Re: [IAEP] Physics - Lesson plans ideas?
Alan You ask whether Bill's Physics Activity suggestions have anything to do with real science. You rightly point out that the Physics Activity is an imperfect simulation of the real world and just as mysterious. Certainly playing with the Physics Activity is not the best way to discover how the real world works. You draw the distinction between real maths and real science. Bill's suggestions work if you think more like a mathematician than a scientist. We study complex numbers and transfinite numbers even though they aren't real world. Root(-1) isn't real world but its a useful abstraction to study. Maths is the study of rule-based systems. Some of the maths isn't that useful in itself but the ability to understand and think in that system is a valid educational goal. It strengthens the ability to think in other rule-based systems. The Physics Activity has its set of rules and Bill's activities encourage students to discover these rules, to think more deeply about them and to compare them to the idealised maths which is used to describe the real world. It may not be a good way to understand the rules that govern the real world but it is a good way to do a scientific study of a microworld which is governed by its own set of rules. Surely testing and discovering the rules which govern a microworld strengthens our ability to understand other rule based systems including real world physics? Some advantages of this microworld: Its engaging Setup and cleanup are easy Bills suggestions are suitable for self-directed learning The cycle time to test a hypothesis is short, more time for cognitive conflict (deep thinking) With simulations you can perform experiments that are unsafe in the real world Thanks for your contributions. Tony ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] GPA ain't the world
Just to clarify, when I spoke of studying a small deployment closely, I was thinking of both the GPA pilot and any other closely studied small deployment, which could be anywhere, including Nepal. Similar findings (e.g. first-time difficulty of quitting Activities?) in disparate conditions will be beneficial to everyone. Other findings will not; I expect developed-country schools to face gadget competition issues, where kids compare Sugar to their Nintendo DS interfaces, or netbook performance to fancy home computers. I am convinced most if not all large deployments have obtained feedback and some work in locating contacts and translating documents will be very beneficial for Sugar. If, of course, the conclusions of such studies are not trumpeted as OLPC failure fodder, but as information necessary to improve Sugar. I have experience running IT in infrastructure-challenged environments and I doff my cap to those who have to struggle just to get a Home View on a screen in front of a Learner. I think we can agree that obtaining, triaging, analysing and reporting feedback from all sources is an important yet undoubtedly difficult goal. Sean. On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 7:03 AM, Christoph Derndorfere0425...@student.tuwien.ac.at wrote: David Farning schrieb: And yes, Christoph I _am_ holding your writing to a higher standard. Several times, you have described yourself as the voice of the project. David, just for the record: I definitely don't consider myself the voice of Sugar Labs, that's just ludicrous and I can't remember ever making such a claim or acting accordingly. At the best of times I might be a voice of many and in this instance I decided to raise it to draw attention to the larger global picture that we're operating in. Some clearly seem to have understood that intention of my message. To smooth the ruffled feathers let me reiterate that I think we can learn many things from the ongoing efforts at GPA. However we mustn't believe that the findings will always be a representative reflection of the issues faced by the 1,000,000 other Sugar users around the globe. Christoph -- Christoph Derndorfer co-editor, olpcnews url: www.olpcnews.com e-mail: christ...@olpcnews.com ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
[IAEP] Reality is a crutch (was Re: Physics - Lesson plans ideas?)
On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 12:25 AM, fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote: Alan We study complex numbers and transfinite numbers even though they aren't real world. Root(-1) isn't real world but its a useful abstraction to study. This turns out not to be the case. Complex numbers are required in classical electricity and in all parts of Quantum Mechanics, where the imaginary part of a wave is necessary to represent its phase, where probabilities of states are represented by the product of the wave function with its complex conjugate, and where state-change operators (such as _i_ times partial derivative with respect to spatial coordinates) routinely involve complex values. Infinities and infinitesimals appear as real-world values in the theory of games of perfect information. See Conway, On Numbers and Games, and Berlekamp, Conway, and Guy, Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays. -- Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name And Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination. http://earthtreasury.org/worknet (Edward Mokurai Cherlin) ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Reality is a crutch (was Re: Physics - Lesson plans ideas?)
