america discovers social class

yeh, it does seem difficult for americans to talk about social class

danah boyd has been brave and it has struck a nerve

Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

Responding the responses to: Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

This essay addressed one of America's most taboo topics: class. Due to personal circumstances, I wasn't online as things spun further and further out of control and I had neither the time nor the emotional energy to address all of the astounding misinterpretations that I saw as a digital game of telephone took hold. I've browsed the hundreds of emails, thousands of blog posts, and thousands of comments across the web. I'm in awe of the amount of time and energy people put into thinking through and critiquing my essay

the image file, the virtual machine, bytecodes and more

Squeak files are different. As a newbie this was initially confusing for me and a potential barrier for uptake. But now it seems that they are different but better.

On the Windows version from Squeakland I have downloaded:
SqueakPlugin.image 12.5 MB
Squeak.exe 1.05 MB

On the Ubuntu linux version on the itshare laptop there is:
Squeak3.8.image 17.5 MB
SqueakV3.sources 13.9 MB
Squeak3.8.changes 13.6 MB
(I can't see the squeak-vm file?)

On the Ubuntu linux version on my older computer I have:
squeak-image_3.8.deb 11.1 MB
squeak-sources_3.deb 3.3 MB
squeak-vm.deb 0.5 MB

THE IMAGE FILE

Smalltalk is its own development and runtime environment. Rather than executing programs on top of an underlying operating system layer which maintains file input-output and a file system, Smalltalk runs in an “image”—a single, live “file” that manages its own memory use, reads and writes itself to disk transparently when required, and which permanently maintains the entire state of the environment. It is this ‘live’ and persistent image which allows Smalltalk to be changeable “on the fly”—other languages require that one make changes to source code files and then recompile or re-run the files in order to make a change. (From Maxwell, p. 154)

Another explanation:
Most programming systems separate the program code from the program state. Program code is just text and can be stored in a text file. Program state is the exact place (a snapshot) of where the program has got to at a particular point of time. To store program state requires an image, an exact bit by bit description.

Smalltalk / Squeak is different from most other programming languages in that it does not separate code from state. It stores the entire application state in an image file.

(LISP is another programming language which also uses image based persistence. In the case of LISP the code is a form of data, once again the distinction between the code and the state is blurred)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk#Image-based_persistence

VIRTUAL MACHINE

A Virtual Machine is a software layer that provides us with a pretense of having a machine other than the actual hardware in use. Using one allows systems to run as if on hardware designed explicitly for them
http://www.rowledge.org/tim/squeak/OE-Tour.html

An application is written for a virtual machine and can then operate on any platform or OS. How? The application is run on a computer using an interpreter of JIT (Just in Time) compilation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine

BYTECODES

The image file consists of bytecodes, which is a highly compressed and optimized representation of the source code, but is not machine code (and therefore not tied to any particular hardware). Just-in-time compilation or JIT, refers to a technique where bytecode is compiled to native machine code at runtime. This technique was pioneered in Smalltalk in the 1980s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreter_%28computer_software%29

SOURCES AND CHANGES FILES
The Squeakland educational version does not include the sources and changes files. But the full Squeak version does include sources and changes. These files are more important for developers.

The Sources file. This is where all the source code for Squeak is stored. However, the system can be operated without any source code, owing to its ability to decompile the bytecode methods into a readable and editable version of the original source code (only comments and temporary variable names are lost).

The Changes file. Everything that you do goes into the changes file as soon as you do it: Every DoIt, every new class, every new method. This means that if you crash Squeak, your work isn't lost. It's probably in the changes file. The changes file is just a text file -- you can copy out anything that you need to recover from. From the Desktop Menu, you also have access to several
changes utilities that let you look over your changes file and recover lost things. From the Desktop Menu, select Changes, then recent change log to find see all changes from every quit or save that you’ve executed.

Project files. My Etoys projects save as *.pr files, along with a gif image. Projects are used to capture and switch the entire display state. Therefore they store much of the state.
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/1817

messages are different in Smalltalk

I'm having a look a Smalltalk / Squeak programming. It's promoted as object oriented (OOP) in a pure form, so my intuition is that if I can grok Smalltalk then that will deepen my understanding of OOP and how it is really meant to work.

Early Smalltalk was the first complete realization of these new points of view as parented by its many predecessors in hardware, language and user interface design. It became the exemplar of the new computing, in part, because we were actually trying for a qualitative shift in belief structures--a new Kuhnian paradigm in the same spirit as the invention of the printing press-and thus took highly extreme positions which almost forced these new styles to be invented
- Alan Kay, The Early History of Smalltalk

• Everything is an object.
• All computation is triggered through message sends. You send a message to an object, and something happens.
• Almost all executable Smalltalk expressions are of the form <receiverobject> <message>.
• Messages trigger methods where the mapping of message-to-methods is determined by the receiving object. Methods are the units of Smalltalk code.
• - Chapter 2. A Tour of Squeak, in: Squeak: Object-Oriented Design with Multimedia Applications by Mark Guzdial
  

Understanding messages is crucial:

Kay has repeatedly expressed his regret that he chose the term “object-oriented” instead of the more relational concept of “message-oriented.” What is important about biological cells in Kay’s systems theory rendering of them isn’t what they’re made of, but rather their modes of interacting.
- Tracing the Dynabook by John Maxwell, p. 121

Examples:

This first one is from Stephane Ducasse's book on learning squeak through programming robots and the others are from Mark Guzdial's book cited above. Comments are in "quotes".

| pica | "local variable declared"
pica := Bot new. "The new message is sent to the Bot class to create a new robot and associate with it the name pica (:= is for assignment)"
pica go: 100 "the colon (:) after go means that an argument is required. go: 100 is a message send to the robot object pica, which can also be described as the message receiver"

1 to: 10 do: [instruction block]

1 to: 10 do: [] is a message send to the object 1! The message to: do: is a message understood by the Integer class! 10 and the block of code (statements contained in square brackets) following do: are actually arguments in the message.

