[Edu-sig] slashdot: Teaching Primary School Students Programming?

[kirby urner]

On 8/28/06, ajsiegel at optonline.net <ajsiegel at optonline.net> wrote:

> Cynical Arthur suspects that much of the problem has to do with the career
> goals of folks at MIT, not those of the very young.

Cynical Kirby thinks:  if they *watch* cartoons, they probably wanna
*make* cartoons.  The eye candy palaces are an intro to Puppet World.

One of my favorite passtimes as a kid growing up in Rome (not many
kids in my building spoke American):  use Piazza Navona clay puppets
to entertain my sister with stories, complete with pre-recorded sound
track on the cassette player.

Today, I might consider doing that on my laptop (which does *not* mean
I can't use the Navona Puppets, maybe to help storyboard the
computerized version).

You think kids don't think this way?

>
> I won't expand on that without being asked to.
>
> Art

Not sure if I'm asking, but I think fascination with High Church
geometry ala Klein is an acquired taste, like coffee.

You might call it "pandering in Panda3D" to get all cartoony like
that, but against the backdrop of underground comix and ToonTown, it
sounds like good ol' New York to me (plus I've got my Portland
Knowledge Lab in Portland).

Kirby