White House Will Ad Hoc Decide Who Can Individually Access GPT-5.6
-
We have a new standard policy for releasing frontier AI models. It is not
good.
2 hours ago
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Saturday, January 19, 2019
the teaching of coding
The approach I advocate here emphasises developing of personal, meaningful digital artifacts through collaboration. I also discuss known problems in the teaching of coding and suggest remedies.
An article of this nature will never be finished. At this stage I feel it is good enough to publish. The writing and redrafting process has helped clarify my own thoughts and how to present them. It may help others. I’ll put a version up on Google Docs, here, for anyone who want to develop it further or critique it.
GOAL: THE COMPUTER AS A MEDIUM FOR SELF EXPRESSION
On day one tell the students that their main task will be to “Design and build a collaborative digital project with personal and / or social relevance”
A rich, holistic task like this will achieve many of the dry, technical points on the ACARA checklist. I’ve included the ACARA goals for Years 7-8 as an Appendix.
THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
The teachers role is to tap into already established existing interests of the students and guide that in a direction where digital things are progressively enjoyed and mastered. If technology is seen to relate directly to personal life then this provides a tremendous incentive to learn it.
A good general theme is Children as collaborative software designers (after Idit Harel). Keeping it simple begin with Scratch and the Collabrify suite. Add in tangibles such as micro:bit if and when the time and opportunity present themselves. It depends a lot on how your school organises its computing resources. eg. in my current school Year 7s only receive 2 lessons a week for one term. I can argue for whole school reform to integrate computing into the curriculum but it probably won’t happen.
TANGIBLES
CSER has a lending library of class sets of tangibles: Beebot, Sphero, Ozobot, Makey Makey, LilyPad, Little Bits ‘Rule Your Room’, Little Bits Arduino, Dash & Dot, Bluebot, Micro:bit. They give preference to those who have completed their MOOC courses.
Kids have mobile phones and MIT App Inventor can be used to develop apps for Android phones. But given the reality that kids exposure to computer coding in Primary school has probably been patchy I suggest for Year 7s start simple with Scratch and the Collabrify suite and use programs such as App Inventor or activities with micro:bit, or whatever is available, as extension activity for those who have a strong background and can work independently.
PERSONAL, SOCIAL, COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS
What do kids like? Drawing and modifying pictures, music / sounds, games, socialising, building things, achieving something. The project, “Design and build a collaborative digital project with personal and / or social relevance”, taps into these already established behaviours and aims to develop them in the computer medium.
On day two introduce a Designer’s Notebook and Critique groups.
Designer’s Notebook: Preferably this should be online and public so the teacher and other students can read and comment on it.
Start of lesson: Write your plans and draw a picture of what will happen
End of lesson: Write about Progress, Problems, Solutions, Who I helped, Who helped me.
If and when social and emotional comments appear in the notebooks then this should be encouraged, not discouraged. Building a fully sharing community is just as or more important and helps to build the technical mastery of coding.
Critique groups: Projects need an audience for both appreciation and suggestions for improvement.
The metaphors have further evolved since Seymour Papert’s time. He coined the phase “objects to think with”; this has evolved into “objects to think and share with”. He coined the phrase “low floor, high ceiling”; this has evolved into “low floor, wide walls, open windows, high ceiling” (Kafai and Burke, pp. 55, 59)
PROJECT IDEAS
If you put out a variety of project ideas then that will send the right message, that we want our students to choose something with personal meaning:
Blogs, wikis and Google Docs are available on many school systems. But improving on this is the Collabrify software suite (intended for Years 1 to 7) developed by Elliot Soloway and Cathie Norris. This includes Writer (co-create documents that include text, pictures, and video), KWL (Know, Want, Learn), Flipbook(drawings or “flipbook” style animations), Chart (collaboratively create a chart and graph its data) and Map (for concept maps).
REMIX
The Scratch site has a remix feature where you are encouraged to take the work of others and modify it. This is something I want to encourage since it mirrors real life collaborative software development. But it does make it difficult to assess kids on the basis of the quality of their finished software since they have built on the work of others. The answer here is develop other asssessment parameters.
Kafai and Burke have a discussion in their book (p. 86), is remix a crutch or a spur?
KNOWN PROBLEMS
Coding is a complex activity and initially can be overwhelming to newbies. There needs to be some clarity about known problems in teaching novices to code. These are:
Design – I don’t know what I want the computer to do
Selection – I think I know what I want the computer to do but I don’t know what to use
Co-ordination - I think I know what things to use but I don’t know how to make them work together
Use - I think I know what to use but I don’t know how to use it
Understanding - I thought I knew how to use this, but it didn’t do what I expected
Information - I think I know why it didn’t do what I expected, but I don’t know how to check
Some of these problems have been alleviated through the development of block code languages. Others need to be specifically addressed.
BLOCK CODE
Scratch is now widely used in schools. This alleviates some of the above problems, as follows:
Selection – Picking a block from a pallete is far easier than remembering a word (recognition over recall)
Co-ordination – Blocks make assembling code easier by providing constrained direct manipulation of structure, eg. two incompatible concepts do not have connecting parts
Use – Coding has a high cognitive load for new programmers. Blocks reduce the cognitive load by chunking code into a smaller number of meaningful elements
What about the other three known problems (Design, Understanding, Information)?
DESIGN
Task: “Design and build a collaborative digital project with personal and / or social relevance”
Initially Design is approach through teacher modelling, discussion and recorded in the Designer’s Notebook.
The Designer’s Notebook includes this information:
Start of lesson: Write your plans and draw a picture of what will happen
End of lesson: Write about Progress, Problems, Solutions, Who I helped, Who helped me.
This is a record of “low level” design and collaboration activity.
Teacher modelling (the principle here is eat your own dogfood): For example, I have designed three versions of a computer game – bad pong (only a few features, boring to play), ok pong (more features such as randomisation of ball movement and scoring) and wicked pong (select backgrounds, unpredictable ball movement, high score, bat shrinks as your score increases). This provides various options for discussion with students. What are your favourite games? What are their design features? Split into groups and do a KWL (Know, Want, Learned – the learned comes later). Depending on how the class is progressing at some stage introduce some design tools (start / end, process and decision) to aid the process.
Some thoughts about the place of high level design in the learning process.
Simple projects have simple design.
eg. draw a square:
to square
pen down
repeat 4 [fd 100 rt 90]
Novices have to be carefully taken through this (tell the robot what to do, etc.) and yes, write it down. But conceptually, it is not particularly complex. With each increase of complexity the difficulty of holding it in your head increases. The complexity versus "grasping it" curve starts simple but is not linear. When you get to a game of pong which keeps score and stores and displays high score then you need to keep track somehow outside of the code itself.
Simple code can be written without formal design criteria. The Scratch course works more along the guidelines of play first, do something of personal interest, and later, when you want to build something more complex then design becomes necessary.
In the Creative Computing Curriculum Guide (Scratch 3.0) project planning is stressed more towards the end of the course (section 6).
For the sake of further discussion we could divide our students into those who are inclined to be top down planners and those who are inclined to be bottom up tinkerers. The way things are normally done in schools may disadvantage the bricoleurs / tinkerers. See the Epistemological Pluralism article in reference for more detail about this. As teachers of computing our prejudice may be to prefer the top down planning approach because it is “the way things are done” by professionals and it makes it far easier for us to keep track of what our students are doing for helping and assessment purposes.
IMHO one way to kill interest in some students is to put too much emphasis on top down planning and top down planning tools.
I think a reasonable compromise here (and one which is consistent with the Agile Programming approach) is this development sequence, as suggested in the App Inventor book:
Understanding - I thought I knew how to use this, but it didn’t do what I expected
Information - I think I know why it didn’t do what I expected, but I don’t know how to check
The experts, such as Juha Sorva, are advising here that the ability to trace code at run time should be explicitly taught. They also advise that Parson’s problems help to teach coding. Parson’s problems are where the blocks are provided to achieve a given task and the student has to put them together correctly.
I couldn’t find any reference to anything called Parson’s problems in the Scratch forums but did find something similar: Debug’ems, Complete’ems and Explore’ems! See reference.
Finally, students should be required to add comments to their code.
WHAT THIS ARTICLE LEAVES OUT
I support whole school reform to integrate computing into the curriculum. This idea has been around for 30+ years but hasn’t happened yet.
Tangibles. I think the new tangibles on the market are important and it’s a great idea that CSER has setup a lending library. I’d like to see more work on the evaluation of these tangibles.
I haven’t used slogans like “computational thinking”, which have become very popular. Some authors (diSessa, Guzdial) have critiqued this and I agree with their critiques. I haven't talked directly about teaching abstraction, which is part of the same bag of worms.
ACARA guidelines. Remember the saying, “School is like going to the world’s finest restaurant and being fed the menu” (Murray Gell-Mann). ACARA is cardboard, like that. Our job, as teachers, is to bring the cardboard to life.
REFERENCE
David Bau, Jeff Gray, Caitlin Kelleher, Josh Sheldon, And Franklyn Turbak. Learnable Programming: Blocks and Beyond (2017)
Beck, Kent. Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
Karen Brennan, Laura Peters, and Alexa Kutler. Creative Computing Curriculum Guide (Scratch 3.0)
Kafai, Yasmin. From Computational Thinking to Computational Participation in K-12 Education
Kafai, Yasmin and Burke, Quinn. Connected Code: Why Children Need to Learn Programming (2016)
Kerr, Bill. Educational Software: Designed By Kids For Kids (1994)
Ko, Andrew; Myers, Brad; Aung, Htet Htet. Six Learning Barriers in end user programming systems (2004)
Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway, Jennifer Auten, Ronda Duran, Kimberly Lee, Sr. Rebecca Mierendorf, Cheryl Zuzo. We Collabrify: FREE Collabrified Apps That Support Synchronous Collaboration (2015)
Papert and Turkle. Epistemological Pluralism (1992)
Scratch Debug’ems
Jean Griffin, Quinn Burke, Elliot Kaplan. Debug'ems and other Deconstruction Kits for STEM learning (2012)
Sorva, Juha. Notional Machines and Introductory Programming Education (2013)
Wolber, David; Abelson, Hal; Spertus, Ellen & Looney, Liz App Inventor 2: Create your own Android Apps free online
APPENDIX
ACARA
YEAR 7 AND 8 CONTENT DESCRIPTIONS
Digital Technologies Knowledge and Understanding
Investigate how data is transmitted and secured in wired, wireless and mobile networks, and how the specifications affect performance (ACTDIK023)
Investigate how digital systems represent text, image and audio data in binary (ACTDIK024)
Digital Technologies Processes and Production Skills
Acquire data from a range of sources and evaluate authenticity, accuracy and timeliness (ACTDIP025)
Analyse and visualise data using a range of software to create information, and use structured data to model objects or events (ACTDIP026)
Define and decompose real-world problems taking into account functional requirements and economic, environmental, social, technical and usability constraints (ACTDIP027)
Design the user experience of a digital system, generating, evaluating and communicating alternative designs (ACTDIP028)
Design algorithms represented diagrammatically and in English, and trace algorithms to predict output for a given input and to identify errors (ACTDIP029)
Implement and modify programs with user interfaces involving branching, iteration and functions in a general-purpose programming language (ACTDIP030)
Evaluate how student solutions and existing information systems meet needs, are innovative, and take account of future risks and sustainability (ACTDIP031)
Plan and manage projects that create and communicate ideas and information collaboratively online, taking safety and social contexts into account (ACTDIP032)
An article of this nature will never be finished. At this stage I feel it is good enough to publish. The writing and redrafting process has helped clarify my own thoughts and how to present them. It may help others. I’ll put a version up on Google Docs, here, for anyone who want to develop it further or critique it.
