Now that's interesting. I guess it's similar to cognets between English and Spanish. The word 'regular' means more or less the same thing in both languages, but the pronunciation is different.
As far as how it relates to mathematics, think of it this way:
Consider the expressions 2x and x2 (you'll have to pretend that's an "x squared"... we're superscriptically impaired in here).
One means "x multiplied by 2" and the other means "x multiplied by itself". Same two characters, but changing the order makes the concept being co mmunicated slightly different. You're still multiplying x by something, but what you're multiplying by has changed.
Everything in math from algebra up requires abstract processing capabilities that don't normally develop until puberty (at least that's the way it went with nearly all of the kids I've raised). Same thing goes for computer prog ramming and other abstract stuff. Kids who develop abstract processing capabilities before puberty usually turn out to be gifted.
But Chinese kids get exposed to similar concepts while they're learning to read and write their first language. It follows that they would at least have a shorter learning curve in making the transition from elementary to intermediate math.
This is cool. I haven't actually discussed anything with anyone here in a long time. }:-)
I live in West Tennessee, so as you can imagine, I haven't encountered just a whole lot of Asian-descent people who were born here. I'll have to take your word on that one... }:-)
I've had programming students (geeklings, as I like to call them) from Korea and they shared that perspective with me. It certainly seems plausible, but there are exceptions to everything.
As far as Japanese being different from English, it isn't *as* different as Chinese is. Japanese words appear to be constructed of letters and phonemes just as English words are. The letters themselves are different, of course, but they're used in a similar fashion.
By contrast, many Chinese words (if not most) seem to be represented by a single symbol. I remember that a Chinese fellow I went to college with taught me to read a few words. The way he explained it, there are base symbols for certain concepts and modifying those symbols sort of narrows the scope of what they represent.
For example, he showed me the symbol for food and I was able to identify other symbols that referred to specific types of food (like fish or rice) because of their resemblance to the symbol for food.
Actually, Asians kick ass in math because their languages are symbolic. The manner in which their brains process language is similar to the manner in which our brains (and theirs) process math. Essentially, they perceive a relationship between mathematics and language that we don't.
This phenomenon sometimes gets in their way when they're trying to learn languages like English or Spanish, but it definitely gives them an advantage in math.
No extra charge for the evoluti....um... intelligent design lesson. }:-)
The Alliance For Technology Access is a national organization made up of 50 or more Assistive Technology centers and dozens of vendors that assist people with disabilities. Although much of the technology is geared toward people with physical disabilities, there's quite a bit designed for people with mental and learning disabilities as well. Send an email to ATAInfo@ATAccess.org for more info.
Debian on workstations (gotta love apt-get). FreeBSD on servers (easy to setup). Knoppix for emergencies (trapped in a room with a bunch of Windows boxes)
I didn't mean humane, I meant human, as in 'being a decent human'.
I used the term marine because if I just said 'that guy' they might not have understood who I was talking about.
The war state of the nation he served is indeed irrelevant, at least to him, because he's dead.
Liability is also irrelevant because he's dead. He can't sue Yahoo or anyone else.
I'm sentimental... I don't even have a Yahoo account and couldn't care less about their privacy policies or those of any other corpie entity. I'm simply trying to point out the insanity of trying to protect the privacy of dead people.
I sent to following message to the abuse desk at Yahoo, listing 'Your Management' as the abusers:
"The dead marine can't sue you. Tell your management to take their balls out of their policy and procedure file and give them access to his email. It's all they have left of him and it's Christmas. Tis the season and all that..."
Whether I'm right or wrong, I'll never know. But it certainly seems like the human thing to do.
I work in an assistive technology facility and most of the screen reading software we see is Windows-based. JAWS has been around since the Windows 3.1 days, so it's got a distinct advantage in both market share and code maturity. As open source software gains market share, they may consider porting JAWS to Linux, but so far they don't seem interested.
There are a number of open source projects out there targeted at creating accessible software, such as the Gnome Accessibility Project. There's also Oralux, a liveCD distro that supports brailleterms and voice output using Emacspeak.
I find the Oralux approach very appealing since it's the first step toward blind users being able to carry a complete set of accessibility tools around on a CD that will work on stock x86 hardware. Students can access school computers without the need for accessibility tools actually being installed on the machine as long as the curriculum materials are not in a format that requires proprietary software.
