Hi Raul, I am glad that you titled this 'J and education' rather than 'J and Learning' because it allows me to address the areas that might be needed to support education as being different than those that would support learning.
One thing that occurs to me is that education has many different levels that require support. In Guzdial's post, one level of education support involves governments passing laws and providing funds - one that would impact an institution's use of the resources that we could provide, but not a level that we need to be involved in at this time. The next level down is the institution level - requiring support by curriculum and assessment tools that could be used in the classroom. I remember Linda putting together some ideas about a grade 1 curriculum earlier in August ( http://jsoftware.com/pipermail/programming/2014-August/038652.html ) but I have not heard much more about it since then. This is certainly an area that could be further developed, although, as the post suggests good curriculum does not replace appropriately informed instructors. That's the area that I am most interested in because once we establish an environment for learning, the support that we provide for instructors to understand and explore J is not really any different from the support required by any other learner. I suppose that I should wrap up with the thought that I see opportunities in learning environments for J more than the role of J in educational institutions, but I think that work in one area can support work in the the other. The scale of the endeavour may be the reason that you think that there is not an effort being made. Ironic to me because your efforts in responding to programming questions are a contribution to the learning environment, which in turn may provide the foundation of using J effectively in a school. Cheers, bob On Aug 26, 2014, at 9:28 AM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > J has a number of elements in it which are slanted towards educational > contexts. > > For example, >> and <: despite already supporting 1&+ and -&1. > > For example, p. despite already supporting #. (and more complicated > expressions). > > For example, +/ .* despite APL offering the more concise +.x > > And so on... > > And we have a few really great labs and books. But what we do not have are > extended treatments of topics. There's a lot going on in biology, for > example, and we're not even trying there. We could be doing much better in > physics simulations, graphics rendering, and so on. > > Anyways, we should also keep in mind that on the other side of the fence we > have a lot of teachers struggling with the other side of these same issues. > See, for example: > http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/8/177020-why-the-us-is-not-ready-for-mandatory-cs-education/fulltext > > I often feel that it's like we are not even trying to come up with anything > to offer them. > > But it's so easy to get caught up in other issues, I guess I understand > that. > > But I am not sure that that makes it right. > > Thanks, > > -- > Raul > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
