[MWForum] Why not make source code available?

Thu, 19 Dec 2002 23:33:12 -0500

As the creator of Math Cats, allow me to explain what is available and
why.

Have you visited the companion page to each MicroWorlds project on Math
Cats?  At the top of each project page there is a link to another page
which presents a project overview, screenshot, and (often) the
procedures.  In the case of projects where I do not show the procedures,
the reason is that they are too complex for the target audience of Math
Cats, which is elementary students.

I did not make downloads easily available for a couple of reasons:

1) To be comprehensive, I would need to make available both PC and Mac
versions of the downloads, and I never got around to doing this.

2) Math Cats materials are meant to be used and enjoyed on the site.  I
do not make a single penny from Math Cats, and in fact I pay many
hundreds of dollars per year to provide an ad-free reliable site.  What
I get in return is visitors.  If Math Cats projects are easily available
for offline use, then I have given away all my work for free and I begin
to lose control over it.  For all I know, Math Cats downloaded projects
might be used and distributed offline throughout the Logo community.
That may be noble, but I would like to preserve the possibility of
someday producing a CD of Math Cats MicroWorlds projects, as Garry Clark
has compiled a CD of 100+ MicroWorlds math projects which he sells for a
modest price.  I would lose all hope of making a few dollars from Math
Cats if I made it easy for everyone to use my materials offline.

3) The silly thing is that if you use a Math Cats project online, it is
available in your Temporary Internet Files.  All you have to do is
locate it there and move it to another location and there you've got
your download!  This would be the PC version of the project, but Mac
versions of MW can open these files and they can then be resaved as Mac
projects.  So it is really not necessary for me to provide separate
download links anyhow.

4) I really felt that providing the procedures for most Math Cats
projects was sufficient.  In the case of projects which rely heavily on
specialty shapes and are more functional in the offline version, such as
Pattern Blocks, I have included a note that I will send the full version
on request.  In the two years that Pattern Blocks has been posted, I've
only received 2 or 3 such requests.  So there did not seem to me to be a
crying need for my offline projects.  Similarly, I have tried to make it
very easy for people to contact me by e-mail.  No one has ever written
to me to ask for MicroWorlds downloads.  When I was enthralled by a
MicroWorlds project on another site, I wrote to the author to ask for a
copy of it so I could study the procedures.  (That is when I learned
from him that I already had a cached copy on my computer.)

5) My main purpose in Math Cats is creative math explorations.  Yes, I
am delighted to promote greater interest and skill in MicroWorlds.  But
my main energies in promoting MicroWorlds have been directed to
OpenWorld Learning's MicroWorlds in Action site, which DOES provide
project downloads along with procedures, shapes pages, explanatory
notes, and extension questions to accompany each project.  Over time we
will be creating many more folders of MW projects.
http://mia.openworldlearning.org

I hope this is an adequate explanation.  I do love pooling our knowledge
as a devoted core of MicroWorlds users.  If you have trouble with
locating the files in your cache, please let me know and I can send you
copies of projects of interest.  But at this time I continue to prefer
not to provide download links at Math Cats for all the reasons stated
above.

Wendy Petti
Math Cats
http://www.mathcats.com
MicroWorlds in Action
http://mia.openworldlearning.org

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mwforum-admin@lists.mathcats.com
> [mailto:mwforum-admin@lists.mathcats.com]On Behalf Of Jerry Balzano
> Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 8:43 PM
> To: mwforum@lists.mathcats.com
> Subject: [MWForum] Why not make source code available?
>
>
> Hi -
>
> If one of the main purposes of MathCats (not to mention Logo
> itself) is to
> encourage learning by exploration, then why not make the
> "source code",
> i.e. the original ".mw2" projects, that one can play with on
> the MathCats
> pages, available for download?  I think the fact that
> MathCats makes all
> these projects available to us is great, but I found myself
> frustrated by
> the fact that I couldn't see "how the authors did it".  Most
> of us, I would
> hope, who are using MW, want to go past "gee whiz", but even
> those of us
> who are reasonably accomplished at programming in Logo are
> not going to be
> able to figure out the techniques employed in these projects just by
> looking at them.
>
> Thanks for listening -- what do others think?
>
> Jerry Balzano
> -------------------------
> Dr. Gerald J. Balzano
> Teacher Education Program
> Dept of Music
> Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
> Cognitive Science Program
> UC San Diego
> La Jolla, CA 92093
> (619) 822-0092
> gjbalzano@ucsd.edu
> _______________________________________________
> MWForum mailing list
> MWForum@lists.mathcats.com
> http://lists.mathcats.com/mailman/listinfo/mwforum
>