Re: [Edu-sig] F.Y.I.: this month's cover story for CACM is OLPC: Vision vs. Reality (cross posted)
gerry_lowry (alliston ontario canada) wrote: heading F.Y.I.: this month's cover story for CACM is OLPC: Vision vs. Reality (cross posted) http://www.acm.org/ Also note, in this issue Mark Guzdial has a Viewpoints article entitled Education Teaching Computing to Everyone. The article discusses Georgia Tech's policy of all undergraduates students must take a CS course experiences for the last ten years. They talk a lot about the success they've had, but at the cost of making several distinct courses. The requirement they used was, students would 'be able to make algorithmic and data structure choices' when writing programs. Initially they used a course that had a success rate (end wit C or better) of 78% overall, but architecture, management, and public policy majors were at below 50%. Also, females failed at twice the rate of males. After moving to the newer cross-developed courses, they had those three groups all at over 85% success. They did three basic courses, the ongoing CS course, a MATLAB-based course for engineers, and a media computation (manipulate sound and images (really, at the level of pixel manipulation, not just crop and bind) using Python. The media course used Python as the language. The new media course achieved an 85% success rate for the three groups above, and had women succeeding at the same or better rates than the male students. Apparently Guzdial wrote the thextbook for the media course, Introduction to Computing and Programming in Python, a Multimedia Approach, Prentice Hall, 2005. This change was so successful that, second courses for both engineering and media are now in place (the demand was high), and they've introduced a CS minor. --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] F.Y.I.: this month's cover story for CACM is OLPC: Vision vs. Reality (cross posted)
Scott: The media course used Python as the language. The new media course achieved an 85% success rate for the three groups above, and had women succeeding at the same or better rates than the male students. Interesting stuff Scott. My eldest did a combined theater-CS major in Tennessee (Clarksville, close to Nashville) plus we have titles discussing the interface in a theatrical context, almost impossible to think API and not think puppet (if you're a theater person). Given we don't have CS pre-college, at least not in PPS (Portland Public), yet a strong interest in theater, there's some thought to expand the theatrical track with Python in at least a few areas, with people as objects in the Sims / Avatar sense (been looking at this with Lindsey a little, Perl heritage, strong SVG skills). Another cohort: the phys ed teachers. Using these Google Streets cameras one has the ability the survey an ecosystem like Oaks Bottom (near Winterhaven) then start molding raw data and footage into GIS presentations, again using Python perhaps. I'm hoping some of these projects reach Vern Ceder's desk, even before the next Pycon. A dodecacam in Montana might be nice (an NPYM pipe dream at the moment, though I've met the CTO). Yo ho! I noticed a follow-up to Cherlin's by someone who seemed on the clueless side, assuming the severely under-served (in terms of electrification) would remain so, i.e. the background setting seemed static in his mind and in either/or competition with XOs i.e. if you spend money on XOs, then you'll not be able to have any vaccines or other trade-offs of a Draconian nature (reminds me of Pink Floyd's how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?! -- one of those fuddy dud types). I posted about Jeff's eduPycon idea @ conferences list (Python.org), look forward to more thinking, also was nudged into Facebook groups by the leadership, admit to being a dweeb over here, spinning on my butt like that OSCON-purchased EuroPenguin with the Pythonic API and voice synthesizer (need to dust him off again? -- the new software does even more they tell me). Kirby ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
[Edu-sig] F.Y.I.: this month's cover story for CACM is OLPC: Vision vs. Reality (cross posted)
http://www.acm.org/ Regards, Gerry ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] F.Y.I.: this month's cover story for CACM is OLPC: Vision vs. Reality (cross posted)
Hey thanks for the pointer Gerry, I'll be interested in others' opinions of that analysis. Mine is somewhat different in that I think real tangible evidence of a positive future is a threat to moneyed interests pushing a different agenda, otherwise we'd have seen XOs on Tony the Tiger cereal boxes by now, whereas they're only just getting around to sharing free memory stix: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/3535504824/ http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=17157315%40N00q=grunchm=text (more cereal box pix) Not that you'd get an actual XO in the box (too heavy), but it's a really fascinating story that could've been shared on a voluntary basis by companies interested in boosting the OLPC agenda e.g. Kellogg's and like that. Lots more in my blogs, where the XO is faithfully marketed (plus I have two, one for the roadshow, one on loan to a young child on a rotating basis -- like a library): http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=XOw=17157315%40N00 Kirby On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 7:56 AM, gerry_lowry (alliston ontario canada) gerry.lo...@abilitybusinesscomputerservices.com wrote: http://www.acm.org/ Regards, Gerry ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
