Re: [seul-edu] Linux/Beowulf in k-12 environments]

[Harish Pillay 9v1hp <harish@iqmind.com>]

Hi.  Thanks for the various replies.  My intention is to gradually introduce the
idea of supercomputing via cluster-based solutions to students 10 years and above
in age.  This could be done via a whole series of example programs and perhaps
culminating with a competition.  In doing so, I am hoping that they will begin 
to explore problems with a view to solving them using these techniques.

Of course, the pedagogy has to go hand in hand and I reckon I am a long way away
from it.  I would need to work with Math and Science teachers to help them to
start thinking in these terms.  For too long they have assumed (and rightly so)
that supercomputing is off limits to them and hence never considered it.

Though I am not an educator myself (a hacker and a technologist mainly), I have 
an interest in bringing meaningful technology to schools.  

Jay Sun wrote:
>  
> I agree.  K-12 has a lot of needs for infomation systems, just like everybody 
> else, but generally those systems are not computing intesive. Beowulf's cluster 
> is more for the paralle computing rather than for high availability and failover.
> That's being said, it will be very interesting to see if any good applications 
> show up in this area.
> 
> J.
> --
> Tad Walker wrote:
> >I've looked into Beowulf in K12s and found an online Beowulf with free accounts
> >which may be interesting to the group.  It comes with a gigabyte of disk space
> >too!  See http://www.tsunamictechnologies.com/ for more info.
> >
> >The problem seems to be applications.  Although there are some demos available,
> >I think one needs to have studied parallel computer programming to put a 
> >beowulf to much use.  I hope I am wrong.  Mathmatica is a notable exception.

I have just signed up with Tsunami Technologies.  Thanks Tad, for the tip.  It 
looks looks like a good first step.  Now to find topics that can be packaged for 
a much younger audience.

> >There are some other exciting parallel computing projects like PVM, PVFS,
> >ClusterNFS, but I think they are more applicable to the University-level or
> >Graduate-level.  Exciting stuff!

I had my first supercomputing project in graduate school about 15 years ago and
I think given what is available today, students should not have to wait till
grad school to experiment with these.

Regards.

Harish
 
> >Cheers-
> >
> >Tad
> >
> > From: Harish Pillay 9v1hp <harish@iqmind.com>
> >> > To: seul-edu@seul.org
> >> > Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Linux/Beowulf in k-12 environments
> >> >
> >> > Hi.  I am wondering if there is anyone on this list interested in 
> >> > developing a set of topics and apps that can be used as a showcase 
> >> > for teaching students in the k-12 (kindergarten+12 years) age group 
> >> > the benefits and uses of cluster based supercomputing ala Beowulf.
> >> >
> >> > I should have a 4-node cluster up and running sometime this week and 
> >> > then need to figure what kinds of apps I can run on it.
> >> >
> >> > Comments and suggestions for collaborations are most welcome.
> >> >
> >> > Regards.
-- 
Harish Pillay 9v1hp, Chief Technology Officer
I Q m i n d . c o m -- Where Learning Never Ceases

http://www.iqmind.com
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