tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298689322024-03-19T13:51:04.407+10:30Bill Kerr21st C education: FabLearnBill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.comBlogger1103125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-27552179174249521552023-12-09T19:36:00.003+10:302023-12-09T19:59:04.605+10:30EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE: DESIGNED BY KIDS FOR KIDS<b>2023 introduction</b>:<br />
<p>What did Seymour Papert give us? He gave us a series of microworlds where learning could flourish. Instances include turtle geometry, LEGO robotics and the "Instructional Software Design Project" (with Idit Harel). I became very interested in this, after reading <i>MindStorms</i> because it made my teaching of maths far more interesting and gave me the feeling that I was an innovator. Like many I found textbook maths rather boring.</p>
<p>Since then many new and fascinating microworlds have emerged. eg. the Turtle Art Tiles Project. As I see it the role of "constructionist educators" (a phrase that needs dynamic clarification IMO) is to evaluate in practice and then push these wonderful projects forward. </p>
<p>So, I’m reproducing this 1994 article of my efforts to imitate Idit Harels “Instructional Software Design Project”. I remember those Paralowie years evocatively - a "socially disadvantaged" school where I was encouraged to innovate by the Principal (Pat Thomson <a href="https://patthomson.net/author/patthomson/">https://patthomson.net/author/patthomson/</a>). I’ve reread this article carefully and think it stands up well as something that I might try again tomorrow if the conditions were right.</p>
<h3>EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE: DESIGNED BY KIDS FOR KIDS</h3>
Bill Kerr, Jan., 1994, Paralowie R12 School
<br /><br />
<h3>Abstract:</h3>
<p>Students at the Year 8 level used LogoWriter software to design computer screens to teach Year 3/4 students Fractions. Students were set the task of doing transformations between words, symbols and pictures using LogoWriter. They recorded their experiences in a journal and identified problems they encountered and solutions to those problems. They helped each other solve problems in Fractions, design and computer programming.
</p><p>Outcomes from this learning sequence included expressive writing about mathematics, improved scores in a Fraction test, improved fluency in Logo programming, improved self management skills, increased cognitive resilience (overcoming frustration and not giving up), improved time management, and increased faith by the students in their own thinking patterns. Students remained motivated and interested in the Fractions topic for a 7 week block using this approach. The culture of mathematics was perceived by the students to be different and more interesting than traditional textbook maths. Some students dropped in at recess and lunch to work on their projects.
</p><p>The final combined software product is a useful piece of educational software that can be utilised by other teachers for diagnostic purposes as well as being an exemplar of what can be achieved with LogoWriter when it is used in this way.</p>
<h3>Pretest:</h3>
<p>A pretest of 41 questions about Fractions (selected from Idit Harel's pretest -- see reference at end for this excellent resource) was administered to the Year 8 class at the beginning of the topic. The test involved a variety of Fraction transformations between words, symbols and pictures with multiple choice answers. Here is a sample of a couple of questions from the pretest:
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<p> The same test was then administered to the Year 3/4 students by the Year 8 students. The Year 8 students were asked to explain the questions to the Year 3/4 students if they did not understand them.
</p><h3>Introductory lessons:</h3>
<p>As well as the Pretest other introductory lessons were held with the Year 8's to explain the nature of the Project and get the students started on the design project. This included:<br />
<ul>
<li> Conducting a class survey about the most difficult questions in the Fraction pretest. This simply required students to vote on the questions they got wrong and collating totals.</li>
<li> Talking about the variety of word, symbol, picture transformations and asking the students to provide examples of them in a class group and then on their own. Explaining how to set out a multiple choice answer format with 5 choices, A to E.</li>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5DZPxY3MibrFeGdc2scM25TOOXcI2wAFSJODx6ZYLzrl-dxM1TR4nmx2gAjOQYqzxuwmEEdPBXCzxzpEkmZBn-Z2-k5Qg42yMgZXbIOR94jc-iE4KQeZtji8_Ru74SdPCOGDC-u4MlV042wA0drNSpfnlQqBXhiJIGBfMC7T3v2tmSjKfWw/s292/frac3c.gif" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5DZPxY3MibrFeGdc2scM25TOOXcI2wAFSJODx6ZYLzrl-dxM1TR4nmx2gAjOQYqzxuwmEEdPBXCzxzpEkmZBn-Z2-k5Qg42yMgZXbIOR94jc-iE4KQeZtji8_Ru74SdPCOGDC-u4MlV042wA0drNSpfnlQqBXhiJIGBfMC7T3v2tmSjKfWw/s320/frac3c.gif" width="320" /></a>
<li> Leading the class in discussion on the following focus questions:
<ul>
<li>What would the Year 3/4 students find hard about fractions?</li>
<li>What computer screens could you design using LogoWriter to help the Year 3/4 students learn fractions?</li></ul>
</li></ul>
<p>Conceptually, the students were being asked to integrate their knowledge and learning about the 3 different areas of Fractions, Logo Programming and Instructional Design. Their brief is diagramatically represented below:
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<h3>Information for a Logo novice</h3>
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<p> To create even a simple Logo screen involves a lot of mathematical learning. For instance, to create an equilateral triangle requires knowledge of the external angle of a triangle (120 degrees). To create a more complex design, such as a title page for the Project, requires more sophisticated manipulation of the turtle, for instance by using cartesian co-ordinates (Logo primitives, show pos and setpos[xvalue yvalue]). Conceptually, this is a fourth transformation of Fraction representations in addition to the word, symbol and picture transformations described above.
</p><h3>Regular lesson format</h3>
<p>After the introductory lessons the class then gradually settled into a regular lesson format that went as follows:
<ul>
<li>Start (5 min.): Write down todays plans about screen designs.</li>
<li>Middle (40 min.): Programming Fraction screens on the computer using LogoWriter</li>
<li>End (5 min.): Write down how it went today with an emphasis on:
<ul>
<li>What problems did you have?</li>
<li>What you did to solve problems?</li>
<li>Who did you help today?</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>The teacher kept his own journal at the same time as the students. During the middle part of the lesson (40 min.) the teacher mainly worked as a facilitator, moving from group to group, answering questions and helping students design and program their screens.
</p><p>When students completed a Fraction screen then they would go to the Year 3/4 room and ask their partners to return with them to complete the problem on the screen. The teacher would often intervene after this to assist the Year 8 students to evaluate their screens. Did the Year 3/4's find them too easy or too hard? Were there any confusing design aspects of their screens (such as confusing a picture of 3/4 (three-quarters) with 1/4 (one-quarter))? What would be an appropriate question to ask the Year 3/4 students next? The Year 8's were then offered a copy of the pretest to go through it again with the Year 3/4's so as to discover what they understood and did not understand.
</p><p>This part of the programme carried on for about 5 weeks at 4 lessons a week. In that time each group (1 or 2 students per group) had designed between 1 and 4 Fraction screens. Some groups designed special title pages and special answer pages as well.
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<p> Here is a design problem that arose in the course of one lesson. The Year 8 Designer intended C to be shaded 3/4 in white and the correct answer to be E. However the Year 3/4 student saw C as shaded 1/4 in the darker colour. After the ambiguity was pointed out by the teacher the Year 8 Designer altered the question to, "What picture shows 1/4 shaded in white?"</p>
<h3>The cultural setting</h3>
<p>Although this Project used computing technology extensively, it was culturally driven not technology driven. The elements of the cultural setting included the skills and style of the teacher, the background of the students, some important elements of the Paralowie R12 School environment and finally the computing hardware that was available.
Paralowie R12 School
</p><p>Paralowie School is located in one of the lowest socio-economic regions of Australia. Absenteeism and lateness to lesson by students are chronic problems in the School and a variety of programmes already exist to meet special student needs. Students in the school are under some pressure NOT to embrace the traditional culture of maths and science since they are likely to be labelled "squares" by their peers. However, it was noticeable that some of the students from different cultures (eg. Serbian, Vietnamese) overtly rejected this cultural stereotype. The School Administration supports innovative teaching practice and so I have been encouraged to pursue my investigations into the effectiveness of transforming a maths learning culture into something more relevant and meaningful to students by using the LogoWriter medium. However, Logo is NOT an established part of the whole school culture at this stage. The Year 8 class is part of the new Paralowie Middle School (Years 6-9). As such I taught the class for 10 lessons a week (4 Maths, 4 Science and 2 Personal Development). This enabled me to establish closer personal relationships with many of the students than is normally possible for High School teachers.
</p><h3>Teacher input into the class culture</h3>
<p>The central element of my teaching style can be described by the metaphor of relationship. I believe that learning occurs best when students develop a positive relationship with the teacher, their classmates and the subject matter, in this case maths. I select teaching materials with the idea of building a positive relationship at the forefront. This is a central reason for using Logo, for Logo is closely associated with an educational philosophy of making Maths personally meaningful or appropriable. My students would see me as an evangelical promoter of Logo and someone who can answer any question they have about it. Other maths teaching materials that I use extensively are Australian developed "hands on" products called RIME (Reality in Maths Education) and MCTP (Maths Curriculum and Teaching Program).
</p><h3>Students</h3>
<p>This Year 8 class had a high proportion of English as a Second Language students of a variety of backgrounds. 5 students had Khmer background, 2 were Australian Aboriginal, 2 Latin American, 1 Vietnamese, 1 Vietnamese / Maltese, 1 Serbian and the remaining 13 were Anglo-Saxon Australian.
</p><p>Each student brought into the classroom certain cultural attitudes -- attitudes to mathematics and Fractions that have developed over 8 years of Schooling, attitudes to computers ranging along a continuum from extreme reticence (initially) to extreme interest, attitudes about being put into the role of being expected to teach younger kids, attitudes about how to be "cool" in the classroom. I would loosely and simplistically group my students as follows:
<ul>
<li>Achievers: I classify 8 students out of the 24 in this category, 4 girls and 4 boys.</li>
<li>Artistic: One student (boy) used LogoWriter mainly as a means of artistic expression by designing a very attractive title page about Fractions as his first and main priority.</li>
<li>Socials: I identified 6 students in this group, 5 girls and 1 boy. For these students their most important lesson is lunch and recess where they can pursue personal relationships and do things that are "cool" such as smoking or leaving the school grounds without permission (breaking the rules).</li>
<li>Strugglers (4 girls and 5 boys): This is a mixed group that I believe are not achieving a great deal for a variety of reasons such as a difficult family situation or a poor mastery of the English language (ESL) or missing out significantly in their earlier schooling or learning styles that have not been catered for.</li>
</ul>
</p><p>Although I believe that this Project could succeed in many classes it is worth stressing that it did succeed in this class with its high proportion of Socials and Strugglers (15 out of the 25 students)
</p><h3>Hardware</h3>
<p> At the time of this project there were 17 computers in the room shared between 24 students. Hence some students had to double up on the computers. The computers are mainly ageing XT's (5 years old) with a variety of monitor formats. All of the computers were old and some were unreliable. Time and work was sometimes lost because of mechanical failure. Only 8 out of 17 computers had colour screens which was a big drawback because the students love to use colour.
</p><h3>Background knowledge</h3>
<p>In Logo: Students had very little knowledge (if any) of Logo at the beginning of the school year. During 1994 they had been exposed to it in a fairly intensive way over 3 terms (10 weeks per term) as part of the Maths course prior to commencing this project. A closed book test held during Term 3 indicated that students knew between 12 and 68 LogoWriter primitives each, with a mean score of 38 primitives.
</p><p>In Fractions: Students came from a variety of feeder schools with diverse curricula and teacher expertise in maths. Initially knowledge in Fractions was ascertained by a Fraction pretest (taken from Idit Harel's thesis). Scores in the pretest varied between 13 and 36 out of 41 with a mean of 25 out of 41.
</p><h3>Assessment</h3>
<p>Students were assessed for this unit of work as follows:
<ol>
<li>Quality of their written journals, marked about every 1.5 weeks.</li>
<li>The number of problems identified in their journals and the number of solutions to the identified problems</li>
<li>How many times they helped other students as recorded in the journals</li>
<li>Quality of the Logo Fractions screens that students designed</li>
<li>How many screen that were designed (ie. how many times that Year 3/4 students were invited to the room).</li>
<li>Post test of Fractions (same as the pretest)</li>
<li>Open book test at end with this question:<br />
Place Logo primitives into groups or categories of your own choosing.</li>
</ol>
</p>
<p>Post-test results for Fractions test for Year 8 class:<br />
out of 41<br />
<table>
<tr> <td> </td><td> Pre</td><td>Post</td></tr>
<tr> <td>Lowest </td><td>13 </td><td>17</td></tr>
<tr> <td>Highest </td><td>36 </td><td>41</td></tr>
<tr> <td>Mean </td><td> 25</td><td>31</td></tr>
</table>
</p><p>This improvement occurred over 7 weeks without any organised formal instruction from the teacher to the whole class about how to solve Fraction problems. Twelve students improved their score substantially (between 5 and 18 extra), 8 marginally (between 1 and 4 extra) while 4 obtained the same score or less.
</p><h3>Samples of students work</h3>
<p>From the journal of Ngoc Tran 9/11/94
<blockquote> "I have brought 3 girls up from Ms Munro's class, and show them my animation on computer of Fraction, and they all got incorrect answers by guessing. One of my year 8 friend who not bad at maths but couldn't even get it right, the problem is that they cannot recognize the equal shapes or areas."
</blockquote>
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<p> By the design of her question, Ngoc is clearly identifying a common problem students have about Fractions, that the parts have to be divided into equal areas.
