theory of instruction confronts theory of mind

A research question arising from consideration of Direct Instruction

 My current research question:
Why is Zig Engelmann's Direct Instruction (DI), a comprehensively trialled educational theory of instruction based on logical inference with rigorous empirical checks on performance and curriculum design successful in practice given that our minds apparently develop through a process of fluid analogies, as argued by Artificial Intelligence researchers Marvin Minsky and Douglas Hofstadter?

There appears to be convincing evidence for the success of DI in practice. Zig  Engelmann has put Chapter 5: Follow Through Evaluation of his book, Teaching Needy Kids in our Backward System, on line which provides a blow by blow account of how Project Follow Through findings were suppressed by "progressives" back in the 1970s

Here are some conflicting statements from the different schools of thought on logical thinking:

 Engelmann and Carnine. Could John Stuart Mill have saved our schools? (2011)

“If the examples presented to teach something are capable of generating only one inference or meaning, that is what all learners will learn, regardless of other differences among individual learners (9) … From our perspective, the most fundamental fact about the learner's mind is that it is totally logical in its learning operations. This is directly inferred from the learner's most elementary performance” (57)

Marvin Minsky, Society Of Mind (1987)

“Logical Thinking The popular but unsound theory that much of human reasoning proceeds in accord with clear-cut rules that lead to foolproof conclusions. In my view, we employ logical reasoning only in special forms of adult thought, which are used mainly to summarise what has already been discovered. Most of our ordinary mental work – that is, our commonsense reasoning – is based more on 'thinking by analogy' - that is, applying to our present circumstances our representations of seemingly similar previous experiences” (329)

I have been thinking about this question and discussing it with whoever is willing to discuss it. I can provide further reading references as an addition to this blog post for anyone who requests that. If anyone reading this feels they have an answer or relevant references then please post them in comments.

I'm not happy until I've theorised a learning approach and I become a little obsessive until I feel I've got to the bottom of it. From what I've read a theory of logical empiricism is incomplete when evaluated with a modern theory of mind. That doesn't mean that DI doesn't work - the evidence seems compelling - but it still worries me because there might be hidden implications for some aspects of learning.

government failure in indigenous education documented

Although this report falls short of recommending a Noel Pearson style full immersion Direct Instruction program it does thoroughly document the problem of education of indigenous Australians in remote communities and doesn't hesitate to blame the Government for it's failure in supporting separatist education philosophies and fudging the targets.

Indigenous Education 2012
Helen Hughes and Mark Hughes
The Centre for Independent Studies

from the Introduction:
We again give special attention to the estimated 20,000 (of a total 170,000) Indigenous students enrolled in Indigenous schools in ‘bush’ communities on Indigenous lands. These students have been the principal victims of separatist education philosophies for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. In Indigenous schools, 90% literacy and numeracy failure rates have been, and often still are, common. Another 40,000 Indigenous students attend underperforming mainstream schools with above-average failure rates, side by side with non-Indigenous students. However, the majority of Indigenous students—more than 110,000—attend quality mainstream schools where they are achieving national minimum literacy and numeracy standards; these students are therefore not the subject of this report. Unwillingness to recognise these Indigenous students’ high literacy and numeracy pass rates has fed low expectations of Indigenous students’ abilities.

from the Executive Summary:
The situation
In 2008, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) reduced the Indigenous education target from fix the problem in four years to fix half the problem in 10 years. The first four year’s NAPLAN results show that only Queensland and Western Australia have made significant progress. All states and territories will struggle to reach the reduced target. On the education ministers’ timetable, Indigenous children will not have the same education as non-Indigenous children until 2028.

Most Indigenous Australians live and work in cities and towns. Their children—more than 110,000—attend mainstream schools and achieve minimum national literacy and numeracy standards like non-Indigenous students. Indigenous students have the same intellectual capabilities as non-Indigenous students. The education industry’s focus on ‘indigeneity’ is a politically driven distraction. If indigeneity was the problem, the majority of Indigenous students would not be passing.

School failure is the problem
Some 20,000 students attend Indigenous schools—those with 75% or more Indigenous students. But only a handful of these schools are delivering effective literacy and numeracy. Another 40,000 Indigenous students attend underperforming mainstream schools, side-by-side with many more non-Indigenous students. Poor education delivered by these underperforming schools is the principal cause of educational failure in Australia for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.

Measuring literacy and numeracy 2008–12
The majority of Indigenous students pass NAPLAN tests, but there is also a significant poorly performing minority. Queensland and Western Australia have made the most progress. But other states and territories—and therefore Australia as a whole—are not on track to meet COAG targets. Even where COAG targets will be met by 2018, Indigenous student failure rates will still be above those of non-Indigenous students.

Causes of Indigenous education failure
Evidence shows that indigeneity, remoteness and a non-English speaking background are not the reasons for high Indigenous failure rates. Non-performing schools are the principal cause of Indigenous student failure. Welfare dependence, with entrenched low parental and student expectations, is a major contributing factor.

COAG and Indigenous education
By adopting politically correct rhetoric instead of numeracy and literacy solutions, COAG—the peak government body—contributes to the lack of progress.

Underperforming schools
About 200 Indigenous schools have the lowest NAPLAN results in Australia. A larger group of mainstream schools in cities and towns deliver below average education to their Indigenous and nonIndigenous students. Under existing policies, only a handful of these schools are being reformed.

Indigenous education expenditure
Indigenous education is well funded. Much of the $360 million per year of ‘Indigenous specific’ education expenditure is, however, wasted on counterproductive ‘feel-good,’ ‘culturally appropriate’ programs that take time and attention from classroom instruction.

Trapped by illiteracy on Indigenous lands
The lack of education for the 70,000 Australians living on Indigenous lands is compounded by a lack of job opportunities. In response, governments have created pretend jobs and training programs that lead nowhere.

from section 11: Conclusions and Recommendations
In 2008, Australian governments dropped the target of educational equality for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, replacing it with the soft target of ‘halving the gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students by 2018.

NAPLAN results for the four years from 2008 to 2011 show only Queensland and Western Australia making significant progress towards that target; a target that will still see half the students in Indigenous schools in the Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, and South Australia fail reading and numeracy tests in 2018.

Targets are easy to set and change when they get too hard. Governments and education departments refuse to face the evidence that school ethos and classroom instruction are at the heart of education problems. The failure to reform welfare also contributes to high failure rates through low expectations and attendance rates.