GOAL: THE COMPUTER AS A MEDIUM FOR SELF EXPRESSION
On day one tell the students that their main task will be to “Design and build a collaborative digital project with personal and / or social relevance”
A rich, holistic task like this will achieve many of the dry, technical points on the ACARA checklist. I’ve included the ACARA goals for Years 7-8 as an Appendix.
THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
The teachers role is to tap into already established existing interests of the students and guide that in a direction where digital things are progressively enjoyed and mastered. If technology is seen to relate directly to personal life then this provides a tremendous incentive to learn it.
A good general theme is Children as collaborative software designers (after Idit Harel). Keeping it simple begin with Scratch and the Collabrify suite. Add in tangibles such as micro:bit if and when the time and opportunity present themselves. It depends a lot on how your school organises its computing resources. eg. in my current school Year 7s only receive 2 lessons a week for one term. I can argue for whole school reform to integrate computing into the curriculum but it probably won’t happen.
TANGIBLES
CSER has a lending library of class sets of tangibles: Beebot, Sphero, Ozobot, Makey Makey, LilyPad, Little Bits ‘Rule Your Room’, Little Bits Arduino, Dash & Dot, Bluebot, Micro:bit. They give preference to those who have completed their MOOC courses.
Kids have mobile phones and MIT App Inventor can be used to develop apps for Android phones. But given the reality that kids exposure to computer coding in Primary school has probably been patchy I suggest for Year 7s start simple with Scratch and the Collabrify suite and use programs such as App Inventor or activities with micro:bit, or whatever is available, as extension activity for those who have a strong background and can work independently.
PERSONAL, SOCIAL, COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS
What do kids like? Drawing and modifying pictures, music / sounds, games, socialising, building things, achieving something. The project, “Design and build a collaborative digital project with personal and / or social relevance”, taps into these already established behaviours and aims to develop them in the computer medium.
On day two introduce a Designer’s Notebook and Critique groups.
Designer’s Notebook: Preferably this should be online and public so the teacher and other students can read and comment on it.
Start of lesson: Write your plans and draw a picture of what will happen
End of lesson: Write about Progress, Problems, Solutions, Who I helped, Who helped me.
If and when social and emotional comments appear in the notebooks then this should be encouraged, not discouraged. Building a fully sharing community is just as or more important and helps to build the technical mastery of coding.
Critique groups: Projects need an audience for both appreciation and suggestions for improvement.
The metaphors have further evolved since Seymour Papert’s time. He coined the phase “objects to think with”; this has evolved into “objects to think and share with”. He coined the phrase “low floor, high ceiling”; this has evolved into “low floor, wide walls, open windows, high ceiling” (Kafai and Burke, pp. 55, 59)
PROJECT IDEAS
If you put out a variety of project ideas then that will send the right message, that we want our students to choose something with personal meaning:
- Add on yourself projects – eg. the initiator posts a picture of a dozen eggs and has put a face on one of them. He/she invites remixers to continue adding faces to the eggs. Kafai and Burke point out that this type of project usually has a low skill level coding requirement but they help build community involvement. Other examples include colouring in projects (with a prize for the best entry), add your icon/avatar jumping on a trampoline etc.
- Games, including Games with a story (RPGs)
- More complex group projects, eg. I took a copy of a poster, Know Your A-Z: Prevent violence against women – challenge gender stereotypes and promote respect, a different message for each letter of the alphabet; different characters and animals in the rooms of a castle
- How to projects: Tutorials which explain how to achieve a certain feature in Scratch, eg. a scrolling screen of the type seen in Mario games
- Seed project – the teacher could provide a poor version and ask students to improve it, possibilities include a rocket taking off, photosynthesis, maths drill, how to drive a car at an intersection, a vacuum cleaner which make white marks where it goes but doesn’t clean the room properly (this last one from Kafai and Burke, p.83)
- Cross age tutoring projects – years ago I duplicated the Idit Harel cross age tutoring children designers fraction project. Here.
Blogs, wikis and Google Docs are available on many school systems. But improving on this is the Collabrify software suite (intended for Years 1 to 7) developed by Elliot Soloway and Cathie Norris. This includes Writer (co-create documents that include text, pictures, and video), KWL (Know, Want, Learn), Flipbook(drawings or “flipbook” style animations), Chart (collaboratively create a chart and graph its data) and Map (for concept maps).
REMIX
The Scratch site has a remix feature where you are encouraged to take the work of others and modify it. This is something I want to encourage since it mirrors real life collaborative software development. But it does make it difficult to assess kids on the basis of the quality of their finished software since they have built on the work of others. The answer here is develop other asssessment parameters.
Kafai and Burke have a discussion in their book (p. 86), is remix a crutch or a spur?
KNOWN PROBLEMS
Coding is a complex activity and initially can be overwhelming to newbies. There needs to be some clarity about known problems in teaching novices to code. These are:
Design – I don’t know what I want the computer to do
Selection – I think I know what I want the computer to do but I don’t know what to use
Co-ordination - I think I know what things to use but I don’t know how to make them work together
Use - I think I know what to use but I don’t know how to use it
Understanding - I thought I knew how to use this, but it didn’t do what I expected
Information - I think I know why it didn’t do what I expected, but I don’t know how to check
Some of these problems have been alleviated through the development of block code languages. Others need to be specifically addressed.
BLOCK CODE
Scratch is now widely used in schools. This alleviates some of the above problems, as follows:
Selection – Picking a block from a pallete is far easier than remembering a word (recognition over recall)
Co-ordination – Blocks make assembling code easier by providing constrained direct manipulation of structure, eg. two incompatible concepts do not have connecting parts
Use – Coding has a high cognitive load for new programmers. Blocks reduce the cognitive load by chunking code into a smaller number of meaningful elements
What about the other three known problems (Design, Understanding, Information)?
DESIGN
Task: “Design and build a collaborative digital project with personal and / or social relevance”
Initially Design is approach through teacher modelling, discussion and recorded in the Designer’s Notebook.
The Designer’s Notebook includes this information:
Start of lesson: Write your plans and draw a picture of what will happen
End of lesson: Write about Progress, Problems, Solutions, Who I helped, Who helped me.
This is a record of “low level” design and collaboration activity.
Teacher modelling (the principle here is eat your own dogfood): For example, I have designed three versions of a computer game – bad pong (only a few features, boring to play), ok pong (more features such as randomisation of ball movement and scoring) and wicked pong (select backgrounds, unpredictable ball movement, high score, bat shrinks as your score increases). This provides various options for discussion with students. What are your favourite games? What are their design features? Split into groups and do a KWL (Know, Want, Learned – the learned comes later). Depending on how the class is progressing at some stage introduce some design tools (start / end, process and decision) to aid the process.
Some thoughts about the place of high level design in the learning process.
Simple projects have simple design.
eg. draw a square:
to square
pen down
repeat 4 [fd 100 rt 90]
Simple code can be written without formal design criteria. The Scratch course works more along the guidelines of play first, do something of personal interest, and later, when you want to build something more complex then design becomes necessary.
In the Creative Computing Curriculum Guide (Scratch 3.0) project planning is stressed more towards the end of the course (section 6).
For the sake of further discussion we could divide our students into those who are inclined to be top down planners and those who are inclined to be bottom up tinkerers. The way things are normally done in schools may disadvantage the bricoleurs / tinkerers. See the Epistemological Pluralism article in reference for more detail about this. As teachers of computing our prejudice may be to prefer the top down planning approach because it is “the way things are done” by professionals and it makes it far easier for us to keep track of what our students are doing for helping and assessment purposes.
IMHO one way to kill interest in some students is to put too much emphasis on top down planning and top down planning tools.
I think a reasonable compromise here (and one which is consistent with the Agile Programming approach) is this development sequence, as suggested in the App Inventor book:
- initial ideas through group work and dialogue with teacher for desired project. Who is your audience and what features do they want?
- build a simple prototype
- follow the incremental development principle – code a little, test and repeat
- at this stage produce a formal design
Understanding - I thought I knew how to use this, but it didn’t do what I expected
Information - I think I know why it didn’t do what I expected, but I don’t know how to check
The experts, such as Juha Sorva, are advising here that the ability to trace code at run time should be explicitly taught. They also advise that Parson’s problems help to teach coding. Parson’s problems are where the blocks are provided to achieve a given task and the student has to put them together correctly.
I couldn’t find any reference to anything called Parson’s problems in the Scratch forums but did find something similar: Debug’ems, Complete’ems and Explore’ems! See reference.
Finally, students should be required to add comments to their code.
WHAT THIS ARTICLE LEAVES OUT
I support whole school reform to integrate computing into the curriculum. This idea has been around for 30+ years but hasn’t happened yet.
Tangibles. I think the new tangibles on the market are important and it’s a great idea that CSER has setup a lending library. I’d like to see more work on the evaluation of these tangibles.
I haven’t used slogans like “computational thinking”, which have become very popular. Some authors (diSessa, Guzdial) have critiqued this and I agree with their critiques. I haven't talked directly about teaching abstraction, which is part of the same bag of worms.
ACARA guidelines. Remember the saying, “School is like going to the world’s finest restaurant and being fed the menu” (Murray Gell-Mann). ACARA is cardboard, like that. Our job, as teachers, is to bring the cardboard to life.