What would really be interesting is to see Oralux boot from a memory card like Damn Small Linux does. Accessibility on a keychain would be rather groovy, and it would free up the CD drive.
When we have need to repair or reinstall a Windows box and don't yet have the network card working, we found it to be much easier to boot from Knoppix, download the drivers for the network card, store them on the windows partition, and reboot to Windows to install them. (Yes, I know that this is kind of like taking blood thinner to make the arsenic work faster, but...)
The technology exists to convert printed images to a tactile format. You print the image onto special paper and then run it through a heat machine similar to a laminator. The heat causes the paper to puff up everywhere black toner is present (Google for 'tactile image enhancer' for the geeky details of why it works).
At any rate, you end up with a map that the child can feel.
Repro-Tronics is one company that can provide you with the supplies you need. We've used this technology with low-vision clients and it works well. Contact any of the Vision Services staff at The STAR Center for more information about this technology. They may also have other suggestions for you.
We built an internal messaging system into our operations software last July and purposely left out email capability. Spam-free communication is a lovely thing, indeed.
For server skills, you might try installing FreeBSD and set up the services you need (apache, dns, dhcp, samba, etc) using the FreeBSD Handbook. The Handbook contains step-by-step instructions for all of the common services and is very well written. I used this approach in a college class I taught last semester and the students were able to set up services unassisted by the end of the class.
Once you know how to set services up in FreeBSD, you can easily port that knowledge to Linux. In most (if not all) cases, the config files have the same name, they're just stored in different locations.
For workstation skills, you might start off with one of the live CD distros like Knoppix. Just pop in the CD and boot your machine. It's a bit pokey running off the CD, but it won't touch your hard drive unless you run the installer. My 16-year-old son has been using Knoppix for several months and loves it.
Problem 1: The general thought process in many colleges is that they should teach students how to use Microsoft products because that's what most businesses use, hence their students have 'marketable skills'. Microsoft loves this because students that "grow up Microsoft" are less of a threat to their market share. Microsoft provides deep licensing discounts to colleges and universities for this very reason.
Solution: Make formal requests for classes in OSX and/or Mac programming. Get other students who share your opinions to do the same. Find out if any existing faculty members can teach the classes. If enough students request such classes, the administration may choose to offer them. This works for Linux and FreeBSD, also.
Problem 2: While Macs running OSX are far more robust than any XP box could hope to be, the added hardware cost makes deploying them on a large scale hard on the pocketbook, especially considering the lean IT budgets that many schools are operating under these days.
Solution: (also works for Linux and FreeBSD)
Apply for grants that will either make up the difference between i386 hardware and Mac hardware or buy the hardware outright.
Contact Apple for information on discounts that the school may qualify for.
Organize a fundraiser to assist in paying for the equipment.
Contact businesses in your area that use Macs and make them aware of the situation. Point out that your school could better prepare the local workforce for their future needs if it has the hardware to do so. As they replace workstations and laptops, they may be willing to donate them to you. They may also be willing to make a monetary contribution to help your cause, or even volunteer to assist you in an advisory capacity.
Problem 1: The general thought process in many colleges is that they should teach students how to use Microsoft products because that's what most businesses use, hence their students have 'marketable skills'. Microsoft loves this because students that "grow up Microsoft" are less of a threat to their market share. Microsoft provides deep licensing discounts to colleges and universities for this very reason.
Solution:
Problem 2: While Macs running OSX are far more robust than any XP box could hope to be, the added hardware cost makes deploying them on a large scale hard on the pocketbook, especially considering the lean IT budgets that many schools are operating under these days.
Do some volunteer work for a local non-profit. Most non-profits can't afford IT staff or outsourcing. If you know how to run ethernet cable and set up hubs and switches, offer to set up a network for them. They may even be able to get some of the materials donated. If you know Linux or FreeBSD, offer to recycle an old workstation into a server running some basic but useful services (samba, dns, dhcp, apache). If you're a programmer, offer to create a database for them. If you're good at web design, offer to update their website (or create one if they don't already have one).
