Re: [Edu-sig] music:piano :: math:laptop ?
On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 11:16 PM, kirby urner kirby.ur...@gmail.com wrote: Edward Cherlin's insistent pointing to the XO is helping turn some wheels on my end... It doesn't actually have to be an XO. We have projects forming up to use Sugar on a Stick with diskless computers. That will allow us to take almost all of the discards from the computer refurbishing centers. Way cool that Gibson Guitar was a sponsor of OSCON that time, shows how geeks are being seen from a Nashville angle: have laptop will travel, the solo musician model, except we also form bands. Really, so many analogies, between musicians and coders. Also math and science. What calculators, slide rules before 'em, have gotten us used to, is this idea that mathematics comes with devices, gizmos, more than just chalk or pencil. We need machinery! (a slide rule has moving parts, c'mon). What's interesting is how reluctant the marketing groups have been, to link their brands to something so Buck Rogers and futuristic as the XO, or even to the basic idea of giving kids laptops. It has all the elements: breakthrough technologies, hero developers (many genders and ethnicities), adorable children, cool interface... you'd think the cereal companies would be all over it, giving kids something to marvel at while crunching on wholesome grains. We're definitely getting uptake among basketball, football, and soccer players. How about we start a campaign among tweens and teens called Where's My Laptop? I wanted to offer child-size t-shirts along with Give One Get One, for the point where orders outstrip production. Then you could buy your grandchild or whomever a shirt saying Grandma bought me an XO for Christmas, but all I have so far is this funny t-shirt. And then offer transfers with the late laptops, for crossing out the complaint and saying, I got it! I got it! Let's encourage that sense of entitlement we get listening to R0ml, who says gnu math, CP4E, computer literacy (lots of words for it) is what in the old days would be called basic rhetoric. To participate in civic life, you needed to know how to structure an argument, defend a position. Well, you still need those skills, but you also need that laptop. How else do you expect to patch in, participate in the life of democracy. Not just that. You have to have a story, like Walt Whitman or Mark Twain or Carl Sandburg telling Americans who they are. So far we have a hope. But there are stories. Doug Engelbart's hero story leading up to The Mother of All Demos, Alan Kay and Seymour Papert as the prophets in the wilderness, and a few others. What do we want? Laptop! When do we want it? Now! I don't think that this will be a matter of defiant public demonstrations. My story (and I'm sticking to it) is that Sugar's virtues can sneak into the schools where there isn't even a crack in the doors, unnoticed until after they have taken over, and that there will be no way to undo the changes, because they make students, teachers, and parents happier and more productive. Kirby ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig -- Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name And Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination. http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] music:piano :: math:laptop ?
On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 12:15 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 11:16 PM, kirby urner kirby.ur...@gmail.com wrote: Edward Cherlin's insistent pointing to the XO is helping turn some wheels on my end... It doesn't actually have to be an XO. We have projects forming up to use Sugar on a Stick with diskless computers. That will allow us to take almost all of the discards from the computer refurbishing centers. Yes, I'm glad you point that out. My agenda is closer to providing more opportunities to eyeball and tweak open source code in a math learning context, with emphasis on OO and agile languages, with plenty of eye candy (e.g. spatial geometry -- includes the flat stuff, with camera position off the plane, Euclidean axioms OK though not exclusively (shudder)). But then what I mean by math learning context isn't so 1900s, i.e. includes a lot of what we might call home economics (attention to calories, joules, energy budgets -- lots of subclassing of DwellingMachine parent class, simulating with Sims) and even aspects of PE (physical education), i.e. outdoor training in GPS (lat/long, spherical trig), use of twitch games (for credit) to learn multiplication tables, periodic table etc. In principle, such forward-thinking curriculum could show up Baghdad or Dubai long before UKers/USAers get their act together, given domestic resistance to positive futurism among Anglos, obsession with doomy-gloomy (something about the psychology, insufficient antibodies to apocalyptic memes maybe). Way cool that Gibson Guitar was a sponsor of OSCON that time, shows how geeks are being seen from a Nashville angle: have laptop will travel, the solo musician model, except we also form bands. Really, so many analogies, between musicians and coders. Also math and science. I need to think of musical analogies in the context of my no solo coders precept, as individuals have that ability to be brilliant, like when they say take it away, sam or something (do it charlie). You want to leave room for epiphanies, flights of fancy. But you also need to anchor that in community just