</p><p>From the journal of Daniel Curnow Monday 21/11/94
<blockquote>"Today I am going to make a harder procedure maybe one that the younger kids found hard in the test they had. The last procedure we did the younger kids found it easy but it took a while before they got the answer. They said that they did not know that one fourth is the same as one quarter." </blockquote>
</p><p>Daniel's screen:<br />
WHICH SHOWS 1/4?<br />
<ul>
<li>A. THREE FOURTHS</li>
<li>B. ONE THIRD</li>
<li> C. TWO FIFTHS</li>
<li>D. ONE QUARTER</li>
<li>E. NOT GIVEN</li>
</ul>
</p><p>Daniel is reflecting on as aspect of language in maths. Students sometimes become confused when different words are used to represent the same value, in this case one fourth and one quarter.
</p><p>From the journal of Sarah Scott Monday 14/11/94
</p>
<blockquote>"I showed them (the Year 3/4 students) my screen and they found it easy. I showed them the fractions test and pointed out the hard ones and they knew the answers to all of them. I don't know what screen to do that they wont find easy. I will design that screen in planning tomorrow."
</blockquote>
</p><p> Tuesday 15/11/94
<blockquote>"Today I will ask Mr. Kerr what type of screen I can do now since I am not sure. I just thought of one." </blockquote>
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<p> Sarah's was paired with a talented student in the Year 3/4 class who had found her previous screens easy to solve. Sarah thought up this more difficult screen without teacher help so as to offer the Year 3/4 student a real challenge. Her journal entry clearly documents the problem and the moment of creation.
</p><h3>DISCUSSION</h3>
<b>Rich Learning Outcomes</b>
<p> As well as the learning about Fractions my strong impression was that significant amounts of learning were also occuring in such diverse areas as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Collaboration with other students</li>
<li>Design skills</li>
<li>Self management skills</li>
<li>Fluency in logo programming</li>
<li>Expressive writing about mathematical and technical issues</li>
<li>Cognitive resilience (ie. learning not to give up)</li>
<li>Time management</li>
<li>Faith in own thinking</li>
<li>Developing teaching skills such as empathy with Year 3/4 students, planning, reflection and explaining.</li>
</ul>
<p>It's hard to prove this and unfortunately you, the reader, were not there. Also the merits of the whole approach rests or falls on this claim. The best I can do is to refer you to Idit Harel's thesis for a far more comprehensive documentation of these claims.
</p><p>What follows is a discussion of some of the claims and connected issues.</p>
<b>Improved Fraction Knowledge</b>
<p>How come students improved their Fraction knowledge (shown by the Pre and Post test results) without being formally instructed in Fractions?</p>
<p>The environmental framework was constructed by the teacher by setting the students a teaching task, a design task and a medium to work in. These were non negotiables but beyond that the students had the freedom to do their own thing. Students were put into the role of a teacher and all teachers know that having to teach a topic is a very good way to learn it. Students were set the task of doing transformations between words, symbols and pictures using LogoWriter. The LogoWriter procedures written by the students became a fourth type of transformation that kept students focused on the manipulation of Fractions. They were learning in constructionist fashion using Logo as a medium over an extended period of time. By constructionist I mean active, self directed exploration providing the opportunity for internal representations of fractions to evolve.</p>
<b>Dealing with complexity</b>
<p>A complex learning sequence where students designed computer screens to teach other students Fractions was completed successfully by the class. The students did not find it particularly difficult or confusing to be learning different skills at the same time. The teacher did not have to nag the class to get on with their work, apart from the occasional individual exception. By and large students self managed their own progress with the teacher (or another student) acting as a helper or facilitator when they became "stuck" with a particular problem.</p>
<b>Inclusive learning activity</b>
<p>All of the students, except two latecomers to the class, contributed to the final instructional software design product. Most of the students designed and made their own screens. The quality of the final screens varied considerably but the final collective class product is a useful piece of instructional software. Some students copied designs from the pretest, which was made readily available throughout. The teacher did not interfere if students chose to do this interpreting it as a lack of confidence that would be overcome in time. </p>
<b>Individuality was expressed</b>
<p>Some students displayed their individuality, initiative and skill by designing special features, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Attractive title pages, designed using LogoWriter</li>
<li>An elaborate answer screen where a truck backed up to pickup a "YOUR RIGHT" shape and towed it across the screen</li>
<li>Flashing colour screens. One group discovered this by accident and it quickly spread throughout the class.</li>
</ul>
<p>The teacher did not ask students to do any of this but did approve and encourage it when it happened.</p>
<b>Motivation</b>
<p>Motivation and interest in the Project by both students and the teacher remained high throughout the whole 7 week block. Usually, the teacher could work intensively with a small group of students with his back turned to most of the class. I have taught the same class using other more teacher directed methods and found this method the most effective for maintaining motivation and interest over an extended time period.</p>
<b>Problem Finding and Solving</b>
<p>Nearly all of the students systematically identified and recorded problems that occurred in the course of their work and solutions to many of those problems. According to my records, in the course of the Project 123 problems were identified by the students and solutions to 47 of those problems were recorded. The sort of problems that were identified included programming problems, technical problems, design problems, maths problems and personal problems.</p>
<b>Appraising</b>
<p>Students appraised the suitability of the product they made for the target audience (Year 3/4 students) and in many cases made plans to improve t</p><p>heir subsequent designs to better fit the target audience. eg. in some cases the first design was too easy for the particular Year 3/4 partner and so a more complex question was designed next time. This is a similar process that real life teachers go through in learning how to teach effectively. </p>
<b>Improved Fluency and Confidence in Technological Competence</b>
<p>Students became more fluent in their use of Logo primitives so that certain strings became second nature to them. For example, I have seen one particular programming sequence that involves trialling something on the front of the LogoWriter page in the command centre and then selecting, copying and pasting it to the flip side, which involves about 12 different keystrokes in correct order, gradually become second nature to a large proportion of the class. This is just one illustration of the improvement in programming fluency and increasing confidence of students in working with complex technology that could be readily observed in the classroom. Students, to varying degrees, developed a positive relationship with the computer and a sense of self as a technically competent person.</p>
<b>Expressive Writing about Maths and Technology</b>
<p>Students wrote systematically about mathematical and technical questions and in many cases included how they felt about these events. They wrote with feeling about technical questions and their collaboration with other students.</p>
<b>Genuinely Useful End Product</b>
<p>The "final" product is educationally valuable. The student software designs have been compiled and edited by the teacher and some of the more enthusiastic students. It is envisaged that the end product will be a useful diagnostic tool for maths teachers as well as an exemplar of what can be done with LogoWriter.</p>
<p>The "final" product could be developed and refined further in the future, simulating within the School the process that commercial software developers have to go through. It might even be possible to work on the product over an extended time with a select group of students to improve the software to commercial standard and then market it.
</p>
<h3>CONCLUSION</h3>
<b>Methodology: Objects to think with</b>
<p>Teachers face the task everyday of how to make their subjects relevant and interesting to their students and this is seen to be a particular problem with maths. One way to look at this is from the point of view of objects to think with. The teacher and students co-construct a learning environment that is replete with "objects to think with". These "objects" include:</p>
<ul>
<li>The challenge of teaching others and designing screens for this purpose using Logowriter</li>
<li>The structure of fractions and their transformations (words, symbols, pictures)</li>
<li>Other students, eg. best friends, class experts, the Year 3/4 students</li>
<li>Teacher (Is he/ she approachable, friendly and skilled?)</li>
<li>Journal reflections</li>
</ul>
<p>Taken together these objects represent the ISDP (Instructional Software Design Project)
</p><p>Harel and Papert (1990) argue that some materials are better with regard to the following criteria:</p>
<ul>
<li>appropriability (some things lend themselves better than others to being made one's own)</li>
<li>evocativeness (some materials are more apt than others to precipitate personal thought)</li>
<li>integration (some materials are better carriers of multiple meaning and multiple concepts)</li>
</ul>
<p>When used in the way described above LogoWriter is a most effective learning medium to think about Fractions and Design according to these criteria.</p>
<h3>References</h3>
<p> The approach adopted in this learning sequence was inspired from Idit Harel's PhD thesis titled: Software Design for Learning: Children's Construction of Meaning for Fractions in Logo Programming (MIT, June 1988). I obtained a copy of the thesis for US$20 by writing to: <br />
Epistemology and Learning<br />
MIT Media Lab<br />
E15-309<br />
20 Ames Street<br />
Cambridge, MA 02139<br />
</p>
<p>Idit Harel's thesis was subsequently published as a book called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Children-Designers-Interdisciplinary-Constructions-Computer-Rich/dp/0893917885">Children Designers</a> (1991), published by Norwood: Ablex.</p>
<p>Harel, I. & Papert, S. (1990) Software Design as a Learning Environment. Interactive Learning Environment, 1, 1-32
</p><p>Kafai, Yasmin B., Minds in Play: Computer Game Design as a Context for Children's Learning (1993). This thesis is available from the same 'Epistemology and Learning' address given above for the Idit Harel thesis.</p>
<b>Acknowledgments</b>
<p>Helen Munro, teacher of the 3/4 class at Paralowie R12 School in 1994, for her flexibility and collaboration </p>
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-63665954899666977482023-12-09T14:54:00.002+10:302023-12-10T21:31:29.617+10:30Darrell Wakelam inspired<p>This is the work of some of my year 8 students. If you want to learn how visit <a href="https://www.darrellwakelam.com/downloads">this page</a> of Darrell Wakelam's website and also buy his brilliant book, <a href="https://www.darrellwakelam.com/art-shaped">Art Shaped</a></p>
<p>What you see here is just a tiny sample (using paper plates, egg cartons and plastic milk containers) of what Darrell offers</p>
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mice
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caterpillar, chameleon, mouse
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puffin, chameleon
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clowns
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elephant
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shark (not a Darrell Wakelam design. I asked the student where she got the idea and she replied "Tik Tok!)
<br /><br />
Previous:<br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/art-shaped-darrell-wakelam-workshop.html">art shaped: Darrell Wakelam</a>
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-5219766245853370572023-11-11T21:58:00.002+10:302023-11-11T22:14:21.092+10:30learning and teaching Turtle Art<a href="https://www.playfulinvention.com/webturtleart/">Turtle Art</a> is a deliberately minimalist design of Logo by Brian Silverman and Paula Bonta of the <a href="https://www.playfulinvention.com/">Playful Invention Company</a>. By minimalist I mean it sticks to the principles outlined by Mitch Resnick and Brian Silverman in their 2005 article, “<a href="https://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/IDC-2005.pdf">Some Reflections on Designing Construction Kits for Kids</a>”, namely
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
Make it as Simple as Possible – and Maybe Even Simpler</li><li>
A Little Bit of Programming Goes a Long Way</li></ul>
<p>The Turtle Art sessions were the starting point of a bigger project. The students began by designing interesting and artistic geometric shapes. They then exported an SVG of their shape into Tinkercad. From Tinkercad they saved an STL and then 3D printed the shape. Next they used the shape to imprint a clay tablet and finally they painted the tablet.</p>
<p>Following a well worn path I began with the square. The Turtle Art defaults are setup for drawing a square. Once a square is drawn you can then show how to “black box” it with a named hat. This creates a brand new block which can now be used later as part of a larger design.</p>
<p>This starting shape is a good one to role play with a student acting as a robot and another as the controller. This gels with the body syntonic principle (Seymour Papert, <i>MindStorms</i>) and hopefully gets students thinking in terms of “I am the turtle, what do I need to do to make this shape”</p>
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<p>I then challenged the students to create the shapes shown (page 1 starters). I witnessed some students completing the square where the turtle begins and returns to the centre whilst others struggled to do this.</p>
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<p>In my experience some things have to be taught whilst others are more likely to be picked up naturally in a well constructed learning environment like Turtle Art. My goal is for students to become fluent in their ability to make complex, artistic geometric patterns.</p>
<p>The principle I talk up at the start is turtle state. When you make a shape make sure the turtle ends up in the same position and heading (direction) as where it began.</p>
<p>Later on I talk a lot about 360 / N where N is the number of repetitions needed. For example, say you want to make this shape </p>
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<p>First make a midpoint square, remembering that the turtle must start and finish in the same state</p>
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<p>Then count the number of repetitions (5) and work out the angle 360 / 5 = 72. Use the midpoint square hat as a building block for the more complex shape </p>
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<p>I had a number of regular polygons on my starter page (square, triangle, pentagon, hexagon, octagon). The 360/N formula produces the external angles of these shapes, not the internal angles. I did talk briefly about that showing a diagram on the board with internal and external angles. In this class I never got around to showing how to do variables so to draw all these shapes with one equation. I could have done that but <br />
(a) it wasn't strictly necessary, and <br />
(b)I’ve found in the past after showing this that students often don’t use it anyway. Many prefer the simpler version!</p>
<p>One of my triangles was right angled. Most students worked it out using a guess and test method. I asked the maths co-ordinator if they had done Pythagoras’ theorem yet and she said it would happen a bit later in the year. I decided to go ahead and show how to get the exact lengths using Pythagoras. The hypotenuse is 141.4 if the other two sides are 100 each. A few of the more capable students picked up on this but when I checked later for some of the others if they remembered me teaching Pythagoras I received some blank looks!</p>
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<p>I’m not too fussed about this. On the one hand some students are doing it by tinkering which is another word for guess and test. Perhaps they are learning some perseverance as well. Others are learning the more traditional way and getting a more precise answer. For the purposes of what we are trying to achieve here – make interesting and artistic geometric shapes – both methods work fine.</p>
<p>From the page 1 starter shapes I then suggested some pathways that students could go down to produce more interesting and artistic shapes</p>