Everything that you do for them you can put on your resume. It works. I know from experience... }:-)
I've worked in IT for a non-profit in Tennessee since 1995 (following 11 years in various corpie jobs). I'm making significantly less than just about *any* of my for-profit peers, but I have some rather groovy non-monetary benefits, including:
roughly 6 weeks per year paid vacation, including 10-14 days off from Christmas to New Year's Day.
an additional 6 days per year sick time
the authority to work at home at my discretion
near-autonomy in identifying and executing projects (if I have to buy something, I have to get approval)
a CEO who prefers that you NOT come to work if you're sick, lets you stay home to take care of your kids if *they* are, and answers to a Board of Directors that are *all* volunteers
I get to go to at least one conference per year (usually USENIX) and I'm allowed to take a train, even if the trip takes three days there and back for a five-day conference (I don't fly)
The trick is to connect them with other gifted kids and adults. The benefits are two-fold. One is that they get social interaction with people that dont' scratch their heads wondering what they're talking about. The other is that being around gifted adults gives them role models of what to do (and more importantly, what NOT to do) with their abilities.
I teach C++ (and other goodies) at the local community college. The first night of class, I have the students ssh into a FreeBSD server and introduce them to the command line. They have cheat sheets for common commands both at the command line and in Jed. By the end of that first class, they've learned enough about FreeBSD to be able to write and compile code. I also give them instructions for using PuTTY to connect to the server from home, so they're working in the exact same environment that we were using in the classroom. I'm going to do the same thing for PHP and MySQL in the fall.
I work for a non-profit org called The STAR Center. We made the switch to Linux nearly 5 years ago. Here's a NewsForge article that Jacqueline Emigh wrote about us a little over two years ago. We've since switched most of our servers to FreeBSD, but OSS is still the way to go.
TCO issues can be addressed in this manner. You have to have hardware either way. You have to have staff either way. The difference is that you can have as many servers and workstations as you need to support your user base, but there are no licensing fees or upgrade fees. True enough, you will probably expend a nontrivial amount of staff resources in migrating from Windows to Linux, but no more than you'd expend in migrating from Linux to Windows.
The other thing you need to keep in mind is that you don't have to be in any rush to do your migration. It's been five years since we migrated our server functions to Linux, but our workstations are still running Win98. Our ultimate goal is to have end users running Linux or FreeBSD, and every project we've undertaken since the initial migration has brought us a little closer to that goal. Slowly but surely, we're making our way there.
We developed a PHP application to handle them. Basically, that's the only way we accept requests. Geeks have access to the queue, can add notes to each request, message the user, and close the request. It also supports associating parts usage with a request and has reporting features such as number of requests completed by cost center, after foo date, between foo date and bar date, etc.
In technology, accessibility means designing (or modifying) a program or device so that people with disabilities can use it the same as everyone else. In architecture, it means designing (or modifying) buildings so that people with disabilities can easily get into and out. For more info, check out the Americans with Disabilities Act
Slashdot Mirror
Now that's interesting. I guess it's similar to cognets between English and Spanish. The word 'regular' means more or less the same thing in both languages, but the pronunciation is different.
As far as how it relates to mathematics, think of it this way:
Consider the expressions 2x and x2 (you'll have to pretend that's an "x squared"... we're superscriptically impaired in here).
One means "x multiplied by 2" and the other means "x multiplied by itself". Same two characters, but changing the order makes the concept being co
mmunicated slightly different. You're still multiplying x by something, but what you're multiplying by has changed.
Everything in math from algebra up requires abstract processing capabilities that don't normally develop until puberty (at least that's the way it went with nearly all of the kids I've raised). Same thing goes for computer prog
ramming and other abstract stuff. Kids who develop abstract processing capabilities before puberty usually turn out to be gifted.
But Chinese kids get exposed to similar concepts while they're learning to read and write their first language. It follows that they would at least have a shorter learning curve in making the transition from elementary to intermediate math.
This is cool. I haven't actually discussed anything with anyone here in a long time. }:-)
Sorry, wasn't trying to start an argument there.
I live in West Tennessee, so as you can imagine, I haven't encountered just a whole lot of Asian-descent people who were born here. I'll have to take your word on that one... }:-)
I've had programming students (geeklings, as I like to call them) from Korea and they shared that perspective with me. It certainly seems plausible, but there are exceptions to everything.
