On Thursday 05 June 2003 00:07, Beni Cherniavsky wrote: > Dan Armak wrote on 2003-06-04: > > On Wednesday 04 June 2003 19:06, Beni Cherniavsky wrote: > > > So, since there *is* a motivation among hackers to provide schools > > > with free software that would benefit them, why won't the schools tell > > > us what they want? I'm thinking along the lines of some site where > > > schools/teachers can post "wanted" requests describing what they want. > > > > I don't know what special educational software schools need or want, as > > none of the schools I've been to used any (except for half a year of logo > > in elementary school, which I don't really remember anymore). > > Then they don't try hard enough. There are a lot of things in schools > that computers could be used for. Gate logic classes could really use > a lab with a gate simulator. Electronics students could use > simulators (spice). Physics classes could surely benefit from some > field simulations, etc (and not only using excel to record lab > results). Math teachers could use a LaTeX or LyX course $:-)$ so the > math homeworks stop to contain RTL formulas [1]_. Etc. etc. etc.
I envy you. My highschool has no gate logic or enectronics classes, physics classes don't use excel (we write down lab results by hand, and even extrapolate them into graphs and general formulas manually), and math teachers don't usually accept printed homework. (Well, the last may be because I didn't study math @ school, and mostly everyone else there doesn't know about lyx/latex, and using msword for it is a losing proposition...) > It would also have a tremendous educational value if the teacher could > say "every program that you use here, you can take home, copy, use, > study and even improve (if you want)." > > Another point is the compilers used in pascal and c classes. I don't know > > what's used for c, but I've had enough of turbo pascal (which the teacher > > requires you to get a copy of, too[1]). If they switch to e.g. gpc, they > > can use a better IDE too, like gideon. Although in my school, they make > > you write on paper 95% of the time, so that's not as important... > > > > [1] Of course, you can use any decent compiler without her noticing, but > > again, do we want teachers telling students to get illegal copies of tp? > > Hacking is taught very badly at all but don't get me started on that. Hacking is _taught_? Where? I'll want to send my children to that school :-) I know the one I went to teaches 5pts just like you describe below. This isn't programming of any kind they teach (the basic staple of homework being never, ever to use language features not taught in class) and the teachers usually don't know themselves WTH they're talking about. > One who learns 5 points like me gets no idea what a real program looks > like. I'll try to refrain from commenting on Pascal. -- Dan Armak Matan, Israel Public GPG key: http://cvs.gentoo.org/~danarmak/danarmak-gpg-public.key
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