So we found our school on Google Earth, then I quickly sampled Celestia and
Stellarium, while chatting up the open source model of application
development (these latter two being good examples, plus they help with
orientation (some kids still working on which way is 'North')).
Every student has a computer and we went to hands-on with IDLE. The first
we're doing is querying various objects as to their types, e.g. type(1),
type('c'), type('cat'), type(10.1). I asked if they knew what type(-1)
would be and this drew some derision, like we learned that in 6th grade.
"So might I be permitted to say 'duh!'" Yeah, that was fine with them.
Integer.
Next time we meet, it'll be just about all hands-on, practically no
lecturing. We'll be entering lists and dictionaries (good practice typing
e.g. enter a list of the 9.5 planets [1]), and then invoking methods on 'em.
The focus is "dot notation" as well as "data structures". We'll come back
to defining our own objects later.
Kirby
PS: hey Art, I think our sparring on this list helped me focus my thinking
around the charter school issue. You got me thinking about charters in more
general terms. Here's a recent thread on the issue:
http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=4091763&tstart=0
[1] 9.5 planets a joke of course, but I did tell them this whole 'nine
planets' thing is slated for the ash heap of history. Either we remove
Pluto (which most people would rather keep), or we add some objects beyond
Pluto. Either way, the outcome is no longer nine. I learned all this
current info from the Vatican Observatory the other night, thought I'd pass
it along to these public school kids (it's science, not catechism).
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