Post B1DP4GiN3y8uCIy3LU by BarneyDellar@mastodon.scot
(DIR) More posts by BarneyDellar@mastodon.scot
(DIR) Post #B1CoqB7BUPKAQTYWAK by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T12:31:11Z
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I have discovered that teaching programming goes much better with my fifth grade students if I take the time to teach them about all the symbols I think of as "normal" that are totally new to them."These are square brackets, you'll find them over the 'enter' key we use them for lists. In programming we have three kinds of brackets..."This reduced confusion so much. And I feel a little silly for not realizing that OF COURSE they don't know what they characters are or how to type them.
(DIR) Post #B1CoxKRjC5ypOTZgBs by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T12:32:35Z
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I've been aware of that in math for a long time. Never ever write a new symbol without stopping to explain it. "This is beta, it's a Greek letter we use it for angles ..."No one ever told *me* these things. I was just tossed in the deep end but that's no reason to do that to anyone else.
(DIR) Post #B1CpJrITjhedeKzWE4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T12:36:39Z
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Nothing can make a student feel like they are "totally lost" and "will never get it" more than suddenly not even knowing what the symbols are or how to write them or even find them on a keyboard. If you teach CS keep in mind that many people don't know how to type [] or {} and things like [a, tx, 5] "is a list of 3 items" are not "obvious"...
(DIR) Post #B1CpYDGSrGrjpotTeK by noplasticshower@infosec.exchange
2025-12-13T12:39:14Z
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@futurebird I loved learning new symbology
(DIR) Post #B1CpdGbBtAQLcjzwuW by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T12:40:10Z
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When I was in grad school for math the one day when I felt most like "I don't even belong here." was the day that my Complex Analysis prof suddenly wrote ∮ on the board and being mostly self-taught in Calculus having mostly passed test to skip various pre-recs I already felt like I didn't really "get" calculus like everyone else. Seeing some new integral I'd never seen before made me just want to die. I don't even know what that is!Be careful with symbols. Make them friends.
(DIR) Post #B1Cq1CbsN4jsCbjS0e by GinevraCat@toot.community
2025-12-13T12:44:26Z
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@futurebird Such a blindingly obvious insight when you point it out!I did this with mathematics students learning to use graphic calculators. It's amazing how many of them can be absolutely certain they understand a calculation but when they try it they can't get the correct answer because of bracket positioning.
(DIR) Post #B1CqDN7V7Y38H2KLz6 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T12:46:41Z
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@GinevraCat CS is a much younger field than math and many of the people doing the teaching learned from a kind of immersion that obscures more efficient and broadly effective ways to teach these concepts. I don't even remember how I learned was a bracket was or how lists works and I was implicitly assuming it was "obvious" just something you pick up from using a computer. This is NOT the case. Open the door and let more people in.
(DIR) Post #B1CqEIHka77HZKYqNE by toni@zug.network
2025-12-13T12:46:47Z
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@futurebird I remember a few years ago professors complaining that their students "don’t even know what a directory is anymore."Yeah, then, teach them that? If they mostly interacted with operating systems that hid file and directory structures from them, you can’t expect them to magically know those things.When I started studying in 2002, one professor showed us how to find his website from the university‘s homepage. Because that was a relatively new skill. Now you need to show people how to find a file, when they aren’t indexed and shown per app. What’s the difference?
(DIR) Post #B1CqidftcX5WavKBeq by noplasticshower@infosec.exchange
2025-12-13T12:52:19Z
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@futurebird @GinevraCat please please please write a book about this
(DIR) Post #B1Cr4eVTCyo7XrwdPs by semitones@tiny.tilde.website
2025-12-13T12:56:10Z
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@futurebird i'm not sure if it was designed by pedagogues, but basic on the TI83 calculator was such a great way to learn programming without being taught, because you could just scroll through menus and discover what pieces fit where and what typology you needed.Also, we were forced to carry it with us, and eventually we were banned from using certain functions of it, which added to its mystique.
(DIR) Post #B1CrEcWDSEboH92xNY by gbargoud@masto.nyc
2025-12-13T12:58:03Z
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@futurebird @GinevraCat It's all built on the previous generation of tools by people who found the previous generation of tools obvious because they had been using them for a long time.Had some real struggles at work when updating deployment tools about how much history I should put in the documentation for incoming team members to help explain why things work the way they do.
