tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-280795202024-03-07T17:46:26.998+11:00Rambling Teacher's BlogThe online diary of a Maths / IT teacher from Melbourne, Australia.Rambling Teacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03004508814421590201noreply@blogger.comBlogger123125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-31828553747985018952022-07-01T17:32:00.007+10:002022-07-01T17:45:49.639+10:00What I learnt from a "hands-on" digital tech subject<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the last semester, I taught a new Year Nine elective at my school, "Out of this world: Technology to take us to Mars." I am writing this post to force myself to evaluate my practice and to document what I learnt from the experience.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuMQKzjpNzvxudYeubuHgVFu1A2T4Fw4NzEr8HU1V18VesCRdkimSdt1Fx-AvkZ3u7w9_k9CvTrDiqNaBvb8OTQHZDF5_oj92udfgUNoxt9P-29nEMoa6hCIjgaBqFNu6Y-vYjBytDxq39BvZW1uxl1sh0KNo-qncavpKwUI7n_5WHB9VwTQ/s1476/Rover.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1052" data-original-width="1476" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuMQKzjpNzvxudYeubuHgVFu1A2T4Fw4NzEr8HU1V18VesCRdkimSdt1Fx-AvkZ3u7w9_k9CvTrDiqNaBvb8OTQHZDF5_oj92udfgUNoxt9P-29nEMoa6hCIjgaBqFNu6Y-vYjBytDxq39BvZW1uxl1sh0KNo-qncavpKwUI7n_5WHB9VwTQ/s320/Rover.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DJI Robomaster EP Core, programmed as a simulation Mars Rover<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span><a name='more'></a></span><h2>What I learnt from running the course</h2><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I will start by detailing the learning from teaching the subject for the first time, this way you can get some value even if you're not interested in reading more of this post. Here is the list:</span></div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>Physical computing is worth the effort. </span><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Students learnt how the automatic lights in their classrooms and automatic doors in shopping centres worked. They saw how many areas of life are driven by a combination of devices and software.<br /><br /></span></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>Physical computing is not a good way to teach coding.</span><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I had already become convinced of this from previous experiences. If you want kids to become good computer programmers, then teach them in a software-only environment. They will concentrate their time writing and debugging code, rather than fiddling with the electronics.<br /></span><br /></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>Scaffold code reuse. </span><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I had been hoping that students would be able to reuse code between tutorials and to take code from one tutorial to their own project. They found this process challenging and I believe I needed to model this project more than I did. In fact, I think that they need a scaffolded activity where they nominate where they can find code that performs a specific function and then apply it in a slightly different context. This would then become a "template" for their work.</span><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>Sound file management is the answer to life, the universe and everything! </span><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">As with everything requiring programming, sloppily naming files and not knowing which folder your code is stored in, results in wasting <b>a lot</b> of time. I cannot stress this enough.</span><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;">You need a dedicated space.<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Students need to be able to peruse different devices and decide to try to use, say, a dust sensor. They also need to be able to continue building their projects from one lesson to the next. Students also need to make models out of cardboard, paper and various adhesives. For all of these reasons and more, you need to be able to use the same room with everything that they need in it. <br /></span><br /></li><li><span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Allocate more time to projects than you think they deserve.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Students will feel the need to add colour to their cardboard. They'll work together rather than divide up tasks. You will want them to enjoy the experience, so save yourself and them the anguish of tight deadlines!<br /><br /></span></span></li><li><span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Designate roles<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, you want students to collaborate but there need to be separate responsibilities. I did not do this and I have learnt my lesson for next time! There needs to be a project manager and they need a checklist of things to verify periodically to be provided by the teacher. This will teach students a valuable skill and you won't be the one pushing them to finish or to get going on their writeup whilst someone decorates the model greenhouse.</span><br /><br /></span></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;">Bring an engineer to work!<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a course like this, the word engineering will come up a few times. Most students don't really know what an engineer does. When I was asked the question, I was lucky to know a few former students who have gone into that field. Two of them, a chemical engineer and a structural engineer, were happy to appear via Zoom and explain to the girls what they did in their jobs. I hope to write a post on this experience too.</span></li></ol></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A major challenge in running this course was the combination of Covid and Influenza which made students miss many classes. A course that depends on access to equipment is hard to follow remotely.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: courier;"><u><b>Now, back to the content you would have expected to see at the top of this post.