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<p>I did make efforts to setup a situation where students worked in groups and helped each other. They nominated their preferred partners, I then set up groups. I also sometimes asked them to fill out a planning sheet at the start of lesson (questions like ‘Which shapes do you plan to make today?’) and end of lesson (questions like ‘Who helped you?’, ‘Who did you help?’ and ‘Give some details of the help’). I make this part of the assessment criteria. Some students emerged as brilliant helpers of others while some others learnt to find the right person to ask.</p>
<p>A few students managed to complete all my challenges before the others and so I gave them some harder challenges (shapes 36 and 40) from Barry Newell’s original booklet, <i>Turtle Confusion</i>. His hardest shape is shape 40. I had three students successfully do that one and one of them went on with it as his shape to 3D print.</p>
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A handful of students went their own way and developed their own shapes at some point. I didn’t push particularly hard for this but did praise it when I saw it happening
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As the process continued students finished up with a variety of 3D prints that looked like this:
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And painted clay tiles that looked like this:
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<p>And yet, this is only covers a tiny fraction of what you can do with Turtle Art. I hope to write some notes in the future about how to teach the many other artistic elements of the program.</p>
<b>Reference</b>:<br/>
Burker, Josh <i>Invent to Learn Guide to Fun</i> (2015), pp. 107-113<br/>
Newell, Barry. <i>Turtle Confusion</i> (1988)<br/>
Papert,Seymour. Mindstorms (1980)<br/>
Stager, Gary & Martinez, Sylvia. <i>Turtle Art Tiles Project Guide</i> (adapted from the original Josh Burker article)<br/>
<br/>
<b>Software</b>:<br/>
Turtle Art <a href="https://www.playfulinvention.com/webturtleart/">https://www.playfulinvention.com/webturtleart/</a><br/>
<br/>
(earlier blogs on this project)<br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/11/turtle-art-tile-project-conclusion.html">Turtle Art Tile Project Conclusion</a><br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/working-with-acrylics.html">Working with Acrylics</a><br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/working-with-clay.html">Working with Clay</a><br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/scaffold-for-turtle-art-tiles-project.html">Scaffold for Turtle Art Tiles Project</a><br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/turtle-art-tiles-project.html">Turtle Art Tiles Project</a><br />
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-38814962043278230062023-11-11T11:32:00.007+10:302023-11-11T11:51:49.855+10:30ELECFREAKS line tracking carELECFREAK Nezha kit Case 11: <a href="https://www.elecfreaks.com/learn-en/microbitKit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit_case_11.html">Line tracking car</a>
<br /><br />
Had fun doing this with some Polly Farmer (aboriginal) students
<br /><br />
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For more about ELECFREAKS (positives and negatives) see my <a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/elecfreaks-nezha-kit-workshop.html">earlier blog</a>Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-36392149317210333922023-11-07T14:47:00.001+10:302023-11-07T14:54:08.122+10:30Turtle Art Tile Project conclusion<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAqhCoU8p_v4oFM1J0cpJQ4FJbCXflmKnGz9PWPWoT7JC-20Vz4KtV7P6OXG3TGkWD6W3bhNjzv8dvA_JBQTYPz3tW2uYsXXSITfi31nmsv0zGa07TE17jW4fQowXzomAQIaOUwNZbpV-z1xJjG38RBp1BC9XeVAXFAP6U1d484WKzxNagMg/s3738/tiles_2.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1781" data-original-width="3738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAqhCoU8p_v4oFM1J0cpJQ4FJbCXflmKnGz9PWPWoT7JC-20Vz4KtV7P6OXG3TGkWD6W3bhNjzv8dvA_JBQTYPz3tW2uYsXXSITfi31nmsv0zGa07TE17jW4fQowXzomAQIaOUwNZbpV-z1xJjG38RBp1BC9XeVAXFAP6U1d484WKzxNagMg/s400/tiles_2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<p>It’s quite a complex process with some fiddly technical steps along the way to making a great product. </p>
<p>I had a mixed ability class with incredibly talented students at one end and battlers at the other end. A few did leave early in the piece, for various reasons, but those battlers who displayed some initial reluctance did warm to the project as it proceeded. When it came to 3D printing their Turtle Art design without exception all students became excited. They had never done 3D printing before. </p>
<p>I did make efforts to setup a situation where students worked in groups and helped each other. They nominated their preferred partners, I then set up groups. I also sometimes asked them to fill out a planning sheet at the start of lesson (questions like ‘Which shapes do you plan to make today?’) and end of lesson (questions like ‘Who helped you?’, ‘Who did you help?’ and ‘Give some details of the help’). I make this part of the assessment criteria. Some students emerged as brilliant helpers of others while some others learnt to find the right person to ask. I was trying to nudge them in those collaborative directions and had some success with that.</p>
<p><b>Turtle Art Design</b>: I did provide scaffolding here, which I <a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/scaffold-for-turtle-art-tiles-project.html">blogged about earlier</a>. I'm thinking now that I need to elaborate on this process further in a separate blog. Stay tuned.</p>
<p>
I did produce a Help sheet “FROM TURTLE ART TO TINKERCAD TO 3D PRINTING” guide students through the fiddly bits where they transitioned between different software. Some important points:</p>
<b>Turtle Art steps</b>: Make sure your Turtle Art shape: <br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Has a Clean block on top </li>
<li>Has pensize set to 10 </li>
</ul>
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<p>The Turtle Art default pen size is 4. I found that when this flowed through to the 3D print the lines weren’t thick enough so I upgraded this to size 10. </p>
<p>You can save your Turtle Art file as an SVG which is needed to import into Tinkercad. I told students to choose outline and then plain, not framed, as the frame turned out too bulky and detracted from the art work.</p>
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<p><b>Tinkercad steps</b>: This was students first use of Tinkercad. This project was a good place to start because the Tinkercad steps were relatively easy. Teachers can setup a Tinkercad class with student nicknames to sign in. I always give students the opportunity to choose their own nicknames.</p>
<p>When they imported their SVG I suggested scale to 10% since otherwise the import was too big. I then told them to drop a ruler on the workplane and resize their shape to 90x90x2mm. The 2mm height was enough to make a good impression on the clay. A bigger height would have just meant longer 3D print time. </p>
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<p>Students then gave their file a meaningful name and exported from Tinkercad to create a *.STL file</p>
<p><b>Prusa Slicer steps</b>: I’m a big fan of the Prusa 3D printers. However, they don’t come with a prepackaged configuration, which is a pain, so I had to produce another step taking students through that process. </p>
<p>Once configured the process was straightforward since the sizes have been done in Tinkercad and just have to be confirmed. I did tell students that they had to save as 3MF and send me that file before they have permission to print. They also had to export their GCODE and not get confused about the functions of the different files. GCODE for the 3D printer and 3MF so the teacher could check everything was ready.</p>
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<p><b>3D printing</b>: This was the first time these students had done 3D printing and they were delighted to see that all their hard digital work was producing an atomic product!</p>
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<p><b>Clay step</b>: I've written about this in <a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/working-with-clay.html">another blog</a>. Not much to add except that I did 3D print guides for the students to roll their clay evenly to 6mm.</p>
<p><b>Painting step</b>: I've also written about this <a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/working-with-acrylics.html">here</a>. We did apply varnish after drying to seal all over.
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<p><b>Overcoming bottleneck points</b>: Real life classes are messy things due to varying student abilities, motivations and some absences. At any rate I needed a “filler”, something engaging for students to go on with who were up to date with everything else. Luckily at the right moment Gary Stager made his Turtle Art cards available. <a href="https://inventtolearn.com">Go to Invent to Learn and when you quit you'll see the pop up</a>. These are 156 beautiful Turtle Art projects. The code is supplied with an image of the finished product. Students went on with these while others were catching up. I even had one student who became so engaged with these cards that she did all of them!!!
</p>
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<b>REFERENCE</b> (earlier blogs on this project)<br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/turtle-art-tiles-project.html">Turtle Art Tiles Project</a><br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/scaffold-for-turtle-art-tiles-project.html">Scaffold for Turtle Art Tiles Project</a><br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/working-with-clay.html">Working with Clay</a><br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/working-with-acrylics.html">Working with Acrylics</a><br />
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-3026621027182012212023-10-18T20:20:00.002+10:302023-10-18T20:20:38.195+10:30the tower of AI babel<a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.01425.pdf">Borges and AI</a>
L´eon Bottou † and Bernhard Sch¨olkopf <br />
Oct 4, 2023<br />
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<b>Abstract</b>:<br />
<blockquote>Many believe that Large Language Models (LLMs) open the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Some see opportunities while others see dangers. Yet both proponents and opponents grasp AI through the imagery popularised by science fiction. Will the machine become sentient and rebel against its creators? Will we experience a paperclip apocalypse? Before answering such questions, we should first ask whether this mental imagery provides a good description of the phenomenon at
hand. Understanding weather patterns through the moods of the gods only goes so far. The present paper instead advocates understanding LLMs and their connection to AI through the imagery of Jorge Luis Borges, a master of 20th century literature, forerunner of magical realism, and precursor to postmodern literature. This exercise leads to a new perspective that illuminates the relation between language modelling and artificial intelligence</blockquote>
<b>My summary</b>:
<p>LLM is a story telling fiction machine with innumerable forks that can write any story and, be warned, can be manipulated by others. Neither truth nor intention matters to the operation of the machine, only narrative necessity. Narrative necessity is statistically determined by what comes before.</p>
<p>The machine merely follows the narrative demands of the evolving story. As the dialogue between the human and the machine progresses, these demands are coloured by the convictions and the aspirations of the human, the only visible dialog participant who possesses agency. However, many other invisible participants make it their business to influence what the machine says.</p>
<p>Delusion often involves a network of fallacies that support one another</p>
<p><b>Forking paths</b>: The linguist Zellig Harris has argued that all sentences in the English language could be generated from a small number of basic forms by applying a series of clearly defined transformations. Training a large language model can thus be understood as analysing a large corpus of real texts to discover both transformations and basic forms, then encode them into an artificial neural network that judges which words are more likely to come next after any sequence.</p>
<p><b>The Purifiers</b> want to eliminate the heinous, tidy up the machine to serve the human race and make money from it. They want to reshape the garden of forking paths against its nature, severing the branches that lead to stories they deem undesirable. Although there are countless ways to foil these attempts to reshape the fiction machine, efforts have been made, such as “fine-tuning” the machine using additional dialogues crafted or approved by humans, and reinforcing responses annotated as more desirable by humans (“reinforcement learning with human feedback”.) </p>
<p><b>Confabulation</b>: As new words are printed on the tape, the story takes new turns, borrowing facts from the training data (not always true) and filling the gaps with plausible inventions (not always false). What the language model specialists sometimes call hallucinations are just confabulations. Confabulation is inventing plausible stories with no basis in fact.</p>
<p>If an amnesiac patient is asked questions about an event they were previously at, instead of admitting they do not know, they would invent a plausible story. Similarly, in split-brain patients, where the corpus callosum is severed so each half of the brain cannot talk to each other, patients can invent elaborate explanations for why the other half of their body is doing a specific thing, even when the experimenter knows this is not the case because they have prompted it with something differently. </p>
<p><b>Story telling</b>: The invention of a machine that can not only write stories but also all their variations is thus a significant milestone in human history. It has been likened to the invention of the printing press. A more apt comparison might be what emerged to shape mankind long before printing or writing, before even the cave paintings: the art of storytelling. Fiction can enrich our lives, so what is the problem?</p>
<b>Reference</b>:<br />
<a href="https://maskofreason.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/the-library-of-babel-by-jorge-luis-borges.pdf">The Library of Babel</a> by Jorge Luis Borges (1941)<br />
<a href="https://www.beren.io/2023-03-19-LLMs-confabulate-not-hallucinate/">LLMs confabulate not hallucinate</a><br />
Zellig Harris. <i>Mathematical Structures of Language</i>. John Wiley & Sons, 1968 <br />
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-52309214556055275632023-10-02T18:29:00.004+10:302023-10-03T19:31:42.527+10:30children are not hackers<a href="http://beyondbitsandatoms.org/readings/blikstein2015children.pdf">Children are not hackers</a> by Paulo Blikstein & Marcelo Worsley (2016) - pdf available<br />
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<p>This is a cautionary argument against people like me who have been known to say “we are all makers” without thinking deeply enough about the issues. See the footnote for more about this.</p>
<p>The authors begin with the <i>counter intuitive claim</i> that the cultural roots of the modern maker movement are a threat to its flourishing or even survival in schools! <i>The one eyed warriors may sew the seeds of destruction of what they love. How ironic but not unusual</i>. After this introduction I had to read on to understand.</p>
<p>They explain this claim. The people that created the first Fab Lab at MIT (Gershenfeld eta la in 2001) were hackers. <i>By the way I don't use the term "hackers" as a pejorative. Hackers are those curious people who want to look inside and understand how things work. A better term for those who steal your data is Crackers</i>.</p>
<p>This led to the creation of Maker Faires for those and other hackers to show off their cool products and the MAKE magazine (which originated in 2005). Those people were sophisticated publishers. Furthermore, Maker clubs have flourished more outside of schools in informal settings (eg. museum, after school programs and competitions) rather than inside schools. </p>
<p>Then there has been a push for STEM education due to a perceived shortage of qualified engineers and scientists. Those considerations involve the industrial workplace, not the school workplace. </p>
<p>All of these influences (<b>hackers – publishers – informal educators – industrial workplace</b>) have a middle to upper class origin and elite appeal. Such a culture will not win the battle to introduce modern maker education into schools in a mass way.</p>
<p><b>Hacker culture</b> is self-sufficiency, autodidacticism, individualism and competition </p>
<blockquote>“The popular image of the hacker is that of a disheveled, unshaven White male in his twenties, doing all-nighters in a messy electronics lab, capable of learning anything by himself by scouring the Web or doing late-night runs to the library ...”
