J in tertiary education. Recently I enrolled on a linear algebra course at a South African distance learning university, my intention is to write verbs as tools for other students on the course, then to persuade those who have PCs to install J, and to give them my verbs together with an explanation of their use.
My hope is that they become J users after being sufficiently intrigued to look beyond my verbs and not be scared off by the "comic book invective" appearance of the language. The course-book is 'Introductory Linear Algebra' by Kolman and Hill. It encourages students to use MATLAB, provides a list of functions in the package and gives exercises to be done using it. I believe the local price of the relevant part of MATLAB is around US$54. J is free and writing verbs to do the equivalent is simple. I suspect that someone wishing to do a course in a particular branch of math, with an exam to pass and limited time, does not want to have to learn J as well, particularly as it looks so strange. They could however be please to have a bunch of verbs with mnemonic names to enable them to try out the things they learn, check their workings etc. J in schools. Several years ago 3 of us visited a number of local schools to get them to make use of APL in teaching: we found that teachers felt they had enough to do getting through the syllabus without any extras, but that APL could be made available in e.g. the computer club if we wished, we didn't pursue it. Incidentally South Africa is critically short of maths and science teachers and very few pupils pass these subject in matric, the school leaving exam. Regards John -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steven H. Rogers Sent: 28 February 2007 06:21 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Jgeneral] J in Teaching I'm doing an informal survey on the use of Array Programming Languages for teaching. If you're using J in this manner I'd like to hear from you. What subject was/is taught, academic level, results, lessons learned, etc. Regards, Steve ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
