Programming out of the western model

[Mia Kalish]

I liked this article a lot, Phil. Thanks. I clipped out a couple of
philosophies, partly because I agree with them so much, and partly because
they are so much in contrast with the Lasa article that Mona was wonderful
enough to share with us. 

Ethnocomputing challenges the prevailing way of thinking that in order to
keep up with the West, other cultures have to adapt to Western ways of
thinking. Relying on constructivist theories, we argue that the universal
theories of computing take different forms in different cultures, and that
the European view on abstract ideas of computing is culturally bound, too.
Studying ethnocomputing – i.e. the computational ideas within a culture –
may lead to new findings that can be used both in developing the Western
view of Computer Science and in improving Computer Science education in
foreign cultures.

I suppose we can live without the concept of "foreign cultures", since Matti
and his co-authors are in Europe, but otherwise. . .  

Mia

-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
On Behalf Of phil cash cash
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 9:47 AM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ILAT] Programming out of the western model

thanks Mia,

i can share also

Ethnocomputing a Multicultural View on Computer Science
by Matti Tedre, Piet Kommers, Erkki Sutinen, 2002
http://www.cs.joensuu.fi/~ethno/articles/ethnocomputing_ICALT2002.pdf

later,
Phil

On Dec 29, 2005, at 5:19 PM, Mia Kalish wrote:

> Hi, Phil,
>  
> I found this paper, and I thought it would be really helpful to you 
> with your efforts to teach coding.
>  
> http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2003/papers/1561.pdf
>  
> Apparently, Matti Tedre, one of the authors, runs an ethnocomputing 
> wiki, which I am still searching for.
>  
> Mia