Indigenous students have the same intellectual capabilities as non-Indigenous students. The children of working Indigenous parents achieve the same NAPLAN results as the children of non-Indigenous parents. The education industry’s focus on indigeneity is a politically driven distraction. So is remoteness and English as a second language. Non-Indigenous remote schools have high NAPLAN achievement rates. Migrant children are taught English successfully.

About 200 Indigenous schools are at the extreme of failing Indigenous performance. The Northern Territory’s more than 40 Homeland Learning Centres, where students do not even have full-time qualified teachers, are at the bottom of Australia’s more than 9,000 schools. Only 200 out of 2,000 students starting in Indigenous schools in 2012 are on a path to mainstream education. Each year, Indigenous schools add 2,000 non-literate and non-numerate teenagers to existing welfare-dependent communities on Indigenous lands.

Underperforming mainstream schools in cities and towns betray both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. The NAPLAN performance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in these schools cannot be fixed without improving the performance of the non-Aboriginal students sitting next to them.

Indigenous education is well funded. Most of the more than $300 million Indigenous-specific expenditure, however, is spent on programs for which there is no evidence of positive impact. These programs are counterproductive because they take time and energy away from classroom teaching.

COAG Council of Australian Governments
NAPLAN National Assessment Plan—Literacy and Numeracy

You may not believe in Direct Instruction because your memes won't allow it

What we approve of and what we deride or ignore depends on which memes we have assimilated most from our culture and upbringing.

 Hence, Direct Instruction is often not considered seriously by educational "progressives". It is not that the education establishment has thought deeply about it, considered the evidence and developed good arguments against DI. It is more that Direct Instruction falls outside the framework of the established Piagetian or developmental educational culture, built over decades. From such a framework a "mere" theory of instruction has less weight than the "more important" theories of development or learning or mind. A theory of instruction by its very nature appears to be "conservative" since, from a distance, it is a variation of the traditional teacher centred framework, whereas the other theories (development, learning and mind) allow far more scope to be child or learner centred and hence would appear to be more enlightened, progressive and modern. Note the vague fuzziness of the language.

I have been part of this process. For example, in 1997 I wrote an article, Invitation to Immersion, in which I outlined one version of the "thoughtful", "progressive" and "ground breaking" principles on which education ought to be based. In brief they included:

• Play is OK ...
• The emotional precedes the cognitive ...
• Our knowledge is like our relationships with other people, full of subtle nuances and never ending contradictions ...
• Trust your intuition. Frankly, logic is over-rated ...
• Take risks! ...
• Take your time ...
• A good discussion promotes learning ...

These principles arose out of what I still consider to be a successful application of Seymour Papert's (just to name the best known proponent) logo based computers in education initiative. I am still fondly attached to these principles. I believe I can go through each one and argue a strong case of sorts in favour.

However, the principles of Direct Instruction are quite different, and sometimes contrary, to the above principles. Direct Instruction is based on a different set of memes. Logic rates very highly; intuition is unscientific. Time is precious, instruction proceeds at a brisk pace. Cognition precedes emotion; positive emotions arise through success in learning. As well there are other important elements that are not considered in the list above, such as a strong emphasis on continual and rigorous monitoring, through testing, that learning is happening. As Zig Engelmann says, "Give me the data".

If you are wearing the "progressive" education set of blinkers and / or filters you are probably not even going to look hard at Direct Instruction because that requires putting on a contrary set of blinkers / filters.

There is one cloud of memes which predispose their possessor to supporting "progressive education" and a different cloud of memes which pushes their host in the direction of Direct Instruction. Moreover, some of these memes have been acquired during the formative childhood years and it is more than likely that we have forgotten how we acquired them or what they were in their primitive, childhood form. Childhood amnesia of our learning processes is a well established belief. As our minds build complexity we forget the original building blocks. This may result in mutual incomprehension of the apparent perversity of the "other side" in the education culture wars.

Compare my thoughts here about education with Douglas Hofstadter's thoughts about some current memes and further reflections leading him to change his mind about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:

Since a sizable fraction of one’s personal repertoire of perceptual chunks is provided from without, by one’s language and culture, this means that inevitably language and culture exert powerful, even irresistible, channeling influences on how one frames events. (This position is related to the “meme’s-eye view” of the nature of thought, as put forth in numerous venues, most recently in Blackmore 1999.)

Consider, for instance, such words as “backlog,” “burnout,” “micromanaging,” and “underachiever,” all of which are commonplace in today’s America. I chose these particular words because I suspect that what they designate can be found not only here and now, but as well in distant cultures and epochs, quite in contrast to such culturally and temporally bound terms as “soap opera,” “mini-series,” “couch potato,” “news anchor,” “hit-and-run driver,” and so forth, which owe their existence to recent technological developments. So consider the first set of words. We Americans living at the millennium’s cusp perceive backlogs of all sorts permeating our lives — but we do so because the word is there, warmly inviting us to see them. But back in, say, Johann Sebastian Bach’s day, were there backlogs — or more precisely, were backlogs perceived? For that matter, did Bach ever experience burnout? Well, most likely he did — but did he know that he did? Or did some of his Latin pupils strike him as being underachievers? Could he see this quality without being given the label? Or, moving further afield, do Australian aborigines resent it when their relatives micromanage their lives? Of course, I could have chosen hundreds of other terms that have arisen only recently in our century, yet that designate aspects of life that were always around to be perceived but, for one reason or another, aroused little interest, and hence were neglected or overlooked.

My point is simple: we are prepared to see, and we see easily, things for which our language and culture hand us ready-made labels. When those labels are lacking, even though the phenomena may be all around us, we may quite easily fail to see them at all. The perceptual attractors that we each possess (some coming from without, some coming from within, some on the scale of mere words, some on a much grander scale) are the filters through which we scan and sort reality, and thereby they determine what we perceive on high and low levels.