REFERENCE
David Bau, Jeff Gray, Caitlin Kelleher, Josh Sheldon, And Franklyn Turbak. Learnable Programming: Blocks and Beyond (2017)
Beck, Kent. Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
Karen Brennan, Laura Peters, and Alexa Kutler. Creative Computing Curriculum Guide (Scratch 3.0)
Kafai, Yasmin. From Computational Thinking to Computational Participation in K-12 Education
Kafai, Yasmin and Burke, Quinn. Connected Code: Why Children Need to Learn Programming (2016)
Kerr, Bill. Educational Software: Designed By Kids For Kids (1994)
Ko, Andrew; Myers, Brad; Aung, Htet Htet. Six Learning Barriers in end user programming systems (2004)
Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway, Jennifer Auten, Ronda Duran, Kimberly Lee, Sr. Rebecca Mierendorf, Cheryl Zuzo. We Collabrify: FREE Collabrified Apps That Support Synchronous Collaboration (2015)
Papert and Turkle. Epistemological Pluralism (1992)
Scratch Debug’ems
Jean Griffin, Quinn Burke, Elliot Kaplan. Debug'ems and other Deconstruction Kits for STEM learning (2012)
Sorva, Juha. Notional Machines and Introductory Programming Education (2013)
Wolber, David; Abelson, Hal; Spertus, Ellen & Looney, Liz App Inventor 2: Create your own Android Apps free online
APPENDIX
ACARA
YEAR 7 AND 8 CONTENT DESCRIPTIONS
Digital Technologies Knowledge and Understanding
Investigate how data is transmitted and secured in wired, wireless and mobile networks, and how the specifications affect performance (ACTDIK023)
Investigate how digital systems represent text, image and audio data in binary (ACTDIK024)
Digital Technologies Processes and Production Skills
Acquire data from a range of sources and evaluate authenticity, accuracy and timeliness (ACTDIP025)
Analyse and visualise data using a range of software to create information, and use structured data to model objects or events (ACTDIP026)
Define and decompose real-world problems taking into account functional requirements and economic, environmental, social, technical and usability constraints (ACTDIP027)
Design the user experience of a digital system, generating, evaluating and communicating alternative designs (ACTDIP028)
Design algorithms represented diagrammatically and in English, and trace algorithms to predict output for a given input and to identify errors (ACTDIP029)
Implement and modify programs with user interfaces involving branching, iteration and functions in a general-purpose programming language (ACTDIP030)
Evaluate how student solutions and existing information systems meet needs, are innovative, and take account of future risks and sustainability (ACTDIP031)
Plan and manage projects that create and communicate ideas and information collaboratively online, taking safety and social contexts into account (ACTDIP032)
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Claymation
In December, last year at Polly Farmer we had a visit from Jono (check out his awesome site) to show us how to do Claymation. Here are some of the results. I did the nerdy maths one and the kids did the more creative ones.
Maths:
Simpsons:
Penguin:
Maths:
Simpsons:
Penguin:
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Tuesday, January 08, 2019
write your own apps
I've made a few apps which run on my Android phone recently using MIT App Inventor. These include apps you can draw with (Digital Doodle), a game (Pong), a quiz (about US Presidents) and music (xylophone).
In some of these I just followed the tutorials but for a couple I extended them further. One issue here is that I feel I'm recovering some ownership of my phone over the unsolicited junk mail and messages I receive from all the vendors who are just "here to help".
The app I want to write is one which would help Arrernte native speakers correct my poor pronunciation of their language. At this point it is proving a challenge (to save and retrieve the recorded corrections) but I will get back to it. Thanks Paul, for your help.
As a computing teacher I'm very interested in understanding how app inventor can contribute to educational computing, which I argue is normally poorly done in schools. It was very encouraging to discover that the Computer Science Education Research (CSER) Group at Adelaide University highlighted App Inventor in their Year 7-8 MOOC for upskilling teachers, or anyone interested for that matter.
The apps I have made are available on google drive. I can't work out how to make that drive general public access but if you send a request I can make them available to you that way.
More to the point, I found the App Inventor tutorials and free online book, App Inventor 2: Create your own Android Apps to be extremely helpful.
update (Jan 9):Computational action!
The app I want to write is one which would help Arrernte native speakers correct my poor pronunciation of their language. At this point it is proving a challenge (to save and retrieve the recorded corrections) but I will get back to it. Thanks Paul, for your help.
As a computing teacher I'm very interested in understanding how app inventor can contribute to educational computing, which I argue is normally poorly done in schools. It was very encouraging to discover that the Computer Science Education Research (CSER) Group at Adelaide University highlighted App Inventor in their Year 7-8 MOOC for upskilling teachers, or anyone interested for that matter.
The apps I have made are available on google drive. I can't work out how to make that drive general public access but if you send a request I can make them available to you that way.
More to the point, I found the App Inventor tutorials and free online book, App Inventor 2: Create your own Android Apps to be extremely helpful.
update (Jan 9):Computational action!
MIT App Inventor has begun to frame its work in a theory of computational action: the idea that youth should learn about, and create with, computing in ways that provide them the opportunity to have direct impact in their lives Co and their communities. The App Inventor team is developing new features that allow students to more easily engage with authentic problems in their own lives with computational solutions. These features- maps, real-time collaboration, and support for Internet of Things applications, are powerful tools that students can bring to bear with minimal computing background in order to solve specific, local problems.
Mark A. Sherman, Mike Tissenbaum, Joshua Sheldon, Hal Abelson. (2018) Tools for Computational Action:New Features in MIT App Inventor. Tech Spotlight at Connected Learning Summit (CLS) 2018.
Gillen's Modest Record
I'm reading Gillen's Modest Record, his journal of the Spencer-Gillen anthropological expedition across Australia in 1901-02. The Editor, Philip Jones, has done a wonderful job. From Gillen's repeating of what he learnt from aboriginal people I have learnt more about their culture (very strange from our perspective) than any other source.
There's a photo on page 93 taken by Gillen of the Alice Springs Telegraph Station, "snugly nestling in the valley of the Todd", where he "once ruled", from a hill. I tried to duplicate by climbing Trig Hill and my photo definitely does bear a resemblance. By the way, you can see a beautiful 360 degrees panorama of the MacDonnell ranges from Trig Hill.
Why is Trig Hill called Trig Hill? This is explained on a plaque at the top. Five years after the telegraph line was completed, the South Australian government sent a party of surveyors to central Australia. They arrived on 16th November 1877. Trig stations are points where latitude, longitude and height have been determined. They are used for making maps. Trig Hill was the first one, setup by Charles Winnecke.
I noticed another walking trail, named after Bradshaw, the telegraph station Postmaster who replaced Gillen in 1899. I did that walk earlier today, saw a couple of kangaroos and an amazing, hardy tree, and came out at the Todd River. Took another photo just to demonstrate that it is still not flowing!
There's a photo on page 93 taken by Gillen of the Alice Springs Telegraph Station, "snugly nestling in the valley of the Todd", where he "once ruled", from a hill. I tried to duplicate by climbing Trig Hill and my photo definitely does bear a resemblance. By the way, you can see a beautiful 360 degrees panorama of the MacDonnell ranges from Trig Hill.
I noticed another walking trail, named after Bradshaw, the telegraph station Postmaster who replaced Gillen in 1899. I did that walk earlier today, saw a couple of kangaroos and an amazing, hardy tree, and came out at the Todd River. Took another photo just to demonstrate that it is still not flowing!
Tuesday, January 01, 2019
books I am reading in 2019
This includes some articles too, not just books
Bailey, John. Mr Stuart's Track: The forgotten life of Australia's greatest explorer (2006)
Bardon, James. Revolution by Night or Katjala Wananu (The Son After the Father) (1991)
Bell, Tim; Tymann, Paul; Yehudai, Amiran. The Big Ideas of K-12 Computer Science Education (2018)
Boochani, Behrouz. No Friend But the Mountains: Writings from Manus Prison. Translated by Omid Tofighian (2018)
boyd, dana. It's Complicated (2014). Learn More. epub(scroll to bottom)
Brady, Frank. Endgame: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer (2011)
diSessa, Andrea. Computational Literacy and “The Big Picture” Concerning Computers in Mathematics Education (2018)
Crothers, Tim. The Queen of Katwe (2012)
Curthoys Ann. Freedom Ride: a freedom rider remembers (2002)
Dick, Philip K. The Man in the High Castle (2001)
Dougherty, Dale with Conrad, Ariane. Free to Make: How the Maker Movement is changing our schools, our jobs and our minds (2016)
Eglash,Ron; Bennett, Audrey; O'Donnell, Casey; Jennings, Sybillyn; Cintorino, Margaret. Culturally Situated Design Tools: EthnoComputing From Field Site to Classroom (2006)
Featherstone, Daniel. Connected, Creative and Cultural Communities: Developing an Integrated Approach to Policy and Evaluation for Remote Australian Indigenous Media and Communications (2015)
Finnane, Kieran. Trouble: On Trial in Central Australia (2016)
Jones, Philip. Gillen's Modest Record: His journal of the Spencer-Gillen anthropological expedition across Australia, 1901-02 (2017)
Gershenfeld, Neil; Gershenfeld, Alan; Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution (2017)
Graves, Colleen and Aaron. 20 Makey Makey Projects for the Evil Genius (2017)
Graves, Colleen and Aaron. The Big Book of Maker Space Projects (2017)
Guenther, John. Evaluation of indigiMOB Year 2 (2019)
Kafai, Yasmin B and Burke, Quinn. Connected Code: Why Children Need to Learn Programming (2014)
Kimber, R.G. Man from Arltunga: Walter Smith Australian Bushman. 2nd edition (1996)
Livingston, Eric. Ethnographies of Reason (2016)
Margolis, Jane; Estrella, Rachel; Goode, Joanna; Holme, Jennifer Jellison; Nao, Kimberley. Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race and Computing (2017)
McCulloch, Susan and Childs,Emily McCulloch. Contemporary Aboriginal Art: the complete guide (2017)
McLean, Ian. How Aborigines invented the idea of contemporary art: edited and introduced by Ian McLean (2011)
McLean, Ian. Rattling Spears: A History of Indigenous Australian Art (2016)
Martinez, Sylvia and Stager, Gary. Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom. 2nd Edition (2019)
Morphy, Howard. Aboriginal Art (1998)
Moss, Rod. One Thousand Cuts: Life and Art in Central Australia (2013)
Murray, Les. Killing the Black Dog (2015)
Saujani, Reshma. Girls who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World (2017)
Silver, Jay. Lens X Block: World as Construction Kit (2014) PhD thesis
Smerdon, David. Smerdon's Scandanavian (2015)
Snowden, Edward. Permanent Record (2019)
Sorva, Juha. Visual Program Simulation in Introductory Programming Education. Thesis (pdf available)
Sorva, Juha. Notional Machines and Introductory Programming Education (2013) pdf available
Stager, Gary S. Papert’s Prison Fab Lab: Implications for the maker movement and education design (2013)
Tedre, Matti and Denning, Peter Computational Thinking (2019)
Tedre, Matti and Denning, Peter. The Long Quest for Computational Thinking (2016)
Vivian, Alison. Some Human Rights are Worth More than Others: The Northern Territory Intervention and the Alice Springs Town Camps (2010)
Weinberger, David. Everyday Chaos: Technology, Complexity and How We're Thriving in a New World of Possibility (2019)