As far as Japanese being different from English, it isn't *as* different as Chinese is. Japanese words appear to be constructed of letters and phonemes just as English words are. The letters themselves are different, of course, but they're used in a similar fashion.
By contrast, many Chinese words (if not most) seem to be represented by a single symbol. I remember that a Chinese fellow I went to college with taught me to read a few words. The way he explained it, there are base symbols for certain concepts and modifying those symbols sort of narrows the scope of what they represent.
For example, he showed me the symbol for food and I was able to identify other symbols that referred to specific types of food (like fish or rice) because of their resemblance to the symbol for food.
Fascinating stuff, languages... }:-)
Actually, Asians kick ass in math because their languages are symbolic. The manner in which their brains process language is similar to the manner in which our brains (and theirs) process math. Essentially, they perceive a relationship between mathematics and language that we don't.
This phenomenon sometimes gets in their way when they're trying to learn languages like English or Spanish, but it definitely gives them an advantage in math.
No extra charge for the evoluti....um... intelligent design lesson. }:-)
The Alliance For Technology Access is a national organization made up of 50 or more Assistive Technology centers and dozens of vendors that assist people with disabilities. Although much of the technology is geared toward people with physical disabilities, there's quite a bit designed for people with mental and learning disabilities as well. Send an email to ATAInfo@ATAccess.org for more info.
Debian on workstations (gotta love apt-get).
FreeBSD on servers (easy to setup).
Knoppix for emergencies (trapped in a room with a bunch of Windows boxes)
I didn't mean humane, I meant human, as in 'being a decent human'.
I used the term marine because if I just said 'that guy' they might not have understood who I was talking about.
The war state of the nation he served is indeed irrelevant, at least to him, because he's dead.
Liability is also irrelevant because he's dead. He can't sue Yahoo or anyone else.
I'm sentimental... I don't even have a Yahoo account and couldn't care less about their privacy policies or those of any other corpie entity. I'm simply trying to point out the insanity of trying to protect the privacy of dead people.
I sent to following message to the abuse desk at Yahoo, listing 'Your Management' as the abusers:
"The dead marine can't sue you. Tell your management to take their balls out of their policy and procedure file and give them access to his email. It's all they have left of him and it's Christmas. Tis the season and all that..."
Whether I'm right or wrong, I'll never know. But it certainly seems like the human thing to do.
I work in an assistive technology facility and most of the screen reading software we see is Windows-based. JAWS has been around since the Windows 3.1 days, so it's got a distinct advantage in both market share and code maturity. As open source software gains market share, they may consider porting JAWS to Linux, but so far they don't seem interested.
There are a number of open source projects out there targeted at creating accessible software, such as the Gnome Accessibility Project.
There's also Oralux, a liveCD distro that supports brailleterms and voice output using Emacspeak.
I find the Oralux approach very appealing since it's the first step toward blind users being able to carry a complete set of accessibility tools around on a CD that will work on stock x86 hardware. Students can access school computers without the need for accessibility tools actually being installed on the machine as long as the curriculum materials are not in a format that requires proprietary software.
What would really be interesting is to see Oralux boot from a memory card like Damn Small Linux does. Accessibility on a keychain would be rather groovy, and it would free up the CD drive.
When we have need to repair or reinstall a Windows box and don't yet have the network card working, we found it to be much easier to boot from Knoppix, download the drivers for the network card, store them on the windows partition, and reboot to Windows to install them. (Yes, I know that this is kind of like taking blood thinner to make the arsenic work faster, but...)
The technology exists to convert printed images to a tactile format. You print the image onto special paper and then run it through a heat machine similar to a laminator. The heat causes the paper to puff up everywhere black toner is present (Google for 'tactile image enhancer' for the geeky details of why it works).
At any rate, you end up with a map that the child can feel.
Repro-Tronics is one company that can provide you with the supplies you need. We've used this technology with low-vision clients and it works well. Contact any of the Vision Services staff at The STAR Center for more information about this technology. They may also have other suggestions for you.
We built an internal messaging system into our operations software last July and purposely left out email capability. Spam-free communication is a lovely thing, indeed.