1 to: 10 do: [:i | Transcript show:(i printString), ' times'; cr]

do: evaluates the block, :i defines the index variable for the loop, the vertical bar separates the definition from the rest of the statement, printString sends a message to i, the Transcript is a separate window, the comma (,) means concatenate, the semi-colon is used to string statements together and cr stands for carriage return. The output to the Transcript window is:
1 times
2 times
3 times
4 times
5 times
6 times
7 times
8 times
9 times
10 times

anArray := Array new: 10. "create a new array with 10 places"
#(nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil)

| aValue | "declare a variable"
aValue := 2.
Everything is an object. This rule does not actually mean "Set the value of 'aValue' to integer 2" but instead means "Set the variable aValue to point to an SmallInteger object whose value is 2."

1 to: 10 do: [:index | anArray at: index put: aValue*index ].

Transcript show: anArray

Output to Transcript window:
#(2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20)

This has given me some understanding of how messages are both important and different in Smalltalk.

Don't be too proud of web 2.0.

Web 2.0 has become the new conventional wisdom of those who see themselves as radical reformers of the education system. Flashing bells and lights, gee wizz. Web 2.0 dominates educational technology conferences just like logo used to dominate educational conferences (without being deeply understood) in the late 80s, early 90s. This is a new majority within a minority. Let's sit around and self righteously criticise other educators because we get it and they don't.

It's a double edged sword. We have enhanced powers of connection and collaboration, many wonderful new applications but also some are thinking that enhanced ability of connection is some sort of virtue in itself. Like spam. It's not. Connection without discernment leads to trivia. The 1000 monkeys hammering on the typewriter is a real part of web 2.0. In some ways Web 2.0 is like TV, mainly crap, with the occasional good programme. Yes, web 2.0 is interactive, I know, but that creates new problems as well as new opportunities.

Things I have noticed:

• Global village idiocy, like the uncritical promotion by some of conspiracy theories of history on the TALO list (zeitgeist)
  
• Language based mathematics as state of the art, with no apparent awareness that great ideas about teaching maths using logo has been around for many years - yes, web 2.0 can be great for language based learning but that's not the end of the story
  
• Web 2.0 bloggers sounding off about how information has changed but then running for cover when asked to deepen their analysis (how has information changed?). What is the point of blogging if you are not prepared to deepen?
• New theories such as connectivism which are not built on a sound analysis (a challenge to connectivism)
  
• No historical awareness of some of the great educational software (eg. Smalltalk / Squeak / Etoys, logo, *logo (pronounced star logo) and hypercard) and educational theorists (eg. Papert, Harvey, Kay) that have been around for years.
  

Some prominent thinkers have pointed out that we could have had a better web, a network of message passing objects. Ted Nelson. Alan Kay. There are software issues as well as cultural issues to be explored here.

Don't be too proud of web 2.0.

OLPC images by country

In preparing for my one laptop per child presentation at CEGSA (Computing Education Group of South Australia) this Thursday I did a google search of images of its use in different countries. Here are some of the images I found:


Nigeria


Thailand


Brazil


Nepal


Peru


Uruguay

The Cape Experiment: The inside story of the radical welfare reforms on the Cape York Peninsula

http://abc.net.au/4corners/

The Cape Experiment: The inside story of the radical welfare reforms on the Cape York Peninsula

This was on ABC TV (Monday 16th July) last night and will be repeated today (Tuesday) at 11:35 am. Also, the full program will be online from today.

It puts a compelling case for the urgent need to end passive welfare dependency for indigenous Australians, which in some cases transforms itself into 4 day long grog fuelled parties, violence, child abuse and perpetuates dislocation from the real economy. This has been going on for years.

Noel Pearson emerges as a troubled, gutsy leader who as well as thinking through the blueprint for welfare reform has to deliver the bad news to his home town (HopeVale, 50km north of Cairns). He reflects on the personal angst this has caused him.

my CEGSA conference presentations

I've put up some notes, on the learningEvolves wiki, in preparation for CEGSA (Computer Education Group of South Australia) conference presentations, next week, about the One Laptop per Child and Alan Kay. CEGSA programme, abstracts.

One Laptop per Child
I'm fortunate in that Paul Schulz has agreed to assist me with the hardware part of the presentation

The One Laptop Per Child project plans to release millions of cheap laptops to developing countries over the next few years. This presentation will discuss the hardware, software and educational goals of the OLPC Project.

Alan Kay's Educational Vision
Alan Kay, winner of the 2004 Turing award, invented the first object orientated programming language, Smalltalk. His educational vision, developed over 30 years, has not received as much attention but is just as interesting. This presentation will describe that vision.

kidney tumour removed

I've been away for 12 days, in hospital having my kidney tumour (and left kidney) removed.