Wolber, David; Abelson, Hal; Spertus, Ellen & Looney, Liz App Inventor 2: Create your own Android Apps free online
Wright, Alexis. Grog War, (2009)
Previous:
2018 books
2017 books
2016 books
2015 books
Bailey, John. Mr Stuart's Track: The forgotten life of Australia's greatest explorer (2006)
Bardon, James. Revolution by Night or Katjala Wananu (The Son After the Father) (1991)
Bell, Tim; Tymann, Paul; Yehudai, Amiran. The Big Ideas of K-12 Computer Science Education (2018)
Boochani, Behrouz. No Friend But the Mountains: Writings from Manus Prison. Translated by Omid Tofighian (2018)
boyd, dana. It's Complicated (2014). Learn More. epub(scroll to bottom)
Brady, Frank. Endgame: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer (2011)
diSessa, Andrea. Computational Literacy and “The Big Picture” Concerning Computers in Mathematics Education (2018)
Crothers, Tim. The Queen of Katwe (2012)
Curthoys Ann. Freedom Ride: a freedom rider remembers (2002)
Dick, Philip K. The Man in the High Castle (2001)
Dougherty, Dale with Conrad, Ariane. Free to Make: How the Maker Movement is changing our schools, our jobs and our minds (2016)
Eglash,Ron; Bennett, Audrey; O'Donnell, Casey; Jennings, Sybillyn; Cintorino, Margaret. Culturally Situated Design Tools: EthnoComputing From Field Site to Classroom (2006)
Featherstone, Daniel. Connected, Creative and Cultural Communities: Developing an Integrated Approach to Policy and Evaluation for Remote Australian Indigenous Media and Communications (2015)
Finnane, Kieran. Trouble: On Trial in Central Australia (2016)
Jones, Philip. Gillen's Modest Record: His journal of the Spencer-Gillen anthropological expedition across Australia, 1901-02 (2017)
Gershenfeld, Neil; Gershenfeld, Alan; Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution (2017)
Graves, Colleen and Aaron. 20 Makey Makey Projects for the Evil Genius (2017)
Graves, Colleen and Aaron. The Big Book of Maker Space Projects (2017)
Guenther, John. Evaluation of indigiMOB Year 2 (2019)
Kafai, Yasmin B and Burke, Quinn. Connected Code: Why Children Need to Learn Programming (2014)
Kimber, R.G. Man from Arltunga: Walter Smith Australian Bushman. 2nd edition (1996)
Livingston, Eric. Ethnographies of Reason (2016)
Margolis, Jane; Estrella, Rachel; Goode, Joanna; Holme, Jennifer Jellison; Nao, Kimberley. Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race and Computing (2017)
McCulloch, Susan and Childs,Emily McCulloch. Contemporary Aboriginal Art: the complete guide (2017)
McLean, Ian. How Aborigines invented the idea of contemporary art: edited and introduced by Ian McLean (2011)
McLean, Ian. Rattling Spears: A History of Indigenous Australian Art (2016)
Martinez, Sylvia and Stager, Gary. Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom. 2nd Edition (2019)
Morphy, Howard. Aboriginal Art (1998)
Moss, Rod. One Thousand Cuts: Life and Art in Central Australia (2013)
Murray, Les. Killing the Black Dog (2015)
Saujani, Reshma. Girls who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World (2017)
Silver, Jay. Lens X Block: World as Construction Kit (2014) PhD thesis
Smerdon, David. Smerdon's Scandanavian (2015)
Snowden, Edward. Permanent Record (2019)
Sorva, Juha. Visual Program Simulation in Introductory Programming Education. Thesis (pdf available)
Sorva, Juha. Notional Machines and Introductory Programming Education (2013) pdf available
Stager, Gary S. Papert’s Prison Fab Lab: Implications for the maker movement and education design (2013)
Tedre, Matti and Denning, Peter Computational Thinking (2019)
Tedre, Matti and Denning, Peter. The Long Quest for Computational Thinking (2016)
Vivian, Alison. Some Human Rights are Worth More than Others: The Northern Territory Intervention and the Alice Springs Town Camps (2010)
Weinberger, David. Everyday Chaos: Technology, Complexity and How We're Thriving in a New World of Possibility (2019)
Wolber, David; Abelson, Hal; Spertus, Ellen & Looney, Liz App Inventor 2: Create your own Android Apps free online
Wright, Alexis. Grog War, (2009)
Previous:
2018 books
2017 books
2016 books
2015 books
Friday, December 28, 2018
an old quote from Hal Abelson
"First, we want to establish the idea that a computer language is not just a way of getting a computer to perform operations but rather that it is a novel formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology. Thus, programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute."Or, in the video, "a computer program is a way of expressing ideas and communicating ideas and only incidentally about getting a machine to do stuff" (at 35min 55sec)
~ Hal Abelson
In the new language some things can be expressed that couldn't be expressed so well, or at all, in previous languages. The technology, the code is secondary; the new way of expressing something is primary. I think that sort of motivation has the potential to push people to persevere through the technical, difficult to understand stuff. But in computer courses people often get so caught up in the code itself (because it is complex, hard) that the underlying driving force can disappear, in the way it is taught, boring technical stuff divorced from real life drama.
youtube link
See his answer to the question asked at 35 minutes, about Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, with additional insights up until 39 minutes, 20 sec. He calls this the linguistic approach by which I think he means reframing or reformulating the programming language to make it easier to understand. One huge breakthrough here since the early days of logo has been block languages. Another issues he mentions is that in solving a problem by programming we are really building a special purpose machine, within the machine.
Hal Abelson is one of the driving forces behind the amazingly good MIT App Inventor.
ps. very funny anecodote about Richard Stallman's password begins at 27 minutes.
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Mparntwe Dreaming, part two: wild dog creators
In this Dreaming story much of the west side of Alice Springs has an association with a dog fight. After reading a little booklet about this I initially climbed Anzac Hill and took some photos. But, subsequently, I found I could get better shots of the features I wanted from Billy Goat Hill and Annie Meyer Hill, so I'll show you those pics.
Most of the features of the Mt Gillen ridge were formed by the activities of the wild dog.
Mt Gillen or Alhekulyele from Billy Goat Hill (Akeyulerre)
There was an extended battle between a local dog and an interloper from the west, or in some versions from the south-east. They fought over a female.
Various features of the ridge are named after the resting place of the female, dog hair released during the fight and intestines from a wounded dog. The fighting raged to Heavitree Gap, where the intruder was finally beaten and buried.
Heavitree Gap (Ntaripe) from Billy Goat Hill (Akeyulerre).
To show how things are connected this one shows Heavitree Gap (Ntaripe) from Anzac Hill with Billy Goat Hill (Akeyulerre) in the middle ground
The next one shows the relation between Mt Gillen and Heavitree Gap. I took this from Annie Meyer Hill, which you access through the Olive Pink Botanic Garden:
After defeating his antagonist at Heavitree Gap, the wild dog creator being metamorphosed into a boulder embedded near Billy Goat Hill. I looked for that boulder but couldn't find it.
At various locations nearby are rocks that represent the puppies of the adult wild dogs. Some of the puppies are at the back of Beaurepaires, which is near Anzac Hill.
Puppies outside Beaurepaires (two pics)
There is a large sacred rock in the Anzac Hill (Atnelkentyarliweke) car park
Choritja, where Charles Creek flows into the Todd River is regarded as the real central point of Mparntwe (Alice Springs)
No water today, but this is where Charles Creek flows into Todd River. They say you are not a true resident of Alice Springs until you have seen the Todd flow three times!
The stone below is associated with a great, white, dog man who came from Latrika (away to the West) and wanted to kill the dog men at Choritja (Stuart or Alice Springs).
When they saw him the local Gnoilya wild dog men sang out, wunna, mbainda erinna, numma - This is your camp, sit down
So he sat down quietly and remained there, the stone arising to mark the spot. If the stone is rubbed by old men all the camp dogs begin to growl and grow fierce. The last man to rub it was one of the old inkatos (headmen) who did so soon after the white man came in order to try to make the dogs bite them.
- from The Arunta Volume 1 by Sir Balwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen
Reference: A Town Like Mparntwe: a guide to the Dreaming tracks and sites of Alice Springs by David Brooks, illustrations by Shawn Dobson (first published in 1991)
Part one was a novice discovers the caterpillar
Most of the features of the Mt Gillen ridge were formed by the activities of the wild dog.
Mt Gillen or Alhekulyele from Billy Goat Hill (Akeyulerre)
Various features of the ridge are named after the resting place of the female, dog hair released during the fight and intestines from a wounded dog. The fighting raged to Heavitree Gap, where the intruder was finally beaten and buried.
Heavitree Gap (Ntaripe) from Billy Goat Hill (Akeyulerre).
At various locations nearby are rocks that represent the puppies of the adult wild dogs. Some of the puppies are at the back of Beaurepaires, which is near Anzac Hill.
Puppies outside Beaurepaires (two pics)
No water today, but this is where Charles Creek flows into Todd River. They say you are not a true resident of Alice Springs until you have seen the Todd flow three times!
The stone below is associated with a great, white, dog man who came from Latrika (away to the West) and wanted to kill the dog men at Choritja (Stuart or Alice Springs).
When they saw him the local Gnoilya wild dog men sang out, wunna, mbainda erinna, numma - This is your camp, sit down
So he sat down quietly and remained there, the stone arising to mark the spot. If the stone is rubbed by old men all the camp dogs begin to growl and grow fierce. The last man to rub it was one of the old inkatos (headmen) who did so soon after the white man came in order to try to make the dogs bite them.
- from The Arunta Volume 1 by Sir Balwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen
Reference: A Town Like Mparntwe: a guide to the Dreaming tracks and sites of Alice Springs by David Brooks, illustrations by Shawn Dobson (first published in 1991)
Part one was a novice discovers the caterpillar
Saturday, December 22, 2018
a novice discovers the caterpillar
For the past week I’ve been venturing out before it gets too hot and visiting some of the traditional sites here in Alice Springs or Mparntwe in Arrente language. If you visited me in Alice, then here are some of the places I would take you. This has been part of my own self education. I hasten to add that I’m still a beginner when it comes to the local habitat and cultures.
Casual visitors or tourists will notice the Yeperenye shopping centre in the heart of town and perhaps also Yipirinya School (spellings are not standardised), which is not far from the town centre. Pronounced Yep-ah-rin-ya. Yeperenye is the most important of three caterpillars that play the major role in the local Dreaming stories.
Delving more into that we discover the caterpillar dreaming of the Arrente people. The caterpillars are the major creative ancestors of Mparntwe.
After this introduction, I might take you to the Araluen Cultural Precinct to view the giant caterpillar sculpture.
There are informative plaques inside the caterpillar. One of the caretakers writes:
A section of another plaque provides us with some information about the caterpillar itself and how strongly it is represented in the Arrernte language:
Next up we might take a 10 minute drive to Emily Gap (Anthwerrke).
It’s really special down there, well that is, apart from the damn flies. It is the majestic site where the caterpillar beings originated. Photos from inside the gap, where there are rock paintings illustrating the story, are not permitted. So, I guess you’ll have to come to Alice if you want to see it.
After they created Anthwerrke the caterpillars spread out towards the town area and produced the topographical features that we now see.