None of the numbers are real world - they are human-made representations of either something in the real world, or something else in some culture. Bridges between cultures and real world are built both ways. Imaginary numbers used to be purely cultural for a while, until bridges Cherlin mentions allowed people to see them as models of something in physical reality. Same goes for quaternions and many exotic geometries. Relationships with reality is one of the main distinctions between most mathematical and most scientific frameworks and methodologies, which is a huge topic. Cheers, Maria Droujkova http://www.naturalmath.com Make math your own, to make your own math. On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 7:29 AM, Edward Cherlin echer...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 12:25 AM, fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote: Alan We study complex numbers and transfinite numbers even though they aren't real world. Root(-1) isn't real world but its a useful abstraction to study. This turns out not to be the case. Complex numbers are required in classical electricity and in all parts of Quantum Mechanics, where the imaginary part of a wave is necessary to represent its phase, where probabilities of states are represented by the product of the wave function with its complex conjugate, and where state-change operators (such as _i_ times partial derivative with respect to spatial coordinates) routinely involve complex values. Infinities and infinitesimals appear as real-world values in the theory of games of perfect information. See Conway, On Numbers and Games, and Berlekamp, Conway, and Guy, Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays. http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Physics - Lesson plans ideas?
Bill and Tony, I simply ask that you ponder much more deeply on this issue. It's very important, and it also is part of the helping people learn certain modern subjects problem. Many of the people who have embraced the OLPC and XO and Sugar are using it for other means (contact with and use of computers, pride, motivation, and so forth). But both of you have shown interest in helping children learn mathematics and science. And by the way, I don't know of any mathematicians who would define math as the study of rule-based systems. So this could be one place to start. And science is much more subtle than mathematics. Depending on when you think modern humans appeared on the planet, it took until just about 400 years ago for the real deal to be teased out of our built in desires for explanations coupled with our equally built in desires to accept them much too readily. None of this issue has anything directly to do with computers. And there are a lot of very good things which can be done without them for both real math and real science. As Papert showed us, computers can be the raw material for several important new forms for good math that are particularly nicely suited for children, and several of these are nicer to deal with physical phenomena than some of the standard algebraic approaches (especially for the equivalents of differential equations and integration of differential relations). But I always urge teachers to get started on this road themselves by looking at the many wonderful little books of Arvind Gupta and one of his main themes of toys from trash. http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/ Besides being good for children and adults alike, it is also a bit of a temperament tester. Most people who really understand science and its processes will delight in these projects and in helping children do these projects. You can think of them as the immersion engineering part of eliciting interesting phenomena from the world around us. They are all in the children's world, they are made by the children, they do cool and surprising things, and they have real connections to the world of adults. They are not science themselves, but are great motivators and start the kids and adults on the road to seeing mechanicanical cause effect relationships which are the underpinings of math and our abstraction about the real world. Some of these are ripe for trying to do deeper investigations and to make working mathematical models of them. This is the science part. In any case, one of the important parts of this discussion is to be able to deal with the magic of playing with a computer. Best wishes, Alan From: fors...@ozonline.com.au fors...@ozonline.com.au To: Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com Cc: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2009 12:25:11 AM Subject: Re: Re: [IAEP] Physics - Lesson plans ideas? Alan You ask whether Bill's Physics Activity suggestions have anything to do with real science. You rightly point out that the Physics Activity is an imperfect simulation of the real world and just as mysterious. Certainly playing with the Physics Activity is not the best way to discover how the real world works. You draw the distinction between real maths and real science. Bill's suggestions work if you think more like a mathematician than a scientist. We study complex numbers and transfinite numbers even though they aren't real world. Root(-1) isn't real world but its a useful abstraction to study. Maths is the study of rule-based systems. Some of the maths isn't that useful in itself but the ability to understand and think in that system is a valid educational goal. It strengthens the ability