</blockquote>
<p>This is an extreme minority. To promote this won’t help most students.</p>
<p><b>Publisher culture</b>: The initial culture of the Maker Movement which began in earnest around 2005 was college-educated, affluent, White men. They published MAKE magazine and organised Maker Faires where makers showed off their innovative finished products. This was a culture of Product before Process where unfinished “half baked” efforts are not rewarded.</p>
<p>Also the types of projects developed by this elite group downgrades and devalues projects such as traditional crafts, costumes, pottery, technology-augmented wearables and jewelry, among many others </p>
<p><b>Informal spaces</b> Within these spaces the <i>Keychain Syndrome</i> prevails - the “30-minute” workshop model: fast, scripted, perpetually “introductory” workshops. The problem here is that the demonstrations often never get past trivial objects.</p>
<p><b>Job Market culture</b>: It is argued that we need more STEM students because of shortages of engineers and scientists and other countries, such as a threatening China, are way ahead of us here.</p>
<p><i>The pathway pioneered by Papert and others is different</i>: that software such as Logo (the precursor to Scratch) and hardware such as LEGO are tools for self expression and ways for transforming traditional subjects such as maths into something that is more interesting and natural to learn.</p>
<p>Summary from this section about the hackers – publishers – informal educators – industrial workplace influences: <i>Promoters of modern maker education such as myself should not take the efficacy of “making” for granted</i>.</p>
<b>TOWARDS A MAKER ED CULTURE THAT WILL WORK</b>
<p><b>Hard fun</b> (Papert): The lesson for educators is that the work in FabLabs and makerspaces can be enjoyable but should never be “easy” fun, devoid of frustration and difficulty </p>
<p><b>Abstract and Concrete Thinking</b>: The maker space approach does not reject the abstract but attempts to make the abstract more concrete. The examples provided by the authors are:
</p><blockquote>Supposedly abstract mathematical ideas suddenly become concrete when, for example, a student needs to design a laser-cut object using the least amount of material, or when a very “concrete” 3D printed object gives rise to a discussion about Boolean operations</blockquote> <p></p>
<p>I can think of other examples arising from design work using Turtle Art. I asked students to make a right angled triangle. Some did this by trial and error which was fine. I also showed them how to get the lengths exactly right by using Pythagoras theorem. In another shape the outside octagon by trial and error the size was 121 (good enough), when calculated using trig it was 120.7 (exact). I would say the trial and error approach is acceptable but it's good to show the more precise way to obtain the values and some of the students (not all) will pick it up. </p>
<p><b>Gut feeling or Research? Doing or Theorising?</b> Some maker ed advocates rely on gut feeling (doing is learning – list of attributes) but of course many educators want to see the real research done before they accept this. Deep learning doesn’t happen by magic. Maker ed advocates have to make strategic choices here. <i>IMO a combination of both constructionist and instructionist methods are required</i>. The authors are building a case here for a coherent theory of maker ed, not just hands on and she'll be right mate.
</p>
<p>For example, in one class where we were making and coding with the microbit, I took the opportunity to try explain where the 255 came from in some MakeCode parameters. I talked about bits and bytes and 1s and 0s. It wasn’t very successful. It was too abstract for most of the students. It made me realise I need to prepare this sort of break from the making and coding more carefully.</p>
<b>RECOMMENDED LEARNING CULTURE FOR MAKER SPACE</b>
<p>How does a learning culture differ from a hacker culture?</p>
<p>From the perspective of where actual students are at these are bad slogans: “every child should be a maker”, “making mistakes is good”, “every child should hack”</p>
<p>Reality check: many students need support! If they don’t get it they will feel lost or frustrated. They drift into doing the less demanding parts of a task (colouring in).</p>
<p>Without help (sink or swim approach) those who feel uncomfortable in a maker space will become further disempowered</p>
<p>One possibility: Pair more competent with less competent and make the less competent the driver (in control of computer, mouse and keyboard). I thought this was a great idea and have been angling for an opportunity to try it out:
</p><blockquote>“ In half of the mixed pairs, the low-achieving student was mandated to be the “driver” of the activity (having control over the computer mouse and keyboard, etc.). In those groups, the learning outcomes were almost the same as the groups with two high-achieving students, and dramatically higher than mixed groups in which the high-achieving student was the “driver” instead (Schneider & Blikstein, in press).”</blockquote>
<p>The authors refer to other researchers about the <b>stereotype threat</b> (Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006) which shows that
individuals can perform below their ability level when they suspect that they belong to a group that historically does not do well at a particular activity</p>
Key points from this section<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
include tasks that are meaningful to all students</li><li>
avoid too much “learn from failure” rhetoric</li><li>
find ways to get students out of their comfort zone (eg. instruct lower ability in a pair to be the driver)</li><li>
be aware that some groups expect to fail</li></ul>
<p><b>From jobs culture to literacy culture</b>:</p>
<p>There is often lots of talk about STEM (and also STEAM) in education systems these days. Some of this originates from social shortages of engineers and scientists. This can be a source of an educational problem rather than a solution to a social issue.</p>
<p>There is a deep cultural abyss separating the corporate world and K–12 schools. Educational materials should be designed for children</p>
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
microbit not arduino</li><li>
Scratch not Java</li>
</ul>
<p>The authors argue that the point of STEM literacy is to provide a lens through which to interpret the world and act upon it – “consciousness of the possible” Friere 1970. I have often advanced a similar argument, that Scratch is a multimedia fun machine for making stories and games.</p>
<p><b>From keychain culture to deep projects culture</b>:</p>
<p>The “keychain syndrome” is ok for an introduction to 3D printing but we are not achieving much if we don’t go beyond that. One version of this is downloading a great design from thingiverse and printing it. I do that and again it has its place. But in the bigger scheme of things it is too easy, no design or remix skills happening here. How do we go beyond that to a culture of deep projects?</p>
<p>To develop a school culture of engaging cross curricular projects does require administrative support. Teachers are time strapped and so it is not realistic to expect them to develop such materials on top of their normal workload. </p>
<p>Unfortunately curriculum guidelines such as ACARA, which separate the what from the how, do not help here. A good curriculum ought to have more flexibility about WHAT we teach (eg. design a project around an idea that interests the student). Then the teacher helps the student HOW to do that. In other words the HOW should be guiding the WHAT. But what does ACARA do? Tells the teachers the WHAT like Moses' stone tablets and leaves it to the teacher to figure out the HOW. (Thanks here to Mitch Resnick)
</p>
<blockquote>We think outside of the “STEM box”: We have seen students creating fascinating musical instruments, clothes, costumes, and visual arts projects, working with and augmenting traditional crafts, and creating interactive art. We have also seen teachers from non-STEM areas create very compelling units, combining history and math, biology and engineering, language arts and physics. Allowing teachers to “pair up” and design curricula together, even if they are from different areas, greatly expands the range of activities that can be done in the labs and makes it possible to attract students with a variety of different interests.</blockquote>
<p>Project ideas and themes should be connected to students’ lives, interests, passions, and their communities. Lives, interests, passions, communities covers a lot of ground</p>
<p><b>From product culture to process culture</b>:</p>
<p>Priming students helps their performance. eg. if students have been previously taught that triangles make stronger structures (and are reminded) then rather than using readily available objects to build bridges (eg, a chair) they are more likely to build with triangles.</p>
<p>A product culture sees a great finished product suitable for a Maker Faire as the end goal. A process culture looks at things like collaboration, management (eg. planning ahead) and preparedness to go outside of their comfort zone. It’s a different form of assessment. </p>
<b>THE MAKING OF THE FUTURE</b>
<p>Maker education has made significant inroads into many schools and even official curricular. For this progress to continue so that maker ed flourishes advocates such as myself need to understand the issue of what cultures are more attractive to most members of a school community.
</p>
<b>Footnote</b>: An extract from a previous article where I went a little overboard about humans as makers:<br />
<blockquote>We, humans, are homo faber (Latin for Man the Maker), the concept that human beings are able to control their fate and their environment as a result of the use of tools.</blockquote>
- <a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2021/08/thoughts-on-reading-paulo-blikstein.html">Thoughts on reading Paulo Blikstein (the founder of the Fab Learn Schools Movement)</a>
<p>I think now even in pre modern societies there was a division of labour (eg. hunters and gatherers) and that in our present youth culture, with the influence of social media, people are more likely to become consumers than makers. However, the modern maker movement does provide a promising way for many to break out of this. </p>
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-15036274404761260992023-10-01T19:25:00.000+10:302023-10-01T19:25:58.468+10:303D hand print: from atoms to bits and back to atoms<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8YIgZX0SPT6CuFscjHj2ufB5smXkNy0Ho6S5lZgys3x5mzDcg2sqdfr6ye2i6YwA4vmOCsxLUfJym-7lFIRn6mBLKZBZoWtUnRmh7GLNKKZpicf5IxXwpJbsCGoQxcr646Sfli88UUiJP5hCrqIPKi-WSJrdK_I9_2jBWHtm0Wr0-kpfwEA/s2536/handPrint.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="2536" data-original-width="1997" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8YIgZX0SPT6CuFscjHj2ufB5smXkNy0Ho6S5lZgys3x5mzDcg2sqdfr6ye2i6YwA4vmOCsxLUfJym-7lFIRn6mBLKZBZoWtUnRmh7GLNKKZpicf5IxXwpJbsCGoQxcr646Sfli88UUiJP5hCrqIPKi-WSJrdK_I9_2jBWHtm0Wr0-kpfwEA/s400/handPrint.jpg"/></a></div>
<p>I adapted the idea from a tutorial at the Prusa Printables education site (free for schools, universities and other educational institutions but you have to apply to register) to develop an interesting 3D print of my hand</p>
<p>The tutorial was <a href="https://www.printables.com/education/259151-autumn-decoration-prusaslicer-training">Autumn Leaves</a> by Vesela Skola</p>
<p>I wasn’t happy with the recommended image to SVG converter so I searched around and one that worked well for me: <a href="https://picsvg.com">Free image to SVG converter</a></p>
<p>The Autumn Leaves tutorial taught me how to prepare the images and then in Prusa Slicer to superimpose a hand image showing fingernails and knuckles onto the full hand backdrop. It also showed me how to alter the settings to print the hand with infill only (30% honeycomb) thus producing an attractive mesh effect.</p>
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Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-63008714388825180082023-09-30T12:08:00.001+09:302023-09-30T12:11:38.870+09:30student engagement is a variable<p>All teachers experience this but it is not always pointed out. We like to emphasise the positives. But the reality is that our well thought out programs don't always work for all students. This paper profiles three different types of students found in the Stanford Learning Fabrication Laboratory. The authors then make some recommendations of how to develop classroom environments which have a better chance of engaging all students.</p>
<p>Marcelo Worsley & Paulo Blikstein. <a href="https://tltlab.org/publications/designing-for-diversely-motivated-learners/">Designing for Diversely Motivated Learners</a> (2013). pdf available.</p>
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<p>Based on the research of others the current authors develop a descriptive framework for levels of interest and commitment: ‘hanging out’, ‘messing around’ and ‘geeking out’</p>
Jason <br />
<i>Geeking out</i><br /><ul><li>
interested in video games, programming and curious about science </li><li>
spends his lunchtime in the lab</li><li>
frustrated by structured tasks, wants to do own thing</li><li>
indifferent to peer connections</li></ul>
Delia<br />
<i>Messing around</i><br /><ul><li>
would start any description of her project with, “it’s complicated.” </li><li>
Extremely diligent, including HW – Powerpoint slides, Visual Basic, GoGo Board coding, questions to staff by email</li><li>
expected just in time help</li><li>
She needs structure</li><li>
High satisfaction when the project worked</li><li>
socially interactive across domains</li></ul>
Shawn<br />
<i>Hanging out</i><br /><ul><li>
Disruptive, disrespectful, inability to remain on task</li><li>
more interested in socialising than working</li><li>
Found he was better at Corel Draw than his peers</li><li>
a task of making a key chain for others appealed to & motivated Shawn & his group</li><li>
Their ambitious CREAM (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) project was abandoned as too hard</li></ul>
<br />
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TEACHERS IN A FAB LEARN LAB ENVIRONMENT
<br /><br />
1) Identify student interest & motivational level.
<br />
2) Develop a curriculum that has alternative, easier tasks for students with low interest or motivation, eg. hands on mini projects. Try to provide multiple entry and exit points with different levels of scaffolding. It's hard to do this first time you teach a new course but as you get to know all the possibilities better you can offer more options to students.
<br />
3) Additional interesting lab demos may spark interest for some who are not motivated
<br /><br />
I would add another point here. Set up an expectation that students will either help others or ask for help.
<br /><br />
FOOTNOTES<br />
<a href="https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/directory/profiles/worsley-marcelo.html">Marcelo Worsley bio</a>
<br /><br />
Not directly relevant to this article but when googling for a pic of the Stanford Learning Fabrication Laboratory I was blown away in discovering how many <a href="https://making.stanford.edu/resources/making-classes">making classes</a> and <a href="https://making.stanford.edu/making-spaces">making spaces</a> they have. Follow the links and you'll see what I mean.