The Yeperenye was just one of three species of caterpillar involved. The other species were Ntyarlke and Utnerrengatye.
On the East side of the Todd River, there is a small ridge where the Ntyarlke caterpillars crossed the river.
In 1983 the government began to construct Barrett Drive in order to facilitate access to the casino. But, they had a problem: The ridge created by the Ntyarlke registered and protected under the government’s own Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act extended into the desired path of the road. There was some discussion with the Aboriginal custodians about how to protect the site. In the beginning, the government appeared to be listening.
Then at Christmas 1983 one of the custodians walked out on the site and saw that the tail of the caterpillar had been bulldozed. The government, running out of patience, had done this in the quiet of holiday time. The photo shows the ridge which represents the caterpillar, that used to extend to where the road now is. My back is to the Todd River.
Barrett Drive has since been referred to as Broken Promise Drive among the Arrernte people of Mparntwe.
Well, I still don’t know much about the caterpillars but that is a beginning. And there are more than caterpillars to this story. Next up, I’ll tell you about the wild, creator dogs.
Reference:
A Town Like Mparntwe: a guide to the Dreaming tracks and sites of Alice Springs (first published in 1991) by David Brooks, illustrations by Shawn Dobson
Casual visitors or tourists will notice the Yeperenye shopping centre in the heart of town and perhaps also Yipirinya School (spellings are not standardised), which is not far from the town centre. Pronounced Yep-ah-rin-ya. Yeperenye is the most important of three caterpillars that play the major role in the local Dreaming stories.
After this introduction, I might take you to the Araluen Cultural Precinct to view the giant caterpillar sculpture.
“My name is Kwementyeye Rice Furber, I am one of the kwetengurles (caretakers) for the Yeperenye Dreaming. The Yeperenye Dreaming is a totem of my mother and my grandfather (that’s my mum’s dad) and her grandfather (her father’s father). In a cultural way they are the owners of the Yeperenye Dreaming.
I am very proud to see the sculpture being built here on Mparntwe land. I feel the Yeperenye story should be known and told to the locals and visitors alike, and I hope Yeperenye Dreaming will be respected in the land of its Dreaming. I am very glad and happy for the youngsters who are involved in building this Yeperenye Sculpture and I am very glad of all who took part in it and I thank you for it.”
“The Arrernte language includes a unique name for every stage of development for yeperenye caterpillars, ie. egg, lava, pupa, emerging moth, moth etc. The name yeperenye derives from ayepe (tar vine) and arenye (belonging to).
The yeperenye are the best known of the sacred caterpillars. They encompass at least two different species and a rich diversity of colour forms. Yeperenye caterpillars burrow into soft soil to depths of about 10cm, sometimes forming a small underground chamber. The fully developed intelyaplyape (hawkmoths) emerge with 12-24 days from their pupal cases underground or beneath leaf litter to feed, mate and lay their eggs in the space of a few days.”
The Yeperenye was just one of three species of caterpillar involved. The other species were Ntyarlke and Utnerrengatye.
On the East side of the Todd River, there is a small ridge where the Ntyarlke caterpillars crossed the river.
In 1983 the government began to construct Barrett Drive in order to facilitate access to the casino. But, they had a problem: The ridge created by the Ntyarlke registered and protected under the government’s own Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act extended into the desired path of the road. There was some discussion with the Aboriginal custodians about how to protect the site. In the beginning, the government appeared to be listening.
Then at Christmas 1983 one of the custodians walked out on the site and saw that the tail of the caterpillar had been bulldozed. The government, running out of patience, had done this in the quiet of holiday time. The photo shows the ridge which represents the caterpillar, that used to extend to where the road now is. My back is to the Todd River.
Well, I still don’t know much about the caterpillars but that is a beginning. And there are more than caterpillars to this story. Next up, I’ll tell you about the wild, creator dogs.
Reference:
A Town Like Mparntwe: a guide to the Dreaming tracks and sites of Alice Springs (first published in 1991) by David Brooks, illustrations by Shawn Dobson
Monday, December 17, 2018
#thismymob
The developer group is headed by Christopher Lawrence, an indigenous PhD with very strong background in health issues assisted by other impressive experts at the University of Technology, Sydney, mainly in the fields of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Health. Details here.
The promotion floats the novel idea of digital land rights, which asserts the right of Indigenous peoples to a safe online space that they control.
Indigenous mobs are approached one by one and invited to participate. Currently the app is being tested and trialed with the the following 5 mobs:
- Eora – NSW
- Jumbunna (UTS) – NSW
- Bard – WA
- Tiwi Islands – NT
- Gunditjamara – VIC
“The response has been quite amazing. Whenever we’ve been out to communities there's always been a sigh of relief,” he said.In an interview with NITV, Christopher Lawrence said that the app includes an ‘Elders feature’, for users to contact Elders for advice or support. “A person may not have their Elders anymore, so we’re creating a substitute mob for people who can be Elders for others around the mob”
“People say to us, 'we've [been] waiting for something like this!’,” he added.
“We’ve just been taking butchers' paper and markers out there and drawing up plans.
“Then we bring it back to Sydney, and translate it into coding and programming.”
It is planned to soon create a ‘Deadly Mob’ as a temporary space for people who want to connect on the #thismymob app. The ‘Deadly Mob’ will be used for the mobs currently not listed. Over the coming months in collaboration with local Indigenous communities they plan to introduce more mobs as their aim is to connect all Indigenous Australians.
Another feature is a digital portal that connects Indigenous users with government, industry and organisational information. Prof Lawrence hopes this feature helps Indigenous users overcome some of the barriers impeding access to important services
On their website, the #Thismymob team also hint at some of their longer term strategic goals, to:
- inform the development of post-secondary curricula for Indigenous software engineering
- create pathways towards an environment that supports Indigenous developers, entrepreneurs and start-ups to manage the development and ongoing operation of Indigenous-owned technology
#Thismymob: The first ever app connecting Indigenous people digitally
#thismymob Establishing Digital Land Rights and Reconnecting Indigenous Communities through Emerging Technologies
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Help Desk
I recently heard a story about a young student who was asked on a test the meaning of PTO. In the end he wrote Postal Transport Officer. This reminded me of one of my favourite YouTubes from years ago where a monk encounters a new technology, the book, and calls the medieval Help Desk:
Sunday, December 09, 2018
indigenous icons activity
I've uploaded some indigenous icons (mainly gifs) with transparent backgrounds, suitable for incorporation into a Scratch activity.
I prepared these icons from the original sheet using GIMP.
DAY ONE
The activity which I set my class, which is roughly 50% indigenous, was to make up a story based on these icons. Initially I gave them a printout of the icon sheet and asked them to do the story with pencil and paper. I found that all the students preferred to draw the icons themselves rather than cutting and pasting, which is an option I provided.
DAY TWO
The next day we went into a computer room. I had taken one of the student sheets and had begun to duplicate their icons into a Scratch page. I made the icons available in the common drive and told them to put the folder onto their Desktop, since Scratch offer an import from desktop feature.
I added a few extra icons to the folder (of kangaroo, emu and honey ants) based on reading their stories.
I asked the students to put the relevant icons onto the page, to name them (that makes it much easier to follow what you are doing) and then program an icon click that would display the name for 2 seconds. I also suggested they put a pale coloured background on the Stage. For some of the icons that were hard to click because of their transparent spaces I suggested they edit and add an unobtrusive colour.
DAY THREE
I showed them more work I had done on my exemplar by adding an introductory page with the words of the story. This page had a button which when clicked hid the page and revealed the icons underneath. I showed the class how to hide the page when the button was clicked and how to show the page when the green flag was clicked to start the program again.
EVALUATION
The class hadn't done much Scratch before and there were some teething problems. The main one was that some students didn't realise that they had to make a new sprite before importing each icon. They were putting multiple icons onto each sprite. This was easily fixed with some extra instruction.
I felt the indigenous students engaged strongly with this activity, just by getting on with it without any fuss.
One student on his own initiative added the waterdrop sound to the button when it was clicked.
This was a last week of school activity. If I had more time I would have shown the class how to animate one of the animals relevant to their story.
I prepared these icons from the original sheet using GIMP.
DAY ONE
The activity which I set my class, which is roughly 50% indigenous, was to make up a story based on these icons. Initially I gave them a printout of the icon sheet and asked them to do the story with pencil and paper. I found that all the students preferred to draw the icons themselves rather than cutting and pasting, which is an option I provided.
DAY TWO
The next day we went into a computer room. I had taken one of the student sheets and had begun to duplicate their icons into a Scratch page. I made the icons available in the common drive and told them to put the folder onto their Desktop, since Scratch offer an import from desktop feature.
I added a few extra icons to the folder (of kangaroo, emu and honey ants) based on reading their stories.
I asked the students to put the relevant icons onto the page, to name them (that makes it much easier to follow what you are doing) and then program an icon click that would display the name for 2 seconds. I also suggested they put a pale coloured background on the Stage. For some of the icons that were hard to click because of their transparent spaces I suggested they edit and add an unobtrusive colour.
DAY THREE
EVALUATION
The class hadn't done much Scratch before and there were some teething problems. The main one was that some students didn't realise that they had to make a new sprite before importing each icon. They were putting multiple icons onto each sprite. This was easily fixed with some extra instruction.
I felt the indigenous students engaged strongly with this activity, just by getting on with it without any fuss.
One student on his own initiative added the waterdrop sound to the button when it was clicked.
This was a last week of school activity. If I had more time I would have shown the class how to animate one of the animals relevant to their story.
Monday, November 19, 2018
inspirational example of making a difference
"I want to make a difference" is a well worn phrase but still a good one.
To make a difference you need two things: a commitment and a skill. Here is an inspirational example from Mick Ebeling, who says:
"I have a process. The process is you commit then you figure out how the heck you are going to do it"For more inspirational information visit the Not Impossible website
Friday, October 19, 2018
tangible digital education theory
Words are important. What we call something triggers connections and perceptions. Words can connect our minds, no, our whole being to something tangible. It was the words of Seymour Papert (“Mindstorms”) that got me started in computing in the first place. Not a technocentric dialogue but a different, body syntonic, way of doing maths, which would be more engaging for those who were bored, discouraged and despairing of textbook maths.
What began as “computing” has turned into a bloated educational nomenclature: computer science, computational thinking IT, ICT, web2, web3, STEM, STEAM, maker ed, cyber ed etc. How can we inspire anyone to follow if we are all travelling down different, not clearly thought out and possibly over-hyped pathways?
The philosophical lameness of much of the commercial computing hype is flawed. Their technocentric mantra focuses on jobs, fun and money. This is activism without understanding. Recall Papert’s critique of technocentrism. Their tendency is to ignore economics (can everyone afford the new toys, some of them are very expensive?), social justice, learning theory and perhaps most importantly that the new digital medium is consuming the previously dominant print medium. McLuhan famously said, "the medium is the message". But who understood him?
