[Edu-sig] another edu-sig page textbook (suggesting to AR)

[kirby urner]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 7:06 AM, Maria Droujkova <droujkova at gmail.com> wrote:
> The blurb says "not for dummies engaging style." I want a book like
> that, well, not for dummies, but for people who may already harbor
> significant math anxiety. They tend to disengage seeing certain
> artifacts or representations...
>

Yes, very true.  Also on the edu-sig page, check out the Sande book
under "for kids":
http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/

> Hello World! Computer Programming for Kids and Other Beginners by Warren Sande is just like the title says.

It actually gets a lot deeper into Python than the Litvin text, which
is more into the use of mathy formalisms, common to CS and not-CS
alike.  And yet the Sande book is written in a friendlier style for
even younger kids, as a kind of father-son dialog (Carter, the son, is
a real boy, albeit a gifted one who really likes Python).

How we're thinking in Oregon is we'll use the Litvin text at the high
school level, but with the reassuring "joke" in many cases that our
students will already be beyond the Litvin level with Python coming
in, i.e. they'll have studied Sande or something similar.

This will reduce their anxiety of needing to learn both a programming
language *and* math formalisms in one cycle.  They'll feel more like
ahead-of-the-pack gifted insiders in already having the requisite
Python savvy and then some.

That's smart pedagogy by the way.  As soon as you call it "remedial"
you've proved you're not a smart teacher, as you've saddled students
with a label that works against them.

So many colleges and universities fall into the trap of offering
"remedial" this and that -- not so smart as Princeton, which would
call it "Python for Thespians" or something (and it wouldn't be a lie
-- Princeton big into theater, always has been).

>From the blurb:

"""
Some students may choose to study AP Computer Science in high school,
or major in CS in college.  Others may decide to go into math,
science, law, art, social sciences, or humanities.  Regardless of your
goals, Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python will
help you gain a better understanding of the computerized world around
you.
"""

Oregon universities tend to not accept AP compsci (unlike Utah) so it
makes more sense to look at the Litvins' book as part of our discrete
math track (pre-college), standard pre-law and/or pre-med you might
say (rule of thumb).  We conflate "medical" with "engineering" in this
neck of the woods as well (lots of shovel ready bioinformatics, Python
a player).

I like your phrase "cowbell".  Our goal in this region is to produce
more animations about technical subjects.  You can call them cartoons,
but they're made by computer and look at topics like the effects of
drugs in the body, but at a higher level of technical detail than you
see in most drug pushing commercials on television (those are "comics"
in the more "clown like" sense).

Kirby

> I think this book is a very cool resource and I intend to use it. With
> the kind of students I have in mind, we may need to create our own.
> With more cowbell (or, as Kirby put it earlier, comics).
>
> --
> Cheers,
> MariaD
>
> Make math your own, to make your own math.
>
> http://www.naturalmath.com social math site
> http://www.phenixsolutions.com empowering our innovations
>
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 12:15 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Both, per the back cover:
>>
>> """
>> Some students may choose to study AP Computer Science in high school,
>> or major in CS in college.  Others may decide to go into math,
>> science, law, art, social sciences, or humanities.  Regardless of your
>> goals, Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python will
>> help you gain a better understanding of the computerized world around
>> you.
>> """
>>
>> ... definitely looking at high school in Oregon, on a math track, not
>> a CS track per se, as the Silicon Forest lobby here is working with
>> our state legislature to have discrete math alternatives that segue to
>> college and private industry tracks, e.g. we could use this in place
>> of Algebra 2.
>>
>> Kirby
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 9:12 AM, Andre Roberge <andre.roberge at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 1:07 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.skylit.com/mathandpython.html
>>>>
>>>> I have desk review copy, think many will appreciate the quasi-seamless
>>>> blend of old and gnu world typographies, i.e. sigma and set notation,
>>>> with concepts of iterator, types, functions etc.
>>>
>>> Would this be appropriate for high school students, or as a first CS course
>>> for non Computer Science majors ?
>>>
>>> André
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Reminiscent of 'Concrete Mathematics' though less difficult and
>>>> explicitly Python based.
>>>>
>>>> For those training to read algebra, higher math, this is a friendly
>>>> introduction (no cartoons or comics though -- gets you prepared for
>>>> the somber dryness of the ambient literature).
>>>>
>>>> Kirby
>>>> _______________________________________________
>