(DIR) Post #B1CrHD9mCpK4UAmoFs by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T12:58:35Z
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@noplasticshower @GinevraCat I'm slowly writing up my best lessons as I develop them with my students and in a few years I may well have a small book on teaching the foundations of computer science for fifth graders. I want everything in to be mostly "timeless" so it can't be about teaching any particular programming language.
(DIR) Post #B1CrWE7qsxy1po2v0i by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T13:01:17Z
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@noplasticshower @GinevraCat I want my students to be well positioned to control and effectivly use computers with mathematics and logic. I want them to see how computers fit in the wider suite of information technologies such as books, writing, cyphers, radio etc. This is why binding a book is part of the class. Here are the ways we can store and organize information, here is all of the technology developed over human history: it's all yours now!
(DIR) Post #B1CrfviUBXNHdSoA3E by noplasticshower@infosec.exchange
2025-12-13T13:03:01Z
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@futurebird @GinevraCat I tried teaching my kids scheme at 12. Did not work. Your soon to be book would have been hugely helpful. The thing you just said about symbols resonates. (I am not and have never been a teacher...I am just a real computer scientist steeped in fundamental theory and its application in the real world. I can't teach music either even though I am a real violinist.)When you get your book done I would love to help promote it.
(DIR) Post #B1CsENPXixObNGNC4m by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T13:09:16Z
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@glitzersachen @noplasticshower @GinevraCat It's being forgotten as you describe, but even kids still know at some level how powerful books are.When they complete their book binding they run around the school showing it to everyone "Look I made a book! It's a real book!"When I saw that happen the first time I tried teaching them about binding I knew it would stay in the course forever. THAT is what I want to do as teacher.
(DIR) Post #B1Csp58Yd4AVPfvlaa by feministmom@eldritch.cafe
2025-12-13T13:15:52Z
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@futurebird Oh, I remember how in 6th grade in Chemistry class the teacher simply started writing on the blackboard the headline "The Mole"And me, being a tidy student with a nice handwriting and a neat exercise book, decided that I won't use abbreviations and instead wrote the headline "The Molecule".It took half the lesson for me to realise that he had introduced a comletely new concept and was teaching us about Avogadro's number and stuff. 😑
(DIR) Post #B1Ct0OoHpF4Nc5qUSG by KatS@chaosfem.tw
2025-12-13T13:17:55Z
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@futurebird Excellent thinking.It'll also be worth mentioning at some point that the square ones are brackets, the curved ones are parentheses, and "curly-brackets" are in fact braces.No level-headed person will yell at them for using the wrong term, but it'll help if they can recognise them.
(DIR) Post #B1Ct2jQu7ZWS9Z1Mdk by Phosphenes@mastodon.social
2025-12-13T13:18:19Z
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@futurebird I write code from equations and it is frustrating. To understand the language of math I have to:Know what Greek symbols are called, and have those symbols on my keyboard so I can write them and search for them.Know the precedence of operations I've never seen before. Assume parenthesis where none are written.Or: Know a math professor OR quit my job to get a degree in mathematics.I'd like to see a library of equations all translated to algorithms. It's a simpler vocabulary.
(DIR) Post #B1Ct4sf0mgpjLpe0au by quizzicus@mastodon.online
2025-12-13T13:18:44Z
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@futurebird As a student, I remember having the same difficulty in calculus. I think the symbols were more of a stumbling block than the actual concepts.
(DIR) Post #B1CuqCm7uptTIh6Ohs by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T13:38:29Z
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@glitzersachen @noplasticshower @GinevraCat What makes a book a "real book" ?It needs to feel substantial, like it could last through the ages. Simply stapling, or clipping some pages together won't do it. When you sew paper together it become much more durable. (I've only come to appreciate this recently) Give it a protective cover and then it feels like a "real book" -- we look at various binding methods from around the world. What are your favorites?
(DIR) Post #B1Cv9DSNbddgurvm76 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T13:41:58Z
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@glitzersachen @noplasticshower @GinevraCat Are there any good books (heh) that approach bookbinding not as a technology from a broad perspective?I have a lot of great sources but they tend to be "how to" books... I'm looking for theory. Something with depth beyond the basic history of "first there were scrolls, then there were books, etc etc."
(DIR) Post #B1CvJpcOZqcgATg44u by Bookherd@urbanists.social
2025-12-13T13:35:48Z
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@feministmom @futurebird This reminds me of my high school Chemistry class, where the teacher suddenly started referring to something called „margaids.“ I had a tenuous grasp on the class to begin with, and margaids really confused me. It wasn’t until I saw the word written down that I realized he was talking about diagrams, and he was amusing himself at the expense of his students. I dropped out of the class and graduated without Chemistry.