There is a plethora of new tech toys from the micro:bit to Cozmo the robot to the Raspberry Pi Sense hat and much more. The CSER digital lending library (thanks, Steve Grant) helpfully allows educators to borrow and test the following kits: Beebot, Sphero, Ozobot, Makey Makey, Lilypad, two version of Little Bits, Dash & Dot, Bluebot and Micro:bit.
As well as taking time to play and learn with some of these new toys I’ve discovered some writings that begin to help me theorise what is happening. At this stage I’m just repeating extracts from the abstracts of some of these writings for anyone who wants to come along with the theoretical ride, to develop a concrete theory to inform practice. I’ve added some bolding to some points I think are important.
DiSessa, Andy. Computational Literacy and “The Big Picture” Concerning Computers in Mathematics Education (2017) download
Bernstein, Debra. Developing Technological Fluency Through Creative Robotics (2010)
What began as “computing” has turned into a bloated educational nomenclature: computer science, computational thinking IT, ICT, web2, web3, STEM, STEAM, maker ed, cyber ed etc. How can we inspire anyone to follow if we are all travelling down different, not clearly thought out and possibly over-hyped pathways?
The philosophical lameness of much of the commercial computing hype is flawed. Their technocentric mantra focuses on jobs, fun and money. This is activism without understanding. Recall Papert’s critique of technocentrism. Their tendency is to ignore economics (can everyone afford the new toys, some of them are very expensive?), social justice, learning theory and perhaps most importantly that the new digital medium is consuming the previously dominant print medium. McLuhan famously said, "the medium is the message". But who understood him?
There is a plethora of new tech toys from the micro:bit to Cozmo the robot to the Raspberry Pi Sense hat and much more. The CSER digital lending library (thanks, Steve Grant) helpfully allows educators to borrow and test the following kits: Beebot, Sphero, Ozobot, Makey Makey, Lilypad, two version of Little Bits, Dash & Dot, Bluebot and Micro:bit.
As well as taking time to play and learn with some of these new toys I’ve discovered some writings that begin to help me theorise what is happening. At this stage I’m just repeating extracts from the abstracts of some of these writings for anyone who wants to come along with the theoretical ride, to develop a concrete theory to inform practice. I’ve added some bolding to some points I think are important.
DiSessa, Andy. Computational Literacy and “The Big Picture” Concerning Computers in Mathematics Education (2017) download
This article develops some ideas concerning the “big picture” of how using computers might fundamentally change learning, with an emphasis on mathematics (and, more generally, STEM education). I develop the big-picture model of computation as a new literacy in some detail and with concrete examples of sixth grade students learning the mathematics of motion. The principles that define computational literacy also serve as an analytical framework to examine competitive big pictures, and I use them to consider the plausibility, power, and limitations of other important contemporary trends in computationally centered education, notably computational thinking and coding as a social movement. While both of these trends have much to recommend them, my analysis uncovers some implausible assumptions and counterproductive elements of those trends. I close my essay with some more practical and action-oriented advice to mathematics educators on how best to orient to the long-term trajectory (big picture) of improving mathematics education with computation.The following two articles are PhD theses obtainable from BirdBrain Technologies Research page
Bernstein, Debra. Developing Technological Fluency Through Creative Robotics (2010)
Children have frequent access to technologies such as computers, game systems, and mobile phones (Sefton-Green, 2006). But it is useful to distinguish between engaging with technology as a ‘consumer’ and engaging as a ‘creator’ or designer (Resnick & Rusk, 1996). Children who engage as the former can use technology efficiently, while those who engage as the latter are creative and adaptive with technology.Lauwers, Tom. Aligning Capabilities of Interactive Educational Tools to Learner Goals (2010)
The question remains of how best to encourage movement along this continuum, towards technological fluency. This study defines three habits of mind associated with fluent technology engagement [(1) approaching technology as a tool and a creative medium, (2) understanding how to engage in a design process, and (3) seeing oneself as competent to engage in technological creativity], and examines the implementation of a learning environment designed to support them.
Robot Diaries, an out-of-school workshop, encourages middle school girls to explore different ways of expressing and communicating with technology, to integrate technology with personal or fictional storytelling, and to adapt their technical knowledge to suit their own projects and ideas. Two research purposes guide this study. The first is to explore whether Robot Diaries, which blends arts and engineering curricula, can support multiple pathways to technological fluency. The second purpose is to develop and test a set of instruments to measure the development of technological fluency.
This thesis is about a design process for creating educationally relevant tools. I submit that the key to creating tools that are educationally relevant is to focus on ensuring a high degree of alignment between the designed tool and the broader educational context into which the tool will be integrated. The thesis presents methods and processes for creating a tool that is both well aligned and relevant.
The design domain of the thesis is described by a set of tools I refer to as “Configurable Embodied Interfaces”. Configurable embodied interfaces have a number of key features, they:
Spurred by the growth of cheap computation and sensing, a large number of educational programs have been built around use of configurable embodied interfaces in the last three decades … this work provides case studies and a set of guidelines that can inform technologists interested in designing educationally relevant embodied interfaces.
- Can sense their local surroundings through the detection of such environmental and physical parameters as light, sound, imagery, device acceleration, etc.
- Act on their local environment by outputting sound, light, imagery, motion of the device, etc.
- Are configurable in such a way as to link these inputs and outputs in a nearly unlimited number of ways.
- Contain active ways for users to either directly create new programs linking input and output, or to easily re-configure them by running different programs on them.
- Are user focused; they assume that a human being is manipulating them in some way, through affecting input and observing output of the interface.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Bret Victor
worry dream
I wasn't aware of Bret Victor but have looked at Seymour Papert and Alan Kay in some depth previously. I've now read a few of BV articles and looked at a few videos and see that he continues and develops in that tradition. I'll be promoting his material with enthusiam.
For those not familiar with this lineage perhaps Bret Victor's article about the hand would be a good place to start since that correlates well with the Engel's essay on the hand which would be familiar to those who follow Marx: A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design
From a digital world behind a screen we are emerging into tangible, haptic or physical computing with more varied human inputs and interactions becoming available. Bret Victor's examples of a more intuitive user interface for programmers are breathtaking. eg. Inventing on Principle
(Historical aside: Seymour Papert co-authored logo programming / turtle geometry as a way to make powerful maths ideas more accessible to those who found them difficult).
Following some technical wizardry at 35:40 of that video he begins to explain his motivation to his audience of software engineers:
I've been developing a curriculum around the BBC micro:bit and was looking for a theorist who continues to develop the Papert / Kay tradition. Bret Victor may be that theorist.
I'm also impressed by the Yin / Yang sidebar of his Bio.
I wasn't aware of Bret Victor but have looked at Seymour Papert and Alan Kay in some depth previously. I've now read a few of BV articles and looked at a few videos and see that he continues and develops in that tradition. I'll be promoting his material with enthusiam.
For those not familiar with this lineage perhaps Bret Victor's article about the hand would be a good place to start since that correlates well with the Engel's essay on the hand which would be familiar to those who follow Marx: A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design
From a digital world behind a screen we are emerging into tangible, haptic or physical computing with more varied human inputs and interactions becoming available. Bret Victor's examples of a more intuitive user interface for programmers are breathtaking. eg. Inventing on Principle
(Historical aside: Seymour Papert co-authored logo programming / turtle geometry as a way to make powerful maths ideas more accessible to those who found them difficult).
Following some technical wizardry at 35:40 of that video he begins to explain his motivation to his audience of software engineers:
"Ideas are very precious to me and when I see ideas dying it hurts. I see a tragedy. It feels like a moral wrong, an injustice. If there is something I can about it then it feels like a responsibility for me to do so. Not an opportunity but a responsibility"The computer is now emerging from being a relatively expensive, large closed box and transforming into a miniature capable of interacting with a variety of sensors to create the internet of things. BV goes beyond the predictable and usually mundane commercial hype (Apple watch etc.) and informs us how a more intuitive user interface (“One of the greatest user interface design minds in the world today.” — Alan Kay) can promote creativity. ie. he explains how creativity can be enhanced, not just uses it as a nebulous hype word. The principle he argues for is immediate connection between the creative process and its visualisation or appearance. He has the skill and knowledge to implement that principle, as part of a team, in the real world.
I've been developing a curriculum around the BBC micro:bit and was looking for a theorist who continues to develop the Papert / Kay tradition. Bret Victor may be that theorist.
I'm also impressed by the Yin / Yang sidebar of his Bio.
Saturday, August 18, 2018
mobile digital education course update
MOBILE DIGITAL EDUCATION: Micro:bit Course Outline
Digital technology has ushered in a cycle of disruption aka creative disruption. What is disrupted? Traditional businesses, for one. In the case of digital wearables the fitness and healthcare industries are reinventing themselves. Think Apple Watch or FitBit.
Are schools keeping up with these changes? There is much talk about STEM and computer coding but to bring this future to students requires a combination of hardware, software and teacher expertise that is not always apparent. Does anyone remember Seymour Papert's advice about how teachers will have to become more skilled to incorporate the new technologies into the overall educational context:
The BBC micro:bit is a pocket-sized codeable computer with motion detection, a built-in compass and Bluetooth technology, which was given free to every child in year 7 or equivalent across the UK in 2016.
Here are some ideas for a Middle School mobile digital course outline. It represents a small beginning towards adapting the school curriculum to preparing students for this future. A future which is already present. Please feel free to adapt and reshare these ideas but remember to acknowledge the source. Many thanks to Roland and Paul for initially suggesting these ideas to me.
THEMES
Digital wearables – take home – ownership - affordable At $25 the micro:bit (cheaper with a bulk buy) could be bought by each student – real ownership of the micro:bit is empowering and invites further exploration.
Robotics introduction for everyone
The Kitronik :MOVE mini buggy, which can be controlled by the micro:bit and is a relatively low cost ($112 with accessories) introduction to robotics
Computer coding
Far more accessible these days due to block based coding (drag and drop tiles) of Microsoft Makecode, which has built on the earlier success of MIT Scratch.
SOFTWARE
Microsoft Makecode is free online or a free app download– for coding of affordable hardware such as the BBC micro: bit (wicked simulator included)
HARDWARE AND PRELIMINARY COSTING
All prices from Core Electronics
BBC micro:bit $24.95 (plus $3.95 micro USB cable plus $2.41 battery holder and batteries), with the option of personal ownership.
