article on "Church of TI" and the death of US K-12 math

[kirby urner]

Here's a useful article on what's keeping US kids in the Dark Ages:

https://mic.com/articles/125829/your-old-texas-instruments-graphing-calculator-still-costs-a-fortune-heres-why

Standardized testing is in cahoots with big inertia textbooks to promote a dinosaur curriculum, same money in charge of both.

The author doesn't mention the burgeoning world of alternative curricula that use -- not Desmos but -- open source software.

I'd like to thank Pearson especially for holding Americans back, giving the rest of the world a chance to surpass the US and level the playing field.

Pearson has been extraordinarily successful with its campaign.  It's a British company after all. [1]

A world wherein math teachers had a free hand to innovate, with schools able to compete on the basis of curriculum excellence, would be a whole different world.

That status quo is enslavement to big publishing and national standards and lost generations of unemployable, know-nothing Americans.

That curtailment of teacher freedom alone should be sufficient reason for Oregon to -- not leave the Union but -- assert its independence from UK rule.

Kirby

[1]  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/pearson-education-new-york-testing-_b_1850169.html

[Joseph Austin]

Kirby,

Back in the 90's, a college math teacher colleague was very proud of her innovative TI calculator-enriched program.

TI also offered a large selection of sensors and other attachments for collecting graphing data directly from experiments.

I recall taking a teacher certification test (in that same timeframe) where I was issued a calculator,

I suppose lest I had doctored my own, and presuming that I was familiar with it (which I wasn't really.)

More recently, Wolfram had been making a push to get their products into schools,

but I'm not sure how successful they have been.  I suspect a lot of these companies price themselves out of the mass market.

Have you tried "marketing" apps directly to the parents?

Once I did a Lego Robotics workshop for elementary kids,

but the week before I did one for parent/teen volunteers to serve as teacher-helpers.

I challenged them that, if their kids could learn this stuff, surely they could.

If the parents think they understand it, they might be more willing to buy the stuff for their kids.

At $50, there's really no good reason every kid can't have a tablet.  That's less than the price of a book. Or a pair of athletic shoes.

Joe

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MathFuture" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mathfuture+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to mathf...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/mathfuture.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[kirby urner]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 5:13 PM, Joseph Austin <drtec...@gmail.com> wrote:

Kirby,

Back in the 90's, a college math teacher colleague was very proud of her innovative TI calculator-enriched program. TI also offered a large selection of sensors and other attachments for collecting graphing data directly from experiments.

Yes, TI was cutting edge some decades ago, maybe.  Although I always preferred the HP to the TI personally.  Just seemed a smarter way to go, and the buttons felt more robust to the touch.  TI felt wimply.

HP dropped its calculator line and turned its Calculator Support Building into a nanotechnology lab run by Oregon State University.  I toured it a few years back, here's a write up:

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/11/onami-tour.html

That seems a more honorable exit from the market.  TI decided to hang on and milk it.  To this day.

 

I recall taking a teacher certification test (in that same timeframe) where I was issued a calculator,

I suppose lest I had doctored my own, and presuming that I was familiar with it (which I wasn't really.)

More recently, Wolfram had been making a push to get their products into schools,

but I'm not sure how successful they have been.  I suspect a lot of these companies price themselves out of the mass market.

Yes, true. 

Wolfram is on the Raspberry Pi free of charge, the $40 computer you can get from Amazon. 

I just got one.  Here's a picture:

https://flic.kr/p/JvQmh8  (new desktop computer!)
https://flic.kr/p/JvQn4Z   (so small!)

Peter Farell's curriculum uses the Pi for 3D graphics. 

I've tended to use VPython for 3D but its maintainers appear to have left it to die in the gutter at this point, hope I'm wrong.

Mathematica is too slow on the Pi, so the theory is they'll upgrade. 

In fact, they just need to stick with free technology at the "learning the ropes" level, which is less black boxy.
 

Have you tried "marketing" apps directly to the parents?

Not sure "apps" are the way to go as cell phone screens are waaaay too small to be satisfying.
 

Once I did a Lego Robotics workshop for elementary kids,

but the week before I did one for parent/teen volunteers to serve as teacher-helpers.

I challenged them that, if their kids could learn this stuff, surely they could.

I coached a MindStorms team also.
 

If the parents think they understand it, they might be more willing to buy the stuff for their kids.

The software they need is free. 

The hardware ain't that costly. 

Get a 2nd hand recycled thing and install Ubuntu?

The the school hasn't figured it out by now, it probably won't.  So write it off as irredeemably stupid?

In general, the next generation is way too trusting of the previous generation, not understanding about inertia.

 

At $50, there's really no good reason every kid can't have a tablet.  That's less than the price of a book. Or a pair of athletic shoes.

Joe

Buying the commodity hardware is the easy part. 

Finding a teacher who knows anything is harder, but not impossible given the Internet.

We're really worried about "stranger adults" with our kids, alone in a room (I support minimum of two teachers per classroom always, because we need to role model "adults getting along" and but one adult doesn't work for that). 

But with the Internet, there's no need for the adults in question to be geographically proximal, so a lot of the barriers to "certification" (authorization) evaporate. 

Students who get to be on-line with any freedom tend to discover ways to learn that the public schools cannot interfere with, much as they'd like to.  That's what gives me hope.

To parents I'd say:  if your school insists your kids buy TIs, take that as a very serious sign you're living in a dead end backwater.  Get online, or move, if you want them to get a serious education.

Kirby

[kirby urner]

Peter Farell's curriculum uses the Pi for 3D graphics. 

I've tended to use VPython for 3D but its maintainers appear to have left it to die in the gutter at this point, hope I'm wrong.