(DIR) Post #B1CvJqvDjLH8D9Uc3k by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T13:43:50Z
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@Bookherd @feministmom I don't understand why he'd call a diagram a margaid? What is a margaid??
(DIR) Post #B1CvcCuAjicHbRkqQ4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T13:47:11Z
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@noplasticshower @GinevraCat The idea of writing a lesson plan without a group of students in mind has always confused me. Lessons grow out of the students you encounter. I'm always trying new things and refining them. I keep a journal for each of my classes where I try to write up how each lesson worked but this is an easy step to skip since the "benefit" of that work is far in the future when you teach the course again.But the benefit is HUGE. So I think we teachers have to keep at it.
(DIR) Post #B1CvrfY0WhhwmPlBVw by pdcawley@mendeddrum.org
2025-12-13T13:49:53Z
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@futurebird @glitzersachen @noplasticshower @GinevraCat I have fond memories of "The Book on the Bookshelf" by Henry Petroski. I don't think it's *quite* the book you're looking for, but it gets close. Been a while since I read it though.
(DIR) Post #B1CvxIUBBN10zbeYV6 by PizzaDemon@mastodon.online
2025-12-13T13:50:58Z
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@futurebird Amen. The first time I saw a prof put a ^ , ', ~,etc over X.... I was like "WTF is even happening? Why is he talking about hats? What does Optimus Prime have to do with this? Are we going to a bar after class?"
(DIR) Post #B1CwX8oub1sBRMRUJ6 by cobbpg@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-12-13T13:57:25Z
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@futurebird In the 80s a lot of BASIC textbooks followed a similar methodology, because at the time it was expected that the reader would be new to computers.
(DIR) Post #B1Cwh3vvcVuLBDSH7w by bogosity@im-in.space
2025-12-13T13:59:12Z
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@futurebird @noplasticshower @GinevraCat A book like that would be amazing! I also learned programming concepts so long ago (50 years now) that I don't remember anything about discovering them beyond my initial impression that GOTO was cool.
(DIR) Post #B1CwsYZE44OrNHJiEK by bartholin@fops.cloud
2025-12-13T14:01:21.964328Z
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@futurebird And now we will use the frog hieroglyph𓆏
(DIR) Post #B1Cxep99j2w0h98ecy by kentenmakto@mastodon.ie
2025-12-13T14:10:02Z
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@futurebird @Bookherd @feministmom 'Diagram' backwards. I suppose *maybe* he was discussing chirality and trying to be funny. Trying.
(DIR) Post #B1CxqIiW7kgTai9QxM by jayalane@mastodon.online
2025-12-13T14:12:04Z
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@futurebird @GinevraCat hmmm interesting idea on the youngness of the field. Also I guess when we oldsters self taught it was way simpler. I could by a book on assembly language for an 8 bit computer and make a game just by screwing around. It was the only computer I had access to. Now just to get started you have to pick one out of forty different subsets of computers and environments.
(DIR) Post #B1Cy3iWZU5ULOaxdqa by superball@norcal.social
2025-12-13T14:14:32Z
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@futurebird “Diagram” spelled backward.@Bookherd @feministmom
(DIR) Post #B1D1Iq55yCxx2U0mI4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T14:50:56Z
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@KatS OK this is a bit new to me I thought that all of these things:() [] {}Are brackets. {} Braces, Fancy Brackets, Curly Brackets() Parenthesis, Round Brackets[] Brackets, Square Brackets, Computer bracketsAre there more names?I tend to think of [] as the "default" but others have suggested that () are the default ...
(DIR) Post #B1D34N714yb1308hc0 by KatS@chaosfem.tw
2025-12-13T15:10:42Z
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@futurebird It's true that they're all commonly referred to as brackets, and I'm 99% sure that parentheses were referred to as "brackets" when I was learning arithmetic. These things are a wonderful source of confusion.I don't know of more names than those, but then "computer brackets" is a new one on me, so I'd bet on "yes."It could also be a useful way of emphasising that programming is one of those fields that's especially prone to things having several names. Like pound-sign/hash-sign/octothorpe, for another - especially when you're talking to somebody who's used to paying in pounds sterling.
