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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Amazing students

One of our students brought her home project in today. It was a bot that flipped over backwards, like a gymnast on a high bar. The smiley face on the display made the bot look just like a person. Students understood the physics that were involved - centrifugal force and gravity. Kudos, Schuyler! And a girl, yet! I have spoken to several parents about the need to encourage gifted girls in the fields of math and science. My daughter decided by sixth grade that she was not good in math or science and dropped out of AP Physics in high school, against the advice of her teacher. She resisted computer use, since the other three members of the family spent a lot of time on the computer. She used it to check the humidity in order to know whether to put her hair up or not.

We learned today how to record an action, upload it to the computer, save it and run it with the action in the program. Some of the students had to rerun their program over and over to get it to run. They are definitely ready for a career in computer science, where perseverance in the face of adversity is a great strength.

1 comment:

Harriet said...

I am loving reading about your course. My son is doing CFG's program in Buffalo Grove, but if you're teaching this next year, we may have to try the extra trek to Grayslake.