dhudson Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 My ds is heavily involved in Scratch ( a programming language from MIT for kids). He is a design studio curator and is a beta tester for them. He found out that several of the creators ( The head of research for the Media Lab from MIT and a Prof from Berkeley ) were at a convention here in Denver and emailed them to see if he could meet them. They e-mailed back that they would love for him to come to the convention and help in one of their workshops. Afterwards, they talked with ds and dh for several hours. One of the main recommendations that they had for ds was to focus more on math and less on computers. They strongly recommended getting into discrete math, although I think that will have to wait until college. They also recommended that he focus on Java and read this book, "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" . www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Programs-Engineering/dp/0262510871 My ds was highly encouraged and so very excited. I found their recommendations helpful as it can help us structure ds' next two years. I though it might help others here who are homeschooling Math and Computer kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLDebbie Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 That's cool. I teach Scratch at our co-op and I bet half the kids want to be game designers when they grow up. I'll let them know about these recommendations and try to encourage the math skills. It's amazing when I ask what seem to be simple math questions (x and y axis, number of degrees in each angle of a hexagon) and they look at me with blank looks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 How amazing for your ds! That was some great initiative to take on to email and meet these guys. Maybe I sound ignorant here, but can someone explain what discrete math is? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 FWIW, an acquaintance of ours, who had a very significant presence in MIT's media lab in the past, strongly recommended participation in high school math contests such as the AMC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Maybe I sound ignorant here, but can someone explain what discrete math is? This :) http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=discretemath My two silly kids happen to like number theory and graph theory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 There are good high-school or earlier discrete math books as well. AOPS, for a start, and if he went through their intro to nt/cp and their intermediate cp he'd be easily ready for college-level coursework. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 There are good high-school or earlier discrete math books as well. AOPS, for a start, and if he went through their intro to nt/cp and their intermediate cp he'd be easily ready for college-level coursework. This is our plan. DS, a comp Sci major, sees friends struggling in their discrete math classes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 There is a discrete math 89 page worksheet from the link in this thread for anyone interested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhudson Posted March 7, 2013 Author Share Posted March 7, 2013 My ds is doing AoPS so hopefully that will help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathy in Richmond Posted March 8, 2013 Share Posted March 8, 2013 My ds is heavily involved in Scratch ( a programming language from MIT for kids). He is a design studio curator and is a beta tester for them. He found out that several of the creators ( The head of research for the Media Lab from MIT and a Prof from Berkeley ) were at a convention here in Denver and emailed them to see if he could meet them. They e-mailed back that they would love for him to come to the convention and help in one of their workshops. Afterwards, they talked with ds and dh for several hours. One of the main recommendations that they had for ds was to focus more on math and less on computers. They strongly recommended getting into discrete math, although I think that will have to wait until college. They also recommended that he focus on Java and read this book, "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" . www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Programs-Engineering/dp/0262510871 My ds was highly encouraged and so very excited. I found their recommendations helpful as it can help us structure ds' next two years. I though it might help others here who are homeschooling Math and Computer kids. dhudson, how exciting for your son! I'm sure that visit will motivate him greatly in his studies. Speaking as the mom of an MIT computer science grad, those profs were right on in emphasizing the importance of his math studies! The text they recommended to you is available free online here. There's even an MIT OCW class available utilizing it. One of the authors, Hal Abelson, used to teach the introductory computer science major course 6.001 at MIT, which my son took and later TA'd. MIT modified their introductory CS curriculum a few years ago (more learning through hands-on robotics now - ds was a guinea pig for the new classes :-), & so they no longer base the class on that text, but it's still considered to be foundational to programming by many people. Yes, discrete math is a must for future computer science majors. MIT's Math for Computer Science class is also available online for free in OCW. According to ds, it's very appropriate for high schoolers who want to learn the kind of math that they'll need in CS. As far as programming and computer science prep goes, my son told me once that one of the most useful things he'd done at home that helped him in college CS was participating in the USACO. After he'd messed around with several programming languages on his own, I had him take an AP CS class to learn Java. His teacher required him to complete a step in the (again, free!) USACO training program each week. It's very much a mathematical approach to CS and will take a kid as far as he can possibly go (my ds never reached the end of the training!). The kids can opt to participate in regular computer programming contests online, too (the goal of USACO is to train a team for the computing olympiad). But you could just enjoy the training w/o the contest if you wanted. FWIW, an acquaintance of ours, who had a very significant presence in MIT's media lab in the past, strongly recommended participation in high school math contests such as the AMC. Yes, another excellent idea. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 SICP is a great book, but it goes very fast and very deep and assumes a high level of math background. If it is too heavy for your DS right now, another option is "How to Design Programs 2e". It is also taught in scheme but goes a little slower and has more graphics to lighten things up. You can get it free online at http://www.ccs.neu.e...matthias/HtDP2e . This could be a good option for younger students and SICP could be the next step. Good Luck -chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhudson Posted April 3, 2013 Author Share Posted April 3, 2013 SICP is a great book, but it goes very fast and very deep and assumes a high level of math background. If it is too heavy for your DS right now, another option is "How to Design Programs 2e". It is also taught in scheme but goes a little slower and has more graphics to lighten things up. You can get it free online at http://www.ccs.neu.e...matthias/HtDP2e . This could be a good option for younger students and SICP could be the next step. Good Luck -chris Actually, my ds enjoyed SICP but I will show him your link because he so enjoys anything Comp Sci. He just recently wrote a program in SNAP that allows him to control a WII remote and the Lego NXT which is really cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Yes, math is what usually holds computer science and IT students back. It isn't necessarily that you have to do that level of math after college, but you have to have the procedural and analytic abilities that are part of math to excel at very complex programming. When I used to teach web design at the college level, I found that the students who really struggled with it were almost always also behind in math. It is all part of the same thinking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FourOaks Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Just wanted to say thanks for this thread! It is so incredibly informative and helpful!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 It's amazing when I ask what seem to be simple math questions (x and y axis, number of degrees in each angle of a hexagon) and they look at me with blank looks. Oh you too??? I have the same blank looks in a robotics class. I ask even simpler questions, like how many degrees in a circle... Or how do you calculate the circumference. Heck, even what's a circumference! What ages do you teach? I'd be interested in knowing more about your class. I got my kids started with Scratch, but I don't feel ready to teach it at co-op (although I most likely will) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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