(DIR) Post #B1D3EMPWXgCPleYitk by NicelyManifest@mastodon.social
2025-12-13T15:12:29Z
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@futurebird Teaching is a kind of black art. You need to forget all you know, in a way, in order to fully see what the students know.
(DIR) Post #B1D3eBnIdXVIN0zojQ by dogfox@kpop.social
2025-12-13T15:17:09Z
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I think math and science papers should have margin notes wherever symbols are introduced/defined. @futurebird
(DIR) Post #B1D49RihTVLmjxkVcm by iwein@mas.to
2025-12-13T15:22:48Z
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@futurebird ooh brings back memories 😂 I finally figured that one out when I was needing grown-up math with Maxwell's equations in uni. My lab partner was 100% sure I was pulling her leg when I found the courage to ask🤦♀️
(DIR) Post #B1D4fnVc02oLaH3Nj6 by jhaas@a2mi.social
2025-12-13T15:28:40Z
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@futurebird Something else to add to your future list for what sounds like a good book is how some keyboard symbol combinations that may not make a lot of sense were workarounds. The most common example of this one is := as an assignment operator. We get this because the APL left arrow symbol didn't exist outside of that keyboard.Somewhere in the RFC series is a similar comment on why @ became used when it was one of the common characters across a number of different platforms.
(DIR) Post #B1D4oQQ7DDIma9b2w4 by EntangledPear@mastodon.social
2025-12-13T15:30:09Z
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@futurebird That reminds me of "For every x bigger than epsilon..." When, in year 2, one of the professors casually said "For every x bigger than epsilon, which is a very small number...", I was like, aaah, makes sense 😄 I was not very good at maths (and that's what I was studying; and no, I don't feel like explaining how I ended up there), so I had no idea.
(DIR) Post #B1D7BHbcLlXBoU0ISG by Isurandil@mastodon.online
2025-12-13T15:56:45Z
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@futurebird There is even more to consider here: Maybe you were using a standard ANSI QWERTY keyboard layout (US) with { and [ on one key (reachable via shift) and } and ] on another key (reachable via shift).Using a standard German keyboard layout those are spread to Alt Gr of 7, 8, 9 and 0. I remember having had similar issues when I ran The Carpentries workshops.US: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:KB_United_States.svg&oldid=1095945851German: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:KB_Germany-text.svg&oldid=1059056551
(DIR) Post #B1D7fFQB2KNFj2wOZs by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T16:02:12Z
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@Isurandil Yes those instructions are based on the keyboards that our students use. They are surprised to notice the full range of the keyboard ... so it's worth getting them to look at it.
(DIR) Post #B1D8bamvkijUn2P8i0 by antdude@mastodon.social
2025-12-13T16:12:43Z
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@futurebird including emojis like 🐜? ;)
(DIR) Post #B1DAWxiDIJVKLc7NNA by Robo105@mastodon.social
2025-12-13T16:34:18Z
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@futurebird Lots of teachers think the other teachers are teaching it so well done on your part
(DIR) Post #B1DB9z6I4B5hwmzGF6 by yashpheh@mstdn.social
2025-12-13T16:41:19Z
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@futurebird @KatS Curly braces were introduced in my life as being called Accolades.
(DIR) Post #B1DBWNLWbO0DVyn1gu by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T16:45:26Z
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@yashpheh @KatS I love this, and it fits so well. But what do you call the long ones used in diagrams? The same thing?
(DIR) Post #B1DBb0SB8yr5xj6tPM by kirakira@furry.engineer
2025-12-13T16:46:04Z
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@futurebird lmao reminds me of when i was learning as a kid, i was like "oh THATS what all these extra keys are for"
(DIR) Post #B1DBz4EGl2FWce4qrw by thesquirrelfish@sfba.social
2025-12-13T16:50:35Z
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@futurebird it continues to delight me that a ! in CS can be called a bang instead of an exclamation point.
(DIR) Post #B1DCeIdU6B9LB1X528 by david_chisnall@infosec.exchange
2025-12-13T16:58:01Z
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@futurebird Fifth grade is folks aged 10-11? And they haven't seen square brackets? How do they write nested parenthetical clauses in English? Or write commentary or corrections inside quotes?