to think in other rule-based systems. The Physics Activity has its set of rules and Bill's activities encourage students to discover these rules, to think more deeply about them and to compare them to the idealised maths which is used to describe the real world. It may not be a good way to understand the rules that govern the real world but it is a good way to do a scientific study of a microworld which is governed by its own set of rules. Surely testing and discovering the rules which govern a microworld strengthens our ability to understand other rule based systems including real world physics? Some advantages of this microworld: Its engaging Setup and cleanup are easy Bills suggestions are suitable for self-directed learning The cycle time to test a hypothesis is short, more time for cognitive conflict (deep thinking) With simulations you can perform experiments that are unsafe in the real world Thanks for your contributions. Tony ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
[IAEP] Physics Activity - Should we change the name
Sugar is blessed with a number of powerful activities that are platforms for open ended creativity. - Turtle Art - eToys - Tam Tam Suite - Scratch - FlipSticks I notice they all have names that under promise and don't set up rigid expectations. I think Physics could follow this naming pattern encouraging people to explore with it without the expectation that somehow this is about teaching Physics as described in their governmental curriculum. -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove carol...@solutiongrove.com 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Physics Activity - Should we change the name
Hi Caroline, And adults and children just love being creative and expressing themselves. And, this is especially the case around the world when computers are introduced with applications that allow people to make things. So far so good. To continue one of the themes of this thread, let's look at this process over human presence on the planet. We find invention coupled with dogma. Many who have studied this have likened it to an erosion model of memory, both individually and culturally. (Once a little groove is randomly made by water it becomes very efficient in helping more water to erode it further.) So creative acts are resisted, but once accepted for one reason or another will cling, and most often far beyond their merits. Most creativity is more News than New, that is it is extremely incremental to the erosion gully. Science attempts to be completely different than this. We are dancing with a universe of which we can only detect some of its shadows, and the universe leads. We are not free to be creative to make up stories we like or draw pictures we like unless they can be shown to fit to a high degree with the dance. For many important reasons these maps we try to make cannot be true, even if the maps themselves are internally perfect and beautiful. So science goes *quite against* what anthropologists have determined are strong built in human characteristics about explaining the world. And even trained scientists often have real problems with this. Our brains want to *believe* but science is not about belief. This is one of the reasons that science almost requires a community of scientists, some of whom are less invested in particular theories and rationalizations of them than others. It is these more disinterested more skeptical scientists who help the invested behave -- and vice versa. So science is a kind of human system for deeply debugging human notions and rationalizations (about everything). It is this epistemology that has to be learned (really one trains oneself in it) before one can deal with written down science. There is nothing in any science writing that can help anyone with the goodness of the mapping. Why? Because once one gets to language, with or without the aid of mathematics, one is using the same representation systems that are also used for religion. One can say anything in language (for example all languages contain not, which means any claim can be restated as a counter claim!). This extends quite simply to any representation on a computer. So the basic process of learning science is about doing direct stuff and imbibing its epistemological stances. However, so much successful science has been done -- and science not only builds on itself but requires its findings to be constantly intercorrelated -- that no scientist can recapitulate all this by direct experiment. So the learning process is (a) get down the epistemology by direct contact with the real processes (b) then you can deal with claims that you won't be able to directly substantiate. This amount of rigor is difficult for we humans generally. But it is just this rigor that made the enormous differences in how well we can do the dance over the last few hundred years. Trying to do less loses both the dance and the art. So we can think of science as the art form in which the greatest creativity ever must be used with the greatest constraints and possibility for failure. It goes far beyond mathematics and (say) composing something really beautiful in strict counterpoint, though both of these have strong tinges of this style. I think it is possible to do the real deal with children, and we've managed to show this (for example, with the Galilean gravity investigation). The ability of the computer to do simple incremental addition very quickly gives us a differential mathematics