Suggestions for Edubuntu Syllabus?

[Susan Addington]

Hi,

I'm new to the list, having only heard about Ubuntu last week.

I'm in the process of developing a math curriculum/course/textbook  
for U.S. college students planning to be elementary teachers. I hope  
to publish this commercially, but I think making some of the  
activities available for any students/teachers to use is a good idea.

Here's the philosophy.

1. Students need to start mathematics by working with physical  
objects, lots of measurement. There is a Russian curriculum founded  
by Elkonin and Davydov that implements this theory from 1st through  
8th grades. (I don't think it involves much, if any, software.)
U.S. schools tend to teach mostly algorithms without context, and to  
turn interesting problems and activities into algorithms--see the  
results of the various TIMSS studies.

2. With a good base of understanding of what math is about, software  
can be useful. Some research shows that work with tables (e.g. Open  
Office spreadsheet) is a good way of making the transition from  
arithmetic to algebra. My book does this. I also use dynamic geometry  
software (Geometer's Sketchpad, Cabri). I also recently discovered  
GeoGebra; I assume it will run under ubuntu.

My curriculum is not ready to just give to a teacher or student, by  
any means. But I'd be interested in having someone try to use some of  
it with middle grades students (say age 10 and up.)



On Feb 27, 2006, at 1:42 PM, Mauricio Hernandez Z. wrote:

> On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 16:22 -0500, Jack Dausman wrote:
>> This last Christmas I went to Nairobi and installed six Edubuntu  
>> systems
>> for a computer lab in an AIDS orphanage.
>>
>> We'd like to use the lab with a syllabus or curriculum.
>>
>> Does anyone know of an available syllabus that works with Edubuntu?
>>
> If by syllabus you mean a cross-reference set of apps. or guide to  
> help
> both teachers and students when deciding which app. is recommended  
> for a
> specific subject... we don't have it, not that I know of, but it is
> something I consider very important to count with.
>
> At the end of April, in Chile, we'll have a 2 day event where we have
> big expactations to motivate teachers and students to start a kind of
> edu-community by giving us feedback and more info we can use to make
> things better in Edubuntu.
>
> Of course, you are more than welcome to start the syllabus idea as  
> soon
> as you can and share it with us all. Maybe you could take a look at
> wiki:EdubuntuSoftwareList to have some ground ideas.
>
> -- 
> Cordialmente,
>
> Mauricio Hernandez Z.
> (56+8)7496071
> (56+2)3129513
>
> www.ubuntu-cl.org
> www.edubuntu.org
> irc.freenode.net | #edubuntu #edubuntu-es
>
> www.tecnocimiento.cl/EdubuntuChile
>
> [I dream of things that never were and say 'Why Not?']
>
> ID #287183
> http://counter.li.org
>
> /!\ Mail escrito sin caracteres especiales para evitar
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Susan Addington
saddingt at csusb.edu, susan.addington at earthlink.net
Math Department, California State University, San Bernardino (USA)

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