Although this sounds like an obvious tautology, that part of it that concerns words is in fact a nontrivial proposition, which, under the controversial banner of “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,” has been heatedly debated, and to a large extent rejected, over the course of the twentieth century. I myself was once most disdainful of this hypothesis, but over time came to realize how deeply human thought — even my own! — is channeled by habit and thus, in the last accounting, by the repertoire of mental chunks (i.e., perceptual attractors) that are available to the thinker. I now think that it is high time for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis to be reinstated, at least in its milder forms.
- Analogy as the Core of Cognition

special legitimises normal

It seems to me now that that was the beginning of two tactics used by public schools to win their battle for existence; first, to establish special groups of kids in various categories ranging from "immature" through neurogically or emotionally or educationally "handicapped" to "deprived" to the marvelous, blatant "non-achiever", and second, to take teachers who wish to teach in some odd way and let them teach these odd kids. For all the terms for special kids really just mean kids who can't or won't or don't do things the way the school thinks they ought to be done; once labelled as special, the school can pretend there is a normal group which is well served by the custom of the school. The school's obvious inability to satisfy many children can then become natural, since the kids are "special" and shouldn't be satisfied by any normal procedures and the school does not need to change its ways at all, has only to create some arrangements on the outskirts of the school to keep them special kids and special teachers out of the way
p. 64, How to Survive in Your Native Land (1971) by James Herndon

Peter Norvig's quotes page

I very much like these quotes from Peter Norvig's quotes page:

Far and away the best prize life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
- Theodore Roosevelt

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
- William James

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- Aristotle

I don't see any god up here.
- Yuri Gagarin (in orbit, 1961)

The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.
- Vannevar Bush (1945)

Power corrupts, and obsolete power corrupts obsoletely.
- Ted Nelson, on the Microsoft DOS operating system

He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
- John McCarthy

Belief is no substitute for arithmetic.
- Henry Spencer

Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
- Charles Babbage

In the future, search engines should be as useful as HAL in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey--but hopefully they won't kill people.
- Sergey Brin

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
- Voltaire

I have often thought that if there had been a good rap group in those days, I might have chosen a career in music instead of politics.
- Richard Nixon

If I have made myself clear, you must have misunderstood me.
- Alan Greenspan

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Rhonda Farkota's 2005 Opinion piece

Below is a summary of a 2005 article by Rhonda Farkota about what needs to be done to fix maths education in Australia. Rhonda Farkota has done the research to pass judgment on this question. Her PhD thesis is available at the bottom of this page. Subsequent to her 2005 article she has published two books providing the materials required for basic maths education.

My question is: Has anything significantly changed since 2005?

Basic maths: the brutal reality by Rhonda Farkota (2005)

1. Results show that maths education is failing at primary school level
2. The problem is the way in which maths is taught, not the ability of our students
3. Both student centred learning and teacher centred learning have their place in education
4. But for the acquisition of basic mathematical skills, the research clearly shows that teacher-directed learning is better suited
5. Yet almost every teacher-education program in Australian universities is based on a student-directed approach. Indeed, some academic advocates of student-directed learning reject the whole idea of teacher-directed instruction, arguing that mathematical ideas must be personally constructed by the students themselves
6. This is nonsense: it’s totally unrealistic to expect children, unaided, to learn theories and concepts that have taken mathematicians millennia to put together
7. There is a dire urgency for the academics of the education world to put less emphasis on the ideology they feel most comfortable with, and instead, to have a long hard look at the evidence
8. Unfortunately, the teachers of today have neither the time nor the training to sit down and design complex maths curricula, and then go through a comprehensive evaluation process.
9. Fortunately, there are already highly effective, research-based, teacher-directed programs out there, requiring no preparation and no mathematical expertise to implement

Direct Instruction: observations at Djarragun college

I've just returned from a 4 day observation at Djarragun College near Cairns during their first week of Term 2.

Their programme is directed by NIFDI (National Institute For Direct Instruction), an American group set up by Zig Engelmann. The initiative to implement this in Australia originated with indigenous leader Noel Pearson, as outlined in his essay Radical Hope.

In the following I describe some of the characteristics of the NIFDI programme.

Without fail, every school day, from 9am to 1pm there are 3 hours of English language instruction (broken up into decoding, comprehension, writing) and 1 hour of Maths instruction

The lessons are  heavily scripted. The various teachers manuals are thick books with precise instructions about how lessons must be delivered. So all the teachers are pulling consistently in the same direction. Robotic yes, but they are good robots.

This aspect of the program has major, major implications. Scripting lessons takes away from teacher creativity or autonomy. All teachers are delivering in quite similar ways. Does the lack of diversity in this respect matter? For instance, in education a methods war between the relative virtues of constructivism (which emphasises the value of children exploring) and behavourism (which emphasises formal transmission of knowledge from teacher to student) has been  going on in various guises for years. NIFDI is as behaviourist as you can get so there is bound to be substantial opposition from constructivists or from those who advocate some sort of even balance between the two apparent extremes.

With NIFDI, student participation is close to 100%. Quite often this takes the form of chanting in unison in response to a signalling system from the teacher (finger click or tap on a book). Students are  trained to not answer until the teacher signals so the "smart" students don't dominate and the "slow" students don't hold back. Everyone participates. I observed this being consistently implemented in a variety of primary and middle school classes

The curriculum, from what I observed, is very purposeful. Engelmann claims to have developed curriculum design to the level of a precise science. There is a strong emphasis on logical elements in the comprehension part of the curriculum such as deductions, inference etc. (and of course much more). For example, in one lesson about the skeletal and muscular body systems these elements of curriculum design were included in rapid succession: Deductions, Evidence, Classification, Definitions, Parts of Speech, Inference, Definitions and Following Directions.

Some of the features of the programme that struck me as unusual and / or interesting were:
(a) Strong emphasis on logical elements such as deduction, evidence and inference
(b) Continual verbal participation (chanting) from students. The chanting was not only copying what the teacher said but also performing logical operations independently, after initial preparation for this by the teacher
(c) Expectation and achievement of participation in all tasks by all students (not 100% in all cases but close to it in nearly all of the classes I observed)
(d) Lessons proceeded briskly, some tasks were strictly timed and the message that time was precious was both explicit and implicit.
(e) A system of student points and teacher points was present in all classes. Students obtained points for doing the right thing, teachers obtained points when students did the wrong thing (eg. not waiting for the signal before answering). The class receives a reward when a specified target of points is achieved.
(f) Virtually no misuse of mobile phones. Students who misuse phones may lose them for a week or even the whole term.
(g) Self checks and peer assessment in various contexts. For example, I gathered that reading was assessed every day in paired groups with one of the pair recording words read in, say, 2 minutes and the errors. This was then followed by a reversal of roles. I asked one of the students who recorded 2 errors for her partner what they were and she could tell me.

All class groups are based on current ability level and not year or age level. So you might see year 8, 9 and 10 students in the same class. Decoding and comprehension occurs before recess; Writing and Maths after recess. The class groups are resorted at recess since abilities in these subjects will vary.

The goal is always mastery learning (85%-90%) for each and every student.