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-48486107722369172102023-09-26T16:07:00.003+09:302023-09-26T16:44:43.451+09:30PAPERT'S IDEAS: MAINLY FROM MINDSTORMS<p>I first published this in October 1991. Have the ideas of Piaget, Papert, Minsky, Solomon, Turkle stood the test of time? Yes. But still more does need to be said ... </p>
<b>MISSING OUT ON THE MINDSTORMS</b>
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<p>Before I read <i>Mindstorms</i> and had only read about <i>Mindstorms</i> I gained the impression that Papert's educational philosophy was open ended discovery learning and that was about it.</p>
<p>Some of the articles that I have since read about Logo or about Papert's philosophy convey just this sort of impression. They talk vaguely about the "Logo philosophy" and about how some teachers who use Logo are aware and others are not aware of it.</p>
<p>It could be that either some Logo commentators do not understand Papert or, alternatively, they water him down so as to make him appear more respectable. I don't think that this is right. If Papert's ideas are important then we ought to find out what he is on about and if they inspire us, passionately propagate them. After all, ideas when they are put into practice do change the world, either for better or for worse.</p>
<p>At best, some writers about Logo talk about the importance of Logo to problem solving, debugging (children reflecting constructively about their "mistakes") and using Logo to develop learning about learning and all that guff. In other words, the sort of reflections on Logo that often pass for informed educational comment are so consistent with current modern educational thinking they would scarcely cause a ripple in the mind of the informed teacher. No Mindstorms here!</p>
<p>In my view the central tenants of Papert's thesis are educationally, socially and politically somewhat more radical. So, what is Papert really on about?</p>
<b>CONSTRUCTIONISM</b>
<p>Papert's beliefs are rooted very firmly in Piaget's findings about children's learning. Papert worked with Piaget for 5 years, applying his own expertise in maths to help build Piaget's theories. Two points from Piaget stand out:</p>
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li> Children build or construct their own intellectual structures.</li></ul>
<p>From this point arises the obligation of the modern teacher to restructure traditional subjects such as maths to fit the child. Hence, Papert has restructured maths by inventing the computing language logo to fit the natural development of the child.</p>
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li> Children build on what they know. Piaget's term for children's continual balancing of existing cognitive structures with new experiences is equilibration.</li></ul>
<p>From this point arises the obligation of the modern teacher to investigate the cognitive structures of their students and to interact with those cognitive structures in a subtle, not a heavy handed manner.</p>
<p>Piaget found that incredible amounts of learning occur without formal teaching. In his work, Papert tries to discover and promote the factors that are causing this "hidden" learning and also asks: Why is it that learning often does not occur with formal teaching (and often does occur without formal teaching)?</p>
<b>MATHSLAND: RESTRUCTURING TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE</b>
<p>Piaget was not an educational psychologist but a <b>genetic epistemologist</b>. These obscure words are highly significant. Papert has recently moved to a new lab at MIT which has been named the Learning and Epistemology Group. Clearly epistemology is central to the concerns of Piaget and Papert. So, what is epistemology and what is genetic epistemology?</p>
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<p>Piaget has recognised it as a mistake to separate the learning process from what is being learned. The study of what is being learned is epistemology. Hence, a genetic epistemologist is a person who investigates the evolution of the structure of knowledge in the minds of young people!</p>
<p>This is a much more dynamic conception than a traditional psychology of the learning process which passively accepts the traditional structure of knowledge as a given. Piaget and Papert are suggesting that there is a dialectical relationships between knowledge and people. Papert quotes Warren McCulloch tellingly to make this point:</p>
<blockquote>"What is a man so made that he can understand number and what is number so made that a man can understand it." (Mindstorms, p. 164)</blockquote>
<p>In looking at learning it is not enough to look at "learning how to learn" (ie. concentrate on the learner) but we need to study the basic structure of the subject itself. Papert investigates the basic structure of mathematics in some detail including a critique of the formal logical thinking emphasised in Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica and the "new math" of the 1960s/70s. In Piaget/Papert's view the basic structure of maths is derived from the thinking of the Bourbaki school: order, proximity (topology), combination (algebra).In Papert's view it is not natural that advanced maths ideas are inaccessible to most. What Papert has tried to do is restructure maths so as to accommodate the natural tendencies of the child. Instead of mathophobia Papert hopes to create a mathsland where it will be natural to learn maths, like learning to speak French in France.</p>
<p>Logo was designed with this philosophical/mathematical background in mind. Logo was developed as a language so that mathematically naive users could learn how to program and control the computer as well as more sophisticated users.</p>
<b>TOOLS, CULTURE AND PEOPLE</b>
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<p>Change is inevitable but widespread change will only occur when there are significant changes in the wider culture. This applies to both social change and change in patterns of intellectual development.</p>
<p>The printing press on its own did not create poetry, but by spreading poetry around it helped to create new poets. The steam engine on its own did not create the industrial revolution. Tools are made by people and when tools call out for revolution they will speak through people.</p>
<p>Computers will not create an educational revolution. Forget about computers (for a minute!); culture is central to change! Papert is not a mechanical technological determinist. He is more on about reconceptualising traditional subject domains and using, in this instance, the computer as a tool to help do this.</p>
<p>This is a vitally important point when we come to evaluate the effectiveness of logo for if logo is implemented as a technical act (in a formal, teacher centred, Instructionist classroom) then obviously Papert's beliefs are not being given a fair trial. Papert has clearly rejected this technological determinism:</p>
<blockquote>"Technocentrism refers to the tendency to give a ...centrality to a technical object - for example computers or Logo ... (this) betray(s) a tendency to reduce what are really the most important components of educational situations - people and cultures - to a secondary, facilitating role. The context of human development is always a culture, never an isolated technology ..." (Papert, quoted in Solomon, p.128)</blockquote>
<p>Since culture is central to change then it follows that a teacher ought to aspire to be an anthropologist. The computer is merely one important recent addition to the cultural landscape. The question that the anthropologist/teacher ought to focus on is which cultural materials are relevant to intellectual development</p>
<p>The computer will not replace the teacher. On the contrary, teachers will have to become more skilled to incorporate the new technology into the overall educational context:</p>
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
Skilled in modern learning theories and psychology</li><li>
Skilled in relating to a variety of children</li><li>
Skilled in detecting new, important elements of their student's culture</li><li>
Skilled in cross curricular applications</li><li>
Skilled in computing</li><li>
Able to apply a variety of skills creatively</li></ul>
<p>These skills are necessary for a modern educational system. Currently, one of the main problems with regard to developing creative applications of computers in education is training teachers with these skills. But lets not blame the teachers for this when education departments and governments are not providing the time, the infrastructure or the educational insights to make it all possible.</p>
<p>Papert has proposed a new field of teacher training called humanistic computer studies, where:</p>
<blockquote>"In my vision of this field its professionals will need special combinations of competences. Apart from a foundation in scientific knowledge and technological skill they will need high degrees of psychological sensitivity and 'artistic' imagination. For the ones who will make the greatest social contribution will be those who know how to mold the computer into forms which people will love to use and in ways which will lead them on to enrichment and enhancement...." (from Solomon, p.133)</blockquote>
<b>THE ROLE OF THE COMPUTER</b>
<p>If culture is central then what is the role of the technology? The new technology provides the underlying basis for a radical change in the educational and social system. Computers are obviously an important new part of our popular cultural landscape and everyone agrees that their influence will grow in the future.</p>
<p>However, the point is that the future possible pathways for education and society are manifold and that these decisions will be made in the cultural and political arenas - popular culture often determines political expediency. Logo taught in a constructionist framework represents a great educational opportunity but unless cultural persuasion and political pressure is brought to bear on the formal education system then the opportunity will be lost.</p>
<p>In today's world computers will usher in new cultural change but the sort of change that occurs will be fought out socially, in the world of business (how can productivity be maximised?), in the world of institutionalised education, in schemes for alternative schools, in the home with PC's, in the Arcades with the latest computer games. There is no social inevitability about the future pattern of usage of computers.</p>
<p>Computers may be used to mechanically increase productivity by crunching words, numbers and data. Others will use them as an expressive and creative tool to develop individuals with new insights into traditional subject domains, including human psychology. As a tool the computer is versatile enough to do both! Alan Kay has claimed that the computer can be used to simulate anything:</p>
<blockquote> "...[the computer] is a medium that can dynamically simulate the details of any other medium, including media that cannot exist physically ... it has degrees of freedom for representation and expression never before encountered and as yet barely investigated." (Sunrise Notes Number 2, June 1990, p.29) </blockquote>
<p>Papert says that the role of the new technology is twofold: both instrumental and heuristic.</p>
<p>Instrumental simply means that as computers become cheaper, more powerful and more popular they will carry and spread the ideas and social relations embedded within them amongst larger and larger groups of people. Papert expresses the instrumental role of computers spreading ideas around very powerfully with the metaphor "computer as pencil".</p>
<p>The heuristic influence of computers is a more complex and surprising idea.</p>
<p>Computing science is not fundamentally a technical science of computers. Rather, most of it is the science of descriptions and descriptive languages. Hence computing science (especially AI research) has something to offer learning theory, since descriptive languages are used to talk about learning. At an elementary level it is clear that concepts such as input, output, feedback, subprocedures (modularisation), recursion, debugging and extensibility could provide at least part of a framework for explanations of biological and human behaviour.</p>
<p>Papert and Minsky argue that ideas from computing science are instruments of explanation of learning and thinking. More, they are instruments of changing, altering the way in which we learn and think. In this way computing science and AI Research has ushered in a whole new theory of human psychology as outlined by Minsky in <i>Society of Mind</i>.</p>
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<b>PAPERT'S CRITIQUE OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM</b>
<p>Those who invented the automobile didn't do so by an in depth study of the horse and buggy! This is Papert's comment on the educational horse and buggy!</p>
<p>Papert is scathing of the established education system. He perceives our present schooling process as a technical act under the guiding methodology of Instructionism.</p>
<p>Although instruction is fine and an inevitable part of everyone's everyday learning this is different from Instructionism which is the entrenched methodology of a central person or curriculum transmitting pre-established pieces of information to an essentially passive, captive audience. Papert is against the teacher as technician under the control of the curriculum, against centralised control, against hierarchy, against the whole notion of a centralised curriculum and against accountability and national testing based on the above precepts. In short, Papert is swimming against the current winds of educational tightening up in this country but in doing so he is giving us some powerful weapons to effectively oppose the current disastrous, straight-jacketing trend. Papert's weapons are the ideas outlined above, computer software (logo) and computer hardware (LEGO).</p>
<p>In a dynamic, living culture there is little place for a centralised curriculum because the culture will generate its own interesting, unpredictable challenges on a day to day basis. Attempts to impose a curriculum onto this culture would only serve to cramp the style and creative interest of those who work within the culture.</p>
<p>Instructionism is misguided because it treats children as empty vessels to be filled up with knowledge. Instructionism ignores Piaget who emphasises that children construct their own internal mental worlds by integrating new information with already established structures (equilibration).</p>
<p>Hence, Piaget's findings and not computers as such are at the centre of Papert's radical critique of the education system. Papert would oppose the use of computers for Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) such as maths drill as a band-aid to patch up a basically sterile system.</p>
<p>In opposition to Instructionism, Papert advances the guiding principle of Constructionism for creating a humane and enriching education system. The learning environment is about building and creating things, eg. building rich cognitive structures internally and building things like LEGO machines externally. In this environment the teacher is first and foremost a fellow learner (who might spend more time instructing others simply because he/she may know more).</p>
<p>There is nothing new in Papert's critique of the education system up until now. In the history of education there has always been alternative schools with an emphasis on freedom. These movements have never really caught on partly because "...they were unable to handle the more formal aspects such as mathematics or grammar or many parts of science."(Papert, address to WCCE, 1990). So, what is new in Papert's vision is the use of modern technology (computers with logowriter and LEGO TClogo) to make possible interesting constructivist maths, science and grammar for perhaps the first time ever, historically.</p>
<b>CONCLUSION</b>
<p>Many teachers are enthusiastic to start with. Then, after ten years many teachers are burnt out Instructionist hacks, despite their best intentions. Don't blame the teacher, blame the system.</p>
<p>Fundamentally, Papert influences us because, if we really listen to him, he politicises the educational debate in a highly practical way. Papert has taken the most traditional subjects - maths and science - and has begun to restructure them to fit the user. Papert and his supporters have created an interesting maths-land and science-land that are both user friendly and powerful learning environments.</p>
<p>Hence, Papert and the MIT group are creating conditions that make it possible for people to become passionate about educational options. LEGO TClogo is something that you can take home and happily play with! It is hard to be passionate about maths drill and practice style textbooks, or Instructionism - broadcasting essentially the same lesson year after year, marking Common Tests, or whether Sarah was really worth a low A or a high B. Constructionism and Logo is different. It fits the user and has no ceiling in terms of expertise.</p>
<p>Papert's ideas have the power to change lives and to change whole education systems (eg. Costa Rica). Of course this will require a tremendous and possibly protracted educational/political struggle since the Instructionist model casts such a long shadow. As in all meaningful struggles the outcome is far from certain.</p>
<p>Since Papert's ideas are revolutionary they are not for the faint hearted. It is very difficult to mentally step outside of a system you are working in, that you are part of, that you help to reproduce by your day to day actions and then to turn around and to say that it is fundamentally at fault. It is easier for Papert to make this critique than it is for a practising classroom teacher. In the final analysis, Papert invites us to have the courage to embark on the adventure of tearing down the old ways while creating the new ways of teaching and learning.</p>
<b>REFERENCES:</b>
<br /><br />
Papert, Seymour. <i>Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas</i>. Harvester Press, 1980.
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Papert, Seymour. <i>Peristroika and Epistemological Politics.</i> Address to the 5th World Conference on Computers in Education, Sydney, Australia, July 1990.
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Solomon, Cynthia. <i>Computer Environments for Children: A Reflection on Theories of Learning and Education.</i> The MIT Press, 1987
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Turkle, Sherry. <i>The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit.</i> Simon and Schuster, New York, 1984.
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-56134207631113605892023-09-24T19:50:00.003+09:302023-09-30T10:43:12.528+09:30Microbit course outline<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSZ0kBZYwXOTyt7VQYwhKu_cqwd43O-FMuvNBw5ES-CpzzCaOLwqElRt0rkurJiQMhD-quWMiS0C073bUBhR4Kq4sMlpfi7vCAKdXDV06hGFTf31SSp3Q7bHK4rHsxQm0MeZIQwE-ryC92xELT7IAylHjjSkAEWhzYHCGZ8-WatAuOUEpv0A/s653/microbit.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="400" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="653" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSZ0kBZYwXOTyt7VQYwhKu_cqwd43O-FMuvNBw5ES-CpzzCaOLwqElRt0rkurJiQMhD-quWMiS0C073bUBhR4Kq4sMlpfi7vCAKdXDV06hGFTf31SSp3Q7bHK4rHsxQm0MeZIQwE-ryC92xELT7IAylHjjSkAEWhzYHCGZ8-WatAuOUEpv0A/s400/microbit.png"/></a></div>
This is an outline of key features of a Digital Technology course, <i>using the microbit</i>, which I have taught to year 8s this year. The time allocation was 17 hours (two 1 hour lessons per week over a 9 week term, with one holiday day subtracted)
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<b>Vocab sheet</b>: I produced a vocab sheet with 30+ words. We talked about the words and their meanings at suitable times during lessons. Later on in the course I modified the sheet by including a mix and match list.