that is completely understandable to the children that is also fast enough to carry out the integrations over time directly in real-time. For 10 year olds, this is really good science, and I would neither advocate them being less nor more rigorous. For children, we mainly want to find really good ways to help them with (a) above. Each age can match up to real science projects devised by us (it is *we* who have to be really creative!). And as important as is creativity, *we* simply must understand the real and deep natures of the subjects we are trying to help children learn. Most importantly, we have to understand what simplifications retain the underlying epistemology of the content, and which simplifications completely undermine and confuse the subject matter. (The latter is seen almost invariably in most K-8 classrooms in the US with or without computers - the teachers simply don't understand the stuff, and the school district and state almost always water the stuff down to lose it in futile attempts to get better test scores, regardless of whether the testing is now just
Re: [IAEP] Computer ClubHouse at the Boston Museum of Science
This seems like a perfect fit! Sean On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 2:58 AM, Caroline Meekscarol...@solutiongrove.com wrote: http://www.computerclubhouse.org/ The Computer Clubhouse is an international network of computer centers for youth. Their flagship clubhouse is housed in the Museum of Science in Boston and they were kind enough to host us for two days this week. Keith has also mentioned that he would be able to host evening Geek meetups/hack sessions at the clubhouse. I am copying OLPC Boston to see if there would be interest in moving from our meetup location from the coffee shop to this computer heaven in the coolest museum in Boston. :) (Sorry, I literately grew up at the Boston Museum of Science and the Berkeley Lawrence Hall of Science and just love science museums) Today we worked with 8 kids from Cambridge that had been coming to the clubhouse one day a week over the summer. The computer clubhouse provides professional level software for the kids to create with. Tens of thousands of dollars are spent on proprietary software and the kids do great things. Their favorite when I asked at the beginning of class seemed to be Garage Band. I asked these students if any of them had a computer at home. They all did. In fact, some had a mac and a PC in their house. I asked them if any of them had taken anything they had done at the clubhouse and continued to work on it at home. NONE of them had. The club houses are doing great things but the impact on the students lives and learning is limited to the time they are spending there. One potential of Sugar on a Stick is to allow students to keep working and exploring beyond their few hours in computer paradise and have them not lose access when their program ends. Walter has met with the Auckland Clubhouse people and they were also interested in Sugar. They might be a great partner. -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove carol...@solutiongrove.com 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Computer ClubHouse at the Boston Museum of Science
One of these Computer Clubhouses is in Arlington, VA, not far from Sugar Labs DC. Maybe the Boston flagship can do an intro for us? Mike Sent from my iPhone On Aug 16, 2009, at 10:48 AM, Sean DALY sdaly...@gmail.com wrote: This seems like a perfect fit! Sean On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 2:58 AM, Caroline Meekscarol...@solutiongrove.com wrote: http://www.computerclubhouse.org/ The Computer Clubhouse is an international network of computer centers for youth. Their flagship clubhouse is housed in the Museum of Science in Boston and they were kind enough to host us for two days this week. Keith has also mentioned that he would be able to host evening Geek meetups/hack sessions at the clubhouse. I am copying OLPC Boston to see if there would be interest in moving from our meetup location from the coffee shop to this computer heaven in the coolest museum in Boston. :) (Sorry, I literately grew up at the Boston Museum of Science and the Berkeley Lawrence Hall of Science and just love science museums) Today we worked with 8 kids from Cambridge that had been coming to the clubhouse one day a week over the summer. The computer clubhouse provides professional level software for the kids to create with. Tens of thousands of dollars are spent on proprietary software and the kids do great things. Their favorite when I asked at the beginning of class seemed to be Garage Band. I asked these students if any of them had a computer at home. They all did. In fact, some had a mac and a PC in their house. I asked them if any of them had taken anything they had done at the clubhouse and continued to work on it at home. NONE of them had. The club houses are doing great things but the impact on the students lives and learning is limited to the time they are spending there. One potential of Sugar on a Stick is to allow students to keep working and exploring beyond their few hours in computer paradise and have them not lose access when their program ends. Walter has met with the Auckland Clubhouse people and they were also interested in Sugar. They might be a great partner. -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove carol...@solutiongrove.com 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Physics - Lesson plans ideas?
