I've owned a Kindle 2 for three weeks. I subscribe to the NY Times on it. Having it automatically delivered to the Kindle every morning is great! I don't even need to get out of bed. I spend about an hour each morning reading the articles. I don't use the table of contents; I prefer to read linearly from front to back. Doing so has certainly led me to read many more articles than I normally would have using something like Google News. It's this kind of "serendipitous reading" that makes reading a magazine or newspaper so much more enjoyable than cherry-picking articles on a website. If the article is accompanied by a compelling picture, I'm even more likely to read it.
The news industry is gravely worried that ability for websites and our browsers to filter and deliver exactly the kind of information we are specifically interested in will negatively impact our society in the long run. Sure, I can focus your reading to just the articles I like, but that's the problem: I'd rarely read alternative viewpoints or stumble across previously-unknown subjects. It's been a real pleasure.
Take a look at the How to Design Programs curriculum (www.teach-scheme.org). The textbook is online and free (as in beer): www.htdp.org. There is a large and active mailing list for supporting the curriculum. The IDE is free: www.drscheme.org.
It's suitable for college freshmen and, with some adjustment, for high school. There are at least a dozen high schools around the country using it to prepare their students for the AP exam.
The heart of HtDP is that it is done in Scheme and uses "language levels" to adjust the syntax to the students' level. I have come to believe that this is key to enhancing the student experience. You don't let a beginning surgeon work on live bodies -- you give them simpler tools and subjects and progress toward the more complex.
By modifying the syntax to suit the student, you can make the syntax very simple at the start and add on complexity as the student progresses.
In the first chapter, the ONLY syntax rule you have to learn is this: all expressions have the form "left parenthesis, operator, argument(s), right parenthesis."
(operator argument...)
That's all you have to learn. If you can match parentheses, you can program in Scheme at the beginning level. No semicolons, no braces, no "public static void main", no "x = x + 1".
And here's the coolest part: at the end of the very first class, your students will be making simple animations by plugging an expression into the provided animation engine. They can make a ball fall, a rocket take off, a soccer player run -- whatever suits their fancy and can be defined in terms of a single input. Your students will get a huge kick out of it. In what other language can someone make an animation on the first day?
This summer, attend one of the TeachScheme, ReachJava workshops. They're free for college instructors and high school teachers are covered pending leftover funding. You'll learn from the designers of the HtDP curriculum how to present the material and how to adjust it to suit your academic level (high school, college, etc.).
This is probably the best, succinct advice I've read. Go to the liberal arts college for your BS or BA. Afterwards, if you feel inclined to further your education, go to an engineering school for your Master's or PhD.
Ah! So if I consider my 8-bit 20" monitor as being one giant pixel (with 1680*1050*3 sub-pixels), then it is capable of displaying 1,351,224,000 colors. We could advertise monitors as being capable of displaying "billions" of colors. Neat!
I'm using a Contour Design PerfitMouse http://www.contourdesign.com/pmo/. It comes in seven sizes, from small to XL, and for lefties and righties. I got the XL size and it fits me like a glove. Yes, it's big, but I have big hands. Regular mice now seem too small. The mouse cost me over $100 but, believe me, when it comes to your health, cost is no object.
Like the parent poster suggested, this mouse comes with a thumb scrollwheel and an additional rocking thumbswitch. My hand is tilted at approximately 20 degrees. Not vertical, but not horizontal, either. It's very comfortable to use.
It took me about two weeks to get used to it. In other words, it took about two weeks for my hand to "unlearn" its unnatural grip on a regular mouse and to instead stretch out on the PerfitMouse.
Does the mouse look sexy on my desk? No. Is it wireless? No. Is it comfortable and pain-free to use? YES!
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I've owned a Kindle 2 for three weeks. I subscribe to the NY Times on it. Having it automatically delivered to the Kindle every morning is great! I don't even need to get out of bed. I spend about an hour each morning reading the articles. I don't use the table of contents; I prefer to read linearly from front to back. Doing so has certainly led me to read many more articles than I normally would have using something like Google News. It's this kind of "serendipitous reading" that makes reading a magazine or newspaper so much more enjoyable than cherry-picking articles on a website. If the article is accompanied by a compelling picture, I'm even more likely to read it.
The news industry is gravely worried that ability for websites and our browsers to filter and deliver exactly the kind of information we are specifically interested in will negatively impact our society in the long run. Sure, I can focus your reading to just the articles I like, but that's the problem: I'd rarely read alternative viewpoints or stumble across previously-unknown subjects. It's been a real pleasure.
They're still made by Ramsey Electronics (www.ramseyelectronics.com). Look under Learning Kits.
1. Drop Firewire from MacBook.
2. Angry users buy new MacBook Pro instead.
3. Profit!
It's suitable for college freshmen and, with some adjustment, for high school. There are at least a dozen high schools around the country using it to prepare their students for the AP exam.
The heart of HtDP is that it is done in Scheme and uses "language levels" to adjust the syntax to the students' level. I have come to believe that this is key to enhancing the student experience. You don't let a beginning surgeon work on live bodies -- you give them simpler tools and subjects and progress toward the more complex.
By modifying the syntax to suit the student, you can make the syntax very simple at the start and add on complexity as the student progresses.
In the first chapter, the ONLY syntax rule you have to learn is this: all expressions have the form "left parenthesis, operator, argument(s), right parenthesis."
(operator argument ...)
That's all you have to learn. If you can match parentheses, you can program in Scheme at the beginning level. No semicolons, no braces, no "public static void main", no "x = x + 1".
And here's the coolest part: at the end of the very first class, your students will be making simple animations by plugging an expression into the provided animation engine. They can make a ball fall, a rocket take off, a soccer player run -- whatever suits their fancy and can be defined in terms of a single input. Your students will get a huge kick out of it. In what other language can someone make an animation on the first day?
This summer, attend one of the TeachScheme, ReachJava workshops. They're free for college instructors and high school teachers are covered pending leftover funding. You'll learn from the designers of the HtDP curriculum how to present the material and how to adjust it to suit your academic level (high school, college, etc.).
This is probably the best, succinct advice I've read. Go to the liberal arts college for your BS or BA. Afterwards, if you feel inclined to further your education, go to an engineering school for your Master's or PhD.
Even better!
Ah! So if I consider my 8-bit 20" monitor as being one giant pixel (with 1680*1050*3 sub-pixels), then it is capable of displaying 1,351,224,000 colors. We could advertise monitors as being capable of displaying "billions" of colors. Neat!
My friends have been trying for years to convince me that basketball matters.
Like the parent poster suggested, this mouse comes with a thumb scrollwheel and an additional rocking thumbswitch. My hand is tilted at approximately 20 degrees. Not vertical, but not horizontal, either. It's very comfortable to use.
It took me about two weeks to get used to it. In other words, it took about two weeks for my hand to "unlearn" its unnatural grip on a regular mouse and to instead stretch out on the PerfitMouse.
Does the mouse look sexy on my desk? No. Is it wireless? No. Is it comfortable and pain-free to use? YES!