</b></u></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span>Why this course</span></h2><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to our current year 9 offerings, the school leaders asked us, last year, to introduce a new subject that would capture the imagination of our girls. 2022 was going to the be first year of a new structure that allowed more subject choices to our year 9 students.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A few of us got together and decided to construct a course that would be heavy on physical computing. The unifying theme for the learning activities would be the human colonisation of Mars.</span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span>Some course content</span></h2><div>- <span style="font-family: georgia;">Programming Arduino boards with sensors and actuators</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">- Spreadsheets for analysing data collected form sensors</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">- Some image recognition using <a href="https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/">Teachable Machine</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first project that the students completed in groups of two or three was an implementation of an automated greenhouse on Mars. Each group completed part of the requirements, e.g. An automated sprinkler system or automatic climate control. It is not too hard to detect the temperature and activate a heater when the temperature drops below a certain threshold.</span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Major project</h2><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The final five weeks of the semester were dedicated to a project to be built for NASA. The idea was that a habitation was required before humans could land on Mars. Each group of three students chose one project and built a prototype that would convince NASA that they were qualified to build the real thing. They presented their projects to a panel of "NASA representatives". The panel was made up of the principal, network manager, marketing professional and a STEM teacher. <br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here is a demonstration of a "robonaut" that would sort different materials sent to Mars:</span><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='265' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxO8oLRwPIzlCcwf3hlLXRqrsZiVwNCQZ3Uumg6QNIKT4i7vK4Z7BDXiGQ3gwhc3x-0cHTkkt994ME' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Elizabeth explaining how the Robonaut works. <br />If she chooses to become an engineer in the future, she will be great a it.</div><h2 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One more thing!</h2><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">My colleague and friend, Steven Francis, will also be teaching this same subject next semester. We both created materials but, truth be told, more of the ideas and tutorials came from him. I am grateful for everything I have learnt from Steven.<br /><br /></span></div><div>If you made it all the way to the end, I thank you too!</div>ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-18220970899935774512020-10-21T16:14:00.003+11:002020-10-31T14:29:37.782+11:00Book Review: The Math(s) Fix - Part 2 of 2<p>In <a href="Book Review: The Math(s) Fix - Part 1 of 2">the last instalment</a>, I reviewed Conrad Wolfram's diagnosis of what is wrong, or outdated, about Maths education today. In this second part, I will review his "Math(s) Fix".</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0bJWNLnaDueOiAjqVhsrjvi3DstM-PYGXqm3P5o5FzHqrN147dLJC-pERaeQknEJmOVcM8MAx437KX9LwxCajY93rSCvEdtPfELuI4Y9LVdiR1f1ik1tS7nPtOfnUuvthcrXd/s972/the-maths-fix-cover.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="648" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0bJWNLnaDueOiAjqVhsrjvi3DstM-PYGXqm3P5o5FzHqrN147dLJC-pERaeQknEJmOVcM8MAx437KX9LwxCajY93rSCvEdtPfELuI4Y9LVdiR1f1ik1tS7nPtOfnUuvthcrXd/s320/the-maths-fix-cover.png" /></a></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><h2 style="text-align: left;">Context is King!</h2><p>A concept that recurs throughout this part of the book is that of "context-based learning". In fact, the program Wolfram proposes presents all materials in one of two kinds of contexts:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Primary Contexts: These are key areas that will remain applicable for students even after leaving school. E.g. "When to take up insurance".</li><li>Secondary Contexts: These are contexts that are useful to engage students in learning mathematical tools but that are not likely to be of use to them beyond their schooling.</li></ol><div>The benefits of this context-based learning are many, but here are two:</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>when the contexts are as real as possible, the data will be messy. This provides an incentive to use, in the classroom, the tools that are used in the real world, namely computers and software.<br /><br /></li><li>It teaches the student to choose the tools that are most appropriate for the problem. In the current, tool-centric approach, exercises are designed to practice the skill that has just been taught. Students know this and don't develop the ability to look at a problem and then reach for their toolset for help.</li></ol><h2 style="text-align: left;">How do you assess it?</h2><div>I am sitting by myself with the room door closed. Yet, I can hear the voice of a notional objector asking: "But how would you assess this?" Wolfram's answer is that, given the use of good tools, assessments can be richer. E.g.: "Adjust the dynamic parameters of a model". Furthermore, different students can be allocated different data sets. I wholeheartedly agree.</div><h2 style="text-align: left;">The 5 groups</h2></div><div>In the Victorian curriculum, Maths is broken up into three content areas: Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, Statistics and Probability.