The first 3 days were to restore my blood to normal, since I was on blood thinners for an earlier pulmonary embolism (blood clots in pulmonary artery). This require a heparin drip, since heparin blood thinning is reversible within a few hours.

I had my operation on Tuesday 3rd July. I was unconscious from 8:30am to 3pm. The surgeons told me that it was a very successful laproscopic (keyhole) procedure. Nevertheless, you do wake up at the end of it in a lot of pain and feeling very groggy from the anaesthetic.

However, I made a rapid recovery and was transferred out of high dependency to the North2 Ward within 24 hours of the operation. By Thursday all the drip and wound lines had been removed and I was walking independently again

There were some minor complications (mysterious heart pain for a couple of days) but new tests indicated there was nothing wrong and the pain eventually disappeared.

The kidney biopsy showed that the tumour was non malignant!! A Renal Oncocytoma!! This, of course is good news, I don't have cancer. Also fortunately, I was prepared for this possibility psychologically (kidney tumours are a catch 22 situation) and further research shows that it seems to be best for this tumour to be removed anyway.

I still need more time to achieve a full recovery but certainly my prognosis is excellent.

Many thanks to those who have supported me through this time

noel pearson on the national emergency response to protect Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory

Politics aside, an end to the tears is our priority by Noel Pearson

Howard's motivation is not the most important thing.

But what do you do when a child is being subjected to abuse this very day? What do you do when a child is likely to be abused next week? What do you when the abuse is going to happen the week after next? What do we do when there are scores of children involved across the communities, the states and territories? If it were your child at risk of this suffering, would you think this a matter of emergency?

This is not a moral panic. The abuse is real. This is not a media or political beat-up. The report from Pat Anderson and Rex Wild confirms a reality of suffering. Something has to be done to relieve the suffering now, not in six months, not in two years. Now.

We can’t rehabilitate people from alcohol or drug dependence immediately. We can’t fix the poor education immediately. We can’t fix up the poor health immediately. But we must stop the suffering straight away. Everyone, from the Prime Minister to his bitterest opponents, centres their preferred strategy or response on the fate of the children. No one can escape this fact: the fate of the children is the bottom line. Whatever one thinks of Howard and Brough, their strategy is justified on the basis of the fate of the children. If not Brough and Howard’s plan to stop the suffering, then what alternative plan should be pursued? Here most of the critics fall into a deafening silence. They have vociferous views about what will not work, but they are silent about what will work. So the sum total of their response—“we don’t need missionary paternalism again”, “prohibition doesn’t work”, “indigenous people must consent to the changes”, “we need more government services”, “we have to provide rehabilitation”, “we have to deal with intergenerational trauma”, “we have to deal with things in a holistic way”—is inaction and procrastination while children’s lives continue to be ruined. It is not that the points made by the critics are wrong—they are often correct—but their criticism does not translate and often cannot be translated into action.

Read the whole thing.

I wrote another article about noel pearson's analysis of aboriginal issues here

kidney tumour

I have a 3.5 cm tumour on my left kidney.

This was discovered by CT scan in early May after a few hours of pain in that spot. There has been no pain and no other symptoms apart from that, before or since.

Recently, I asked to see the x-rays generated by the CT scan and I was shown the slide show (over 400 x-rays) and the tumour was pointed out to me. It looked a bit like these images which I found on the internet.

I'm due for surgery on Tuesday July 3 and the plan is to do a laparoscopic (keyhole) nephrectomy. Due to the position of the tumour and the possibility of cancer the whole kidney, adrenal gland and lymph nodes will be removed.

What I've discovered is that a kidney tumour, which may be cancer, is a Catch-22 situation. In fact, one of my doctors used the phrase, Catch-22, in describing it.

If we don't cut it out then it might be cancer. If we do cut it out then it might turn out not to be cancer

This unsatisfactory situation arises from these factors:

• Chemo doesn't work on kidney cells because kidney cells are designed to remove toxic chemicals!!
• The kidney has a rich blood supply (because its job is to filter the blood) and so any attempt to biopsy a kidney tumour will spread it to other parts of the body
• There is no blood marker for kidney cancer

It is upsetting to have no choice really but to go through with major surgery when I'm not even certain that I have cancer. I am in the process of dealing with that as a psychological issue. I've done my own internet research but at some point you have to trust the experts

My prognosis for full recovery is about 90%

how students prepare for mandatory tests and what they learn

from Christopher Bennage:

Friday, June 15, 2007 6:25:18 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

I recently worked on an educational Flash application designed to help students prepare for mandatory tests in the state of Florida. One of the developers on the team googled some of the ActionScript from a previous iteration of the app, and found a forum posting where some 10th graders were decompiling the swfs. They were hoping to get answers to the test.

So that's one way the kids are learning...
- source
(direct link not available, so I have left the date and time information in)

Mark Shuttleworth's Ubuntu manifesto

Shuttleworth's Ubuntu philosophy is scattered throughout his blog. I've collected them in one place here.

