Yeah, interesting, shades of Tufte's 'Envisioning Information' which sits here on my desk.
Re the taxonomy of human activities, all those physical ones *may* have an intellectual component as well -- which maybe explains the asterisk? On another front, New York Times just came out with an article talking about USA school districts already disillusioned with one laptop per child (lowercase cuz it's not official OLPC, just each kid has a laptop). Teachers found the technology too difficult to control, with kids turning "inward" (i.e. into cyberspace) for their information (including lotsa porn). Plus the prison-like atmosphere of USA schools made teachers feel more than ever like prison guards, trying to keep their students from hacking through poorly designed security systems. A lot of traditionalists over on the Math Forum are crowing with this news as to them it's a vindication of their anti-computer philosophy of education. In my view, it's more proof that the old lesson plans and standards are way out of synch with the new technology. Unlike the traditionalists, I say it's the computers that should stay, the old curriculum we don't need. But I believe in freedom of choice. Dark agers should still have access to their antediluvian courses if that's really what they want to have. Just don't punish *all* students because of the druthers (desires) of the anti-computer ethnicities. Those who want laptop-based education should maybe link up with gnu math teachers, other geeks (many of them Python-savvy) and the soon-to-be larger numbers of XO-based youth around the world. http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1566320&tstart=0 Kirby _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