(DIR) Post #B1DEMikMTp4Cr1Ujmi by knees@mathstodon.xyz
2025-12-13T17:17:16Z
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@futurebird for me, any method where the pages lay pretty flat! Though I’m a sucker for those pretty geometric patterns too
(DIR) Post #B1DFwUGrsTPQL0JmQi by natty@astolfo.social
2025-12-13T12:44:00.852Z
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@futurebird@sauropods.win if you didn't mention calculus I'd think that's some music notation
(DIR) Post #B1DFwVNHm68XlCKQ4W by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-12-13T14:02:40Z
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@natty @futurebird now I want to introduce a new branch of mathematics where the treble clef has a meaning.
(DIR) Post #B1DFwWYfNGpnQmf1Rw by ozzelot@mstdn.social
2025-12-13T17:34:55Z
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@oblomovSure, integrate over a violin, go ham with it.@natty @futurebird
(DIR) Post #B1DGWpfDoiaD6y2XgW by ozzelot@mstdn.social
2025-12-13T17:41:35Z
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@futurebirdThis sounds amazing. I wish I'd learned to bind a book as a kid.I suppose I can learn it as an adult!@noplasticshower @GinevraCat
(DIR) Post #B1DGbO95Ya27DGBNOC by courtcan@mastodon.social
2025-12-13T17:42:18Z
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@futurebird @noplasticshower @GinevraCat I am not in programming at all, and that sounds like a book I would like to read. ☺️
(DIR) Post #B1DIa5VRZWrT1S98qm by paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange
2025-12-13T18:04:28Z
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@futurebird @glitzersachen @noplasticshower @GinevraCat book binding is fascinating stuff and there are some very creative takes on what a "book" is.Shereen laPlantz's book on handmade books has some nice examples. Kojiro Ikegami's japanese book-binding is also one of my favorites.
(DIR) Post #B1DJlcYx6nXugXqolc by ZenHeathen@beige.party
2025-12-13T18:17:45Z
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@futurebird I want to take your class 😢
(DIR) Post #B1DKgxeBOF34aEdgye by argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-12-13T18:27:17Z
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@csgraves The meaning of those symbols depends entirely on what software you're using.Not all software agrees on their meaning. Not even all programming languages agree on their meaning.The only reason people understand [a, tx, 5] “is a list of 3 items” is because that's what it means in JavaScript.@futurebird
(DIR) Post #B1DKgzcU3WsUhXrMbg by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T18:28:09Z
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@argv_minus_one @csgraves javaScriptpythonmath (set theory)IDK it's used enough that I think it's worth knowing.
(DIR) Post #B1DKvUddWgyCxSJTiS by argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-12-13T18:30:39Z
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@futurebird Probably, but there must be some other software somewhere that assigns some other meaning to those symbols. This meaning is not universal.@csgraves
(DIR) Post #B1DLHOpzm1kvL2XWW8 by rk@mastodon.well.com
2025-12-13T18:34:44Z
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@futurebird I had an algorithms professor give a handout with the Greek alphabet on it along with their names in English as part of the first-day materials.It’s such a simple thing but it really helped. (This was like…last millennium so. You know. Times were different.)
(DIR) Post #B1DLOVHWDJDDLoniVM by cafechatnoir@mastodon.social
2025-12-13T18:36:01Z
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@futurebird I got dumped into an algebra class that skipped the first ~70 pages of the textbook. * means multiply?x no longer means multiply?I was so lost from day 1 because these were new symbols that no one explained. (I dropped and took it the next year where we started on page 1 of the textbook.)
(DIR) Post #B1DM0laK2xecv1qE88 by rk@mastodon.well.com
2025-12-13T18:42:56Z
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@futurebird @GinevraCat As an aside, for me anyway, there are whole swathes of CS that are infinitely more accessible because people use computers without knowing how they work.It gives you an intuitive understanding of “file” and “process” and such. Sure you’re not gonna learn algorithmic analysis from it but it’s somethingEven if it’s just a number guessing game, writing code often gives you something “concrete” at the endI don’t know what the equivalent path for most of math would be
(DIR) Post #B1DMgOPaatebD9fbEW by internic@mathstodon.xyz
2025-12-13T18:50:26Z
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@futurebird I was helping a colleague with a quantum computing course he was taking, and he was unfamiliar with the Greek characters used in the equations. I found that even after I explained what they were and how they were pronounced, it was still a regular source of confusion, where he'd mix up the names and symbols or accidentally switch from one to the other. And it makes some sense to me that it's harder to keep track of these newly introduced things with unfamiliar sounds and characters.It really made me re-think in what contexts it makes sense to use them when teaching. People in STEM probably need to learn them at some point because they're likely to encounter them in other classes, papers, etc., but introducing them along with new concepts may be over-complicating matters.