On Sunday 16 Aug 2009 9:42:39 am Bill Kerr wrote: Is there are real danger of students getting the wrong idea about science from using the physics program? I'm not really sure - some will, some won't - but I think my students see it as a game type program rather than a reality show. Their spontaneous response was to make games with it. The risk here is one of distraction. Models on computers are no different from pictorial models in books. Science is not like literature to be studied from books or like a Magic show to be entertained through mis-direction. Scientific study is rooted in experience that motivates one to think deeper (what? as in experimental science or why? as in theoretical sciences). An event that entertains but does not lead to contemplation is no different from a Magic show. It is easy for a young learner to get mis-directed and miss the essential events. The issue of teaching real science depends on awareness. I don't see a science simulator as a bad thing in itself. Easy fun rather than hard fun (Seymour) but should all fun be hard? I don't think so. Much of this thread has been about adding science simulator like features to physics There is nothing wrong in having fun - hard or soft. But it would be a mistake for teachers, parents or volunteers to confuse affective entertainment with learning processes. BTW, those who think pendulum swing times doesn't depend on the weight should try experiments with same sized balls made of cotton and metal. Subbu ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] GPA ain't the world
Sean's point is important reminding us that when we talk of the Sugar user experience similar findings can be found on small deployments everywhere or in large deployments everywhere.. the differences are related to resources of hardware, electricity, networking and in general scalability of this resources (school server for example). Rafael Ortiz On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 5:02 AM, Sean DALYsdaly...@gmail.com wrote: Just to clarify, when I spoke of studying a small deployment closely, I was thinking of both the GPA pilot and any other closely studied small deployment, which could be anywhere, including Nepal. Similar findings (e.g. first-time difficulty of quitting Activities?) in disparate conditions will be beneficial to everyone. Other findings will not; I expect developed-country schools to face gadget competition issues, where kids compare Sugar to their Nintendo DS interfaces, or netbook performance to fancy home computers. I am convinced most if not all large deployments have obtained feedback and some work in locating contacts and translating documents will be very beneficial for Sugar. If, of course, the conclusions of such studies are not trumpeted as OLPC failure fodder, but as information necessary to improve Sugar. I have experience running IT in infrastructure-challenged environments and I doff my cap to those who have to struggle just to get a Home View on a screen in front of a Learner. I think we can agree that obtaining, triaging, analysing and reporting feedback from all sources is an important yet undoubtedly difficult goal. Sean. On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 7:03 AM, Christoph Derndorfere0425...@student.tuwien.ac.at wrote: David Farning schrieb: And yes, Christoph I _am_ holding your writing to a higher standard. Several times, you have described yourself as the voice of the project. David, just for the record: I definitely don't consider myself the voice of Sugar Labs, that's just ludicrous and I can't remember ever making such a claim or acting accordingly. At the best of times I might be a voice of many and in this instance I decided to raise it to draw attention to the larger global picture that we're operating in. Some clearly seem to have understood that intention of my message. To smooth the ruffled feathers let me reiterate that I think we can learn many things from the ongoing efforts at GPA. However we mustn't believe that the findings will always be a representative reflection of the issues faced by the 1,000,000 other Sugar users around the globe. Christoph -- Christoph Derndorfer co-editor, olpcnews url: www.olpcnews.com e-mail: christ...@olpcnews.com ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
[IAEP] Weekly 4PM EDT Sun Support Mtg: Community Book Sprint - Mini Deployment Guide (Sept 6-11 in DC)
