On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 3:45 PM, Andy Judkis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ajudkis@verizon.net">ajudkis@verizon.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
2) Talk about the history. Show them some really old computers. Talk about<br>
the Analytical Engine. Make sure they know what Moore's Law is.<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Yes, and make sure you include Ada and Grace Hopper. Computer science<br>
is about women, and men.<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div>
I definitely stress Ada's contributions -- I talk about her when we go over the analytical engine, and then come back to her when we do programming. Hopper, not so much -- obviously she was a very important contributor but I think a lot of girls would find her off-putting -- she kind of confirms some of the stereotypes that we're trying to get past. I'm not confident about this, it's just my gut feel, and I'd love to hear some other opinions.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>Sure, different teachers, different lore, different stories.<br><br>What I encourage though, is telling stories. Sounds like you do as well.<br><br>A diet of just technical information is too devoid of context and is what the neighboring math tracks most suffer from i.e. there's often almost no historical dimension, little sense of a time line.<br>
<br>When I gave a workshop at Pycon this year, with Steve Holden, I had this slide showing the two axes: technical, and lore. You have this curve, representing whatever finite bandwidth, and a kind of trade off. <br><br>
As teachers (and as communicators more generally) we slide around on this curve. Sometimes just being straight ahead technical is not the best approach.<br><br>Regarding Ada, I once wrote a spirited defense of her keeping the title of "first computer programmer". A cover story in the New Yorker magazine, with a spoofy caricature of her, proposed to take that away.<br>
<br>Regarding Hopper, I saw a video clip of her once, explaning a nanosecond as how long it took light to travel the length of her forearm. <br><br>She had a very reassuring and commanding presence I thought, probably goes with being a Rear Admiral or some such. <br>
<br>From what I've learned so far, I have nothing but admiration for her contributions and acheivements, but don't consider myself an expert. I'd like to learn more. <br><br>More lore!<br><br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I have a unit where I give each kid some computer-oriented person to learn about and report on to the class, and I try hard to find hip and/or unique personalities, or fascinating life stories. I've got about 20 that seem to fit the bill pretty well (Lynn Conway is probably the ultimate in fascinating biographies -- but I also give them John Perry Barlow, Jared Lanier, Alan Kay, Jack Tramiel, Nolan Bushnell, John Von Neumann. . . ), but would love suggestions for others, especially more women.<br>
</blockquote><div><br>You know a lot of cool stuff, probably explains why you get to teach these cool classes.<br><br>Twas my privilege to meet and hang out with Alan Kay over the course of a 2-3 day marathon meeting. People from many walks of life were huddled to think of a good way forward for South African educators -- we had some government representatives and full time teachers from that country among us as well (this was a meeting in London).<br>
<br>Alan is an impressive character, not someone I'd easily forget. The late Arthur Siegel and I used to trade views about him in this archive (Arthur being someone else who makes a lasting impression). Alan seemed clearly admiring of Python, also of Javascript. <br>
<br>Alan had something of an 'Idiocracy' perspective (know the movie I mean?) in that he saw too much backsliding and devolution. This made him uncomfortable. I can't say I'm not empathetic, but then maybe I'm one of the devolved. <br>
<br>I got to speak at London Knowledge Lab on my way to this meeting:<br><a href="http://bfi.org/bfi_community/pythonic_mathematics_talk_by_kirby_urner">http://bfi.org/bfi_community/pythonic_mathematics_talk_by_kirby_urner</a><br>
<br>Of course Alan connects to his Dynabook idea and more recently to One Laptop Per Child (the XO is like a Dynabook on some ways). Python and OLPC continue to have this close connection thanks to Sugar. I'm sure you know all this, just wanting to graph the scene. <br>
<br>Say, I'm amazed how OLPC didn't spread across the USA's back-of-the-cereal-box culture, or maybe it did and I missed it? Did anyone here ever see an XO on the back of a Cheerios box? <br><br>Industry talks to children through TV and cereal boxes (among other ways). Some cereal company needs to develop a geekier brand of breakfast cereal and sponsor a matching TV show. Marketing avatars could use this opportunity to show off how they're able to keep technical content girl-friendly, not make it all Johnny Neutron and boy-centric. <br>