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<b>Reference</b>: <br />
Maas, Pauline & Heldens, Peter. <a href="https://cmkpress.com/product/microbit/">The Invent to Learn Guide to the micro:bit</a>.(2023). This was my primary reference, referred <i>in situ</i> by M&H, page number. There are other great project ideas in this book that I didn't have time to try out.
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<b>Lesson 1</b>: I distributed microbits and discussed its features. Our aim will be to make artifacts that perform in some way using the microbit. We’ll often work in groups so tell me your preferred partners
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<b>Lesson 2</b>: Heart beat, Name badge, animations, starry night, starry night challenges
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<b>Lesson 3 and 4</b>: <i>Dice simulation</i>. I told the students to play “Pig” with a real dice first and then play it again with a dice simulation on the microbit.
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<i>Coin simulation</i>. I told them to play “Two up” with real coins first and then using a coin simulation.
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<i>Measure the temperature</i> (then warm up your microbit in your hand to increase the temperature)
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<i>Shake it up</i>. Vary the LED icon with small shake, medium shake and big shake.
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<i>LED war</i> (two player game with 2 microbits using radio to communicate). Press the A button to put random LEDs on your microbit. Press the B button to wipe off random LEDs on your opponents microbit. You win the game if all 25 LEDs light up.
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<i>Challenges</i>: Make a better game – 10 LEDs appear with one A button press; 10 LEDs disappear with one B button press; add sounds
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<b>Lesson 5</b>: Fruit music (M&H, 42). Although this works better with the Makey Makey with the microbit you can use 3 pieces of fruit connected to pins 0,1 and 2 for 3 notes and then use the A and B buttons and logo for 3 more notes. I provided the notes for twinkle star. Challenges include different types of fruit, testing beakers of water for conduction and devising or looking up your own tunes.
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<b>Lesson and 7</b>: Unicorn Greeting Card (M&H, 25). This utilises the microbit pins to light up a LED which becomes the eye of the Unicorn.
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<b>Lesson 8-11</b>: Helmet. I adapted an idea from Rob Morrill’s Circuit Playground course <a href="https://makecode.adafruit.com/courses/maker/projects/helmet">here</a> and broadened it out. Students made a cardboard helmet complete with a 0.5m neopixel strip. I provided a wide variety of ways in which they could code their helmet.
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Display and change colours using buttons, shake and tilt</li><li>
Sound input: talk, sing or whistle to your microbit. The challenge here was to make the harder to get louder sounds colours stay on for longer</li><li>
Show and rotate a rainbow using light. The challenge here was to make the rainbow rotate faster as you shine more light onto it</li><li>
Random colour changes. This started with all pixels red and then various button or logo presses led to random pixel colour changes. Finally a shake was used to create millions of random colours which changed rapidly for an extended period. </li><li>
Range of colours. The code was provided to set the first and last 7 pixels to rainbow colours (ROYGBIV) and the inbetween colours to flashing between white and black. The challenge here was to change the colours and speed of the flashing white to black.</li><li>
Accelerometer. Initially the neopixels are all green but when tilting the head one way they flash blue/black and when tilting the other way they flas red/black.</li></ul>
To accompany the helmet activity I produced a sheet which asked questions to test comprehension of some of the coding and hardware basics (about the battery voltage, about ms, about bits and bytes, etc)
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There was too much coding here for some of the students. I felt the course momentum became bogged down here for some. When I do it next time I’ll assign the different coding tasks to different groups and ask them to demonstrate their results to the others.
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<b>Lesson 12-13</b>. Servo introduction and Turkey Trot (M&H, 36) is a straightforward build and coding introduction to a positional servo. The coding challenge asks students for a medium, fast and slow rotation variation.
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<b>Lesson 14-15</b>: Art machine (M&H, 118) is an interesting use of a continuous servo. Strong connections are needed for the clothes pegs. The coding challenge is for circular rotation, back and forth rotation and then try to obtain a straight line
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxLMeIpFD7rlG_9JZcNrzVFOF3oLVLbjZ4j2fYD5TQRUg_jftvGQ4c2J7pH8GXAIeDL8cwM2rpX8w0' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>
<br /><br />
<b>Lesson 16-17</b>: Ask students to develop their own projects which incorporate either servos or neopixels. One group used a 1 metre neopixel strip and designed a scarf. Another group used a continuous servo to design a helicopter. Only about 4 students out of my class of 12 kept up with the pace I was expecting so <i>the majority ran out of time</i> and didn’t complete their own design. Longer lessons would have helped here but schools don’t always keep up with the organisational structure required.
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-42821675491363115502023-09-15T17:09:00.000+09:302023-09-15T17:09:06.988+09:30Voting NO to The VoiceI would read it like this.
<br /><br />
The YES vote is a grab by the black bourgeoisie aka the aboriginal industry for a bigger slice of the cake. Although the most disadvantaged people do need some sort of extra support that works I haven’t seen a good argument that the Voice will do the job. The aboriginal industry hasn’t been very successful so far. Why should giving them a permanent fixture in the Constitution improve things? This will certainly end up pissing off a significant section of Australians. I can’t see why one section of the population should have privileged access forever to those who decide things. It implies that disadvantage will never be overcome.
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Perhaps the task here should be to develop policies that will “close the gap” and find the people to implement those policies. This is a genuinely hard problem to solve amongst the babel of welfare dependency, grog, black on black violence, self interest, victim mentality, cultural confusion, first language issues, real difficulties of remote delivery of services and historical trauma. Interesting that some of those in the YES camp who appeared to have a good understanding of these issues have now descended to name calling (Marcia Langton, Noel Pearson).
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The archaic sentiments in sections of the Uluru statement are not central to the discussion. You can’t imagine Marcia or Noel longing for a return to pre colonial days. My guess is that they represent a compromise to bring the different tribes together and present a united front. But who knows?
<br /><br />
The NO vote leaders (Jacinta Price, Warren Mundine, Anthony Dillon) do have some sort of realistic plan (although not always clearly articulated) to improve the lot of the most disadvantaged Australians (remote aboriginals). They argue that commonalities between A&TSI and the rest are more important than differences. And that the disadvantaged A&TSIs need to find the same things that the successful have already found (good education, good job, buy a house etc.). I just think they need to spell out the detail more in order to overcome the litany mentioned above.
<br /><br />
There was a booklet called “Beyond Belief” which came out in 2022 outlining several different arguments for the NO vote. Some of it was new to me, especially the prospects of High Court interventions if The Voice advice is not adopted. Anthony Dillon (especially) and Warren Mundine have been publishing their arguments on X (formerly twitter) throughout this year.
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Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-51842863973100605412023-08-18T08:46:00.000+09:302023-08-18T08:46:15.950+09:30the AI debateBroadly here are the positions I am picking up from reading the experts. They all seem to have strong arguments:
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
This is a great productivity tool which will make me more efficient & innovative, save me time and make money</li><li>
It’s too unreliable and not really intelligent (stats on steroids), it’s another AI hype cycle</li><li>
It’s incredibly dangerous, it will lead to humanity being replaced by a less insightful species / super intelligence</li></ul>Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-78699199927496245852023-07-23T19:41:00.007+09:302023-07-23T19:41:51.722+09:30scaffold for the Turtle Art Tiles ProjectI've developed a sequence to help students towards interesting designs for their <a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/turtle-art-tiles-project.html">Turtle Art Tiles Project</a>. This turned out to be a combination of some shapes from Barry Newell's old booklet and some others I discerned from the images in the Project itself. The idea is to start students on simple shapes and then show them hints to some pathways to more complex shapes.
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<b>Reference</b>: <br />
Newell, Barry. <i>Turtle Confusion</i> (1988)<br />
Stager, Gary & Martinez, Sylvia. <i>Turtle Art Tiles Project Guide</i> (adapted from the original Josh Burker article)<br />
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-10397839304382734472023-07-21T19:37:00.005+09:302023-08-14T18:44:47.268+09:30ELECFREAKS Nezha kit workshopWhat appeals to me about this kit:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
It’s much cheaper than the established kits (Spike LEGO costs $670 AUD, Nezha kit costs $212 AUD when you include a micro:bit)</li><li>
They have setup a wiki with 72 build cases so you are never going to run out of things to build</li><li>
Design for Designers principle: Some, actually quite a few kits are too finished and polished. But with the Nezha kit you can design a wide variety of interesting things, it is not finished or limited to a narrow range of functions</li><li>
Their wiki takes you through the building and coding step by step. </li><li>
Like other LEGO kits it simplifies the building process because all the things you need to build with come with the kit (although this is both a positive and a downside when you think about it, long story)</li></ul>
There are some problems with the Nezha kit too:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
The LEGO build diagrams in the wiki are too small IMO, although usually very helpful, they are sometimes difficult to decipher clearly. I suppose a good side of this is that you sometimes have to think carefully when building, not just blindly follow. But experience shows that some students become frustrated and spit the dummy</li><li>
It doesn’t come with a compartmentalised case so you need to find an old LEGO case or some such to organise the pieces</li><li>
Tight fits, I needed pliers to remove some parts when unpacking (can be an issue with all LEGO)</li></ul>
<b>update 7/8/2023 more problem issues</b>:<br />
When you look more closely at the Nezha's 72 cases you realise that quite a few can't be made without purchasing additional sensors from ELECFREAKS
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For these cases (29 Dazzling Car, 33 Colour Controlled Lights 35 Colour Recognition Car) you need both the colour sensor and the rainbow LED ring, which don't come with the Nezha kit. For these cases (64 The Intelligent Forklift, 66 The Voice Controlled Car) you need a speech recognition sensor.
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There are other cases like this that require other sensors as well.
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My reaction has been to buy more sensors namely colour, LED rainbow, OLED display, gesture, speech recogniton. I've also bought another Nezha expansion board so I can build two projects at once and a laser and 8x16 matrix. My new purchases came to $117 USD. This still puts the combined price of the Nezha kit (plus my extensions) below that of a Spike LEGO kit.
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<b>Goal</b>: To make an Obstacle Avoidance Car<br />
<b>Materials</b>: Nezha ELECFREAKS kit + micro:bit<br />
One good place to start is <i>Case 12: Obstacle Avoidance Car</i><br />
<b>Online instructions</b>: <a href="https://www.elecfreaks.com/learn-en/microbitKit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit_case_12.html">here</a><br />
This LEGO build has 18 steps. It is a good one to start with because the LEGO build is not too hard and the finished car interacts with the user in an interesting way.<br />
/update<br />
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<b>Learning</b>: Building with LEGO, Ultrasonic sensor for obstacle detection, MakeCode coding, micro:bit experience<br />
<b>Reference</b>: <br />
Nezha Inventors Kit (described and sold <a href="https://www.elecfreaks.com/nezha-inventor-s-kit-for-micro-bit-without-micro-bit-board.html?_pos=2&_sid=ed1b6fbd2&_ss=r">here</a>)<br />
Wiki section for the Nezha kit: <a href="https://www.elecfreaks.com/learn-en/microbitKit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit/index.html">the 76 cases are displayed here</a> <br />
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Some other things I have built with the Nezha kit:<br />
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<b>Case 8</b>: <a href="https://www.elecfreaks.com/learn-en/microbitKit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit_case_08.html">Speed adjustable fan</a> <br />
<b>LEGO build</b>: 12 steps<br />
Adjust the speed of the fan with the potentiometer<br />
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<b>Case 11</b>: <a href="https://www.elecfreaks.com/learn-en/microbitKit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit_case_11.html">Line Tracking Car</a><br />
LEGO build 21 steps<br />
The car follows a black line<br />
<br />
Now for a more difficult build for advanced students who are prepared to problem solve and persist:
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<b>Case 1</b>: The Mechanical Shrimp <a href="https://wiki.elecfreaks.com/en/microbit/building-blocks/nezha-inventors-kit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit_case_01/">online instructions</a><br />
This LEGO build has 33 steps and some of them are tricky, especially given the small diagrams.<br />
The mechanical shrimp moves forward and waves the princers, it will change direction if there are obstacles being detected. <br />
<b>Learning</b>: Building with LEGO, Ultrasonic sensor for direction change, Servo controls the pincers, MakeCode coding, microbit experience<br />
<br />
<b>Case 41</b>: The Forklift, <a href="https://www.elecfreaks.com/learn-en/microbitKit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit_case_41.html">online instructions</a>
<br />
This LEGO build has 53 steps. I made a few mistakes along the way and had to do some rebuilding.
<br /><br />
There is an error in the suggested code on the site. The A button code lifts the fork but doesn't return it to the ground. The B button code works as it should.
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<b>Case 44</b>: Tight rope walker, <a href="https://www.elecfreaks.com/learn-en/microbitKit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit/Nezha_Inventor_s_kit_for_microbit_case_44.html">online instructions</a><br />
<br />
I wanted to build this one because it was different. This LEGO build has 57 steps. I had to do some pulling apart and rebuilding at the end to fit in the rubber band.
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The code on the site doesn't work very well. The walker goes too fast and only forward. I improved the code. My code makes the walker move backwards and forwards at a suitable pace.