Tons of progress with over 30 very different people participating now-- nevermind the evening social events Mike Lee all are organizing almost every night. This week's Call Conclusions / Forward Challenges: (A) People not familiar with Book Sprints should read why on earth we're each paying our own way to lock ourselves in a room at Gallaudet University in Washington DC for a week-- and why you might too ;-) http://en.flossmanuals.net/booksprints (B) Next Sunday we'll need all your best Teacher/Deployment/Activities stories listed (everyone prepare a tiny list, real quick contact everyone on your list for killer/fresh materials) to get us closer to nailing down an actual Table of Contents. At that time we'll all start to nail down what inspiring chapter *you* want to write/photograph/mentor with which SME (subject matter expert), so Be Prepared :-) http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Class_Acts#Table_of_Contents (C) To this end we made lots of Wiki changes live on-call this afternoon -- thanks to all the people who joined, agreeing that all attendees (in-person and remote) should now write in the chapter OR skill you want to contribute, right next to your name here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Class_Acts#Needs Everyone can do this, by clicking EDIT (D) Being an Immigrant is NOT Easy: Giving even the brightest teachers cultural bridges to (open source, alternative power engineering, constructivist, shipping/import, volunteer, finance etc) needed to inspire a successful deployment *won't* be at all easy in let's-say-30 pages. But we Supportives _won't_ give up easy! (E) Please volunteer or suggest who might be our Photo Archivist/Librarian/Editor collecting our best images we'll each dig up from places like: (in case our Gallaudet Univ interns don't come through) http://flickr.com/olpc/sets http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_media PS reply to me if you can join our weekly Sunday prep calls! (Free call in the USA or Canada, or with a full Skype account) ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Physics - Lesson plans ideas?
FYI.. (on topic?) See current related topic on slashdot. http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/08/16/189257/Simple-Portable-Physics-Simulations http://users.softlab.ntua.gr/~ttsiod/games.html Available under GPLv2, which isn't obvious from the website. On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Alan Kayalan.n...@yahoo.com wrote: Bill and Tony, I simply ask that you ponder much more deeply on this issue. It's very important, and it also is part of the helping people learn certain modern subjects problem. Many of the people who have embraced the OLPC and XO and Sugar are using it for other means (contact with and use of computers, pride, motivation, and so forth). But both of you have shown interest in helping children learn mathematics and science. And by the way, I don't know of any mathematicians who would define math as the study of rule-based systems. So this could be one place to start. And science is much more subtle than mathematics. Depending on when you think modern humans appeared on the planet, it took until just about 400 years ago for the real deal to be teased out of our built in desires for explanations coupled with our equally built in desires to accept them much too readily. None of this issue has anything directly to do with computers. And there are a lot of very good things which can be done without them for both real math and real science. As Papert showed us, computers can be the raw material for several important new forms for good math that are particularly nicely suited for children, and several of these are nicer to deal with physical phenomena than some of the standard algebraic approaches (especially for the equivalents of differential equations and integration of differential relations). But I always urge teachers to get started on this road themselves by looking at the many wonderful little books of Arvind Gupta and one of his main themes of toys from trash. http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/ Besides being good for children and adults alike, it is also a bit of a temperament tester. Most people who really understand science and its processes will delight in these projects and in helping children do these projects. You can think of them as the immersion engineering part of eliciting interesting phenomena from the world around us. They are all in the children's world, they are made by the children, they do cool and surprising things, and they have real connections to the world of adults. They are not science themselves, but are great motivators and start the kids and adults on the road to seeing mechanicanical cause effect relationships which are the underpinings of math and our abstraction about the real world. Some of these are ripe for trying to do deeper investigations and to make working mathematical models of them. This is the science part. In any case, one of the important parts of this discussion is to be able to deal with the magic of playing with a computer. Best wishes, Alan From: fors...@ozonline.com.au fors...@ozonline.com.au To: Alan Kay alan.n...