PCs, Macs, laptops or tablets to access Makecode
Android or iOS phone runs a micro:bit app – code can be sent to micro:bit by bluetooth
The Kitronik :MOVE mini buggy kit for the BBC micro:bit is a fun introduction to the world of robotics. To get the most out of it some add ons are required:
The Kitronik :MOVE mini buggy kit $53.95
Line following add on (sensors underneath buggy) $20.95
Servo:Lite board $19.50
Bulldozer add on $15.00
Bumper add on $ 2.95
TOTAL $112.35
LESSON PLANS
There are many free resources about the micro:bit for teachers on line: https://microbit.org/teach/ and at Code Club Australia https://codeclubau.org/
Here are some incredibly good lesson plans by Lorraine Underwood for the :MOVE buggy
32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 CPU
256KB Flash
16KB RAM
5x5 Red LED Array
Two Programmable Buttons
Onboard Light, Compass, Accelerometer and Temp Sensors
BLE Smart Antenna
Three Digital/Analog Input/Output Rings
Two Power Rings — 3V and GND
20-pin Edge Connector
MicroUSB Connector
JST-PH Battery Connector (Not JST-XH)
Reset Button with Status LED
PATHWAYS
This course is envisaged as part of a curriculum pathway. Some suggested hardware and software features of the future path could include:
Electronics: Break out board, eg. Kitronik Inventor's Kit (for class use) $39.95
MIT app inventor – writing apps for you mobile phone http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/
Drones – the Tello drone is programmable in Scratch
Raspberry Pi A small and affordable computer that you can use to learn programming and more … link to essentials for the Raspberry Pi
Combine the Raspberry Pi with the Sense HAT ($52.80)
Curriculum: A Raspberry Pi curriculum has been developed here
Interesting book here, Make: Sensors: Projects and Experiments to Measure the World with Arduino and Raspberry Pi (link takes you to the contents and part of Chapter one)
UPDATE (August 25th):
Microbit Evaluation Report (pdf 51pp).
"Over 1 million of the microcomputers were given free to every child aged 11 to 12 across the UK in March 2016"
This study evaluates how this initiative went. Highly recommended.
UPDATE (August 31st)
The micro:bit Matters
Gary Stager outlines the latest micro:bit related developments, including:
Scratch 3.0
micro:bit blocks may be added to the free popular web-basedScratch 3.0 by clicking on the extensions button and your projects may combine on-screen graphics with off-screen interactivity
Microblocks (Mac, Windows, Linux)
A team of quite accomplished developers, including Jens Monig (SNAP!), John Maloney (Scratch 2.0), and Bernat Romagosa (Snap4Arduino), have created Microblocks, a free new block-based platform for programming technology like the micro:bit, in a much more intuitive fashion than MakeCode, but with potentially more functionality than Scratch 3.0. Microblocks eliminates the issue of uploading/downloading code between the computer and micro:bit by running programs on the micro:bit directly. Make a change to a program on your computer and it runs live on the micro:bit.
Check the rest of Gary's article for other updates in the pipeline, coming soon.
Digital technology has ushered in a cycle of disruption aka creative disruption. What is disrupted? Traditional businesses, for one. In the case of digital wearables the fitness and healthcare industries are reinventing themselves. Think Apple Watch or FitBit.
Are schools keeping up with these changes? There is much talk about STEM and computer coding but to bring this future to students requires a combination of hardware, software and teacher expertise that is not always apparent. Does anyone remember Seymour Papert's advice about how teachers will have to become more skilled to incorporate the new technologies into the overall educational context:
- Skilled in modern learning theories and psychology
- Skilled in relating to a variety of children
- Skilled in detecting new, important elements of their student's culture
- Skilled in cross curricular applications
- Skilled in computing
- Able to apply a variety of skills creatively
Here are some ideas for a Middle School mobile digital course outline. It represents a small beginning towards adapting the school curriculum to preparing students for this future. A future which is already present. Please feel free to adapt and reshare these ideas but remember to acknowledge the source. Many thanks to Roland and Paul for initially suggesting these ideas to me.
THEMES
Digital wearables – take home – ownership - affordable At $25 the micro:bit (cheaper with a bulk buy) could be bought by each student – real ownership of the micro:bit is empowering and invites further exploration.
Robotics introduction for everyone
The Kitronik :MOVE mini buggy, which can be controlled by the micro:bit and is a relatively low cost ($112 with accessories) introduction to robotics
Far more accessible these days due to block based coding (drag and drop tiles) of Microsoft Makecode, which has built on the earlier success of MIT Scratch.
SOFTWARE
Microsoft Makecode is free online or a free app download– for coding of affordable hardware such as the BBC micro: bit (wicked simulator included)
HARDWARE AND PRELIMINARY COSTING
All prices from Core Electronics
BBC micro:bit $24.95 (plus $3.95 micro USB cable plus $2.41 battery holder and batteries), with the option of personal ownership.
PCs, Macs, laptops or tablets to access Makecode
Android or iOS phone runs a micro:bit app – code can be sent to micro:bit by bluetooth
The Kitronik :MOVE mini buggy kit for the BBC micro:bit is a fun introduction to the world of robotics. To get the most out of it some add ons are required:
The Kitronik :MOVE mini buggy kit $53.95
Line following add on (sensors underneath buggy) $20.95
Servo:Lite board $19.50
Bulldozer add on $15.00
Bumper add on $ 2.95
TOTAL $112.35
LESSON PLANS
There are many free resources about the micro:bit for teachers on line: https://microbit.org/teach/ and at Code Club Australia https://codeclubau.org/
Here are some incredibly good lesson plans by Lorraine Underwood for the :MOVE buggy
- Movement and Lights
- Drawing Shapes
- Simple Autonomy
- Radio Control
32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 CPU
256KB Flash
16KB RAM
5x5 Red LED Array
Two Programmable Buttons
Onboard Light, Compass, Accelerometer and Temp Sensors
BLE Smart Antenna
Three Digital/Analog Input/Output Rings
Two Power Rings — 3V and GND
20-pin Edge Connector
MicroUSB Connector
JST-PH Battery Connector (Not JST-XH)
Reset Button with Status LED
PATHWAYS
This course is envisaged as part of a curriculum pathway. Some suggested hardware and software features of the future path could include:
Electronics: Break out board, eg. Kitronik Inventor's Kit (for class use) $39.95
MIT app inventor – writing apps for you mobile phone http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/
Drones – the Tello drone is programmable in Scratch
Raspberry Pi A small and affordable computer that you can use to learn programming and more … link to essentials for the Raspberry Pi
Combine the Raspberry Pi with the Sense HAT ($52.80)
Curriculum: A Raspberry Pi curriculum has been developed here
Interesting book here, Make: Sensors: Projects and Experiments to Measure the World with Arduino and Raspberry Pi (link takes you to the contents and part of Chapter one)
UPDATE (August 25th):
Microbit Evaluation Report (pdf 51pp).
"Over 1 million of the microcomputers were given free to every child aged 11 to 12 across the UK in March 2016"
This study evaluates how this initiative went. Highly recommended.
UPDATE (August 31st)
The micro:bit Matters
Gary Stager outlines the latest micro:bit related developments, including:
Scratch 3.0
micro:bit blocks may be added to the free popular web-basedScratch 3.0 by clicking on the extensions button and your projects may combine on-screen graphics with off-screen interactivity
Microblocks (Mac, Windows, Linux)
A team of quite accomplished developers, including Jens Monig (SNAP!), John Maloney (Scratch 2.0), and Bernat Romagosa (Snap4Arduino), have created Microblocks, a free new block-based platform for programming technology like the micro:bit, in a much more intuitive fashion than MakeCode, but with potentially more functionality than Scratch 3.0. Microblocks eliminates the issue of uploading/downloading code between the computer and micro:bit by running programs on the micro:bit directly. Make a change to a program on your computer and it runs live on the micro:bit.
Check the rest of Gary's article for other updates in the pipeline, coming soon.
Friday, August 10, 2018
mobile digital education
Here are some ideas for a Middle School computing course. Feel free to steal them although I would appreciate if you acknowledge the source. Many thanks to Roland and Paul for initially suggesting these ideas to me.
THEMES
BBC micro:bit $24.95 (plus $3.95 micro USB cable plus $2.41 battery holder and batteries) from Core Electronics - link - (to be owned by each student)
Features – technical specification, listed at the end
PCs to access makecode (computer lab)
Androd or iOS phone runs a micro:bit app – programs can be sent to micro:bit through bluetooth
Mobile phone programmable by app inventor
Electronics: Break out board, eg. Kitronik Inventor's Kit (for class use) $39.95 from Core Electronics
RATIONALE:
We are rapidly moving towards a world of smart homes / cities, driverless cars and digital wearables for fitness monitoring, health care and fashion statements. Commercially, the Apple watch incorporates all of this. We can anticipate a future where computers are ubiquitous in our environment, eg. the smart frig which will suggest a suitable recipe for its contents. Computers will become as common as dust or oxygen. Refer MITs Project Oxygen
This course outline represents a small beginning towards adapting the school curriculum to preparing students for this future.
BBC MICRO:BIT TECHNICAL FEATURES
32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 CPU
256KB Flash
16KB RAM
5x5 Red LED Array
Two Programmable Buttons
Onboard Light, Compass, Accelerometer and Temp Sensors
BLE Smart Antenna
Three Digital/Analog Input/Output Rings
Two Power Rings — 3V and GND
20-pin Edge Connector
MicroUSB Connector
JST-PH Battery Connector (Not JST-XH)
Reset Button with Status LED
THEMES
- digital wearables – take home – ownership - affordable
- at $25 the micro:bit (cheaper with a bulk buy) could be bought by each student – real ownership of the micro:bit is empowering and invites further exploration
- the mobile phone has become the socially preferred computer – it is desirable to find a way that students can use their phone to enhance their education, as distinct from entertainment
- electronics, can be linked to the micro:bit (electronics tends to be a neglected subject)
- computer coding –far more accessible these days due to drag and drop tiles of Scratch / Makecode (apparently the official term is block based coding since you drag blocks of code around)
- Maker Education themes
- Scratch – introduction to coding
- Makecode (MS) free online or free app download– for coding of affordable hardware such as the BBC micro:bit (wicked simulator included)
- MIT app inventor – writing apps for you mobile phone
BBC micro:bit $24.95 (plus $3.95 micro USB cable plus $2.41 battery holder and batteries) from Core Electronics - link - (to be owned by each student)
Features – technical specification, listed at the end
PCs to access makecode (computer lab)
Androd or iOS phone runs a micro:bit app – programs can be sent to micro:bit through bluetooth
Mobile phone programmable by app inventor
Electronics: Break out board, eg. Kitronik Inventor's Kit (for class use) $39.95 from Core Electronics
RATIONALE:
We are rapidly moving towards a world of smart homes / cities, driverless cars and digital wearables for fitness monitoring, health care and fashion statements. Commercially, the Apple watch incorporates all of this. We can anticipate a future where computers are ubiquitous in our environment, eg. the smart frig which will suggest a suitable recipe for its contents. Computers will become as common as dust or oxygen. Refer MITs Project Oxygen
This course outline represents a small beginning towards adapting the school curriculum to preparing students for this future.
