[Edu-sig] Low Enrollments - programming as anti-intellectualism

[Arthur]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kirby Urner [mailto:urnerk at qwest.net]


> >
> > Most of these kinds of initiatives have not been able to stand up to any
> > kind of rigorous approach to assessing their effectiveness.
> 
> A statement made with no citations or bibliographic references.  I'm to
> take
> this assertion on faith?

No Kirby. I asked my little brother.

Silly to suggest that I would just be making this up.  

Its all around you, you just choose not to see it.

A quick google on some key words gets me to 

www.allianceforchildhood.net/computers

Please spend a few minutes there.

Can I turn the tables - please help me with your cites as to the evidence of
the effectiveness of the Kirby-like educational environment.

You're the guy spending the bucks for us, so you have the burden.

But please go beyond the "why would God lead us to the vPod its if its just
going to be  another way to watch re-runs"  argument  - which I always sense
is somehow at the bottom of your point of view.

> More effective would be to give us some cool DVD clips using Pygeo.  How
> can
> we turn your demo of Pascal's whatever into an MPEG or DivX file?  In the
> case of Struck (elastic interval geometry Java app), the answer was POV-
> Ray
> -> many frames -> AVI -> MPEG.

I'd love to, except that I don't think PyGeo is very interesting if that is
how it is to be used.  It is meant to be used to create constructions,
deliberately (no mice allowed), and then to interact with what it is one has
oneself constructed.  

It's a lot more interesting that a MPEG, but works from the premise there is
no quicker road to heaven than the one being provided. I like to think of it
as already optimized, it that sense.

I have no evidence for that, BTW.

Art