Big challenges for the Free Software Community

"The real challenge lies ahead - taking free software to the mass market, to your grandparents, to your nieces and nephews, to your friends. This is the next wave, and if we are to be successful we need to articulate the audacious goals clearly and loudly - because that’s how the community process works best"

# 13: "Pretty" as a feature
"If we want the world to embrace free software, we have to make it beautiful..."

#12: Consistent packaging
"... I’d like to see us define distribution-neutral packaging that suits both the source-heads and the distro-heads"

#11: Simplified, rationalised licensing
"I’m absolutely convinced it is free source, not “open” source, which is at the heart of the innovation that will carry free software to ubiquity ... But my voice is only one of many, and I recognise in this world that there are lots of reasonable, rational positions which are different but still, for some people, appropriate ... So what can be done? Well, I turn for inspiration to the work of the Creative Commons. They’ve seen this problem coming a long way off, and realised that it is better to create a clear “licence space” which covers the various permutations and combinations that will come to exist anyway ..."

#10: Pervasive presence
"... turning that haphazard process into a systematic framework - making sure that you (well, more accurately your laptop and your cell phone) know how you should reach out and touch the person you want to communicate with. It’s about an integrated addressbook - no more distinctions between IM and email ..."

#9: Pervasive support
"... why do people say “Linux is not supported”? Because the guy behind the counter at their corner PC-cafe doesn’t support it ... This is why I encourage governments to announce that some portion of their infrastructure will run on Linux - it catalyses the whole ecosystem to make their existing capacity public ..."

#8: Govoritye po Russki
"There are 347 languages with more than a million speakers. But even Ubuntu, which has amazing infrastructure for translation and a great community that actually does the work, is nowhere close to being fully translated in more than 10 or 15 languages"

#007: Great gadgets!
"This world is increasingly defined not so much by the PC, as by the things we use when we are nowhere near a PC. The music player. The smart phone. The digital camera. GPS devices. And many, perhaps most, of these new devices can and do run Linux ..."

#6: Sensory immersion
"What interests me are the ways in which there is cross-over between the virtual world and the real world ... there’s going to be a need for innovation around the ways we blur the lines between real and virtual worlds"

#5: Real real-time collaboration
"... people who work with word processors and spreadsheets have rights too! And they could benefit dramatically from much better collaboration ..."

#4: Plan, execute, DELIVER
"Bugs, feature planning, release management, translation, testing and QA… these are all areas where we need to improve the level of collaboration BETWEEN projects. I think Launchpad is a good start but there’s a long way to go before we’re in the same position that the competition is in - seamless conversations between all developers"

#3: The Extra Dimension
"...an opportunity to rethink and improve on many areas of user interface at the system and app level which have been stagnant for a decade or more"

#2: Granny's new camera
"... the ends of the spectrum - the power users and the don’t-mess-with-my-system users, are already well serviced by Linux ... It’s the middle crowd - the guys who have a computer which they personally modify, attach new hardware to, and expect to interact with a variety of gadgets - that struggle. The problem, in a nutshell, is Granny’s new camera"

#1: Keeping it FREE
"... create something that we’ve never had before, which is a completely level software playing field for every young aspiring IT practitioner, and every aspiring entrepreneur. I believe that’s how we will really change the world, and how we will deliver the full benefit of the movement started more than two decades ago by Richard Stallman"

what did the printing press change and how quickly did those changes happen?

that could be an important question if we are also interested in this question:

• what will the computer change and how quickly will that change happen?

John Lienhard argues (what people said about books in 1498 ) that eventually the book ushered in scientific thinking. That it helped us to:

• rediscover the writings and values of the classical Greeks
• coupled Aristotle's observational science with illustrations (first, block print, later copperplate engravings)
• transformed out epistemology from inwardly introspective to outwardly experimental, in part because the message embedded in the medium of books is that knowledge comes from outside ourselves
• create new observational sciences such as botany, anatomy, geography and ethnography
• led us away from deductive philosophies

So, the book ushered in a whole new way of thinking - scientific thinking

How quickly did those changes happen?

1450: printing press invented by Gutenberg ()
1454,5: Gutenberg Bible produced (Gutenberg Bible )
1456-mid 80s: classical and religious books were produced, essentially copies of profitable old manuscript books
1484: the first scientific illustrations appeared in books

So, it's reasonable to assume that the older generation has to die out before the new generation can find their own path. Although the older generation has it's share of creative visionaries they are marginalised by the majority.

Lienhard also warns that we have never been able to predict the future, that it is created by the younger generation. So what principles should the adults, who currently control things, follow, in shaping a future we cannot predict? Lienhard recommends:

1. Seek out our own ignorance, that wisdom is having some awareness of our ignorance
2. Good people make good machines. Bad people make bad machines.
3. Don't try to plan the future, rather create a flexible present, so that the future can bend and find its own shape

More

The current older generation is embedded in print culture and blind to deficiencies in that culture, just like a fish swimming in water is not aware of the water

Greek philosophers who were there at the start were suspicious of print culture.

Socrates complained about writing. He felt it forced one to follow an argument rather than participate in it, and he disliked both its alienation and it persistence. He was unsettled by the idea that a manuscript travelled without the author, with whom no argument was possible. Worse, the author could die and never be talked away from the position taken in the writing.
- Alan Kay: Computer, Networks and Education. Scientific American September 1991

Marshall McLuhan argued that alphabetical and print culture elevated homogenous visual experience and relegated auditory and other sensuous complexity to the background and that this fostered a specialist outlook mentality(The Gutenberg Galaxy )

Print culture has produced amazing things. But we now have a younger generation who have grown up in new media. And we don't really understand what it all means.

