Monthly Archives: May 2009

On seeing the Common Loon

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I call seeing. By seeing I mean a sort of intentionality of purpose that pays attention to what might be there.  I distinguish it from similar modes of being–looking, finding, the parables of the pearl or lost coin.  Where looking is concerned with the discovery of [...]
Posted in Idea Factory, family | Comments closed

Mozilla Education: what getting involved looks like

This past Thursday and Friday I led a short workshop on getting started in Mozilla from a professor’s point of view. I’ve put up the outline of what I presented, along with notes and links. You are welcome to improve and correct this, since I’ll likely use it again. It was an interesting time, [...]
Posted in CDOT, Mozilla, Mozilla Education, Seneca, Teaching Open Source | Comments closed

Daytime Nighthawk

I saw my first Nighthawk a few days ago.  While the girls played in a garden after an event we went to as a family, I wandered under a large maple tree.  I was looking for what might be there, and in this case, it was a roosting Nighthawk.  I could have picked it up [...]
Posted in Nature | Comments closed

Behold, I make all things new

There is no tree in our forest that dies so completely each winter as the Tamarack.  In winter they are skeletons, frozen vertically in the snow.  And in spring there is nothing so shocking as the re-animation of these bones.  I have to go and touch them with my fingers each year to believe it [...]
Posted in Idea Factory, Nature | Comments closed

Mozilla, Education…Hybrid

I’ve been thinking lately about Mark’s posts on hybrid organizations (see one, two, three).  Many of the things he’s talking about in these posts overlap with ideas I have about education and institutions (cf esp. the writing of Ivan Illich).  Today I find myself sandwiched between two Mozilla Education calls: one this past Monday where [...]
Posted in Mozilla, Mozilla Education, Seneca, Teaching Open Source | Comments closed

“Practical Programming” arrives

Greg Wilson wrote to share the good news that their “CS-1 in Python” book, called “Practical Programming“, is out and ready to buy. I’ve been spending a lot of time in Python lately, and I’m really enjoying it.  I’m also impressed with how fast it is.  When I was a student learning to start programming, I [...]
Posted in CDOT, Mozilla Education, Seneca, Teaching Open Source | Comments closed

DXR pre-alpha: Source Code Lexicography

Today I hit a major milestone in a project I’ve been working on for more than a year.  My goal is to replace MXR with a version that includes static analysis data for the C++, IDL, and JS in the Mozilla tree.  It’s a project I don’t know quite what to call, but the name [...]
Posted in CDOT, Mozilla, Mozilla Education, Seneca, Teaching Open Source | Comments closed

Growing the Mozilla Education community

Mark blogged the other day about active Mozilla student projects that have been happening recently.  It was encouraging to see so many listed together.  It was even more encouraging to hear from people saying, “Hey, what about this great stuff happening over here?”  Good question, and thanks for letting us know! Growing the community of people [...]
Posted in CDOT, Mozilla, Mozilla Education, Seneca, Teaching Open Source | Comments closed

Gravy

Luke’s giving me a hard time about not blogging my essential ingredient list (which I’ll do another time), so here’s a round-about way to get to my list.  One of the things I enjoy most about cooking is making sauces.  Last night I made a mushroom gravy to go with a prime rib I cooked [...]
Posted in Food | Comments closed

“Is spatial ability the ‘Geek Gene’?”

I was interested to read Mark Guzdial’s discussion of spatial ability as a potential predictor for ability in math and computing.  I’ve often pondered this with regard to my own teaching of computing, as well as for myself; however, my thoughts run the opposite way, as I am someone with severe spatial challenges who is [...]
Posted in CDOT, Mozilla Education, Seneca, Teaching Open Source | Comments closed