Actually I was too harsh.  The website verbiage is horribly unclear but the software is still operable.

I just checked the website again and see they've made steps integrating VPython with Jupyter Notebooks and Python 3. 

Excellent. 

I have at least one of the demos working.  Here's a screen shot:

https://flic.kr/p/JycA3v

The ball is actually jumping around in the actual demo, in real time.  Physicists have really liked VPython.

Vpython.org

The API is similar to Pi3D's, which latter is native to the Pi and its ARM chip architecture -- uses the GPU.

Kirby
 

[kirby urner]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 5:50 PM, kirby urner <kirby...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 5:13 PM, Joseph Austin <drtec...@gmail.com> wrote:

Kirby,

Back in the 90's, a college math teacher colleague was very proud of her innovative TI calculator-enriched program. TI also offered a large selection of sensors and other attachments for collecting graphing data directly from experiments.

Yes, TI was cutting edge some decades ago, maybe.  Although I always preferred the HP to the TI personally.  Just seemed a smarter way to go, and the buttons felt more robust to the touch.  TI felt wimply.

HP dropped its calculator line and turned its Calculator Support Building into a nanotechnology lab run by Oregon State University.  I toured it a few years back, here's a write up:

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/11/onami-tour.html

That seems a more honorable exit from the market.  TI decided to hang on and milk it.  To this day.

 

I recall taking a teacher certification test (in that same timeframe) where I was issued a calculator,

I suppose lest I had doctored my own, and presuming that I was familiar with it (which I wasn't really.)

More recently, Wolfram had been making a push to get their products into schools,

but I'm not sure how successful they have been.  I suspect a lot of these companies price themselves out of the mass market.

Yes, true. 

Wolfram is on the Raspberry Pi free of charge, the $40 computer you can get from Amazon. 

I just got one.  Here's a picture:

https://flic.kr/p/JvQmh8  (new desktop computer!)
https://flic.kr/p/JvQn4Z   (so small!)

Peter Farell's curriculum uses the Pi for 3D graphics. 

I've tended to use VPython for 3D but its maintainers appear to have left it to die in the gutter at this point, hope I'm wrong.

Mathematica is too slow on the Pi, so the theory is they'll upgrade. 

In fact, they just need to stick with free technology at the "learning the ropes" level, which is less black boxy.
 

Have you tried "marketing" apps directly to the parents?

Not sure "apps" are the way to go as cell phone screens are waaaay too small to be satisfying.

You probably meant apps on a tablet or even laptop in which case, yes, that's viable.

The article I cited points in that direction with Desmos.

As for smartphones, kids need classes in how to use them, and on how to stay safe on the Internet.

Most "schools" simply ban cell phones in the classroom and severely restrict Internet access.

I don't really think of those as schools though.  They're glorified daycare centers.

Kirby

[Maria Droujkova]

May I remind everybody to discuss math things we like and love. I understand that you like the article, Kirby, but I hope you and others also see the spirit of my message. 

Cheers,
Dr. Maria Droujkova

NaturalMath.com
Make math your own, to make your own math!

[kirby urner]

Sorry I get carried away sometimes.

Kirby

[Joseph Austin]

Kirby,

I have an Rpi of some vintage, but have not used it much.

What do I need to run Farell's stuff?

Can a Pi really compute Mandelbrot?

Joe

[Joseph Austin]

Kirby,

Back in the 90s the college where I was teaching was considering becoming a "Laptop U"--every student get a laptop.

In prep for that eventuality, we organized a summer workshop for teachers, "Computing Across the Curriculum",

in which we invited every teacher who was using some kind of computer app in the classroom to do a presentation.  

I was surprised how many presenters we had, and over a broad range of subjects.

Of course, you might expect that a school considering becoming a Laptop U was not totally Luddite!

I could also cite horror stories, but I think to make progress we need to tap into our better angels.

Joe

[kirby urner]

On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 11:19 AM, Joseph Austin <drtec...@gmail.com> wrote:

Kirby,

I have an Rpi of some vintage, but have not used it much.

What do I need to run Farell's stuff?

Can a Pi really compute Mandelbrot?

Joe

The Pi3D library is what you want for the Pi, Joe.

https://pi3d.github.io/html/

I've always wanted to make 3D graphics with my programs.

The one I've used the most is VPython or Visual Python.

Because that library has been so important to me, I tend to get cranky when I fear it's not getting the support it well deserves.  Vpython is not included in Python's standard library.

Pi3D is really cool too and Peter's book makes it not so intimidating.

====

My Usual Approach

My tendency when I encounter these tools is to discover their primitive Cylinder object (Pi3D has one)

I then use these cylinders to construct polyhedrons as wireframes i.e. cylinders become their edges.

I may use balls or spheres for vertexes (nodes).

Hoisting each cylinder into place may involve:

(1) having a cylinder first appear at the origin along the x axis, of the proper length
(2) rotating it around whichever axes, for proper orientation, and then
(3) translating it into place, away from the origin. 

The Icosahedron or whatever takes shape. 

Sometimes it's not quite that involved. 

I've played this game in VRML, and with POV-Ray (povray.org).

http://4dsolutions.net/ocn/pymath.html  (gives the flavor)
http://4dsolutions.net/ocn/pyx3d.html    (an implementation)

In the old days I'd also make Youtubes about doing this. 

http://4dsolutions.net/ocn/stickworks.html  (Youtube)

One of the libraries I talk about is called stickworks.py

http://4dsolutions.net/ocn/python/stickworks.py 
(example implementation for use with VPython)

Adapting stickworks.py to work with Pi3D is my latest goal.

Kirby