(DIR) Post #B1DNU4iC70cOam3wqO by freequaybuoy@mastodon.social
2025-12-13T18:59:26Z
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@futurebird This makes so much sense now you say it! Do remember when keyboards had the @ *before* the internet? Think we just called it the curly a until email came along and then were like, wait, what, it means "at"?! And ohhhhh so that's what it's for!
(DIR) Post #B1DNuTx0te9IOmaOiO by drsbaitso@infosec.exchange
2025-12-13T19:04:02Z
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@futurebird +1. It's so hard to remember others don't have all the context you do.My corporate version of this is a little acronym expander box on the side of my slides every time I use a domain-specific term, and a complete list of common acronyms that gets copied & pasted to the end of every presentation.
(DIR) Post #B1DOa1jcC42t3C84TA by Bfordham@infosec.exchange
2025-12-13T19:11:44Z
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@futurebird I recently had to define “tilde” to a very talented, young software engineer who didn’t know that was the name of the symbol
(DIR) Post #B1DOunqD2qcy2d7WZE by IngaLovinde@embracing.space
2025-12-13T19:15:24Z
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@futurebird there is that joke in Russia, with punchline that an army soldier actually found his university math education very helpful, because when his gun accidentally fell into a pit latrine, he retrieved it by bending a piece of wire into the shape of integral symbol
(DIR) Post #B1DP0ZfGfKanoMkqDQ by mike@thecanadian.social
2025-12-13T19:16:25Z
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@futurebird This is a very loose equivalent but reminded me non the less. We used to teach kids to play hockey on a full sheet of ice. We then realized for small people to skate those distances was insane. Especially for tiny goalies to cover a full sized net was crazy. Now we play half rink games with special nets. This video hilariously demonstrates the point. https://youtu.be/cXhxNq59pWg?si=CJd6VxRQE5QmjLDJ
(DIR) Post #B1DP36iYkJVou2VBdw by jrdepriest@infosec.exchange
2025-12-13T19:17:00Z
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@futurebird I failed out of college Topology because I had never seen these before (∪, ∩, ⊆, ⊂, ⊄, ∈, ∉) and the teacher just assumed we all had. Set Theory was not a prerequisite, only Differential Equations, in which I had done quite well.You are doing the goddess' work.
(DIR) Post #B1DP4GiN3y8uCIy3LU by BarneyDellar@mastodon.scot
2025-12-13T19:17:02Z
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@futurebird @KatS Interesting! In the UK, we tend to call them all brackets too. American English speakers tend to use unique words for each type, IME.
(DIR) Post #B1DPyPX3T0RLlFRfUW by VulcanTourist@autistics.life
2025-12-13T19:27:19Z
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@futurebird I think the syntax elements are indeed important. 👍
(DIR) Post #B1DTUw8k4CZS1PH4AS by cxxvii@aus.social
2025-12-13T20:06:48Z
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@futurebird Statistics/probability/information theory might be the worst at this. Since everyone knows the notation isn't great, every other paper introducing a concept seems to have come up with it's own bespoke system, so every topic change comes with a new notation, which barely get an explanation. It confused me for years trying to understand what was going on.Notation has to be properly explained! It isn't self evident.
(DIR) Post #B1DTtrofHP7JqplrVo by mdione@en.osm.town
2025-12-13T20:11:19Z
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@futurebird 5th graders are 10yo, right? Are the materials shareable? I plan to teach my kids in a couple of years but have no idea how to approach it.
(DIR) Post #B1DU0JYX3ZsxcdIcts by malcircuit@thingy.social
2025-12-13T20:12:26Z
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@futurebird As a former fifth grade student who attempted to learn programming, I can confirm brackets are indeed confusing.
