View source for User:Tonyforster

== Me == 
http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/  blog, random thoughts, Turtle Art samples

http://www.freewebs.com/schoolgamemaker/  game programming and learning

forster at ozonline dot com dot au

Interests:
Activities which maximise the opportunity for self-directed learning: low floor, wide walls and high ceiling with particular emphasis on the walls and ceiling. My Sugar favourites: [[Activities/TurtleArt-0.88 | Turtleart]], Scratch, Etoys. [http://www.yoyogames.com Game Maker] still my Windows favourite.

Currently user testing Turtleart and Sliderule, experimenting with [[Activities/Pippy | Pippy]]. Supporting the [http://www.seaton-olpc-ug.org/?q=node/54 Timor Leste deployment].

== Preschool student Activities, some links==
Radia Perlman in the 70s when at student at MIT did extensive experiments with preliterate children and the LOGO turtle and built a number of interfaces for them. She also spent some time at Xerox PARC and did many similar experiments with chldren 3 years on up.

http://www.formatex.org/micte2006/virtual/pdf/582.pdf
see fig 3 with plastic cards showing visual images of turtle commands

http://www.formatex.org/micte2006/virtual/ppt/582.ppt
similar image

http://logothings.wikispaces.com/
towards the end, photo of Radia Perlman's Button Box for Pre-Schoolers

http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~mcnerney/personal-ubicomp.pdf
more discussion than the above

== Turtle Art - text free ==
To what extent could pre-literate children use Turtle Art?

Are graphics on blocks really better than text?

Does keeping text labels help develop literacy?

What graphics are best?

Some features, eg. the heap are unlikely to be used by pre-literate children, should they be omitted or retained with text labels?

The following graphic is a discussion starter

[[Image:Textfreeturtle.jpg|300px]]

or another [[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/images/c/cd/Iconic_Turtle_Art.odt suggested layout]]]

== Text-less outdoor lesson for Turtle Art ==
[[File:Outdoor-TA.jpg|400px]]

== Sliderule ==
* http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/2010/09/pippy-sliderule.html Pippy [[File:Pippy_sliderule.doc]]
* http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/2010/09/turtle-sliderule.html Turtle art
* http://www.freewebs.com/schoolgamemaker/#lobject  Game maker
* [[File:Slideruletute.pdf]] tutorial

== Software Freedom Day Melbourne 2010 ==
[[File:Softwarefreedomday10.pdf]] presentation

http://luv.asn.au/sfd2010/ photos

== Sea Surface Temperature Mapping ==
Sea surface temperature mapping
Inspired by http://oceanpc.org a program to read and display temperature data available at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/sst.html 

The data format is described at ftp://eclipse.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/ersstv3b/README

The first record in the [ftp://eclipse.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/ersstv3b/ascii/ file ersst_v3b_2010_2019.asc] , the 2010 to 2019 data set, reads:
 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999   -19    13    18    11     7    25    64   132   255   427   607   791   990  1198  1408  1616  1816  1999  2149  2258  2327  2360  2365  2355  2347  2359  2393  2443  2500  2568  2654  2736  2789  2826  2869  2904  2911  2903 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999  1489  1432 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999   713 -9999   656   715   780   796   744   669   596   476   298   156   113    70  -134  -180  -180  -180  -180

-9999 represents land, the other numbers are degrees C x100
This record represents a line running from the south pole through to the north pole in 2 degree increments at longtitude 0 for the first month and year. The next record is for lattitude 2 degrees east and so on.

<b> Sample Pippy program </b>

This Pippy mapping program is supplied as a starter and as inspiration for further investigation

[[File:Write Activity sst.odt]] Pippy code as open office doc. Copy from a Write session, paste into Pippy and run. 


<b> Challenges </b>
* Display the other months and years in the file
* Display the month and year in the title bar
* Animate the display
* Do a legend
* Display the temperature at the cursor
* Map other data
* Error checking
* Display partly corrupted data sets without crashing
* Create models of ocean or atmosphere
* More ideas at http://marinedataliteracy.org/index.html


[[File:Screenshot of "pygame window".png|300px]]