The data collection process is both arduous on the teacher and awesome in its scope. A copious amounts of data is collected each week by each teacher. Marking for each day must be completed by the next day. Students are reassessed each day for items they have not achieved mastery learning in the day before. If there are 3 strikes on an assessment item then the student is dropped to a lower ability group.

Much of the work from the previous day is repeated in slightly different form next day. There might be only 10 or 20% of new material taught each day. Hence continual repetition is built into the program.

The biggest problem is poor attendance. Hence the need for Noel Pearson's other community based initiatives to get students to attend regularly. See How do miserable people progress in the world?

The data is faxed to a  Direct Instruction expert in Canada once a week and this is followed by a conference call to discuss progress. So, there is an external expert continually advising and also checking that no one is drifting off from full implementation of the package.

In other schools teachers deviate all over the place, this is the first school I have seen where that is strictly not allowed. I observed some minor deviations but no serious deviations.

So, one outcome from the Engelmann approach is the ability to scale. For this to happen you need both the broad scope of a well designed and scripted curriculum (coverage of all aspects of literacy and maths) and the rigour of copious data collection and checkups. Without those elements scaling could not be achieved. That is what Engelmann provides which no one else does. Teachers do become like robots (in some, not all, ways). But through the rigour of the scripting they are purposeful robots and so on the mass scale much more is being achieved than would be achieved in the normal course of events, with teachers pulling and pushing in a variety of different directions (even with some of those directions being educationally sound ones and justified in isolation from each other)

There is a huge potential for spottiness and teachers not implementing the NIFDI approach properly. From what I saw in various classes there were subtle differences of implementation creeping in. But they were subtle, not serious deviations. Of course these would deviate further if there wasn't a rigorous way to prevent it. This explains why NIFDI have put in place such rigorous checkups through their data collection process. Part of me still doesn't like that side of it (the restriction on teachers ability innovate in their own, sometimes creative ways) but certainly I can see the necessity for it.

Hence other methods can and do work in isolation (good teachers in isolated classrooms) but the NIFDI approach seems to be the only one to provide all the elements necessary for scaling whereas other methods out of respect for teachers independence do not scale. And scale is everything since we have a large percentage of indigenous Australians who can't read, write or do basic maths. Other methods have failed.

 I'll also mention that I'm a big fan of Seymour Papert's constructionist approach to teaching with computers and have employed that approach successfully in both middle class and disadvantaged schools in Adelaide (1, 2). But when working in a disadvantaged school in Adelaide's northern suburbs I realised I had to incorporate much more behaviourist type approaches in my teaching due to the low starting point of many of the students there. See my 1998 article The place of behaviourism in schools which advocated a mixture of methodologies and I still think provides a valid critique of some aspects of behaviourism. (See footnotes 1, 2 and 3 in particular. These issues still need further research IMO) - edit 27th April.

Noel Pearson has also significantly influenced my thinking after I heard him speak in Adelaide about 10 years ago. Subsequently I have read most of his writings. When I read "Radical Hope" I thought interesting but education isn't really his primary area of expertise so he's being one sided here and going overboard in his support for Engelmann. I then read some Engelmann and thought interesting but he's too angry and criticising all forms of constructivism and I know that some forms of it are good, since I have been a successful practitioner. But then I couldn't get away from Engelmann's proven success in Project Follow Through and so gradually came to the view that I should look more closely at his DI approach and what still seemed to me to be exaggerated claims. I've now come to the belief that for disadvantaged students in particular who haven't grasped the fundamentals of language and maths that Direct Instruction is the best method developed that I am aware of.

Many thanks to Don Anderson (Principal) and the teachers and administrators of Djarragun College for permission to observe and for discussion about their implementation of Direct Instruction

Reference:
Ending the groundhog day of educational reform (Noel Pearson speech, 2011)

Footnote: A shorter version of this article was published in The Australian on May 3rd, 2012: Noel Pearson's Aboriginal college gets top results

freedom is good, control is bad; control is good, freedom is bad

The Vietnam war protest movement taught me that rebellion was good and government bad, that freedom was good and control was bad.

In applying this principle to education, the methodology of behaviourism seemed to symbolise the main thing that was wrong with School and Education. That it was BORING.

edit (23/4):
Behaviourism and / or rote learning was a sophisticated form of child abuse, a denial of freedom.


The Vietnam war had a racist element to it. Moreover racism at home directed at indigenous Australians took the form of either genocide or assimilation. Assimilation was equivalent to cultural death, a denial of indigenous culture.
/edit

Seymour Papert taught me that computers could be used in hands on personal ways that empowered naive users in deep ways, that personal learning was good and rote was bad (1).

But the experience working in a disadvantaged school taught me that behaviourist learning had its place in education too (2).

Noel Pearson taught me that the most difficult problem of social inequality, that of indigenous Australians, could be analysed and progress made (3).

Peter Sutton taught me that the indigenous question still remained an incredibly difficult problem (4).

Zig Engelmann taught me how to scale learning using behaviourist educational design (direct instruction) (5)

Hence, I have gone full cycle, returning to my starting point and seeing the same issues with new eyes. That freedom can be dangerously misguided and control can be good.

 reference:
(1) Papert's ideas: Mainly from Mindstorms
(2) The place of behaviourism in schools
(3) Radical Hope: Education and Equality in Australia
(4) The Politics of Suffering
(5) Zigsite

capitalism kills

Suicide note left by the 77 yo Greek pensioner who shot himself dead outside parliament on Wednesday morning:

 "The government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state.

 "And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting... I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don't find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance."
- Greek unrest after pensioner suicide beside parliament

Update: 9th April Amazing. Not only does capitalism kill but the capitalist media censored out the identification of the enemy and the call to arms in the above suicide note. So someone commits suicide and leaves a protest note. The capitalist media edits the contents. It's upsetting that we don't have a free press. But not only is it not free it also slimy and manipulative and can't even honour the final wishes of its own victims. The full message reads:

The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state.

And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting (although if a fellow Greek were to grab a Kalashnikov, I would be right behind him), I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance.

I believe that young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945. source

BBC slimy version
NYT slimy version

why left brain/ right brain theories won't go away

Here's my theory about why left brain/ right brain theories which overreach won't go away.

First up, people love to describe themselves as either left brained (logical, mathematical) or right brained (creative, artistic, wholistic). Why? Because that provides a convenient biological explanation about why they are good at some things and not good at other things. "I can't learn this because my brain won't let me". That has a nicer feel to it than "I can't learn this because (a) I can't be bothered (b) it's not important to me (c) some other reason".