@yahoo.com Cc: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2009 12:25:11 AM Subject: Re: Re: [IAEP] Physics - Lesson plans ideas? Alan You ask whether Bill's Physics Activity suggestions have anything to do with real science. You rightly point out that the Physics Activity is an imperfect simulation of the real world and just as mysterious. Certainly playing with the Physics Activity is not the best way to discover how the real world works. You draw the distinction between real maths and real science. Bill's suggestions work if you think more like a mathematician than a scientist. We study complex numbers and transfinite numbers even though they aren't real world. Root(-1) isn't real world but its a useful abstraction to study. Maths is the study of rule-based systems. Some of the maths isn't that useful in itself but the ability to understand and think in that system is a valid educational goal. It strengthens the ability to think in other rule-based systems. The Physics Activity has its set of rules and Bill's activities encourage students to discover these rules, to think more deeply about them and to compare them to the idealised maths which is used to describe the real world. It may not be a good way to understand the rules that govern the real world but it is a good way to do a scientific study of a microworld which is governed by its own set of rules. Surely testing and discovering the rules which govern a microworld strengthens our ability to understand other rule based systems including real world physics? Some advantages of this microworld: Its engaging Setup and cleanup are easy Bills suggestions are suitable for self-directed learning The cycle time to test a hypothesis is short, more time for cognitive conflict (deep thinking) With simulations you can perform experiments that are unsafe in
[IAEP] 2 new full Installs(.img and VMPlayer) available for Download
Today I uploaded 2 compressed file and accompanying readme.txt's Both still require a 4GB USB Stick. They are both cleared of /.sugar ready to use on first boot. They are made with F11net install CD with ONLY Sugar-Desktop selected. This is all possible as sdziallas recently modified the Sugar-Desktop to be standalone. Duplication of the .img file to multiple USB sticks (4GB Sandisk) has been tested and it works: ===Aug16 2009 Make USB stick: Make sure your USB stick is /dev/sd(?) FIRST (I use Ubuntu 9.04 partition manager to check it first) r...@:/home/robert/Desktop# dd if=USBsugar.img of=/dev/sdg bs=4k 982015+1 records in 982015+1 records out 4022337024 bytes (4.0 GB) copied, 520.015 s, 7.7 MB/s r...@:/home/robert/Desktop# dd if=USBsugar.img of=/dev/sdg bs=4k 982015+1 records in 982015+1 records out 4022337024 bytes (4.0 GB) copied, 747.457 s, 5.4 MB/s === all you have to do in terminal is hit the up arrow to repeat the command when the new stick has been inserted! Download them from Here: http://people.sugarlabs.org/Tgillard/ Next step is hopefully a installer in the next SoaS3 snapshot which can call on a KS file to reduce the install further. (being discussed) Have fun; Tom Gilliard Bend Or. satellit ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] deployment feedback (was Re: [Sugar-devel] GPA ain't the world (was: [Sugar-news] Sugar Digest 2009-08-11))
Tomeu Vizoso schrieb: On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 03:39, Raul Gutierrez Segalesr...@rieder.net.py wrote: On Thu, 2009-08-13 at 15:06 -0400, Walter Bender wrote: On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 2:17 PM, David Van Asschedvanass...@gmail.com wrote: [snip] Or are you saying the feedback is getting through and I'm just not seeing it? We all seem to agree that feedback is important. We mostly agree that there is value in feedback from all deployments, big and small. We are currently getting valuable feedback from the field: Sur, the Ceibal blogs, reports from Nepal, Greg's reports from GPA, et al. We need more feedback and therefore we are exploring additional means of getting it. You ideas are welcome! Perhaps a section in Sugar Digest with links to highlights of what went on in deployments during the week? Sounds like a great idea to me. Yes, this is indeed a great idea! Wearing a deployer-hat I must confess that we could (Paraguayan Deployment Team) do a better job filing tickets, giving feedback, etc. Will try to keep discipline from now on :-) This will be great. Also, what if each deployment lists somewhere (wiki?) the 10 bugs that would need fixed first and the 10 new features that need most? Definitely worth a shot. That way a volunteer developer would be able to relate his work to something actually useful somewhere else, as opposed to something that _he_ just thought was a good idea. I think this could be a powerful motivator to get more people involved. My thoughts exactly... :-) Christoph -- Christoph Derndorfer co-editor, olpcnews url: www.olpcnews.com e-mail: christ...@olpcnews.com ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