<br>Hey, cereal companies! Want some help?<br><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I think the history of computers needs to come through AdaBabbage,<div class="im"><br>
then Turing and Bletchley Park. You need to explain about Enigma and<br>
all that, why there was suddenly such an impetus to make digital<br>
computers real, not just talk about them.<br>
</div></blockquote>
The best friendly treatment of all this that I've found is The Cartoon Guide to the Computer by Larry Gonick. Boy, would I like to see that updated and re-released.<div class="im"><br></div></blockquote><div><br>Encouraging students to draw their own cartoon guides would be another option, with examples to draw from.<br>
<br>The lore we choose might be themed to motivate specific technical studies.<br><br>For example, I tell the story of Hollerith machines, tabulators, keeping tabs, as a build-up to SQL in what I call Supermarket Math (you need SQL to run a contemporary supermarket). <br>
<br>However, this topic of collecting data about people, anonymous or not, gets us into that realm of worrying about what information is collected, fears and trepedations (which we don't dismiss or pooh pooh). When explaining "how things work", one needs to be prepared to delve into these issues of privacy, monitoring, Big Brother.<br>
<br>True story from the Python.org diversity list, which is all peace and quiet these days: we were talking about those check boxes Americans use to enquire about ethnicity and/or race. Should these be added to Pycon registration web forms, as a way to help measure diversity? <br>
<br>At least one of our European subscribers was very clear that such boxes would come across as offensive, even illegal in a European context. Asking about ethnicity, keeping tabs in that way, was a precursor to the holocaust, and that's never far below the surface in these kinds of discussions.<br>
<br>Yes, I'm getting into mature topics (sobering) and maybe we're not talking about middle school any more. My talk was actually more about "andragogy" than "pedagogy" i.e. teaching adults. As adults, we should consider the lore we teach to ourselves and one another.<br>
<br>Another story I tell is about the rise of Unicode based on the model of ASCII. The 7-bit map with a parity check, the extra 128 slots once you use all 8 bits. IBM code pages. And then Unicode. <br><br>Lots of stuff to show and tell about including showing examples of non-Latin-1 Python source code. The story both gives perspective, and it motivates a technical discussion about powers of two, about how each additional bit doubles the number of code points.<br>
<br>This is a happy story about people around the world agreeing to support all these human languages and bringing them forward in a digital age. After the workshop though, some attenders were keen to give me a more nuanced version. Each one of these stories goes to many levels and the classroom versions will necessarily be abbreviated.<br>
<br>A final example of a good story is what we already talked about: following the cryptography thread through that interesting chapter when public key first came out. Zimmermann's PGP, government efforts to squelch its export etc. <br>
<br><a href="http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/background/index.html">http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/background/index.html</a><br><br>Students enjoy visiting that page showing giant RSA composites still needing to be cracked, with big money prizes for those that crack them (this contest has been discontinued I notice). <br>
<br>Examples of already cracked numbers provide more grist for the mill.<br><br><a href="http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2092">http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2092</a> (RSA numbers)<br><a href="http://www.rsa.com/press_release.aspx?id=462">http://www.rsa.com/press_release.aspx?id=462</a> (cracking DES)<br>
<br>WIth this story as background, it's easier to motivate technical sessions working the giant (long) integers.<br><br>What story might motivate using the Decimal type to a large number of significant digits? <br><br>
I can think of one or two, but I'm curious what you or others might offer.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="im">
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
3) Show them some things about operating systems (the task manager, a DOS<br>
command window) and talk about viruses, worms, zombies, botnets, cyberwar. .<br>
. stuff like that<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Yes, offer practical advice about how to stay safe and play safe.<br>
Encourage high ethics.<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div>
Not just that, but it helps them understand stuff that's in the news. They start to notice more of what's going on.<div class="im"><br></div></blockquote><div><br>Exactly right!<br><br>Where's the TV show that does this on Saturday Morning?<br>
<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="im">
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
6) Have them do some simple web pages by writing HTML tags with a text<br>