Secondly, people worry about the state of the world: economic inequality, wars, environmental catastrophe, crappy politicians, insanity / delusions, apparent failed alternatives in other social forms that temporarily deluded millions (eg. communism), suicide bombers, 9/11, religion etc. Well, to explain all this requires a lot of hard thinking and it is embarrassing to be a member of the human race given the reality that we are collectively quite immature and still working out how to govern ourselves in a semi competent fashion. So, it's reassuring to have a biological theory that the left brain and right brain are somehow out of sync or causing us to focus on the wrong things rather than doing the hard work of actually figuring out the real factors that determine our social development.

So, that's my theory of why left brain/ right brain theories which overreach won't go away.

Reference:
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Ian McGilchrist (the Introduction can be downloaded for free)

  Reception to the above book as documented by wikipedia. Mostly very positive reviews by influential people, with the notable exception of The Economist.

  The human brain: Right and left. The Economist review, which is the one I like.

Modern myths of learning: The creative right brain
Sensible review of the history and current state of the science

 What Marvin Minsky said about half brain theories in his 1987 book, Society of Mind:

The two hemispheres of the brain look so alike that they were long assumed to be identical. Then it was found that after those cross connections are destroyed, usually only the left brain can recognise or speak words, and only the right brain can draw pictures. More recently, when modern methods found other differences between these two sides, it seems to me that some psychologists went mad - and tried to match those differences to every mentalistic two part theory that was ever conceived. Our culture soon became entranced by this revival of an old idea in modern guise: that our minds are meeting grounds for pairs of antiprinciples. On one side stands the Logical, across from the Analogical. The left side brain is Rational; the right side is Emotional. No wonder so many seized upon this pseudoscientific scheme: it gave new life to every dead idea of how to cleave the mental world into two halves as nicely as a peach.

What's wrong with this is that each brain has many parts, not only two. And though there are many differences, we also ought to ask about why those left-right brain halves are actually so similar. What functions might this serve? ...
(see sec 11.8 Half Brains and 11.9 Dumbbell Theories for more details)

Yes, some psychologists went mad, and some are still going mad.

Judith Curry interview on climate change

The IPCC May Have Outlived its Usefulness

 Some extracts:

 OP: What are your personal beliefs on climate change? The causes and how serious a threat climate change is to the continued existence of society as we know it.

 JC: The climate is always changing. Climate is currently changing because of a combination of natural and human induced effects. The natural effects include variations of the sun, volcanic eruptions, and oscillations of the ocean. The human induced effects include the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, pollution aerosols, and land use changes. The key scientific issue is determining how much of the climate change is associated with humans. This is not a simple thing to determine. The most recent IPCC assessment report states: “Most [50%] of the warming in the latter half of the 20th century is very likely [>90%] due to the observed increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.” There is certainly some contribution from the greenhouse gases, but whether it is currently a dominant factor or will be a dominant factor in the next century, is a topic under active debate, and I don’t think the high confidence level [>90%] is warranted given the uncertainties.

 As I stated in my testimony last year: “Based upon the background knowledge that we have, the threat does not seem to be an existential one on the time scale of the 21st century, even in its most alarming incarnation.”

OP: You are well known in climate and energy circles for breaking from the ranks of the IPCC and questioning the current information out there. What do you see as the reasons for the increase in skepticism towards global warming over the last few years.

JC: Because of the IPCC and its consensus seeking process, the rewards for scientists have been mostly in embellishing the consensus, and this includes government funding. Because of recent criticisms of the IPCC and a growing understanding that the climate system is not easily understood, an increasing number of scientists are becoming emboldened to challenge some of the basic conclusions of the IPCC, and I think this is a healthy thing for the science.

OP. What are your views on the idea that CO2 may not be a significant contributor to climate change? How do you think such a revelation, if true, will affect the world economy, and possibly shatter public confidence in scientific institutions that have said we must reduce CO2 emissions in order to save the planet?

JC: Personally, I think we put the CO2 stabilization policy ‘cart’ way before the scientific horse. The UN treaty on dangerous climate change in 1992 was formulated and signed before we even had ‘discernible’ evidence of warming induced by CO2, as reported in 1995 by the IPCC second assessment report. As a result of this, we have only been considering one policy option (CO2 stabilization), which in my opinion is not a robust policy option given the uncertainties in how much climate is changing in response to CO2.

OP: Do you believe that the language used in papers and at conferences is a problem? The public just wants straight answers to questions: Is the climate warming, By how much, and what will the effects be? Scientists need to step out from behind the curtain and engage the public with straight answers and in their own words. Is this achievable, or is climate science too complex to be explained in laymen’s terms? Or is it because even climate scientists can’t agree on the exact answers?

JC: I think the biggest failure in communicating climate science to the public has been the reliance on argument from consensus. We haven’t done a good job of explaining all this, particularly in the context of the scientific disagreement

For more Judith Curry see Climate etc.

the roots of socialism grow out of the perversions of capitalism

Joe Scientist comes face-to-face with the scientific publication business

Rhonda Farkota's educational philosophy explained in five paragraphs

 The student-directed versus teacher-directed learning debate is an ancient one; indeed, the polemic goes back to Plato. In her doctoral research (The Effects of a 15-minute Direct Instruction Intervention in the Regular Mathematics Class on Students’ Mathematical Self-efficacy and Achievement) the author carried out a comprehensive review of the relevant research and literature, and reached the inescapable conclusion that some skills were better acquired through one approach and some through the other. When it came to the employment and cultivation of higher order skills where reasoning and reflection were required it was clear that a student-directed approach to learning was better suited. But when it came to the acquisition of basic skills the empirical evidence unequivocally showed that a teacher-directed approach was best suited.

It is well accepted that problem solving skills operate from a knowledge base that has been acquired through practice; in fact, genuine competence in both problem solving and basic skills only comes with practice. Significantly though, it is actually when the base knowledge in a discipline is being acquired that the foundations for effective problem solving are being laid. Because the essential knowledge required for automaticity is stored in students' long term memory, it is best retained when explicitly taught and practiced repeatedly. This automaticity originating from practice empowers students to maximise their mental capacity by concentrating exclusively on the more complex task of problem solving.

It is also well accepted that to perform a task competently one requires not only the requisite skills, but also the self-belief in one's ability to implement performance. In the learning process this is termed self-efficacy, and when laying the foundational skills in mathematics, or for that matter any academic discipline, it is important that student self-efficacy be accomodated. Students with low self-efficacy in a particular skill area are reluctant to engage in tasks where those skills are required, and if they do, they are more likely to quit when encountering difficulty.