The incunabula refers to the infancy of printing, before 1500. Cunae means cradle

We live in the age of a new cradle, the computer. But in Schools everything seems locked down and inflexible. Learn Office. Learn Applications. User Interface is a given. Block the read/write web. At a time when we should be encouraging the young to invent the future and usher in new ways of thinking and doing, the general educational School use of computers is becoming less flexible.

17 years since the Tiananmen Square Massacre: The Tank Man

17 years since the tien an mein square massacre: the tank man (52 minutes)

His action symbolises the triumph of the human spirit, for freedom against tyranny

CISCO, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google are implicated in their complicity with ongoing repression and denial of human rights by the Chinese government.

a physics teacher begs for his subject back

Wellington Grey, a physics teachers in the UK, has written an open letter about the conversion of physics in his country from a science of precise measurement and calculation into "... something else, something nebulous and ill defined"

He goes onto give examples from the new syllabus of "the vague, the stupid, the political, and the non-science." It's an impassioned and well written letter:

The thing that attracts pupils to physics is its precision. Here, at last, is a discipline that gives real answers that apply to the physical world. But that precision is now gone. Calculations — the very soul of physics — are absent from the new GCSE. Physics is a subject unpolluted by a torrent of malleable words, but now everything must be described in words.

In this course, pupils debate topics like global warming and nuclear power. Debate drives science, but pupils do not learn meaningful information about the topics they debate. Scientific argument is based on quantifiable evidence. The person with the better evidence, not the better rhetoric or talking points, wins. But my pupils now discuss the benefits and drawbacks of nuclear power plants, without any real understanding of how they work or what radiation is.
- a physics teacher begs for his subject back

Also worth looking at Wellington's blog entry on this, Asking for your help, which has attracted some great comments.

This is a big topic. Science and maths education seems to be polarising between a back to basics movement and soft sociological reform, often ineffectual "discovery learning". I believe there is a third way, that traditional science education can be reformed and still remain real science. Student designed computer simulations using software such as Etoys / Squeak could play an important role here.

I've written in my old blog about the decline of science education in Australia, as flagged by astronaut Andy Thomas.

Joel Stanley

In February this year I heard Joel Stanley, a Computer Systems Engineering student, expertly present on the One Laptop Per Child Project at the South Australian Linux Society

Subsequently, I invited Joel to present to our Game Making cluster in Melbourne and he did a great job there too

Now Joel is off to MIT to work on the recharging units for the OLPC batteries

Here are some inspirational words from his blog:

I look forward to not only the technical challenges that this experience will provide, but also the Humanity aspects - a good friend once told me she almost chose to study medicine over engineering, because she wanted to help people who were disadvantaged around the world. However, she decided that through her Civil Engineering degree, she could “build bridges” for those who needed help. I would have never thought that my degree could enable me to do similar things; this is one of the fascinating aspects of the OLPC project

Joel needs to raise some more money for his trip. Have a read of his blog and please consider a donation to this very worthy cause.

Contact Joel directly at joel.stan (at) gmail (dot) com

just the facts about online youth victimisation

moral panic is well intentioned but ineffective

the cornerstone belief that youth put themselves at risk by sharing their personal information (name, school etc.) on line is wrong

other related beliefs about internet pedophiles lying about their ages, identities and motives, tricking kids into disclosing personal information and then stalking, abducting and raping those children also turn out to be vastly exaggerated

what is the reality?

• there are almost no victims under the age of 13
• there is very little violence, abduction or deception involved in online sexual predatory behaviour
• the offenders lure teens after weeks of conversation with them, they play on teens desire for romance, adventure, sexual information / understanding and they lure them to encounters that the teens know are sexual in nature, with people who are considerably older than themselves

Disclosing personal information on line does not put teens at risk. What puts teens in danger is being willing to talk about sex on line with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms

So, to prevent these crimes is going to be a lot more awkward, messy and complicated than something as bland as telling teens not to publish their personal information on line

Rather than blaming the internet we are going to have to dig deeper into the real issues of relationships, parenting and social pressures that lead to teens putting themselves at risk. eg. school is boring, how do I get alcohol when I am underage (form a connection with an older person), workaholic parents, no physical places for teens to hangout and have fun, issues like that. It's a complex social issue not a simple issue with simple technological solutions.

source:
just the facts about online youth victimisation (pdf)
download the video or audio of the same thing

Update: (June 3, 2007)
Targeting the Right Online Behaviors
Michele L. Ybarra, MPH, PhD; Kimberly J. Mitchell, PhD; David Finkelhor, PhD; Janis Wolak, JD
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007;161:138-145.