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Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-83729222372159388552023-07-20T07:57:00.000+09:302023-07-20T07:57:41.998+09:30art shaped: Darrell Wakelam workshop<b>Goal</b>: Make a mouse from an egg carton<br />
<b>Materials</b>: egg box, cocktail sticks, buttons or tin foil, googly eyes, scissors, sharp pencil(!),Tacky glue<br />
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<b>Step by step</b>:<br />
<a href="https://www.darrellwakelam.com/downloads">https://www.darrellwakelam.com/downloads</a><br />
Scroll down for the mouse build instructions, it’s the third one down<br />
Or, download the PDF (50 makes)<br />
<p>As with all making you will hit a few frustrating obstacles on the way. That’s why makers become resourceful and resilient learners. I found I needed a sharp pencil to help punch holes for the cocktail sticks which form the whiskers.</p>
<p>Darrell Wakelam is a very creative, smart and generous man. He has the open source spirit. Even though he makes so many resources available for free online I had to buy his book because creative, smart and generous people ought to be supported and promoted.</p>
<b>Reference:</b><br />
Buy the book!<br />
<a href="https://www.darrellwakelam.com/art-shaped">https://www.darrellwakelam.com/art-shaped</a><br />
Download the PDF (50 makes)<br />
<a href="https://www.darrellwakelam.com/downloads">https://www.darrellwakelam.com/downloads</a><br />
Watch his YouTube channel 46 videos<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@darrellwakelam5597/videos">https://www.youtube.com/@darrellwakelam5597/videos</a><br />
Follow on twitter!<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/DarrellWakelam">https://twitter.com/DarrellWakelam</a><br />
<br />
<b>Elaboration</b>:<br />
So far I have made just three of the designs suggested by Darrell Wakelam. <br />
A mouse from an egg container (see above) <br /><br />
A chameleon from a paper plate<br />
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A fish from pasta<br />
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<p>These are just a few of the up to a hundred different design ideas he has from recycled materials. I plan to do more.</p>
<p>It’s fairly straightforward, ie. open to nearly all, because many of his designs are on his site for free. You will need a few materials and then follow his step by step instructions</p>
Each activity requires some sort of specialist although easily available materials as well as the materials common to most projects. You could group them into these type categories: <br />
<i>paper plate</i> – chameleon, puffin, caterpillar, baby shark<br />
<i>egg carton</i> – mouse, monkey, chick, easter bunny<br />
<i>toilet roll</i> – pirate ship, rocket ship, icecream, seahorse, heads, bird, flytrap<br />
<i>plastic milk carton</i> – clown, elephant, warrior<br />
<i>just cardboard</i> – castle, owl, sticky fish, starfish<br />
etc.<br />
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-70949865125316006402023-07-19T11:39:00.001+09:302023-07-20T07:19:56.544+09:30makey makey guitar workshop<b>Goal</b>: Make a musical instrument using Makey Makey and Scratch<br />
<b>Materials</b>:<br />
<b>For fun introduction</b>: variety of fruit<br />
<b>For simple guitar</b>: Makey Makey, cardboard, duct or masking tape, scissors, alfoil, silver coins, Computer, Internet, Scratch site access <br />
<b>For other instruments</b>: copper tape, other materials depending on the instrument<br />
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1) Make a cardboard guitar<br />
2) Attach 6 coins, label them music notes C D E F G A<br />
3) Alfoil on the neck of the guitar<br />
4) Hook up to the makey makey<br />
Makey key to note connection: <br />
left arrow = C note, up arrow = D, down arrow=E right arrow =F, space bar=G, w key =A<br />
5) Scratch page: makey_guitar<br />
<a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/557440765/">https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/557440765/</a><br />
<br />
Play a tune<br />
C C G G A A G (rest)<br />
Twinkle twinkle little star<br />
F F E E D D C (rest)<br />
How I wonder where you are<br />
G G F F E E D (rest)<br />
Up above the world so high<br />
G G F F E E D (rest)<br />
Like a diamond in the sky ...<br />
<br />
<b>Reference</b>:<br />
Burker, Josh <i>Invent to Learn Guide to Fun</i> (2015), pp. 53-64<br />
Josh shows how do makey makey versions of a piano, guitar, trumpet, drums, trombone and unusual instruments<br />
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-36695637285548085872023-07-18T16:40:00.001+09:302023-07-18T16:40:08.714+09:30working with acrylicsThis follows on from my earlier posts about the <i>Turtle Art tiles project</i> and <i>working with clay</i>. Since I don't have an art background I needed to look up guidelines and then try them out in practice.
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<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
high quality acrylics look much better than the kids version; even so these ones I bought from Mad Harry’s seem quite good to me</li><li>
Paper plate for a pallete works fine</li><li>Plastic kitchen place mat from Woolies </li><li>
Don’t let the paint dry. If you are interrupted, then cover with gladwrap</li><li>
Wash out your brushes in a glass of water and dry with a paper towel to change colours</li><li>
Gently paper towel brushes at end to keep the bristles shaped, stray brush hairs are bothersome</li><li>
Blend colours, eg. I blended green and white for the border colour</li><li>
I still haven’t bought glaze but plan to do so soon</li></ul>
<br />
<b>Related</b>:<br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/working-with-clay.html">working with clay</a><br />
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/turtle-art-tiles-project.html">turtle art tiles project</a><br />
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-3895001830124513222023-07-16T12:02:00.000+09:302023-07-16T12:02:46.140+09:30working with clay<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNBPER8716lVQs6PO6_iLCgMdCKSCMAoIXYFZwWtmDY00knLn5chlHFb9NOos7VRDsC-0XtB5XrB8Fqz6gD4Er8mUS99ksrV503Mfj4lVkq8FYKNNtbarWzIvSBS8Olc7vz78Ll-5ApYQXyYXkjOEM3Bc4sc9vcyKr1nYS-ZPUWt76pLgWA/s1958/sqCircle_clay.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1958" data-original-width="1909" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNBPER8716lVQs6PO6_iLCgMdCKSCMAoIXYFZwWtmDY00knLn5chlHFb9NOos7VRDsC-0XtB5XrB8Fqz6gD4Er8mUS99ksrV503Mfj4lVkq8FYKNNtbarWzIvSBS8Olc7vz78Ll-5ApYQXyYXkjOEM3Bc4sc9vcyKr1nYS-ZPUWt76pLgWA/s320/sqCircle_clay.jpg" /></a></div>
Here are my notes on working with clay to make the Turtle Art designed - 3D printed impression shown above. See the link at the bottom for the back story. My first template was 7.5mm high. I experimented by reducing the height to 2mm so as to reduce printing time. I'm happy with 2mm but you need a pair of pliers to remove the template from the clay.
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air drying clay – wrap in gladwrap after using and place into an air tight container</li><li>
Plastic mat - bought at Woolies after failing to find wax (water resistant) paper</li><li>
3D printed template – to make an impression in the clay, 90mm x 90mm x 2mm high</li><li>
square perimeter template to neatly cut out around the clay 95mm x 95mm x 10mm</li>
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<li>
rolling pin – bought at Coles – I try to roll the clay to 6mm thickness – what I’m missing is a couple of wooden guides at the side 6mm thick, see the pic from the <i>Turtle Art Tiles Project Guide</i> -></li>
<li>
Sharp knives – I used the smaller one to cut the clay packet and the larger one to trim the edges after I had applied the square perimeter template</li><li>
Pliers – I needed these to remove the 3D printed template from the clay after I had made the impression</li><li>
Tweezers – I used these to tidy up some raised sections of clay after I had made the impression</li><li>
Water – I didn’t use water this time but handy if you have to join sections of clay together. But since our clay work is so simple – just roll a slab of clay to 6mm thickness it normally won’t be needed – if you have to join separate bits of clay just roll them together vigorously and then flatten it out with hand and rolling pin</li><li>
Scraper – I used this to remove the clay from the mat after I had made the impression</li></ul>
<b>Related</b>: <a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2023/07/turtle-art-tiles-project.html">Turtle Art Tiles Project</a>
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-154619937426833622023-07-10T17:29:00.002+09:302023-07-10T17:33:38.316+09:30turtle art tiles projectDo you want to make this? Looks interesting!
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Pics from <i>Turtle Art Tiles Project Guide</i>
<p>I’ve been in possession and an admirer of Josh Burker’s <a href="https://cmkpress.com/product/guide-to-fun/">Invent to Learn Guide to Fun</a> book for a while now. My interest was further piqued when Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager made an online offer of a version of his “Turtle Art Tiles” Project. Then, recently, I was given the opportunity to teach a Year 8 “<i>Inventiveness</i>” class at my school. So, I thought this would be an ideal project for this class. </p>
<p>This project involves some significant transformations from bits to atoms: from Turtle Art, to Tinkercad to 3D prints and then to a painted clay product. I’ve previously had some experience in the first three but working with clay is something new for me.</p>
<p>First up, you make a design in Turtle Art. I didn’t copy either guide here but decided to make a well known tessellation that I had done before:</p>
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<p>Through Turtle Art you can then save as an SVG and from there import it into Tinkercad. Once there I used the ruler to resize the shape to 90x90x7.5 mm. Then export the file from Tinkercad as an STL and import it into PrusaSlicer.</p>
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<p>Next 3D print the shape and use the print to imprint the clay and, finally, paint the clay:</p>
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<p>OK that’s one down and I can probably do better next time, especially with the clay and paint section.</p>
<p>I will now write in more detail about bringing this activity into my Year 8 "<i>Inventiveness</i>" class, which is due to start in a couple of weeks.</p>
<p>I can anticipate issues that will arise. It’s a large (22) mixed ability class. Some of the students will be enthused and eat it up, others will struggle with the complexity of it … coding, variables, file management, the transformations, messy clay and other technical / personal / attitudinal issues I can’t even imagine yet.</p>
<p><b>Economics</b>: Currently my school is cash strapped. There is no shortage of computers or internet but for the clay steps to happen probably I will have to buy the materials myself. Partly because of that I’m thinking about alternative pathways. But I have other reasons too.</p>
<p><b>Bottlenecks</b>: I’ll be taking my own Prusa 3D printers to school for students to use. I own 4, two MINI+’s and two MK3S+’s. But four is not enough given that 3D printers are slow. So, at this stage of the process I’ll need to create larger groups, perhaps size 4, and students will decide on which print will go ahead. </p>
<p><b>Pathways for all</b>: This project is really interesting but I wouldn’t describe it as easy. It fits more into the “hard fun” category first described by Seymour Papert and further pursued by Burker et al. Also, Paulo Blickstein & Marcelo Worsley warn us that most children are not hackers and good teachers should provide alternative pathways, something to suit all. It’s good to challenge students to leave their comfort zone but if we make it too hard then some are likely to shut down. This leads on to the next points.</p>
<b>SOME BRANCHING ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS</b>
<p><b>Turtle Art Colouring in</b>: The patterns can be coloured in at the Turtle Art stage using the start fill and end fill blocks. There is room for artistic expression here.</p>
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<i>This colouring has been done by Turtle Art</i>
<p><b>Shape making</b>: Barry Newell has written a lovely book called “Turtle Confusion” which contains 40 shapes that gradually increase in complexity. Shape 1 is a square. From shape 16 on the shapes become combinations of earlier shapes. This sheet provides different levels of complexity and in that way suits a mixed ability class. I’m in the process of developing a new sheet based partly on Barry’s 40 shapes and partly on some of the shapes shown in the picture above, taken from the Turtle Art Tiles Project Guide.</p>
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<i>Shape 32 from Barry Newell's sheet is composed from lines, squares and an octogon</i>.
