[Edu-sig] creating an interface vs. using one (Michel Paul)

[kirby urner]

On 9/23/06, Michel Paul <mpaul at bhusd.k12.ca.us> wrote:

> I know Kirby has done stuff with ray tracing - but I still have to learn about that.  The
> kinds of things you CAN graph with Python are amazing, 3-d and so on, but it requires
> a bit of effort.

My most recent module along these lines used VPython for more
interactive plotting.  But it was a very primitive beginning (no tic
marks!).

However, I *do* like keeping an full XYZ apparatus in the picture,
even if the Z axis is suppressed (not drawn), meaning students can
rotate their Cosine Wave or Parabola, zoom in and out, study it from
all angles.

I call the Beyond Flatland, and it's a leading wedge between wimpy
calculators on the one hand, and real math on the other.

http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/graphics/cosines.png

VPython module used to plot the above Cosine Wave:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2006-September/007150.html

My suggestion:  develop a culture of students contributing to a school
Library of Code (a local Vaults of Parnassus if you will).  There's
something cool about finding your best friends older sister's name on
some plotting module you're using, knowing she wrote it two years ago.

Give kids a sense of contributing to their peers downline in other
words.  You can do this with TI programs, true, but the TI language is
really black boxy from what little I've seen of it, nor general
purpose.

Basic numeracy is *not* just about number crunching, but about symbol
processing more generally.  Out here in the Silicon Forest, it's less
of a tough sell, to get Python in the schools:

http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1451732&tstart=0

Kirby