Objective To examine whether sharing personal information and talking with strangers online or other behaviors are associated with the greatest odds for online interpersonal victimization

Conclusions Talking with people known only online ("strangers") under some conditions is related to online interpersonal victimization, but sharing personal information is not. Engaging in a pattern of different kinds of online risky behaviors is more influential in explaining victimization than many specific behaviors alone. Pediatricians should help parents assess their child's online behaviors globally in addition to focusing on specific types of behaviors


Online Victimisation of Youth: 5 Years Later (pdf)

3. Focus on adolescent desires for love, romance, and companionship.

In addressing the teens who are vulnerable to sexual solicitations, moreover, it is not sufficient to simply emphasize the dangers of assault, abduction, and rape. Internet exploiters know many teens are susceptible to romantic fantasies, illusions of love, and desires for companionship. Unfortunately exploiters also know how to take advantage of this susceptibility when they form close online relationships with youth (Wolak, et al., 2004). Prevention messages about sexual solicitation need to address this vulnerability. Such messages need to remind teens about how adults who use the Internet to meet and form sexual relationships with young teens are often committing crimes and likely to get themselves and their partners in serious trouble. Youth need to understand how some adults “groom” youth to allay anxieties and encourage sexual activity. Moreover youth need to hear about how relationships between teens and adults they meet online are doomed to failure and disappointment if not worse, and, despite what teens may be imagining, are usually more about sex than enduring love

Etoys lunar lander

The tutorial for the lunar lander is here (download pdf)



This involves creating a yspeed variable and then writing scripts for a motor (which is controlled by the inbuilt Etoys joystick - great feature, which will appeal to kids), for gravity and for the landing process (which works by colour under detection)

The final scripts look something like this (click on image for a closer look):



It's great fun manipulating the joystick to control the speed of descent.

New types of games will be developed on the OLPC

New types of games will be developed on the One Laptop Per Child, exploiting its unique features

An OLPC Game Jam (game design and programming event) will be split into four development tracks centered around a particular hardware or end-usage aspect of the laptop:

• Mesh Networking: Each XO has mesh networking capabilities that allow it to broadcast and connect to any laptop around it, allowing activities to easily be made collaborative.
• Camera: Each XO has a videoconferencing-quality camera embedded to the side of its display.
• Tablet Mode: The XO laptop has a distinct tablet mode where the screen can output high-resolution b/w graphics in sunlight conditions and features built in game-pad like buttons. This mode might lend itself to specific styles of play including one involving real-world activity beyond a confined space.
• Malleable Games for Learning: A key consideration of the OLPC effort is certainly learning. However, more importantly it is hoped that kids can use the laptops to create their own games and experiment deeply with learning games by having access to modify and change them as part of a learning process. This track will elicit games that speak to this ideal.

"There aren't too many games right now that take advantage of mesh style networking," said Klein, referring to the XO's ability to use Wi-Fi to communicate with other users up to a kilometer away, and display them as icons on its Sugar interface. "There are networked games, sure, but they aren't sensitive to the ability to display the presence of other users depending on where they are in relation to you, or to pop up on the screen when they are close enough."

More information at hackronym and yahoo news

my generation

Check out The Zimmers, my generation (you tube)

People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

Documentary-maker Tim Samuels travelled all over Britain recruiting isolated and lonely old people. The finale of the show is this group of lonely old people coming together to form a rock troupe and trying to get into the pop charts.
- the zimmers (wikipedia)

Negroponte CBS interview

CBS 60 Minutes has run a detailed interview with Nicholas Negroponte (including his critics / competitors such as Wayan Vota / Intel) about the One Laptop Per Child Project. Worth watching the online video.

Negroponte started on this pathway by founding a school in Cambodia in 1999, putting in a satellite dish and generators. Then they gave the children laptops. Instantly, school became a lot more popular.

"The first English word of every child in that village was 'Google'," he says. "The village has no electricity, no telephone, no television. And the children take laptops home that are connected broadband to the Internet."

When they take the laptops home, the kids often teach the whole family how to use it. Negroponte says the families loved the computers because, in a village with no electricity, it was the brightest light source in the house.

Another relevant fact from the interview - Fifty per cent of the children in Pakistan and Nigeria are not in school. OLPC can provide some sort of education for these children.

CEGSA Conference, July 2007

I've put forward two presentations and one workshop for the Computers in Education, South Australia Conference (CEGSA), 19-20 July, 2007. Not yet approved.

Course Title: Alan Kay's educational vision (presentation)

Description: Alan Kay, winner of the 2004 Turing award, invented the GUI and the first object orientated programming language, Smalltalk. His educational vision, developed over 30 years, has not received as much attention but is just as interesting. This presentation will describe that vision.

Course Title: One Laptop Per Child (presentation)

Description: The One Laptop Per Child project plans to release millions of cheap laptops to developing countries over the next few years. This presentation will discuss the hardware, software and educational goals of the OLPC Project.

Course Title: Etoys / Squeak (workshop)

Software and Version: Squeak 3.9

http://www.squeakland.org/

Audience: Years 3-12

Description: Etoys / Squeak is a powerful drag and drop programming language which has been included on the one laptop per child project. This session will demonstrate how to program in Etoys.

alan kay's educational vision

Tracing the Dynabook: A Study of Technocultural Transformations John W Maxwell
Ch 4. Alan Kay's Educational Vision

John Maxwell has read all of Alan Kay's writings and claims to have summed up his educational vision in six main points. Here are some rough notes. Best to read his dissertation of course.

1. Computers for Children

Alan Kay was strongly influenced by Seymour Papert. I've written extensively about Papert elsewhere (Papert, ISDP, Behaviourism, Invitation) and won't go over that ground again here.

Alan Kay set out to design a personal meta medium for children. This goal led to a shift in his thinking about user interface.