(DIR) Post #B1DU9pSZo9gnB13CWu by paco@infosec.exchange
2025-12-13T20:14:12Z
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@futurebird I think it helps to teach if you can remember what it’s like not to know. I think this is really insightful. Punctuation conventions just become second nature. But they have to be learned
(DIR) Post #B1DYA1QViRJi6iQphQ by kevinr@masto.free-dissociation.com
2025-12-13T20:58:33Z
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@futurebird @glitzersachen @noplasticshower @GinevraCat There is a book called The Coming of the Book which j have on my shelf but haven’t read yet. The impression it gives though is that it was a technology with far reaching consequences
(DIR) Post #B1Da1NdDzL52HFNySm by FurryBeta@shark.community
2025-12-13T21:19:55Z
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@futurebird Not to mention, what the Greek letter means can vary from discipline to discipline. For me Beta has to do with magnetic fields, while Theta is for angles
(DIR) Post #B1Da7roofPDJdbtuLI by simon_brooke@mastodon.scot
2025-12-13T21:21:05Z
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@futurebird @KatS as a Scots person with 40 years in software, I'd call them all brackets, and consider round ones defaults. I'm aware of the usage 'braces' for curly brackets.I would add that <> are also brackets in at least some contexts, and would specify them as angle brackets.
(DIR) Post #B1Dar1wlrBHu579nTk by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-13T21:29:11Z
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@isibell @GinevraCat This is all about paying careful attention to the students. I noticed they were kind of struggling with formatting the lists from examples so decided to try taking more time introducing the symbols and this worked.
(DIR) Post #B1DfsTsVzfY0llg3kG by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-12-13T22:25:37Z
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@futurebird Omg it's so obvious once you wrote that! But not obvious at all. There's a culture behind their meanings that was never explained to me, I guess I absorbed them through persistence.
(DIR) Post #B1Dk0GYJp1X5ZdCMXw by Bookherd@urbanists.social
2025-12-13T23:11:46Z
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@futurebird @feministmom It took me weeks to figure it out! Anyway, I applaud your care for your students’ learning. You sound like a great teacher.
(DIR) Post #B1DlHM5Ub0LTcLQaSe by jbowen@mast.hpc.social
2025-12-13T23:26:02Z
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@futurebird Now do Weierstrass ℘-functions!
(DIR) Post #B1DpkdQ7dERFaYIIpE by lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza
2025-12-14T00:16:09Z
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@futurebird, hmm, any experience of APL? I understand that that has lots of symbols…Also, no idea what you mean by “grad school” other than it's something which appears to be American. I know, I could look it up… I think that I'm going to assume that if I multiply it by 0.9 I get deg school and if I multiply it by π/200, I get rad school.
(DIR) Post #B1Dppty5XDJOMIh21o by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-14T00:17:09Z
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@lp0_on_fire grad school is where you get a masters degree, which comes after regular college but before going to get a PhD
(DIR) Post #B1DrbuceVO5GF47j6m by lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza
2025-12-14T00:37:01Z
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@futurebird, hmm, we just call that “university” (UK). Calling (part of) it “grad school” makes it sound like it's part of the mandatory state education system.
(DIR) Post #B1E3tvcsi9Q418aWDQ by lufthans@mastodon.social
2025-12-14T02:54:43Z
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@futurebird when I was teaching I would explain what the different types of brackets were and where they were on the keyboard when we first started encountering themBut, I probably often fell short in explaining what they were doing when we arrived at a new way they were used by being preoccupied by the new use
(DIR) Post #B1E74JjyD1r7Z5Y6iW by yashpheh@mstdn.social
2025-12-14T03:30:13Z
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@futurebird @KatS AFAIK, yes. But would love to stand corrected if those do have a different label.
(DIR) Post #B1EHDXjUYRil6pMaC8 by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2025-12-14T05:23:55Z
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@futurebird @GinevraCat I started out using computer languages that didn't use most of the modern conventions for brackets and such. I learned them by seeing them come into widespread use. So they don't seem like 100% natural assumptions to me, especially not if I step back and remember how they did things in BASIC, or early Fortran versions.
(DIR) Post #B1EJ1krW76rsGLcj4q by TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-12-14T05:44:11Z
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@futurebird Have you introduced them to that dread villain DOCTOR OCTOTHORPE yet?Fun fact: the * character was also named a "sextile" in the same paper. Commitment to the bit.
(DIR) Post #B1EJIRRPZdxsx6Mza4 by lkundrak@metalhead.club
2025-12-14T05:47:12Z
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@futurebird oh my god this must be why python is winning over perl
(DIR) Post #B1ETlOyCq689EC9oDQ by sunflowerinrain@mastodon.online
2025-12-14T07:44:26Z
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@futurebird Reminds me of being on a course for C++, designed for C programmers, which I wasn't and everyone else was. I breezed through the concepts, with which the others struggled, and then we had the final test which was to write a small program. I didn't know about semi-colons...