For server skills, you might try installing FreeBSD and set up the services you need (apache, dns, dhcp, samba, etc) using the FreeBSD Handbook. The Handbook contains step-by-step instructions for all of the common services and is very well written. I used this approach in a college class I taught last semester and the students were able to set up services unassisted by the end of the class.
Once you know how to set services up in FreeBSD, you can easily port that knowledge to Linux. In most (if not all) cases, the config files have the same name, they're just stored in different locations.
For workstation skills, you might start off with one of the live CD distros like Knoppix. Just pop in the CD and boot your machine. It's a bit pokey running off the CD, but it won't touch your hard drive unless you run the installer. My 16-year-old son has been using Knoppix for several months and loves it.
Solution: Make formal requests for classes in OSX and/or Mac programming. Get other students who share your opinions to do the same. Find out if any existing faculty members can teach the classes. If enough students request such classes, the administration may choose to offer them. This works for Linux and FreeBSD, also.
Problem 2: While Macs running OSX are far more robust than any XP box could hope to be, the added hardware cost makes deploying them on a large scale hard on the pocketbook, especially considering the lean IT budgets that many schools are operating under these days.
Solution: (also works for Linux and FreeBSD)
Problem 1: The general thought process in many colleges is that they should teach students how to use Microsoft products because that's what most businesses use, hence their students have 'marketable skills'. Microsoft loves this because students that "grow up Microsoft" are less of a threat to their market share. Microsoft provides deep licensing discounts to colleges and universities for this very reason.
Solution:
Problem 2: While Macs running OSX are far more robust than any XP box could hope to be, the added hardware cost makes deploying them on a large scale hard on the pocketbook, especially considering the lean IT budgets that many schools are operating under these days.
Everything that you do for them you can put on your resume. It works. I know from experience... }:-)
The list goes on.
Try a non-profit. You may find it was worth it.
The trick is to connect them with other gifted kids and adults. The benefits are two-fold. One is that they get social interaction with people that dont' scratch their heads wondering what they're talking about. The other is that being around gifted adults gives them role models of what to do (and more importantly, what NOT to do) with their abilities.
I teach C++ (and other goodies) at the local community college. The first night of class, I have the students ssh into a FreeBSD server and introduce them to the command line. They have cheat sheets for common commands both at the command line and in Jed. By the end of that first class, they've learned enough about FreeBSD to be able to write and compile code. I also give them instructions for using PuTTY to connect to the server from home, so they're working in the exact same environment that we were using in the classroom. I'm going to do the same thing for PHP and MySQL in the fall.
nmap -sV random.victim.with.money.com
I work for a non-profit org called The STAR Center. We made the switch to Linux nearly 5 years ago. Here's a NewsForge article that Jacqueline Emigh wrote about us a little over two years ago. We've since switched most of our servers to FreeBSD, but OSS is still the way to go.
TCO issues can be addressed in this manner. You have to have hardware either way. You have to have staff either way. The difference is that you can have as many servers and workstations as you need to support your user base, but there are no licensing fees or upgrade fees. True enough, you will probably expend a nontrivial amount of staff resources in migrating from Windows to Linux, but no more than you'd expend in migrating from Linux to Windows.
The other thing you need to keep in mind is that you don't have to be in any rush to do your migration. It's been five years since we migrated our server functions to Linux, but our workstations are still running Win98. Our ultimate goal is to have end users running Linux or FreeBSD, and every project we've undertaken since the initial migration has brought us a little closer to that goal. Slowly but surely, we're making our way there.
...use a lightsabre instead.
... oh dear..."
"I knight thee in the name of... ZZZWURTCH
I'm using Mozilla on Debian with popups blocked and I got no commercials from espn, ivillage, or lycos?
We developed a PHP application to handle them. Basically, that's the only way we accept requests. Geeks have access to the queue, can add notes to each request, message the user, and close the request. It also supports associating parts usage with a request and has reporting features such as number of requests completed by cost center, after foo date, between foo date and bar date, etc.
In technology, accessibility means designing (or modifying) a program or device so that people with disabilities can use it the same as everyone else. In architecture, it means designing (or modifying) buildings so that people with disabilities can easily get into and out. For more info, check out the Americans with Disabilities Act