Rather than access to functionality, a child-centred user interface would be an environment in which the users learn by doing.

2. Systems Design

The problem with both a user centred approach to design and a designer centred approach is that both assume that we know in advance what the system will be like. So, the starting point for designing a children's machine ought to acknowledge ignorance, that we don't know the endpoint.

How do we build a system that can grow into something yet unforseen by either its users or designers?

It ought to be more like paper or clay than a finished device like a car or a TV.

One metaphor here is cell biology. One kind of building block which can differentiate into all the needed building blocks. You need an evolutionary approach.

Late binding (Etoys, References) allows a fluid approach to change, the opposite of hard wired instrumentalism.

3. Smalltalk

(Alan Kay invented the first object orientated programming language, Smalltalk)

Smalltalk is better described as a communication medium rather than a programming language. The Smalltalk environment is more important than the language.

It has a recursive design. Why divide a computer into weaker things such as data structures and procedures? Instead why not divide it up into little computers?

The foundational premises of Smalltalk are:

• everything is an object
• objects send and receive messages
• objects have their own memory
• every object is an instance of a class
• the class holds the shared behaviour of its instances
• to evaluate a program list control is passed to the first object and the remainder is treated as its message

Alan Kay regrets the terminology, object orientated, thinking later that message orientated would have expressed it better

There is not a clear dividing line between "objects" and "actors". Both are different aspects of the notion of process.

The ethic of mutability: Every component of the system is open to be explored, investigated, modified, built upon. The distinction between tool and medium is blurred.

4. Doing with Images makes Symbols

Jerome Bruner (1960s) identified three mentalities: enactive (kinesthenic), iconic and symbolic (abstraction)

User interface design should integrate these modes. With Etoys the user does things with images (play) and gradually the symbolic meaning emerges.

A study of mathematicians (Hadamard, 1954) found that most of them think in terms of imagery and a significant number reported a kinesthenic basis to their thinking. This was more important than their abstract symbolic thinking

5. Narrative, argumentation and systems thinking

A significant thing about stories is whether they are good, not whether they are completely consistent internally or externally, they may contradict other stories.

Since the 17th Century the most influential Western cultural expressions have been arguments, not narratives:

• democracy
• science
• technology
• health care

Arguments are chains of logical assertions, this mode of discourse originated with Francois Viete in the 16th Century and was further developed by Rene Descartes

More recent forms of argumentation defy linear representation:

• chaos theory
• complex systems
• simulation modelling

Only a tiny fraction of people are fluent in these forms of communication. Children are wired for story telling but not for logic and systems theory. The computer as a medium is capable of simulating any descriptive model. Simulation is more effective learning than a maths equation and made possible through the computer. So far, this has worked for science, but not for school.

6. What is literacy?

Martin Luther considered teaching Latin to Germans. But then he opted to restructure German so that it could handle philosophical and religious discourse.

Similarly, today, we are faced with the alternative of mass media dumbing us down or using computers in powerful ways

For many, today, print has failed as a carrier of important ideas. Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death has argued that as a society we are incapable of dealing with complexity.

Literacy is powerful ideas. The "haves" are those who can discern these powerful ideas.

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repeat 90[fd 1 rt 4]
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Logo teaches calculus but still many teachers just don't get it

How can children have an embedded cultural experience that encourages learning logic and systems theory? The Montessori approach is free choice and self development of preferred objects to think with.

"computers in education" mush

Tracing the Dynabook: A Study of Technocultural Transformations John W Maxwell (pp. 10-19)

"Computers in Education"

Bland phrase, the meaning of which is highly contested. "Educational computing" currently makes no sense. There is no guiding rationale or set of common principles that we can agree with or critique. It is all mush.

Conventionally, the computing world consists of experts and end users, producers and consumers. These are roles that many teachers accept far to readily.

Some radicals have seen the computer as a transformative agent and have attempted to challenge these conventional roles. For example, Papert saw logo as a means to put advanced ideas into the hands of unsophisticated users. This message had some influence for a few years but slowly sank almost without trace. Alan Kay's Dynabook idea was also a radical break from the conventional division of labour but one that had less penetration than Papert's.

Education is complicit in adopting the conventional view and marginalising the radical view. In these ways:

• Uncritical acceptance of and buy into industry originated solutions and campaigns which disempower everyone - students, teachers, schools. Office productivity software, the proprietary way.
• Miracle worker discourse. This brilliant teacher, rare individual, can work miracles with the computer. Meaning that most teachers can't.
• Learning objects or distance education curricula. Knowledge and authority is vested with the publisher or the information source.
• Critical educational thinking is not applied to the basic question, "What is the computer for?" It's either there to achieve a particular goal which existed in the curriculum before the computer existed. Or, technology has an innate progressive, or sinister, logic of its own.

We lack any clear sense of what computers might be good for. Maxwell's dissertation presents a historical solution to this problem by tracing the Dynabook and it's main author's (Alan Kay) thinking over a 40 year period. He gives us a history of powerful ideas, rather than "where do you want to go today"

meeting Pierre-André Dreyfuss

Pierre-André Dreyfuss wrote to me while holidaying in Australia and with the help of lucychili we organised a meeting with him last Wednesday in Adelaide.

He is short, with greying hair and black bushy eyebrows

Pierre-André has an intensive background in logo, microworlds, toontalk, etoys / squeak and loves to talk about programs he has done in them. He is a very committed and dedicated educator.