(DIR) Post #B1EXnF4928leuG4H1U by raymierussell@mastodon.scot
2025-12-14T08:29:40Z
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@futurebird I like to rib a retro twitch streamer who will say "b dollar" instead of "b string" for b$. Like fellow retro heads he learned to program back in the day from written material. He never heard anyone else pronounce the dollar symbol as string so it's stuck with him for 40 years. I still find it amusing.
(DIR) Post #B1EcO1lBrm5QAdzxNw by simonzerafa@infosec.exchange
2025-12-14T09:21:07Z
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@futurebird The most useful function I use to teach 10 to 11 year olds were the basic keyboard shortcuts.Especially CTRL+Z to undo an mistake or experiment quickly 🙂
(DIR) Post #B1ElcscN2RbxkQ1v8K by SilbinaryWolf@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-12-14T11:04:39Z
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@futurebird I only understood the difference between brackets and parenthesis after writing a parser like… after doing programming for like 7 years. I was probably 24-25.I just called them circle brackets, square brackets and squiggly brackets until then.
(DIR) Post #B1Eltaf13ZIgydEf5c by Tallish_Tom@mastodon.scot
2025-12-14T11:07:35Z
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@futurebird @KatS () Round brackets (or brackets in prose)[] Square brackets{} Curly brackets<> Angle brackets# Hash! Bang@ At* Star' Quote" Double quote- dash-- double dash--- triple dash (why do you need this?)Hmm, may have found my hill 🤔
(DIR) Post #B1EwALkMl2JLBgMszI by GinevraCat@toot.community
2025-12-14T13:02:43Z
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@futurebird @noplasticshower That's very cool. That's always been my goal, too, but I wasn't as organised about it as you are for comp sci. I want them to why maths and computer science are important, and understand enough that they become available to the students as tools to use in other areas of life.
(DIR) Post #B1Ezetn531ybK2tdDM by boby_biq@toot.community
2025-12-14T13:41:52Z
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@futurebird @GinevraCat Oh please let me know when you need someone to make that book “pretty” I volunteer 🙋🏻♀️ (I love text formatting and would love to do it - I also happen to have previous run-ins having to format text with math symbols/equations etc so..) Anyway, just putting it here for the future
(DIR) Post #B1F5nXUduxw2V1m8ye by maco@wandering.shop
2025-12-14T14:50:41Z
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@futurebird @noplasticshower @GinevraCat I remember @jelkner had a Python version of “How to Think Like a Computer Scientist” he used for teaching high schoolers. I think it went over a lot more analogies and explanations in the first chapter than usual. It was GFDL licensed, if doing an open book that pulls from it interests you.
(DIR) Post #B1F7PIaVsqeLEJ5fJw by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-14T15:08:44Z
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@mathew Thing is... it's not as bad as it seems. It's just a different sum than the one for area.But getting jump scared by ∮ could do any of us in.
(DIR) Post #B1F9Mx574aS1rFPb6m by tobyjaffey@mastodon.me.uk
2025-12-14T15:30:40Z
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@futurebird As kids, my older brother would read out the program listings from magazines and I'd type them in. We invented names for all of the characters we didn't know 😀
(DIR) Post #B1FIMJU5C4zkdWrTbU by agowa338@chaos.social
2025-12-14T17:11:25Z
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@futurebird They don't also have 10-finger writing? We had that in 5th grade. And it also covered all of the symbols.
(DIR) Post #B1FK1OBciQeL30NTcm by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-12-14T17:30:08Z
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@yashphehLol!I always knew them as [brackets] and {wiggly brackets}. Question mark?Surprise mark! @futurebird @KatS
(DIR) Post #B1FOir8bLohj6gwjIW by mloxton@med-mastodon.com
2025-12-14T18:22:43Z
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@futurebird It really bugged me when notations and symbology changed from one discioline to another.Like f(x) should mean f * x, not "function of"
(DIR) Post #B1FQOi9zDgklNc7Fui by porglezomp@mastodon.social
2025-12-14T18:41:30Z
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@futurebird I got to apply this in a different domain with my mom yesterday—I’ve been playing video games with her and am visiting now so I can actually hand over the controller, and so I took some time to explain all the buttons individually while thinking of this post.
(DIR) Post #B1FX2mbehv3oThY5zc by fishidwardrobe@social.tchncs.de
2025-12-14T19:55:58Z
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@futurebird i do take your point and agree, but [, {, ], } are all labelled on the keyboard?