stuff I think about at work (large bureaucracy, too easy for mediocre VB and Java programmers to become indispensable by obfuscating what they do for a living). We're definitely getting uptake among basketball, football, and soccer players. I'm interested in what you mean by that. How about we start a campaign among tweens and teens called Where's My Laptop? I wanted to offer child-size t-shirts along with Give One Get One, for the point where orders outstrip production. Then you could buy your grandchild or whomever a shirt saying Grandma bought me an XO for Christmas, but all I have so far is this funny t-shirt. And then offer transfers with the late laptops, for crossing out the complaint and saying, I got it! I got it! G1G1 was an interesting campaign, plus I'm supportive of using T-shirts to advance causes, csn.cto Nirel (metahead) a role model in this regard: http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/12/bear-booty.html Jody is csn.cfo: http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/11/posting-from-my-xo.html Let's encourage that sense of entitlement we get listening to R0ml, who says gnu math, CP4E, computer literacy (lots of words for it) is what in the old days would be called basic rhetoric. To participate in civic life, you needed to know how to structure an argument, defend a position. Well, you still need those skills, but you also need that laptop. How else do you expect to patch in, participate in the life of democracy. Not just that. You have to have a story, like Walt Whitman or Mark Twain or Carl Sandburg telling Americans who they are. So far we have a hope. But there are stories. Doug Engelbart's hero story leading up to The Mother of All Demos, Alan Kay and Seymour Papert as the prophets in the wilderness, and a few others. Yes, storytelling is critical, I agree. Whereas the rhetoric needs to be inclusive, in terms of inspiring folks to take action, there's nothing like a working demo that's also futuristic. Whereas working demo may conjure images of individuals laptops or applications, I'm more thinking in terms of working communities, maybe a few hundred people, showcasing what could be for others, using a kind of reality television (well edited) to get the word out. This is my Project Earthala in a nutshell. We've done some location scouting. http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2006/01/location-scouting.html What do we want? Laptop! When do we want it? Now! I don't think that this will be a matter of defiant public demonstrations. My story (and I'm sticking to it) is that Sugar's virtues can sneak into the schools where there isn't even a crack in the doors, unnoticed until after they have taken over, and that there will be no way to undo the changes, because they make students, teachers, and parents happier and more productive. OK, sounds
Re: [Edu-sig] music:piano :: math:laptop ?
Not only math, but a computer can even be seen as an instrument whose music is ideas (*). On 16.12.2008, at 08:16, kirby urner wrote: Edward Cherlin's insistent pointing to the XO is helping turn some wheels on my end... Way cool that Gibson Guitar was a sponsor of OSCON that time, shows how geeks are being seen from a Nashville angle: have laptop will travel, the solo musician model, except we also form bands. Really, so many analogies, between musicians and coders. What calculators, slide rules before 'em, have gotten us used to, is this idea that mathematics comes with devices, gizmos, more than just chalk or pencil. We need machinery! (a slide rule has moving parts, c'mon). What's interesting is how reluctant the marketing groups have been, to link their brands to something so Buck Rogers and futuristic as the XO, or even to the basic idea of giving kids laptops. It has all the elements: breakthrough technologies, hero developers (many genders and ethnicities), adorable children, cool interface... you'd think the cereal companies would be all over it, giving kids something to marvel at while crunching on wholesome grains. How about we start a campaign among tweens and teens called Where's My Laptop? Let's encourage that sense of entitlement we get listening to R0ml, who says gnu math, CP4E, computer literacy (lots of words for it) is what in the old days would be called basic rhetoric. To participate in civic life, you needed to know how to structure an argument, defend a position. Well, you still need those skills, but you also need that laptop. How else do you expect to patch in, participate in the life of democracy. What do we want? Laptop! When do we want it? Now! While I certainly agree, getting laptops to kids is only half the picture, and both the easier and worse half at that. We need to remember, and continue to point out, that the music is not in the piano (*). This is preaching to the choir on this list of course, but the folks seeing a major distraction in computers as typically used by kids have a major point, too. And that distraction is much more seductive than the distraction a lonesome piano provides. So I'd like to see such a campaign explicitly point out what distinguishes the XO from any other laptop, by making a computer specifically for learning rather than for profit, by having it run tinkerable software (yay to Python for that), etc. It's not just the ingenious industrial design, but the ideas it embodies. (*) http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5 - Bert - ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
