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Saturday, August 31, 2002

Many of you would be able to sing along with this one, since it was hard-coded into your very being on Saturday mornings if you grew up in this country. It's not just for children, kids...

The Preamble

Music & Lyrics: Lynn Ahrens
Sung by: Lynn Ahrens
Animation: George Cannata

Hey, do you know about the U.S.A.?
Do you know about the government?
Can you tell me about the Constitution?
Hey, learn about the U.S.A.

In 1787 I'm told
Our founding fathers did agree
To write a list of principles
For keepin' people free.

The U.S.A. was just startin' out.
A whole brand-new country.
And so our people spelled it out
The things that we should be.

And they put those principles down on
paper and called it the Constitution, and
it's been helping us run our country ever
since then. The first part of the Constitution
is called the preamble and tells what those
founding fathers set out to do.

We the people
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity,
Do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.

In 1787 I'm told
Our founding fathers did agree
And wrote a list of principles
That's known the world around.

The U.S.A. was just starting out
A whole brand-new country.
And so our people spelled it out
They wanted a land of liberty.
And the preamble goes like this:

For the United States of America....

Go register to vote now, if you can and haven't done so already. And please vote this November in a way to help the candidates remember what this little ditty is all about.

8:04:20 PM [] blah blah blah'd on this

So, how would you try to explain...

So many flamewars crop up about which programming language is best to use in a first course for computer science students, with lots of arguing done by students and instructors. To me, shouting about the tool used only obscures the main point of a first course, to learn the fundamentals that cut across all of these tools, for instance: algorithms, logic, control structures (e.g., if's, else's, whiles), a Turing machine, basic data structures (e.g., lists, arrays, ...), iteration, and recursion.

Although the choice of a language will have a serious impact on how much is placed before a naive student (actual quote" "Pay no attention to the line starting "public static void main", but make absolutely certain it is there for now. No, you aren't ready to understand what it means yet, but maybe after your third class..."), or whether they will be able to use that language often in the next few years (actual quote: "Scheme? They still teach that? Really?"), the language is primarily there as a way for the student to display their mastery of the fundamental concepts, and secondarily to show some mastery of a selected syntax.

Therefore, it might be argued that what should be hotly debated is the best way (what analogies or similes, for instance) to communicate the fundamental concepts to people who must clearly understand these new ideas.

So what is the best way you have heard someone explain recursion to a non-programmer (let's say this is someone without a strong mathematics background)?

7:01:15 PM [] blah blah blah'd on this

Let the revisionism... Begin!

The Chronic(le of Higher Education), which in recent years editorially has been leaning toward being a home of tabloid-style journalism, reports on a 9-11 site aimed at teachers. The Teaching 9-11 site was created by folks in the Clarke Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Contemporary Issues, which is at Dickinson College.

Clarke Center officials decided to link the site to Web sites they deemed reliable -- those run by universities, government agencies, and major news organizations. "We haven't used anything that's like 'Joe's Web site on 9-11,'" says Jennifer Moll, a graduate assistant at the Clarke Center who spent several weeks scouring the Internet for useful material.

It's unclear how the Chronic reporter or his editor is spinning "reliable" here -- veracity of content, or issues of link-rot. I'd think it shameful if the reason is the former. To ignore the personal stories of an event of this magnitude, particularly when there are still so many outstanding non-traditional resources available (*ahem* weblogs) is a disservice to any who truly want to provide their students a balanced view of how the events of that day changed so many people.

And isn't that the alleged point of that site, anyway? Wouldn't teaching critical thinking skills involve having to make judgements about statement and accounts of an event? It's ironic The Clarke folks have decided to link only to sites that have already heavily filtered the flow of information. For many historians, primary sources are a preferred resource. Now, with so many people weblogging, there will be more primary sources captured for historians to seek out. Yes, many of them will be filled with tripe, bile, and rampant inaccuracy. But some won't. And the activity of Google and future search engines (and happy incidents like the recovery of so many "lost" Usenet posts due to one set of backup tapes in Toronto) mean the availability of the information captured in those blogs in the future will be pretty good.

Here's a short list of sites that did point to primary sources that I think might be included in the Teaching 9-11 site, and are likely to be fairly link-rot resistant.

What sites would you want to include to help create the broad focus that should be available to people who want to learn about and from those events? Feel free to share 'em in the comments, or blog 'em and blink to this post...

1:45:10 PM [] blah blah blah'd on this