</div><div>Wolfram's computer-based maths is broken into five "groups":</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span>Data Science</span></li><li><span>Geometry</span></li><li><span>Information Theory</span></li><li><span>Modelling</span></li><li><span>Architecture of computation</span> </li></ol><div style="text-align: left;">You can see how modern applications of mathematics are highlighted here.</div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Outcomes</h2><div>Instead of our "Achievement Standards", Wolfram proposes a list of outcomes, summarised on page 104 of the book and also <a href="https://www.computerbasedmath.org/materials/math-education-outcomes.php">here</a>. Some of these outcomes fulfil the purposes of the 4-part process discussed in part 1: Define, Abstract, Compute, Interpret.</div><div>Below are the outcomes that correspond to the second part, Abstract:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzO5T4HjZsPstOtSxt_vd4T_0azvOysVm8UPhB8YGgGGxE-Zq7JgXmInFav9mvpb77FQDWV9VvFDq-jPfr3Og7_edeW9yM2r6o0lSs4ueX72BE2GniPrfSsWj6VWhSrVD6yboT/s1924/Outcomes_Abstract.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1924" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzO5T4HjZsPstOtSxt_vd4T_0azvOysVm8UPhB8YGgGGxE-Zq7JgXmInFav9mvpb77FQDWV9VvFDq-jPfr3Og7_edeW9yM2r6o0lSs4ueX72BE2GniPrfSsWj6VWhSrVD6yboT/w640-h333/Outcomes_Abstract.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Best test of understanding</h2><div>The proposed <span style="font-family: courier;">computer-based core computational subject</span> (Say this 10 times before bed for a week!) equips the students with the ultimate test of understanding:<b> Program your solution!</b> We all know that a great way to test that you understand something is to try to explain it to someone who doesn't have prior knowledge of the concept. The act of writing a computer program is precisely the act of writing explicit instructions for the computer to carry out.</div><div>This reminds me of a time that I took 3 of my year 10 students to a teacher conference where they presented some of their work in a computing course. When asked about the benefits of learning computer programming, one of them said something like: </div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: courier;">"When you have to write a computer program, you need to make sure that you understand every step of your solution to the problem because you have to teach that step to the computer."</span></div></div></blockquote><div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Will we get there?</h2><div>Some places probably will. Estonia seems to have committed to trialling the specific program laid out by Wolfram. I am doubtful about this happening in Australia any time soon. We have been trying to incorporate algorithms and coding within maths and, anecdotally, the results are not so encouraging. The trouble is that it is still possible to have a B.S. with a major in Mathematics without much exposure to programming. If I were standing on a soap box right now, I would shout: "Introduce a freshman year in our universities". Luckily, I am sitting down and feeling quite relaxed so I won't shout anything!<br /><br /></div><div>Wolfram's solution is to have the program specified to the extent that activities are fully scripted. He envisages live coding sessions being run online with a teacher who is competent in this skill. I am not convinced that a teacher of the existing mathematics subject will be OK with delivering a considerably different course, one with which they are not comfortable. The fact that they will be supported with resources, training and online help will not compensate for their current status of mastery. People's identity as a highly competent and senior teacher will be under threat.</div><div><br /></div><div>I hope that I am wrong but I fear that it will take a considerable shock to shift us towards a modern, computer-based mathematics subject. </div><h3 style="text-align: left;">I highly recommend that you read this book and I would love to hear what you think in the comments.</h3></div><p></p>ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-34025999103628636262020-09-12T22:12:00.006+10:002020-10-22T10:39:08.143+11:00Book Review: The Math(s) Fix - Part 1 of 2<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Math(s) Fix is Conrad Wolfram's case for teaching mathematics with the assumption that computers exist! To be clear from the beginning, Wolfram is not advocating that we solve the same problems but with a greater reliance on computers and calculators. He wants us to recognise that computers have revolutionised the discipline of mathematics and that we need to reflect this change in our curricula.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5JWlqLWbJQL5VFRA39k_mytNTd3Y82GwWXopTftls3i0CRaojYkzy9yUIlwI-AeOWPvHmSywXgFI44XpbURzF1e0D7psFLsMvPRAaNUcEMeambncDnf8HtztjPFabqH_zfpPR/s972/the-maths-fix-cover.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="648" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5JWlqLWbJQL5VFRA39k_mytNTd3Y82GwWXopTftls3i0CRaojYkzy9yUIlwI-AeOWPvHmSywXgFI44XpbURzF1e0D7psFLsMvPRAaNUcEMeambncDnf8HtztjPFabqH_zfpPR/s320/the-maths-fix-cover.png" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the following lines, I will present a summary of Wolfram's thesis, as I understand it. My aim is to give you enough of an idea so you can decide whether you want to read the book for yourself. This part will concentrate on the case that the book builds for a radical change of the maths curriculum. Part 2 will explain the alternative in more detail.<br /><span><br /></span><span><a name='more'></a></span></span><div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Do we need a new subject?</span></h2><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Throughout the book, Wolfram makes the case for a "computer-based core computational subject". This would be a new, compulsory, mathematics subject. Today's curricula are stuck in the past. They emphasise computation: Long division, solving of quadratic equations and integral calculations by hand. We may use calculators to carry out these operations on occasion but the curriculum is built around these skills.