Students engaged in the learning process automatically monitor their progress, and for this reason the capacity to self-evaluate progress is an integral and ongoing component of the JEMM program. Because JEMM tasks gradually increase in difficulty, students have clear criteria by which they can independently assess their performance and gauge their progress. As they progress they acquire more  skills and become more proficient at the self-evaluation process.

JEMM lessons were deliberately designed not to be seen as tests, but this is precisely what is happening on a daily basis; without being conscious of it, students are willingly engaging in ongoing assessment. As such the lessons serve as a powerful diagnostic tool clearly mapping students' progress, identifying precisely where and when they are experiencing difficulty. The students' responses provide teachers with reliable diagnostic information similar to that which could only be acquired from a formal test situation. Because students receive daily feedback on their performance they are acutely and immediately aware of their progress, which strengthens their self-efficacy, sustains their motivation and enhances their academic achievement.

source:  JEMM = Junior Elementary Maths Mastery, page x

a tux moment

A great photo from Tony Forster's blog.

Rhonda Farkota: Australia's Direct Instruction maths expert

PhD thesis:
  The Effects of a 15-minute Direct Instruction Intervention in the Regular Mathematics Class on Students’ Mathematical Self-efficacy and Achievement by Rhonda Maree Farkota

 Currently I've read Chapter 2 which describes, compares and evaluates the constructivist and Direct Instruction methods in maths teaching. It does leave out Papert's constructionism (a common fault in most of these reviews) but otherwise does provide a comprehensive comparison of the different methodologies and demonstrates the superiority of Direct Instruction in practice.

She is a specialist in the US developed teaching model, Direct Instruction (DI), and has designed and developed her own DI model. She has conducted professional development and lectured on Effective Teaching Practices at universities, schools and seminars throughout Australia. Rhonda continues to conduct professional development in these and related fields and in 2010 she presented to the Singapore Ministry of Education. In 2003 she was nominated for the 2003 National Learning Difficulties Australia Award in recognition for her work in learning disabilities.
- source

In the past few days I have seen the materials developed by Rhonda Farkota Junior Elementary Math Mastery - JEMM

... a mental math program ... suited for middle primary, and upper primary remedial students. Requiring only 10–15 minutes daily to implement, plus 3–7 minutes for instant feedback ...

  Elementary Math Mastery - EMM

... a mental math program ... suited to upper primary, first year secondary and secondary school remedial students, and requires only 15–20 minutes daily to implement, plus 5–10 minutes for instant feedback and correction proceedures.

 I'm very impressed. These are the materials which could make all the difference for the most disadvantaged students in Australia and elsewhere.

 Thanks Wayne.

some possible uses of information technology on the APY Lands

I visited Peter Ruwoldt at Grant High School in Mt Gambier, during his farewell sessions at the end of the 2011 school year.

 Peter (Wara) is working as an educator at Ernabella in 2012, with the possibility of this continuing for 5 years. Peter began his teaching career at Fregon in the 1980s and is now returning to the APY Lands. Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) is a large Aboriginal local government area located in the remote north west of South Australia

Peter has a very strong background in IT technology and education and is expert in both Open Source and Windows based educational applications and is very familiar with the constructionist educational concepts promoted by Seymour Papert and Mitch Resnick. He has won various awards for his IT work, such as CEGSA (Computer Education Group of South Australia) teacher of the year.

 CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES

• Use IT to support teachers in teaching reading and writing of Pitjantjatjara. 
• Cross age tutoring with older students being taught to teach younger students 

 IT IDEAS

Peter's idea is to trial various ideas on a small scale, see how the students respond to them and take it from there.

 1) Pitjantjatjara spell checker Open Office or Libre Office Writer has an option for setting to various languages, which, in turn can activate a spell checker in that language. Peter plans to work with Pitjantjatjara language specialist, Paul Eckert, to enable this option. This requires a Pitjantjatjara word list for the spell checker (to be supplied by Paul Eckert) and some XML to integrate the word list into Open or Libre Office (to be supplied by Peter, see The Locale Generator). I mentioned to Peter that something similar had been done by Roland Gesthuizen for the Khmer language.

 2) Graphics tablets
Bamboo pen and touch CTH-661/SO-C
Needs to be large and pressure sensitive
software: Canvas Paint
Students responded enthusiastically to this opportunity during a recent visit by Peter to Ernabella

 3) One laptop per child or xo
We noticed that on the OLPC australia google map that Amata Anangu School will have full saturation of xos in 2012 (18 xos deployed June 2011; 82 xos pending deployment in 2012 – full saturation) Peter may decided to deploy xos at Ernabella.

 4) Music recording and editing using Audacity (already happening to some extent?)

 5) Scratch is an educational multimedia visual drag and drop programming language. Peter plans to make template programs using Scratch to support teachers in teaching reading and writing of Pitjantjatjara.

For example: Unmarked object on screen which when you click on it plays a sound of a Pitjantjatjara word, eg. Punu (tree). Another object on screen which contains the word spelt out, punu. The user drags the spelt out word icon onto the sound playing icon and the program generates a reward of some type. Students could then proceed to making their own sound and word objects, creating their own word – sound dictionary.

 6) Peter shared with me the excellent year 9-10 IT course, which he has developed, which is available on moodle. The course includes these sections:

• Audio using Audacity
• Basic photo editing using Paint.Net or GIMP
• Diagrams and Vector graphics using Giffy
• Mind mapping using Bubble.us or Mindomo
• Making a small wiki about children's movies using wikispaces
• Developing a Screen Recording tutorial using CamStudio or TipCam
• Introduction to the Linux free operating system using the Ubuntu Live CD
• Make your own online Cartoons and Animations using Captain Underpants, ToonDo, Witty Comics or Comic Creator
• Computer Security
• Create an online survey, implement it and graph the results on a spreadsheet
• Use Google maps to pin point a particular area

Land of the Free, Home of the Poor

The extent of economic inequality is astonishing and underestimated by nearly everyone. PBS NewsHour’s Land of the Free, Home of the Poor with Paul Solman is brilliant and a must watch.

Over 90% of people interviewed underestimated the extent of wealth disparity picking the Swedish wealth profile as the one they thought represented America. Differences b/w Democrat and Republican voters were insignificant.

