[IAEP] educational brew

[Kathy Pusztavari]

"You could set up '4th grade math for Massachusetts' as a list of things to
master. It's quite similar to setting up a Makefile with a target that
exists purely to have a list of prerequisites." 

Albert - that is exactly what I was referring to.  A set of curriculum to
get you started but a good teacher could then go in and adapt the files or
make file for their standards (or find a local nerd to help).  I referred to
Turtle Typing.  Being a linux numbskull, I accidentally ran the MAKEFILE and
found out that it seeds your lessons.  Honestly, I had heard of MAKEFILE but
I didn't know what it did.  I threw those lessons into a temp folder and
replaced them all with my lessons.  I'm pretty good at cut and paste so the
5 lessons became 30 lessons and I only got started!  The lessons were
.lesson files written in python format so you have to figure out what format
and data the file needs to run the program the way you want.  I'll have to
be honest, when I saw Turtle Typing - that is when I figured out how
powerful activities can be for sugar.  I was able to use sugar to actually
do something important that - honestly - no other program could do.  Teach
typing at a level my son could actually succeed.

I might be slow but I get there eventually.

-Kathy
-----Original Message-----
From: iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org
[mailto:iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Albert Cahalan
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 2:04 AM
To: kathy at kathyandcalvin.com; Costello.Rob.R at edumail.vic.gov.au; Bill Kerr;
iaep
Subject: Re: [IAEP] educational brew

Costello, Rob R writes:

> most teachers that i know want to know that any 'innovation'
> 'addresses the curriculum'
...
> but this won't overturn the inertia in traditional curriculum content

To a teacher, is curriculum the raw state/national standard or is it instead
the content of the particular textbook that the school uses?

In any case, you're up against a compatibility issue. Students will
transfer, sometimes during the school year, and hopefully graduate.
An oddball school does a disservice to the students.

> for example i can see no maths curriculum in the world (i've been 
> looking at lots of them in detail recently) that is doing much more 
> than including a few references to recursion or iteration...
> (there was more 'programming' in my year 12 course in 1985)

Which other math would you eliminate to make room for this, and what will
happen to the students if they transfer or graduate without knowing that
other math?

BTW, though I like computer science too, this stuff isn't that useful.

> i also fully agree with Kathy that personalisation can mean software 
> intelligently adapts the sequence of lessons...
> i've seen that in action as well

I've been thinking about this. It's really valuable, though not so easy to
implement. Let's take 4th grade math as an example:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Math4Team/Resources/Curriculum_Chart

Suppose you wrote up lessons for all those. You'd get a lot of overlap with
the California standard, the Iowa standard, etc.
The overlap becomes severe if you add the rest of the grades.
Imagine having lessons to cover all standards.

To benefit from a given lesson, one must master any prerequisites.
This should remind you of building software with the "make" program or
perhaps installing software from RPM packages. Leaving aside the minor issue
of review, there is no point to presenting students with old lessons.
Leaving aside the minor issue of "testing out", there is no point to
presenting students with lessons that they have not prepared for.

You could set up "4th grade math for Massachusetts" as a list of things to
master. It's quite similar to setting up a Makefile with a target that
exists purely to have a list of prerequisites.
This target becomes a goal to reach. Once the goal is chosen, the software
supplies lessons as required to reach it. When more than one lesson would be
appropriate, allowing student choice could help to keep the student in a
good mood for learning.

Sadly, a real-world system would also need to provide distraction for the
students who are at risk for completing the grade before the end of the
year. Traditional schools don't tolerate that well.

> i know traditional curriculum can get suffocating and dry ..

Of course, dealing with "suffocating and dry" stuff is a valuable life
skill. :-/ Sitting down to slog through something boring is not easy for
many people.
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