[Edu-sig] More news from Oregon

[Steve Howell]

Kirby, thanks for the updates.  Below are the statements that were most throught-provoking to me.  See my reactions.


--- On Thu, 9/25/08, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:

> Computer programming languages are "disruptive
> technology" pure and
> simple, and there's no easy way to phase them in to
> high school mathematics
> classes without breaking backward compatibility in some
> ways, duh.

I totally agree with that.  I also wonder how there can be convergences between how we teach computer languages (Python, Javascript, etc.) and natural languages (French, Spanish, etc.).


> Anyway, the long and short of it is I'm still working
> with that charter in
> Alaska I mentioned in my Chicago talk, hammering on ASCII -
> to - Unicode as
> a "major story of our time" don't care what
> class it's taught in
> (sociology?  anthropology?). [...]

I agree with you that Unicode's a big story.  I just wonder if fifty years from now, we'll all be wondering how people ever survived without a single small alphabet that we can all agree on.  In fact, I'm wondering how many people will be left in the world that can't read and write (a somewhat evolved version of) English (in addition to their native languages).