BBC MICRO:BIT TECHNICAL FEATURES
32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 CPU
256KB Flash
16KB RAM
5x5 Red LED Array
Two Programmable Buttons
Onboard Light, Compass, Accelerometer and Temp Sensors
BLE Smart Antenna
Three Digital/Analog Input/Output Rings
Two Power Rings — 3V and GND
20-pin Edge Connector
MicroUSB Connector
JST-PH Battery Connector (Not JST-XH)
Reset Button with Status LED
Sunday, June 17, 2018
one pathway to happiness
Here is someone, a very interesting girl, who found a pathway against odds to happiness
http://choosemaths.org.au/karlie-noon/
Watch the video at the bottom. Final words:
http://choosemaths.org.au/karlie-noon/
Watch the video at the bottom. Final words:
"I think to reach your full potential you have to believe in yourself and find something to make you happy"A very powerful statement in the context of an indigenous woman choosing maths / astronomy.
Friday, June 15, 2018
the state of the climate debate
Judith Curry has for a long time made more sense to me than most others on this still contentious issue.
Implications:
LHS: Climate can be controlled by controlling atmospheric CO2
RHS: Earth's climate is largely uncontrollable
BEST SOLUTION
Climate pragmatism has 3 pillars:
These are no regrets policies that do not require agreement about climate science or the risks of uncontrolled greenhouse gases
- her slides for a debate she is having with Michael Mann, David Titley and Patrick Moore.
- her blog about those slides
LHS: Climate can be controlled by controlling atmospheric CO2
RHS: Earth's climate is largely uncontrollable
BEST SOLUTION
Climate pragmatism has 3 pillars:
- Accelerate energy innovation
- Build resilience to extreme weather
- No regrets pollution reduction
These are no regrets policies that do not require agreement about climate science or the risks of uncontrolled greenhouse gases
Saturday, June 09, 2018
Sir Ken Robinson: silver tongued charlatan
Alternative titles:
(1) it takes 10 years of very hard, effortful, intelligently directed work to become a genius
(2) why does Ken Robinson refuse to debate his many informed and articulate critics?
(3) I too am a creative person who doesn't like formulas but if there is a formula it would be hard work + supportive, mentored environment is what leads to genius, more so than the random variations of the gene pool
Much to my annoyance Sir Ken Robinson won't go away. I guess I'm just jealous that I don't have a TED talk with 25 billion hits. Or maybe I just can't get enthusiastic about 103 different ways to poke a paper clip into his eye. It doesn't matter where I go, I'm eventually subjected to someone lecturing on the importance of creativity (that rather fuzzy buzz word) and how we should all take notice of Sir Ken Robinson (referred to below as KR)
Sir Ken Robinson:
My goal here is to look at KRs thesis through the prism of what is required for genius. I argue that genius does not depend primarily on tremendous natural talents, so this key premise of KRs argument falls flat.
I am not arguing that Schools are great places. The reason KR appeals to many is that he is critical of School and many have had negative experiences in School, "it's boring", where their abilities were not encouraged or developed. I agree that school reform is required. But this requires more depth of thought than that provided by KR. I am arguing that children do not have tremendous natural talents. I am arguing that talents develop through a supportive home or other educational environment and hard work.
I use genius as the prism through which to view the debate because to puncture or deflate the mythology surrounding genius - that there are individuals amongst us with extraordinary natural talents that we can't hope to emulate since they are born with it - does at the same time deflate KRs core argument.
This article (How to be a genius by David Dobbs) is one of my chief weapons. In summary it says:
The parents were also impressed by the KR talk and I can see why. Regular school would never have thought of developing Connor's unicycle skill to the extent that this family has pushed it. So, it does illustrate a part of KRs thesis that non academic talents are not recognised by School to the extent that they should be.
I would argue, however, that Connor's natural kinesthenic talent, whilst undeniably, is not the key factor here. The key factor is mentoring. The parents saw an entrepeneurial opportunity and encouraged and facilitated Connor to put in the hard work to develop further in that direction.
I'll add some quotes from the genius article to further elaborate on the theme that the key factors are hard work and mentoring
99 percent Perspiration
Challenging Sir Ken Robinson
Design for the Creative Spirit
(1) it takes 10 years of very hard, effortful, intelligently directed work to become a genius
(2) why does Ken Robinson refuse to debate his many informed and articulate critics?
(3) I too am a creative person who doesn't like formulas but if there is a formula it would be hard work + supportive, mentored environment is what leads to genius, more so than the random variations of the gene pool
Much to my annoyance Sir Ken Robinson won't go away. I guess I'm just jealous that I don't have a TED talk with 25 billion hits. Or maybe I just can't get enthusiastic about 103 different ways to poke a paper clip into his eye. It doesn't matter where I go, I'm eventually subjected to someone lecturing on the importance of creativity (that rather fuzzy buzz word) and how we should all take notice of Sir Ken Robinson (referred to below as KR)
Sir Ken Robinson:
“all students have tremendous talents”What does Sir Ken say? That children have tremendous natural talents and these are crushed by School (the capital S signifies the institution of school) because School favours one sort of learning (academic head learning) above other sorts of learning (the multiple intelligences).
My goal here is to look at KRs thesis through the prism of what is required for genius. I argue that genius does not depend primarily on tremendous natural talents, so this key premise of KRs argument falls flat.
I am not arguing that Schools are great places. The reason KR appeals to many is that he is critical of School and many have had negative experiences in School, "it's boring", where their abilities were not encouraged or developed. I agree that school reform is required. But this requires more depth of thought than that provided by KR. I am arguing that children do not have tremendous natural talents. I am arguing that talents develop through a supportive home or other educational environment and hard work.
I use genius as the prism through which to view the debate because to puncture or deflate the mythology surrounding genius - that there are individuals amongst us with extraordinary natural talents that we can't hope to emulate since they are born with it - does at the same time deflate KRs core argument.
This article (How to be a genius by David Dobbs) is one of my chief weapons. In summary it says:
- hard work, focused effort (effortful study), is most important
- supportive environment, mentoring is also very important
- natural ability (genetics) has some importance but is not so important as the first two
The parents were also impressed by the KR talk and I can see why. Regular school would never have thought of developing Connor's unicycle skill to the extent that this family has pushed it. So, it does illustrate a part of KRs thesis that non academic talents are not recognised by School to the extent that they should be.
I would argue, however, that Connor's natural kinesthenic talent, whilst undeniably, is not the key factor here. The key factor is mentoring. The parents saw an entrepeneurial opportunity and encouraged and facilitated Connor to put in the hard work to develop further in that direction.
I'll add some quotes from the genius article to further elaborate on the theme that the key factors are hard work and mentoring
99 percent Perspiration
...as the American inventor Thomas Edison said, genius is 99 per cent perspiration - or, to be truer to the data, perhaps 1 per cent inspiration, 29 per cent good instruction and encouragement, and 70 per cent perspiration.Five times the effort
Anders Ericsson:Practise, Pracise, more Practise
"These people don't necessarily have an especially high IQ, but they almost always have very supportive environments, and they almost always have important mentors. And the one thing they always have is this incredible investment of effort. ... it's a bit overwhelming to look at what these people have to do. They generally invest about five times as much time and effort to become great as an accomplished amateur does to become competent. It's not something everyone's up for."
So what does create genius or extreme talent? Musicians have an old joke about this: How do you get to Carnegie Hall from here? Practise.It took Mozart 10 years to develop what appears to be effortless natural ability
A sober look at any field shows that the top performers are rarely more gifted than the also-rans, but they almost invariably outwork them. This doesn't mean that some people aren't more athletic or smarter than others.
The elite are elite partly because they have some genetic gifts - for learning and hand-eye coordination, for instance - but the very best rise because they take great pains to maximise that gift.
This has led scholars of elite performance to speak of a 10-year rule: it seems you have to put in at least a decade of focused work to master something and bring greatness within reach... Mozart was playing the violin at 3 years of age and received expert, focused instruction from the start. He was precocious, writing symphonies at age 7, but he didn't produce the work that made him a giant until his teens.Supportive learning environment and mentoring is of crucial importance
Study so intense requires resources - time and space to work, teachers to mentor - and the subjects of Bloom's study, like most elite performers, almost invariably enjoyed plentiful support in their formative years.What it is that high ability performers learn? Answer: Pattern recognition of the important bits
Bloom, in fact, came to see great talent as less an individual trait than a creation of environment and encouragement. "We were looking for exceptional kids," he said, "and what we found were exceptional conditions."
He was intrigued to find that few of the study's subjects had shown special promise when they first took up the fields they later excelled in, and most harboured no early ambition for stellar achievement.
Rather, they were encouraged as children in a general way to explore and learn, then supported in more focused ways as they began to develop an area they particularly liked. ...
Finally, most retrospective studies, including Bloom's, have found that almost all high achievers were blessed with at least one crucial mentor as they neared maturity ...
When Subotnik looked at music students at New York's elite Juilliard School and winners of the high-school-level Westinghouse Science Talent Search, he found that the Juilliard students generally realised their potential more fully because they had one-on-one relationships with mentors who prepared them for the challenges they would face after their studies ended.
So what do elite performers attain through all that deliberate practice and sensitive mentoring? What makes a genius? The creme de la creme appear to develop several important cognitive skills.Importance of repetition, repetition, REPETITION ...
The first, called "chunking", is the ability to group details and concepts into easily remembered patterns.
Chess provides the classic illustration. Show a chess master a game in progress for just 5 seconds and they will memorise the board so well that they can recreate most of it - 20 pieces or more - an hour later. A novice will be able to place just four or five pieces.
Yet chess masters don't necessarily have a better memory than novices. Their clustering skills begin and end at the chessboard. Show a master and a novice a random list of 20 digits, and a few minutes later neither will be able to recall more than seven or eight of them in sequence.
In a chess game, by contrast, the master sees not the 20 pieces that confront the novice but clusters of pieces, each of which is familiar from experience.
Interestingly, the chess master will remember about as many clusters - four or five - as a novice will individual pieces. The better the master, the larger the clusters he'll remember.
We all exercise such clustering skills when we read. Learning to read means coming to recognise chunks of letters as words, then chunks of words as phrases and sentences, and - at a deeper level - sentences and paragraphs as components of a work's larger meaning.
This chunking puts individual words into logical, recallable contexts. As a result, we'll remember almost all of a logical 20-word sentence and only four to seven words from the same 20 words ordered randomly.
Apart from chunking, the elite also learn to identify quickly which bits of information in a changing situation to store in working memory so that they can use them later.
This lets them create a continually updated mental model far more complex than that used by someone less practised, allowing them to see subtler dynamics and deeper relationships.
Eric Kandel of Columbia University in New York, who won a Nobel prize in 2000 for discovering much of the neural basis of memory and learning, has shown that both the number and strength of the nerve connections associated with a memory or skill increase in proportion to how often and how emphatically the lesson is repeated.Previous:
So focused study and practice literally build the neural networks of expertise. Genetics may allow one person to build synapses faster than another, but either way the lesson must still be learned. Genius must be built.
Challenging Sir Ken Robinson
Design for the Creative Spirit
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