[Edu-sig] Python for Wanderers...

[kirby urner]

I've been experimenting with teaching two classes in parallel:

(1) for middle and high schoolers, a Pythonic Math class @ PSU:
http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2007/04/class-notes-session-one.html

(2) for adults, some with coding experience but none with much
Python so far:
http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/04/wanderers-2007417.html

You'll see in the follow-up section of link (2) above that I'm adding
links for Classes 0-3 as time goes on.  So if you're curious, pop
Class 0 and read about last night's first formal meeting of our 4-session
Python for Wanderers (it's a legal py file, but mostly comments in green).

Wanderers meet in the boyhood home of 2x Nobel Prize winner
Linus Pauling, walking distance from my house in the Hawthorne
District of Portland.  The name Wanderers comes from this quote:

"Science would be ruined if it were to withdraw entirely into narrowly
defined specialties. The rare scholars who are wanderers-by-choice
are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines."

-- Benoit Mandelbrot
http://wwwanderers.org/

My students last night included:

Allen Taylor, author of 'SQL for Dummies'
Glenn Stockton, former NSA cryptanalyst, Global Matrix [tm] avatar
Bill Sheppard, electronics engineer, inventor of not-a-theramin
Don Wardwell, boat captain, retired Mt Hood Community College faculty
David Tver, wandering mathematician

I'm hoping Derek (friend and neighbor) makes some of the next ones.
I'm using a non-linear approach that shouldn't overly penalize those
who can't make all four sessions.  I'm wondering if I might recruit
Kevin Altis and/or Robin Dunn to do a wxPython/HyperCard demo
for the grand finale.

Kirby