editor.<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
Yes, excellent, and talk about CSS too. I love that web site we all<br>
know about probably, where you just reload the same HTML with skin<br>
after skin (defined separately in the CSS).<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div>
I guess you mean <a href="http://www.csszengarden.com" target="_blank">www.csszengarden.com</a>? I show that after introducing style sheets, and it blows their minds.<div class="im"><br></div></blockquote><div><br>Thank you! That's the one!<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="im">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
The How Things Work component is what's really important a lot of the<br>
time, and it's not just the personal computer on your desk that's<br>
important to comprehend. We need to explain about larger systems,<br>
institutions, in which computers play a role. This includes<br>
explaining about social networking software, not making kids simply<br>
guess or imagine what's going on behind the scenes.<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div>
Agreed. I think that familiarity with this stuff at some basic level is important for all citizens, not just future tech geeks.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>More Geek TV!<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Which kind of brings it back to Roberto's original post -- what should you teach in a middle school CS class? I wouldn't focus on formal programming at all -- at that age, I suspect that very few kids will find it compelling. I'd point to <a href="http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/ACMK12CSModel.html" target="_blank">http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/ACMK12CSModel.html</a> and also <a href="http://csunplugged.org/" target="_blank">http://csunplugged.org/</a> for more ideas.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br><font color="#888888">
Andy<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br>Right. Not so much formal programming. More creative play, dabbling, using Python as a calculator, interactively in the shell (as way smarter calculator in so many ways, especially when you add 3D plotting, turtle graphics, the ability to read and write files...).<br>
<br>Having students scan already tested source code (scaffolding) with a kindly tour guide teacher, is a very different exercise from sitting in front of a blank canvas and feeling under pressure to produce.<br><br>It's the difference between recognition (recog) and recollection (recall). The former is much easier and will usually precede writing code by oneself. <br>
<br>Likewise an infant spends a lot of time absorbing language in an immersive environment, listening to fluent speakers, before having to say a whole lot on her own.<br><br>CS Unplugged got favorable mention at our planning meeting on Aug 7 (which I'm sure I posted about, perhaps to excess on this list).<br>
<br>Here in Oregon, there're moves afoot to get some computery stuff to count towards fulfilling the minimum three year math requirement, meaning the course would not have that "elective" flavor. You'd take it to satisfy a 3rd year requirement for a hight school diploma, and heres a "digital math" class that will do that for ya. <br>
<br>Some schools are already doing pilots along these lines (we met at one that was doing it). There doesn't seem to be much push back. Seems more like a done deal (that's must my personal perspective -- don't know what I don't know).<br>
<br>Computer science teachers like the idea because now some of them get to teach a required course. <br><br>Math teachers like it because now they get to use cooler more motivating tools without losing "required track" status.<br>
<br>The students like it because working with computers is more fun than not. <br><br>The parents like it because the skills look very career relevant. <br><br>Industry likes it because the skills are indeed career relevant.<br>
<br>There's lots of agreement Python will play a starring role in all this (the Litvins text got waved around as exemplary -- not by me as my only copy was PDF), though at the level of standards, I don't know that a specific language actually needs to be specified.**<br>
<br>We're *not* talking about an AP (Advanced Placement) course here, where the course designers have a national test in mind, and so have to be specific as to language (traditionally Java these days, used to be C++ I'm pretty sure).<br>
<br>Anyway, a lot of us on edu-sig, such as Gregor in Vienna, are blissfully exempt from needing to care about AP, ETS and all that.<br><br>Kirby<br><br>-- <br>>>> from mars import math<br><a href="http://www.wikieducator.org/Digital_Math">http://www.wikieducator.org/Digital_Math</a><br>
<br>** <a href="http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=6933198&tstart=0">http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=6933198&tstart=0</a> (re standards and how "meaty" we might want them to be -- a somewhat contentious list, a front lines for "math wars" on some days).<br>
<br>