It was fairly amazing meeting someone from another country whose programming software passions were pretty much parallel to my own.

Pierre-André is Swiss and his preferred language is French. It was difficult to understand the detail of some of the conversation due to his strong accent, although his English vocabulary is quite good. eg. see this post about toontalk and etoys to the squeakland forum

He is the author of vtoys, a visual drag and drop program designed to make etoys more accessible to younger and disadvantaged students. Pierre-André asked us for help in an English translation. My friend Paul has done some work already by taking the documentation from the French language site and running it through google translate. The English output is fairly good,

Here is a v-toys page in French, translated into English using google translate.

Update: I have updated the translation in English URL, as Tony pointed out the earlier one was temporary. You have to quickly grab the URL while google translate is translating. Thanks Paul.

community user interface

Everything changes.

So it's not logical that the human computer user interface (UI) will always be based on a desktop metaphor of windows, icons, menus and pointers (WIMP). Something better will come along.

Maybe something better has come along. Sugar UI, as featured on the OLPC

In Sugar the focus is on a community UI, rather than a desktop UI. This makes a lot of sense because the wirless mesh network is a central feature of the OLPC:

• Neighbourhood replaces Desktop
• Frame replaces Menubar

and there are other changes:

• Journal replaces a hierarchical file system
• Activities replace applications
• Objects replace files

Follow this link for a complete description of the OLPC Human Interface Guidelines

Some related links:
The Sugar UI
The Sugar UI featured in the OLPC appears to finally break from the well worn conventions of Windows and MacOS

File Systems Aren't a Feature
Why the file system should be completely eliminated

Video of the OLPC UI

Nooface
The purpose of this site is to support the exchange of ideas about next-generation user interfaces, focusing on approaches that go beyond the Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing Device (WIMP) method on which most current user interfaces are based

Jensen Harris
This blog is all about the new user interface we've been working on for Office 2007. This new version does away with menus and toolbars and replaces them with new paradigms such as the Ribbon, Contextual Tabs, and Galleries (MS insider view)

the future

According to Charlie (Shaping the Future), in the future:

• With universal GPS, it will be impossible to become lost
• Everyone will be able to keep a complete video recording of their whole life. "Sixty kilograms (of diamond) can store a lifelog for the entire human species for a century." The study of history will no longer be gappy. Total history.
• All our objects will be on the internet, eg. teaspoons, lightbulbs, and friendly to us
  
• Privacy will be an alien concept. You can see the beginning of this in the way that young people, in particular, reveal all sorts of details about their lives on line.

I think the inevitable loss of privacy there will fuel a political movement for a fundamentally different sort of non intrusive government or state apparatus. It's more sensible to fight for this than to throw away your mobile and go and live in a forest or a desert. That would be analogous to fighting for the right enjoyed by our ancestors, never to travel more than a few miles from their village.

See also, Four funerals and a wedding

why the OLPC may sell in the USA

Does Intel Fear $100 laptops? (download this pdf to read this Fortune article in full)

OLPC may sell in the USA to achieve the economies of scale needed to bring the price down to $100 by 2008. The current price of the OLPC is $176.

This arises from competition from Intel which is now selling its Classmate PC for $180 in the same countries where governments have expressed interest in the OLPC

This threatens to undermines the economies of scale required to bring down the price of the OLPC to $100.

"We need to trigger a supply chain for three million units to get started," Negroponte says, "and need a few large agreements to kick it off. I just cannot do 300 deals of 10,000 each."

By selling the OLPC in the USA where interest is very high the OLPC project will be able to kick off these economies of scale. This will also attract more programmers to the project

It's a strategy game between Negroponte who wants to help the poor and Intel who wants to make money and wreck the OLPC project in the process

It seems to me, therefore, unlikely that the OLPC will be offered for sale in Australia shortly because of our low population. However, I believe that special submission could be made to sell the laptop to aboriginal communities, who have long lived in third world conditions.

return to hospital

I thought I was making a good recovery from a mysterious massive bleed following a prostate biopsy

However, a few days later, due to sore ribs when I lay down to sleep I checked myself back into hospital, last Sunday morning.

I have been in hospital since then receiving more tests, analysis and treatment

The doctors are now saying that I have a couple of small blood clots in my lungs (pulmonary embolism) and a mass on my left kidney which looks like a cancer.

My blood has been thinned (currently using subcutaneous self injecting clexane) to control the clotting and I’m due for a nephrectomy (kidney removal) in 6 weeks time

Many thanks to visitors, those who phoned and the expertise of QEH staff

With luck I should be able to resume a normal life after that. I’m feeling strong.

unexpected hospital stay

I've been AWOL since last Thursday, in hospital.

I checked in for a routine test (prostrate biopsy) and something went dramatically wrong. I became the one in a thousand statistic that is mentioned when these tests are suggested and which you think will never happen to you.

I was bleeding uncontrollably for many hours and needed a blood transfusion and a couple of operations to fix it.

Many thanks to Queen Elizabeth Hospital staff for their expertise and help. And to friends who visited and left phone messages.

I'm continually amazed by our progress in medical knowledge. I feel I'm on the road to a full recovery.

I was thinking of creating a separate blog to discuss some men's health issues in more detail. Will keep this entry short though.