Reality:

• Top 20% possess 84% of the wealth 
• Second 20% possess 11% of the wealth 
• Third 20% possess 4% of the wealth 
• Fourth 20% possess 0.2% of the wealth 
• Fifth 20% possess 0.1% of the wealth 

In the last 10 years most of the change has been a dramatic increase in the wealth proportion of the top 0.1%

Warren Buffet:

Yes, there has been a class war in the United States and my class, the super rich, have won

Towards the end Richard Freeman points out that the extent of inequality in the USA matches that of China, still a mainly peasant society, and African countries.

Another reference which makes some similar points and also emphasises that across the political spectrum Americans desire a more equal society than the one they currently live in: Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time

First, respondents dramatically underestimated the current level of wealth inequality. Second, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution. Most important from a policy perspective, we observed a surprising level of consensus: All demographic groups—even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy—desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo.

OLPC's XO-3 tablet

"if it works"

It sounds too good to be true that Nicholas Negroponte could deliver on both the most amazing computer hardware and also the holy grail of education - teaching reading without adult help. I would love to hear more detail about this software based adaptable reading program from anyone who knows more.

As part of a two-year project to study educational development among young children in developing countries, researchers will collect data from XO-3 tablets used by three-to-eight-year-olds in India, Tanzania and Sierra Leone. Software on the tablets will record audio and video and adapt a reading platform to the needs of the children without human intervention. The project will study how children interact with the tablet and will aid in the study of tools for self-learning and critical thinking among children. One goal is to provide basic comprehension and reading, which is important in countries where teacher training is inadequate.

"In the reading experiment, where we ask can a child learn to read on his or her own, we imagine many hours of use per day, as many as six or eight. Frankly, the reading experiment may be the most important thing I have ever done....if it works," Negroponte said.
- OLPC's XO-3 tablet to debut at CES

Footnote:
I looked up an old blog where alan kay said something about this during his 40th anniversary of the dynabook speech:

BUT, when Nicholas started up the OLPC project my heart sank, even as I supported it ... because if it's tough to get good mentors in the USA then it's really tough out in the Third World ... no user interace today can find out who its user is, what its user knows, what it can do ... it can't find out what level of reading the user can do and help find out the next level of reading

Australia's red centre

From my daughter's recent trip: Adelaide to Uluru

ending the groundhog day of educational reform

Some notes on a talk given by Noel Pearson on the launch of his book, Radical Hope, in September, 2011 :
Bringing Explicit Instruction to remote aboriginal schools in Cape York, Queensland

Primary school education was the hardest domain for us to penetrate. NAPLAN results over the past 3 years provided useful evidence to break out of failing education programmes. We could say to professional educators: “We can no longer leave the future of our children in your hands”. We could end the groundhog day of educational reform

The grandmothers in Cape York are more literate than their grandchildren. The Missions had succeeded in teaching children to read and write in their own indigenous language. Over the past 40 years indigenous children have become illiterate in both their native and English language

We arrived at the conclusion that in the Reading Wars, the Explicit Instruction / Phonics side of the war was correct.

MULTILIT (Making Up Lost Time in Literacy) and all Explicit Instruction programmes have their genesis in Direct Instruction, an American programme developed by Professor Siegfried Engelmann at the Universities of Illinois and Oregon. In early 2009 we visited the USA and subsequently formed a partnership with the American National Institute of Direct Instruction.

We established this programme in two Cape York primary schools: Aurukun and Coen. The programme consists of Class and Club. Class is the western curriculum. Club is indigenous culture.

The compulsory school day runs from 8:30 to 2:30. This is followed by a voluntary programme which runs from 2:30 to 4:30.

The new programme commenced on January 28, 2010. The first few months were marked by chaos, controversy, revolt and alarm. But eventually things settled down. There were 65 kids in the Time Out room one week. Then there were 3 kids the following week. This transition marked school acceptance of the new programme.

There is regular coaching of teachers in the required methods every 3 months. Each week there are mastery tests of the previous 5 or 10 lessons. Students do not move to the next level unless they achieve a 90% achievement score.

Every Tuesday morning there is a conference with coordinators in the USA with the Principals of Auruken and Coen. The operating assumption is that if the student has not learned then the teacher has not taught. There is no alibi for the teacher. The Principals main task is to lead instruction.

When kids experience success, then behaviour changes and interest engages.

Aurukun was possibly the worst school in Queensland. In 2009 police were called to the school 160 times, for a school of 230 students. The attendance rate was 30%. We are now 18 months into this educational reform.

FURTHER INFORMATION FROM THE Q&A SESSION AFTER PEARSON’S TALK:

Welfare System
The welfare system must be reformed from unconditional welfare to conditional welfare. Parents must meet four conditions to continue receiving welfare:
1. send children to school
2. children free from abuse or neglect
3. meet housing tenancy obligations
4. don’t break the Law

The welfare system has been funding dysfunctional lifestyles. The Commonwealth government has been paying for people’s drug habits. There has been unconditional financing of dysfunction. Welfare is not a wage, it is social assistance which comes with conditions.

Trust Accounts
Trust accounts were created to cover educational expenses (uniform, tuckshop, equipment, computers). The money comes from the parents. They are completely voluntary.

At Coen there was a 100% signup to the trust accounts. The trust accounts now contain $1500 per child and over 1 million dollars in total. The swift uptake of trust accounts persuaded us that parents care deeply about their children’s education.

Results
We use DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy), which is more informative than NAPLAN, to assess the progress of students. This tells us that:
- the top 30% is progressing at double mainstream speed
- 50% are progressing at above mainstream speed
- poor attenders continue to have poor results

Lack of Support from Education Department Bureaucracy
A Cairns Principal who was prepared to run a Direct Instruction stream was banned from visiting Aurukun by the Department!!

What sort of teachers are required for Direct Instruction?
The DI programme has been described as “teacher proof”. For Pearson the biggest surprise was that they are making progress with the stock, standard issue Queensland trained teacher. As long as the teacher is amenable to the program there are good results. However, teachers college has not taught these teachers how to teach reading!

sources:
audio: Noel Pearson: Radical Hope (the above notes are made from this extract)
video: Radical Hope Book: A Talk by Noel Pearson (the whole talk including an informative Q&A session)

alyawarre scratch file

I used Scratch to make a tiny multimedia dictionary (voice, pictures, words) for the Australian indigenous Alyawarre or Alyawarra language. It's available here. Three girls from wiltja provided the words and their voices. Alyawarre tribe is near Tennant Creek.

