an adult, being
> > adult.
> >
> I happen to subscribe to the philosophy of giving children a "small"
> language to play with ... but try to give them easy means to extend the
> artificial limits given to them as they are ready to do so.
> 
> Children learn to speak (human languages) with a few "baby" words, and a
> very simplified if not absent grammar.  Parents often interact verbally
> with their children in a similar way at a young age.  Soon, the
> communication skills of the children improve, and the parents keep
> giving them more to learn.
> 
> Never is a line drawn on the sand per se.
> 
> And when it comes to computer language, rather than speaking in the
> abstract:
> 
> There are quite a few programming 'language' that were designed for
> children.  Take logo, turtle graphics, etc.
> Richard Pattis (who indirectly inspired me) introduced a subset of
> Pascal together with a few high-level instructions given to a robot
> as a means of introducing computer programming.
> 
> I personally subscribe to a similar philosophy, but with no artificial
> boundary enforced.
> 
> Start small, but give them the chance to expand beyond what you might
> think is their limit.  They might surprise you.
> 
> André
> 
> 
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>>> import turtle
>>> dir(turtle)
['Error', 'Pen', 'RawPen', 'Tkinter', '__builtins__', '__doc__',
'__file__', '__name__', '_canvas', '_getpen', '_pen', '_root', 'acos',
'asin', 'atan', 'atan2', 'backward', 'ceil', 'circle', 'clear',
'color', 'cos', 'cosh', 'degrees', 'demo', 'down', 'e', 'exp', 'fabs',
'fill', 'floor', 'fmod', 'forward', 'frexp', 'goto', 'heading',
'hypot', 'ldexp', 'left', 'log', 'log10', 'modf', 'pi', 'position',
'pow', 'radians', 'reset', 'right', 'setheading', 'setx', 'sety',
'sin', 'sinh', 'sqrt', 'tan', 'tanh', 'tracer', 'up', 'width',
'window_height', 'window_width', 'write']
>>>