On Jan 30, 2008 9:22 AM, Susan Addington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I am interested in math curriculum for the XO. I asked a year or so ago, and > got no response, but it seems that things are picking up.
Definitely. > I'm writing a textbook for elementary _teachers_ (hoping to publish this > commercially). Along the way, I learned a lot about cognition and curriculum > for children. I'll want to see that. > So far the math tools and lessons for the XO seem to be some isolated cool > activities. I'm not entirely surprised that education ministers in the > targeted countries were hesitant to join the project---there is no > curriculum that can be handed to teachers and students. I learned from my > experience writing isolated fun lessons in the 1990s that most teachers need > training and structure to learn something as new as teaching with > technology. One of the major lessons of the New Math disaster. > Someone asked about MATLAB for the XO. This seems to be way too advanced. > The XO needs a better calculator, I'm for RPN. What are you looking for? > a spreadsheet program (apparently one is > in the works), maybe a baby computer algebra system with a very friendly > front end. There is some older, but very well thought-out, software called > Function Probe designed by the math education researcher in the 1990s. It > does algebra, tables, and graphs in a unified way. She told me that she was > going to put it out free, in java. Maybe someone could do an XO version. Good. Can you give us a link to a Function Probe Web page? > Please feel free to contact me publicly or privately if you're interested in > developing some math curriculum. I control some textbook copyrights and software licenses on APL, which I have discussed on the Executable Math page on the Wiki. I listed math packages on the Linux_education_packages page. The most important topic in math education is whether we will teach what mathematicians do: explore and discover. And what mathematics is: not just calculation, but the rigorous exploration of patterns of any kind. > Susan Addington > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Math Department, California State University, San Bernardino -- Edward Cherlin End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay _______________________________________________ Library mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/library
