Re: LOGO-L> Re: Recursive Stars

[George Mills <mills@softronix.com>]

jstclair@omsd.cerf.fred.org wrote:
> 
> Please reply to bh@anarres.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Harvey)  or
> logo-l@gsn.org   NOT   logo-list@gsn.org  or  me.
> 
> -John
> --Message below re-posted by <jstclair@omsd.cerf.fred.org>
> Date - 21 Dec 1997 15:59:00 GMT
> >From - bh@anarres.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Harvey)
> To - jcstclair@omsd
> Subject - Re: LOGO-L> Re: Recursive Stars
> Usenet: comp.lang.logo
> ------------------
> Post Usenet mail to comp-lang-logo@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
> ------------------
> 
> Michael Tempel <michaelt@media.mit.edu> writes:
> >>These "Pages" are the curriculum of one of my courses. The rationale of
> >>it is to define, analyze and then execute each one of them in Logo. If I
> >>provide solutions I miss my own goals for that course.
> >
> >The is the same discussion that George Mills entered into in repsonse to
> >Brian Harvey's article about the internet. Does having "the answer"
> >available short circuit learning?  Some people learn best by looking at
> >other peoples work and then tinkering with it to make it their own.  Logo
> >programming is an ideal environment for this.
> 
> It's not exactly the same discussion.  This is more like the old one about
> whether square-triangle-house is a good Logo curriculum, although at a
> much more advanced level.  When you are providing materials for your own
> course you have a lot of control, and I'd guess that the best thing is
> to have a four-level approach:
>         1.  Here are some examples with the code that produced them.
>         2.  Here are some more examples without code.
>         3.  See what you (the student) can produce under these constraints
>                 (whatever characterizes the set of figures under discussion).
>         4.  What mathematics can you abstract from these experiences?
>                 (I'm thinking about things like a formula for whether
>                  it's possible to draw an N-pointed star as a poly.)
> 
> My discussion with George is less related to what Yehuda should put on his
> own web page, and more related to how Yehuda should react to the fact that
> undoubtedly someone somewhere has posted code (probably in Java) to produce
> the same figures he is interested in.  If a student turns up with such a
> URL, should the reaction be "Very enterprising, you get an A," or
> "you cheated"?  And if last year's teacher was a gung-ho Web enthusiast
> who said "let's see what's on the Web about this" as the first step in
> considering any problem, was that good or bad?

Sorry if I misunderstood (or overstated) the points your trying
to make. But as I noted earlier, I think your covering two topics
both worth discussing. One is the "hyp" and the other is it's "use".
You basically started discussing the "hype" issue and then cited
"use" examples.

I do think you have your job cut out regarding students finding
answers on the the net. But I think the issue is an old one and
similar techniques can be used to resolve it. Like proposing
the problem with out using the "common" name. Doing problems
in class. Expecting them to be honest and saying don't use the
internet for this problem (just as a math teacher says don't use
a calculator). The old stand by "show your work". Add a twist on
the problem to see if they really learned it. Tests. And probably
many others.

I don't think the hype is out of line. You've been gradually exposed
to the internet over the period of 20 years and most have been
exposed to it over a very short period with out the education you
have. I'm actually very impressed with how well many non "computer
literate" folks have adapted and make good use of it.

By the way I agree with you. The some of most valuable information on
the web is newsgroups. That's why I often search the "USENET" before I
search the "WEB". It often turns up more current, more relative and
more valuable information. When I was at DEC we used to have
"nngrep" (search all subjects lines of all news groups in just a
few seconds) which I missed very dearly until the "search engines
came on line". I won't even touch a search engine that does not
support USENET.

Slightly off the topic (more towards your hype issue but I still liked
it).
But there is a great ad by IBM regarding the web. A father is putting
together a bicycle on XMAS eve. He had it partly together when he lost
the instructions. He was "discussing" it with his wife that he could not
finish it without the instructions.

Little did he know the soon to be owner of this bike (a little girl)
was watching very worriedly. When the father said lets pack it back
up and save it for her birthday she ran into her room onto her
IBM (Intel Inside of course) onto the web she went and printed out the
instructions and threw them over the railing. The father instantly
found the instruction he was looking for.

-- 
===============================================================
George Mills (mills@softronix.com)
http://www.softronix.com/
The www page contains some very powerful educational software.
Our single most important investment is our kids.
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