On Tue, 24 Mar 2009, Edward Cherlin wrote: > The usual approach to educational software is to code up a drill with > some eye candy for each topic in the curriculum, and just have the > students run the results. Another approach is to have the children > teach the computer how to do the math. Everybody agrees that the best > way to learn a subject is to teach it. Several programming languages > have been used from third grade up for such purposes. We can provide a > generic framework in which teachers and children can plug in numeric > types and ranges, functions, algorithms, and so on to create drills or > games for themselves on any arithmetic topic, and can implement each > function out of simpler components, such as single digits. Or we could > create digital Cuisenaire rods, and use the entire literature of > exercises for them.
Happy to see the code -- or a team of people who agree and would like to write the code. > At a higher level, I have a book on computer design in which students > write programs to simulate bits in registers and the microcode for > arithmetic instructions. Start with a single bit add+carry circuit, > and work your way on up to IEEE floating point or even further, to > pipelined vector processing or other advanced architectures. (The > language compiles to wiring lists for generating ICs.) And what piece of the documented curriculum does this satisfy? :) To be clear: our goal -- and it may not be the ultimate goal, and in the eyes of some it may not even be the correct goal, but it is our stated goal nonetheless -- is to build a set of activities that completely cover the curriculum framework for 4th grade maths in the state of Massachusetts. If an activity for building Cuisenaire rods can be built -- or if it already exists, for that matter -- then let's start a project and get it aligned to the math4 curriculum: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Math4Team/Resources/CurriculumChart --g -- Got an XO that you're not using? Loan it to a needy developer! [[ http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO_Exchange_Registry ]] _______________________________________________ FourthGradeMath mailing list [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/fourthgrademath