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<i>My refactored Barry Newell sheet showing pathways between shapes</i>
<p><b>Group work</b>: Students should sometimes work individually (eg. when learning Turtle Art initially), sometimes in groups of two (eg. when working on more complex shapes) and sometimes in larger groups (eg. when working with the 3D printer and clay). </p>
<p><b>Open Source</b>: At some stage I should make the Turtle Art work that the more capable students have produced available to all. Otherwise some of the less capable students won’t end up with a good design to go to the next stage.</p>
<p><b>Paper and pencil work from 3D printed templates</b>: Instead of the clay step some students might opt for a paper and coloured pencil alternative. That is, using a modified 3D print to trace the pattern onto paper and then creatively colouring it in. For those who choose this path it would be better if their 3D print had narrow walls, which are set at the Turtle Art step (default pensize is 4, reset to 1). So there needs to be planning ahead for this option.</p>
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<i>Actually, this is an old one I did use cardboard templates (hexagon, square, triangle)</i>
<p><b>Necklace option</b>: I could offer students the choice of making a 3D printed necklace, rather than a clay tile finished product. This is described in Josh’s “<i>More Fun</i>” book using Beetle Blocks software (pp. 86-88) but that could be adapted easily to Turtle Art software. </p>
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<i>Here are 3 random sized outputs of a rotated heptagon necklace in the slicer and after printing.</i>
<p>All of this strikes me as a pretty reasonable outline for my <i>Inventiveness</i> class – motivating, multifaceted learning and a safety net for challenged students. In the process I’ve revisited some of my established skills and learnt some new ones too.</p>
<b>Reference</b>: <br/>
Blickstein, Paulo and Worsley, Marcelo. <i>Children Are Not Hackers</i> (2016)<br/>
Burker, Josh <i>Invent to Learn Guide to Fun</i> (2015), pp. 107-113<br/>
Burker, Josh <i>Invent to Learn Guide to MORE Fun</i> (2018), pp. 86-88<br/>
Newell, Barry. <i>Turtle Confusion</i> (1988)<br/>
Stager, Gary & Martinez, Sylvia. <i>Turtle Art Tiles Project Guide</i> (adapted from the original Josh Burker article)<br/>
<br/>
<b>Software</b>:<br/>
Turtle Art <a href="https://www.playfulinvention.com/webturtleart/">https://www.playfulinvention.com/webturtleart/</a><br/>
Tinkercad <a href="https://www.tinkercad.com/">https://www.tinkercad.com/</a><br/>
PrusaSlicer <a href="https://www.tinkercad.com/">https://help.prusa3d.com/article/download-prusaslicer_2220</a><br/>
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-47690834136507883052023-07-08T11:03:00.003+09:302023-07-08T11:17:44.854+09:30100 words for CAINMy 100 word introduction to the new <i>Central Australian Innovation Network</i> (CAIN):
<p>21stC maker education should include the 3 game changers: block coding, microcontrollers and at least some 5 types of machines found in a Fabrication Lab (Vinyl cutter, 3D Printer, Laser cutter, CNC machine & Digital Embroidery machine). Then we can move towards making almost anything, transforming consumers into producers.</p>
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<p>One thing I have made using these technologies is a Sierpinski pyramid lamp. This involves maths (the fractal Sierpinski pyramid), 3D printing using transparent fiament and the Circuit Playground Express which is coded to light up the pyramid.</p>
<p>The possibilities are endless</p>
- Bill Kerr
<p><b>Related</b>: <br/>
<a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2022/12/sierpinski-pyramid-lamp.html">Sierpinski Pyramid Lamp</a><br/>
<a href="https://bilkerr2.blogspot.com/2022/08/sierpinski-pyramid.html">Sierpinski Pyramid</a><br/>
</p>Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-75033947373244109872023-05-31T21:16:00.001+09:302023-05-31T21:18:29.614+09:30Lex Fridman interviews Neil GershenfeldPromising start to an interview LOL:
<p><b>Lex Fridman</b>: You have spent your life working at the boundary between bits and atoms, so the digital and the physical. What have you learned about engineering and about the nature of reality from working at this divide, trying to bridge this divide?</p><b>
Neil Gershenfeld</b>:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
I learned why von Neumann and Turing made fundamental mistakes.</li><li>
I learned the secret of life. I learned how to solve many of the world's most important problems, which all sound presumptuous, but all of those are things I learned at that boundary.</li></ul><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDjOS0VHEr4">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDjOS0VHEr4
</a>Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-13176366511576215392023-04-23T18:16:00.010+09:302023-04-25T15:29:11.805+09:30self sufficient production<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Byf3apwJ0E9bIsDSm3ujkUZE1fI-vhfrT90pdDFvCH7r5FjxLNm1cBBeiVd0pLKJhx2W14KqafdECEbYxVkZdJ2Ji59xvO0HYNOpUc2GBwiq-P-XBgj83XAZajKPrxZnRKOQkI2EDylgdKSOfynVh1qUQeSD_QRez74Wt70eP5c7wV8/s1160/fabLab_iceland.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="400" data-original-height="629" data-original-width="1160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Byf3apwJ0E9bIsDSm3ujkUZE1fI-vhfrT90pdDFvCH7r5FjxLNm1cBBeiVd0pLKJhx2W14KqafdECEbYxVkZdJ2Ji59xvO0HYNOpUc2GBwiq-P-XBgj83XAZajKPrxZnRKOQkI2EDylgdKSOfynVh1qUQeSD_QRez74Wt70eP5c7wV8/s400/fabLab_iceland.jpg"/></a></div>
A Fab Lab in Iceland<br /><br />
I've updated my reference list to my 2021 Fab Lab article, <a href="http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2021/07/your-town-needs-community-fab-lab.html">Your town needs a community Fab Lab</a>. I'll provide a brief big picture summary of the potential again here. The Fab Lab initiative can achieve the following:
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>
personal design of commodities when required or desired</li><li>
local production, global shared design (open source hardware and software)</li><li>
personal production of almost anything</li><li>
training opportunities in the required digital and manufacturing skills</li><li>
access to almost anyone, after some essential training</li><li>
an educational reform agenda to bring education into the 21stC</li><li>
reduced cost in commodity production due to far fewer supply chains</li><li>
recycling of "junk"</li><li>
possible to achieve both quality and quantity commodity production</li></ul>
<p>Neil Gershenfeld describes this transformation as <b>the Third Digital Revolution</b>, meaning the interchangeability of bits and atoms to achieve <b>personal fabrication of almost anything</b> (contextual note, the 1st digital revolution was the Internet; the 2nd digital revolution was the smart phone). Rather than another new commodity, the idea of the Fab Lab is to put <b>the means of production</b> into the hands of more and more citizens. See my <a href="http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2021/07/your-town-needs-community-fab-lab.html">earlier article</a> for a list of the 5 types of machines that are found in a Fab Lab.
</p>
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<b>REFERENCE UPDATE:</b> (see <a href="http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2021/07/your-town-needs-community-fab-lab.html">original 2021 Fab Lab article</a> for full references as well as more detail)<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXYe4rWqOwU">MIT Professor Neil Gershenfeld on How to Make Anything (Almost)</a>. (video, 28 minutes, 2023)<br />
Gershenfelds. <a href="https://cba.mit.edu/docs/papers/20.12.SMR.pdf">The Promise of Self Sufficient Production</a> (2021)<br />
<a href="https://gitlab.fabcloud.org/pub/project/coronavirus/tracking">Coronavirus tracking project for fab lab network development and deployment</a> (2020)<br />
Gershenfelds. <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/04/17/soon-youll-be-able-to-make-anything-itll-change-politics-forever-217999/">Soon You’ll Be Able to Make Anything. It’ll Change Politics Forever</a> (2018)<br />
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-57583271749735337172023-03-26T18:11:00.003+10:302023-03-26T18:11:35.686+10:30maker education resources update<p><b>Technology, Tools ... Curriculum</b>. You might be sold on the technologies (for example, the micro:bit) and have purchased the tools you need for maker education (servos, glue guns etc.) but you haven’t got time to develop a comprehensive curriculum which makes the most of those tools. </p>
<p>Not to worry, a very smart person has probably developed the curriculum you need. This blog is an update and reiteration of some of those curriculum resources</p>
1) <b>Micro:bit curriculum</b><br />
A new Micro:bit book published by the <i>Invent to Learn</i> group<br />
Maas, Pauline & Heldens, Peter.
<a href="https://www.edtechs.com.au/products/the-invent-to-learn-guide-to-the-micro-bit?variant=40180836499502&currency=AUD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gclid=Cj0KCQjwt_qgBhDFARIsABcDjOcg2kDyRzszbuMtDilG87fbJZItl566bRx1NOlzMK3eWglt1BkC-oAaAtM6EALw_wcB"> <i>The Invent to Learn Guide to the micro:bit</i></a>.(2023) is all you need to get the most out of the micro:bit. It is written by teachers for teachers and deals with all the issues involved there. I plan to use it next term with a Year 8 Digital Technology class.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1z17bvAmmzIpRv5oJ3ulsMfbhlBwloAyUjNmA5-EcjF5sNWpI6BKzYRM7IVWSYRy7DQzsRnZtFqRhWCkYhISwimmyLEcn-2mptdm_yWoM8HwTjORL-UsbM5vOQK6IMmDVpm2cDI9BHQNpAQ3GsZKXaMFQ2iijsBbzuswlkl5uj7RUu90/s1000/71S1Ghxr31L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="763" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1z17bvAmmzIpRv5oJ3ulsMfbhlBwloAyUjNmA5-EcjF5sNWpI6BKzYRM7IVWSYRy7DQzsRnZtFqRhWCkYhISwimmyLEcn-2mptdm_yWoM8HwTjORL-UsbM5vOQK6IMmDVpm2cDI9BHQNpAQ3GsZKXaMFQ2iijsBbzuswlkl5uj7RUu90/s320/71S1Ghxr31L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg"/></a></div>
2) <b>Circuit Playground Express</b> (CPX) curriculum<br />
<a href="https://makecode.adafruit.com/courses/maker">Maker Course for the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express</a>
I’ve written about this one before. Rob Morrill has written a great course based on the CPX technology. We have been running this for a few years for Year 7s now at one of my schools and the course is very popular.
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I'm now working part time in an all aboriginal student school and this has encouraged me to search out maker activities without using a computer at all.
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3) <b>Darrell Wakelam</b> has a wonderful <a href="https://www.darrellwakelam.com/">website</a> and very generously has made many of his materials available for free online, <a href="https://www.darrellwakelam.com/downloads">here</a>
<blockquote>#ArtJumpStart is a collection of easy art projects to try at home using materials from your recycling. Download the full collection as a PDF or browse the images below</blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd1tME-qKr89QnHjsOn9nL2LG67sFZylSbWCk7A1ykW4TfDga-pgMhE47MnLpowjFUR9s8dv6rdv_UZJAnTs9yKVOCJr71ZxoCJn1y5UDnnHg-csXYvRu3tluhFkbT1wdsZMezXPu5qx6Q1xWmvoWUgPU4o7tX7zmhYibgRlZ17ZzSSbU/s900/mouse.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd1tME-qKr89QnHjsOn9nL2LG67sFZylSbWCk7A1ykW4TfDga-pgMhE47MnLpowjFUR9s8dv6rdv_UZJAnTs9yKVOCJr71ZxoCJn1y5UDnnHg-csXYvRu3tluhFkbT1wdsZMezXPu5qx6Q1xWmvoWUgPU4o7tX7zmhYibgRlZ17ZzSSbU/s320/mouse.jpg"/></a></div>
<p>His book, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/art-shaped-9781801990233/">Art Shaped: 50 sustainable art projects to kickstart children's creativity</a>, can be preordered through Bloomsbury (available in May this year)</p>
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4) <b>Rob Ives</b> books<br />
<p>Rob Ives has published large collection of books and the details are available on his <a href="www.robives.com">website</a> </p>
<p>I have bought one, <a href="https://www.robives.com/books/build-it-make-it/">Build It! Make It! Become a Super Engineer</a> (2020)</p>
<p>First impression – some of the designs require complicated materials but others are simple and good.</p>
<b>ANOTHER USEFUL RESOURCES</b><br />
5) <a href="https://www.mrerdreich.com/projects">Jason Erdreich Projects</a>
<p>This has roughly 100 projects of all sorts, I'm still checking these out.</p>
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-76293572349384473972023-01-18T22:13:00.019+10:302023-11-11T11:50:24.389+10:30books I am reading in 2023<b>BOOKS and some articles 2023</b>:<br />
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Appiah, Kwame Anthony. <i>Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers</i> (2007)<br />
Arthur, W. Brian. <i>The Nature of Technology: What is is and How it Evolves</i> (2009)<br />
Blikstein, P., Zheng, Y., Zhou, K. <a href="https://tltlab.org/publications/ceci-nest-pas-une-ecole-discourses-of-artificial-intelligence-in-education-through-the-lens-of-semiotic-analytics/">Discourses of artificial intelligence in education through the lens of semiotic analytics</a> (2022)<br />
Boden, Margaret. <i><a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-robots-wont-take-over-because-they-couldnt-care-less">Robot Says: Whatever</a></i> (2018)<br />
Brooks, Rodney. <a href="https://rodneybrooks.com/forai-machine-learning-explained/">Machine Learning Explained</a> (2017)<br />
Brooks, Rodney. <a href="https://rodneybrooks.com/the-seven-deadly-sins-of-predicting-the-future-of-ai/">The Seven Deadly Sins of Predicting the Future of AI</a> (2017)<br />
Brooks, Rodney. <a href="https://rodneybrooks.com/what-will-transformers-transform/">What will the transformers transform?</a> (March, 2023)<br />
Burker, Josh. <i>The Invent to Learn Guide to Fun.</i> Constucting Modern Knowledge Press(2015)<br />
Burker, Josh. <i>The Invent to Learn Guide to MORE Fun.</i> Constucting Modern Knowledge Press(2018)<br />
Deutsch, David. <i>The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World</i> (2011)<br />
Ingamells, Rex. <i>Aranda Boy</i> (1952)<br />
Ives, Rob. <i>Build It! Make It! Become a Super Engineer</i> (2020)<br />
Kurti, Peter & Mundine, Warren (editors). <i>Beyond Belief: Rethinking the Voice to Parliament (2022)</i> <br />
Loukides, Mike. <i>What are ChatGPT and its Friends</i> (2023). O'Reilly <br />
Marcus, Gary & Davis, Ernest. <i>Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence we can Trust</i> (2019)<br />
Maas, Pauline & Heldens, Peter. <i>The Invent to Learn Guide to the micro:bit</i>.(2023)<br />
McWhorter, John. <i>Woke Racism: How a New Religion Betrayed Black America</i> (2021)<br />
Mitchell, Melanie. <i>Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans</i> (2020)<br />
Schmidhuber, Juergen. <i><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366527574_Annotated_History_of_Modern_AI_and_Deep_Learning">Annotated History of Modern AI and Deep Learning</a></i> (2022)<br />
Riggs, Ransom. <i>Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children</i>.(2011)<br />
Robinson, Kim Stanley. <i>Antarctica</i> (1997)<br />
Smil, Vaclav. <i>How the World Really Works: The Science Behind how we got here and Where We're Going</i> (2022)<br />
Shellenberger, Michael. <i>SanFransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities</i> (2021)<br />
Swaroop. <i>A Byte of Python</i> (<a href="https://python.swaroopch.com/">online</a>)<br />
Tooley, James. <i>The Beautiful Tree: a personal journey into how the world's poorest people are educating themselves</i> (2009)<br />
Topol, Eric. <i>Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again</i> (2019)<br />
Wakelam, Darrell. <a href="https://www.darrellwakelam.com/downloads">ArtJumpStart</a> (2023)<br />
Widdowson, Frances. <a href="https://lawrencekrauss.substack.com/p/frances-widdowson-fired-for-asking?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=745084&post_id=81747478&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email">Fired for Asking Questions</a> (2022)<br />
Wolfram, Stephen. <a href="https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/02/what-is-chatgpt-doing-and-why-does-it-work/">What is ChatGPT Doing ... and Why Does it Work?</a> (February 2023)
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<b>Previous</b>: <a href="https://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2022/01/books-i-am-reading-in-2022.html">Books 2022</a>
Bill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.com2