[OLPC library] Lessons learned from Navajos - OLPC for kids - Graphics first, lessons second - Motivate the learner (Here's an example)

[Edward Cherlin]

>  ________________________________
>  From: katie [mailto:katie at belisle.org]
> Sent: Wed 1/30/2008 8:56 AM
> To: Brown, Henry, DoIT
> Cc: Ivan Krstic; Edward Cherlin; arjunsarwal at gmail.com;
> library at lists.laptop.org
> Subject: Re: [OLPC library] Curriculum for developing world OLPC - 3D Maya
> -> Scratch -> 3DOrbiter - Application based learning
>
>
>
>
> Greetings,
>
> I have created a wiki template Mathematics that simply adds the
> Mathematics category to a page. This can be expanded in the future.
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Category:Mathematics

Thank you. I added it to the Executable Math page.

> Meanwhile, I will attempt to add the salient points of this thread to
> the talk page.
>
> I am a professional mathematician

I started out to become a mathematician, then veered off to the Peace
Corps and Buddhist seminary.

> and a long time school volunteer with
> enrichment maths (my daughter tells her friends that her Mamma is a
> Mathemagician!).  Children learn to fear the subject of Mathematics at
> about Middle School, and if they don't learn to love Mathematics during
> elementary school, we've lost them.

It's when we teach them that there is only one right answer, and they
don't have it. Also when we lie to them, usually without even knowing
it. My mentor told me of being taught that a variable is a number that
changes in value, which of course actual numbers never do. She was
unable to do algebra all her life, until I explained that a variable
name is a pronoun that can refer to a different number on each use.
She then took half an hour to review everything she had sort of
learned. She found that she could do it all, and that was that.

Real mathematicians, of course, delight in discovering new answers to
old questions: negative and complex numbers, non-Euclidean geometry,
non-standard arithmetic, Conway numbers and games...

> When I became involved with OLPC as a volunteer my primary goal was to
> bring some of the best maths software to the XO, either as a complete
> Sugar port, Browse activity access or other thin client, and help young
> children understand the beauty and importance of Mathematics, which is
> the fundamental language of the universe.

As in Emmy Noether's discovery that every mathematical symmetry in
physics is equivalent to a conservation law.

> Right now I am helping Adam and Kim with the G1G1 support queue, but I
> want to capture these ideas for near-future development. These are
> fantastic ideas.

Yes, we must capture these and other ideas, and bring the profession
into the development process. I'm recruiting.

> -Kate

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay