Why didn't I think of that?

Kate Devitt is so much better a teacher than I am (and she's smarter, better educated and more attractive a person, but let's deal with just one of my insecurities at a time, hey?). I wish I had thought to teach students about Turing Machines like this.

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XP is easy to simulate. Just get a bunch of students with multifarious viral infections to move veeerrryyy sllloooowwwlllyyy.

Thony, you are way too late. She is very happily married.

I mentioned it on my comments on Kate's blog as well, but if you're interested in dynamic Turing machines, I have a few here, in flash: http://inquiry.mcdaniel.edu/turing/

I think that her technique has great value, as any kind of physical activity in a classroom is likely to have cognitive payoff, but these can supplement such activity nicely.