happy christmahannukwaanza

Still getting lots of interesting email from people in various parts of the world about the TED video.

Also getting inquieries about BreakDancer -- this one from a student in Linda Rodrigues' hs class in california:

hi Mr. eglash how are you
i am in Mrs. Rodrigus's class and i got the website but when need to create the frames
how we do that..................i clicked on the software button on the left side of the screen...........but nothing comes...............it just says loading but really doesn't do anything can you tell me about that please
thanks a lot

Will need to get that online community created ASAP, so the students can start helping eachother out rather than emailing me...

RE

data from calif and VA; eval proposal; Evie proposal

Have not blogged in a while, various updates: received thank-you letters from AfAm high school kids in Richmond VA; lots of good data there on what they liked about the cornrows site. Made copies and sent to Chance Lewis. Same for Breakdancer--pre/post tests from Linda Rodrigues (math teacher at Logan high School in Union City CA, bless her heart)--copies sent to Chance. Tiffany and I have also worked with Chance on a proposal for supplementary funding for enhancing our evaluation (at the NSF's suggestion). Chance did a nice write-up and hopefully will submit this week.

Finally Evie sent us a fanstastic proposal for her new interface for the breakdancer tool. It is not only great for breakdancer but also gives a model for how every tool could be advanced: a general version that allows custom programming for advanced users, and a more specific, user-friendly version for beginners.

RE

Updates week of Nov 17

Received email from a professor at Boston U looking to use African Fractals in her classroom; recommended she look over the CSDTs as an activity

Jim Barta, professor of education at Utah State U, has hooked us up with Native American math teacher Sharee Secakuku, who will try out the design tools.

The NSF is interested in doing some PR with CSDTs, have given them a list of teachers they can talk to about it.

Linda Rodrigues said that her students were starting work with the BreakDancer tool, but that the menu link to the tutorial was broken, so I repaired it.

interesting blog

Alfred Thompson's ideas on Ideal First Programming Language

so far this term

• maintenance of the old breakdancer project.
• many bugs fixed and some new features(like saving into xml) are added.
• extracted an API of breakdancer to be used in the choreography project which is to be developed by Tiffany's team, and in the pCSDT project.
  
• a documentation describing the installation, checking out from repository, usage of the API has been added. Last week, Evie told me that she successfully set up the project.
• all the codes are in repository.

• development of the pCSDT project.
• current state of the project is described in the previous post.

• other
• all the other codes written by me are added to the repository.
  

state of pCSDT

Let me put my first entry violating the guidelines as well. I'll give the current state of the pCSDT software.

Although it's still far from having aesthetically pleasing appearance, now it provides more functionality. Here are some of the latest additions to the project.

• Object creation: As seen in the snapshot, it is possible to create and add objects from the bottom left panel of the applet. Once a class is selected, it shows a dialog box in which you give the object a name. Once an object is created, all object lists are updated. (see method call).
  
• One issue about this panel: Some objects may need initial values for construction so this panel can update itself according to the selected class to set the initial parameters.
  

• Variable Panel : This panel can be seen under the "Variables" tab of the tabbed panel. In the upper part, the list of active variables are listed. Whenever a variable is created, it is declared as global and the user should give the type and initial value here. So even if the value of a variable changes by an assignment statement in the coding space, the variable list shows only the initial value. Variable creation panel is just below the list, and it shows the message of success/failure message after each variable creation attempt. As in the objects, variable lists are updated whenever a new variable is created. Currently there is no type checking.
• 
• Method Calls: As seen in the first picture, there is a rectangular box named "Method Call". Once it is dragged&dropped to codding space, a method call code is added to the coding area. This panel composed of three main parts:
  
• Object Combo Box: Users should select one of the active objects from the object list. According to the selected object, methods combo box updates its contents.
• Method Combo Box: It fetches the possible methods according to the selected object. Currently we do only support pre-defined methods.
  
• Parameters Panel: According to the selected method, it updates the panel. Since each method has a different signature, (i.e. different number of parameters, parameters in different types) this panel updates itself. The names of the parameters can be seen as tipToolTexts. (e.g. Z can be seen in the snapshot) As of now, we only have textboxes per parameter, but they should also able to enter variables or expressions. ( see expressions)
• 
  
• Expressions: This panel does not work or seem as expected as of now. But it should provide a recursive GUI. As seen in the next screenshot, this loop should run as long as the selected variable equals an expression. This expression can be a value (number, string), a variable, or a new expresion composed of two expression connected by an operator. In the variable case, it should give a combobox of variables, and the last case it should update the panel so that now there are 2 expression and a combobox for the operator.
• 

The following issues should be discussed:

• Appeareance: Having panel for each statement fills up the coding space very quickly. We should try to find ways to shrink those things.
• Variables: Will we need other types than integer or string? What kind of operations will we define on them? Type checking also needs to be done.
  
• Save/Load: Saving and loading can be added just for the coding space easily. But how will we make saving custom methods(such as, let's say "moonwalk" method)? Even how to create new methods is still unresolved.

Hardware and software

I am curious about the uses and limitations of computing platforms. I looked at the adaptability of Walmart $199 computer as well as the use of OLPC for this project.

I have been thinking of the time spent between the innovations in Computer Software Development/Research Issues and making a software perfect - what roles should this project play?

Also thinking of the use of sketchup (google product) to teach 3 dimensional geometry and urban planning.

To compare the role of scratch with what we are doing - what are our innovations?

so far on week of 11/5/07

• Turned in our annual report to the NSF.
• Talked to undergrad Melissa Megna about her use of rhythm wheels at ACCS
• Talked to Tiffany Barnes about her use of CSDTs at local library, and her upcoming teacher training session.
• Working with undergrad Renzo Lombardozzi on Maple sim for 3D baskets; will ask Hilmi for a JOGL demo example that Renzo can hack (spent way too much time looking for one myself online).
• Spoke to Lynn Dierking at Oregon State U--she has been showing CSDTs to math ed grad students, one will be in the area this week.
• Am slightly more hopeful about java 6 on the mac after seeing http://stuffthathappens.com/blog/2007/10/28/os-x-java-definitive-timeline/
  
  And its only tuesday...

Welcome to the Blog

Let us plan on writing two blogs per person per week - one blog on Monday describing what we are planning to do for the project, one blog on Friday evening describing what we accomplished and how many hours we spent on this project.