Date: Nov 12, 2012 1:18 PM
Author: kirby urner
Subject: Re: How teaching factors rather than multiplicand & multiplier<br> confuses kids!
On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 10:12 AM, kirby urner <firstname.lastname@example.org> wrote:
> Portland has a magnet schools system and schools are free to specialize.
> Students close by zip code have automatic slots but families are free
> to cross-apply and many do so i.e. Winterhaven PPS was outside of our
> default district.
> Winterhaven PPS allowed me to come in, as a parent and community geek,
> to take the 8th grade for a multi-day spin. Here's a 2-page record of
> what we covered.
Familiar themes if you've followed me on math-teach. A lot of the
same emphasis on GIS / GPS.
Google Earth = Spherical Object = Multi-faceted Polyhedron
is how it goes, linking Geometry with Geography. That's at the core
of my STEM writing in a lotta ways.
I had about 30 - 35 students, all with computers, or maybe they were
paired come to think of it (this was quite awhile back).
We used Python but not Visual Python that time. I started using
VPython in Saturday Academy classes sometime later I think.
Which reminds me, we also have Saturday Academy.
That's like a Silicon Forest institution that experiments with new
curriculum ideas such as mine.
This summer, I got the very best lecture hall at University of
Portland for my Martian Math curriculum.
That's a different sequence than you'll find in say Florida or New
York. No problemo. We're free to go our separate ways.
Uncle Sam cannot stop us and maybe smart enough to even encourage us
(50 states as 50 laboratories used to be the rhetoric).
Now add more "virtual states" and you'll start getting a realistic
picture (i.e. many states are in Cyberia, such as Python Nation with