The words are:

• kungar = blue tongue lizard 
• numa = snake 
• loget = goanna 

I always remember the insightful words of Noel Pearson:

"Keep our diverse languages and cultural traditions by excelling in education and digital technologies, the only means of arresting the decline of our ancient and oral traditions"

chess swings and roundabouts

My chess results have been quite erratic of late. Currently I'm playing interclub in South Australia for the Modbury Club. I'm busy so for preparation all I really do is go through some tactical exercises in the Combinational Motifs book by M. Blokh, beforehand.

Last Tuesday I played against the new State Champion, Goran Srdic, and lost.

We did a quick post mortem after the game and Goran revealed that he thought his position was always good. I had played a risky move 16 which enabled him to cleverly win the exchange. Nevertheless, he had weak pawns and I had the 2 bishops so I thought I was still doing ok. His move 28 looked strong but I had thought of a brilliant reply, which I played. I thought he would have to give up his queen but he didn't. My attack petered out and he won the endgame easily.

This game stayed in my head, particularly the position after move 31. I recaptured his knight so I wouldn't fall too far behind on material. I was short of time. Eventually, a better move came to me without even setting up the position. It looked like I was winning now. How exasperating!

I setup the position to confirm my mental analysis and I'm pretty sure I'm correct. I could have won this game as a brilliancy against the new State Champ. Oh Damn! Here is the game.

White: Bill Kerr
Black: Goran Srdic
1. Nf3 d5
2. g3 Nf6
3. Bg2 Bf5
4. d3 c6
5. O-O h6
6. Nc3 e6
7. Nfd2!
I saw this maneuver in an online GM game a while back and liked it. White's e4 cannot be prevented and his pieces are well co-ordinated
7. __ Be7
8. e4 Bh7
9. Qe2
Black is now reluctant to develop his QN at d7 since then e5 from white would force his other night back to g8. So he decides to expand on the queenside instead.
9 __ a5
10. Kh1 Na6
Preparing f4. Since black has played __ a5 I didn't think he was planning to castle on the queenside so I'm going to attack him on the king side or centre.
11. f4 Nd7
12. exd!
Black has delayed castling and is vulnerable on the K file
12 __ cxd
13. f5! Bxf5
14. Nxd5 exd5
15. Rxf5 O-O
Initially, it looks like white will win the QP but that doesn't work out because black has a strong reply in __ Nb4. After thinking for 15 minutes I played a risky move.
16. Nf3?!
Possibly 16. c3 immediately is better
16. __ Bf6!
17. c3 Re8
18. Qf1 g6!
Winning the exchange
19. Rxd5 Nc7
20. Rd6 Qe7!
I was half expecting __ Nb5 here with a possible draw by repetition. (21. Rd5 Nc7 etc.) but Goran has seen further ahead than me this time
21. Bf4 g5
22. Ra-e1 Ne6
I had missed this move during my move 19 calculations
23. Rdxe6 fxe6
24. Bd2
Nevertheless, I have one pawn for the exchange and his pawns are weak and his king position is shaky. I thought the position was even but Goran thought he was winning.
24. __ Qd6
25. d4 e5
26. dxe Bxe5
This removes an important defender for the black king. But if he takes with the knight then 27. Nd4 is awkward
27. Nxe5 Nxe5
It would have been smarter if I withdrawn the B to c1 on move 24. Now I would have had more options.
28. Be3 Nd3
I saw this coming and initially it looked strong. But then I realised I could exploit the vulnerable position of the black king, with a great move!
29. c4!?
Probably 29. Re2 is good too. But this roll of the dice was worth it!
29. __ Nxe1
30. Bd5+
At this point I thought Goran would give up his queen and thought that would end in a draw by white implementing a perpetual check. 30 __ Qxd5 31. cxd5 Rxe3 32. Qf6 Ra-e8 (anything else looks too risky) and white has perpetual check. But Goran still thought he was winning.
30. __ Kh8
31. Bd4+ Re5

This is where I missed the win. I played the obvious 32. Qxe1 which gave black time to organise his defence. After 32 __ Ra-e8 33. Qe4?! Qf6! 34. h4 Kg7 35. Qg4 Kh7 black went on to win easily.

White missed a brilliant thirty second move which would have forced a win. Can you see it?

xo deployment in australia

View One Laptop Per Child Australia in a larger map

Legend:
Ear-marked or has expressed interest for deployment
Scheduled for deployment
Partial deployment
Full deployment - one laptop per child

One laptop per child australia has done a good job of deploying to remote aboriginal communities. This is best viewed at Google Maps but even in this version if you click on map icons you can obtain more detail of the deployments.

strange times

I guess that 2011 will go down as the year of the glorious Middle East democratic revolutions!

I have been doing most of my blogging at the Strange Times collective over the past three months. Here are links to some of my posts:

shock tactics in alice

No fly zone demand for Libya

the vlog that helped spark the egyptian revolution

The marxist theory of crisis

Hans Rosling’s fast forward history

the achilles heel of capitalism

a puzzle for some

Resources for studying “Capital” with emphasis on Value theory

As far as I can tell my future posts will be more frequent there and less frequent here.

Build Your Own Blocks

Build Your Own Blocks (BYOB) is an extension to the visual drag and drop programming of Scratch. It adds custom blocks, recursion, first class lists and procedures to the original.

The developer is Jens Mönig with design input and documentation from logo legend Brian Harvey.

There is a make a block shape in the Variables section. When you click on it an easy to use block editor comes up. First up, I made a block that draws squares, then followed up with a hex block and a star block. Here they are:

I am following a sequence suggested by Jens and Brian in their paper, Bringing 'No Ceiling' to Scratch: Can one language serve kids and computer scientists?

The next step is to draw a V shape with a randomly chosen decoration at each end. In a text based logo language this would look like:

to v
left 45 forward 50
run pick [square hex star]
back 50 right 90 forward 50
run pick [square hex star]
back 50 left 45
end

The tricky bit here is how to implement the line: run pick [square hex star] visually. Initially, I couldn't figure that out but my friend Tony Forster helped me with it:

And here is the whole v procedure, in visual block form:

This procedure draw shapes like this, (running it 3 times with different starting positions):

The next step illustrates how to do recursion in BYOB! Recursion means that a procedure calls itself. Here it is:

There are a couple of places where vee might randomly call vee causing the procedure to loop back on itself. Since it is random (item any) then the result are varied and unpredictable. Here are a couple of the more complex results:

As well as the paper by Jens and Brian make sure you read the manual which comes with the download, too.