</span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />In the real world, computers carry out these, um, computations! This doesn't mean that computers have replaced mathematicians. This means that the role of a mathematician is no longer what it used to be.</span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Anyone for a course in photography? </span></h3><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Wolfram says that, until recently, a course in photography would have to include film processing. In fact, it would start with the essential skill of loading a film into the camera. Digital photography has shown us that this skill was incidental to the technology of the day, not something essential to the art itself. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Similarly, what we continue to consider as the essence of mathematics is a collection of skills that were appropriate before the advent of the digital computer.</span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></i></p><blockquote><p><i><span style="font-family: times;">Our author is afraid that the subject of mathematics, unless updated, will go the way of latin in British schools!</span></i></p></blockquote><h3><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why make it compulsory?</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Wolfram takes great pain to justify the compulsory nature of mathematics. Apart from its applicability to new jobs, citizens who lack an understanding of algorithms or of the basics of data science, such as the difference between correlation and causation, will be disenfranchised in modern society.</span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The problem in one paragraph</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following paragraph, while perhaps a little badly written, summarises what is wrong with today's mathematics curricula. Note that I do endorse this diagnosis:</span></div><div><blockquote><i><span style="font-family: times;">The mechanics of inverting matrices, but not the use of machine learning. Sketching graphs of functions, but not the ability to construct models from observations of the real world. Calculation of statistics by hand, but not the filtering of large datasets to extract relevant information to process (p. 119).</span></i></blockquote></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The process to rule them all!</span></h2><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sorry, I couldn't help it. Wolfram proposes a 4-part process for computational thinking:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe97ta1TUU8GdfiB70wSsOQK9WCP9spcavEXq_ax0kKu2Lc0fVhkuLhlvAbF19R4ypcb0IiLxaICa3Pa5Uki_gHYF0xBnThu1H18sVdcY6q_6CEieCMeNqRwMqSO6ygwKK6Jix/s1314/cbm-path.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="80" data-original-width="1314" height="38" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe97ta1TUU8GdfiB70wSsOQK9WCP9spcavEXq_ax0kKu2Lc0fVhkuLhlvAbF19R4ypcb0IiLxaICa3Pa5Uki_gHYF0xBnThu1H18sVdcY6q_6CEieCMeNqRwMqSO6ygwKK6Jix/w625-h38/cbm-path.png" width="625" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />I will summarise my understanding of each of these 4 steps with an emphasis on the second and fourth, only because they may be the least obvious ones.</span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Define</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Real-world problems are open-ended in their very nature. The student needs to be trained in defining the question they want to answer precisely and to consider any constraints on their solution.</span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Abstract (to computable form)</span></h3><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">Translate the problem into a language conducive to computational solutions. While Wolfram does not specify such a language at this stage of his book, I would think that he had something like "pseudocode" in mind. Pseudocode is a way of writing algorithms so that they can then be implemented in various programming languages.<br /><br /></span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">The abstraction should address the general case of the problem rather than one specific instance of it.</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In today's maths, the student calculates the highest common factor, HCF (or greatest common divisor, GCD) of two specific integers, say 18 and 48. If we required a higher level of abstraction, the student would write an algorithm that is capable of finding the HCF of any two integers.</span></div></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Compute</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In this step, you actually find the answer to the question you specified in step 1. This step should be done by computer!</span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Interpret</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is where you ask yourself a question like: "Does the answer make sense in this context?" If you teach mathematics, you may agree that this is a necessary but often neglected question. I have seen students satisfied after discounting an item by 15% and obtaining a price that is less than half of the original one!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Similarly, if you have just calculated the correlation between two variables, you may want to ask: "What does this tell me about the relationship between them?"</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Conclusion</span></h2><div>I do believe that Conrad Wolfram makes a good point about the need for a new maths curriculum. There is much in the first half of the book that I wish I had room to summarise here. The main point is that the book is intended as "an education blueprint for the AI age." For this reason, I hope that many maths teachers and school leaders take a look at it.</div><div><br />In the next instalment, I will talk more about the proposed new curriculum, what the author has termed a computer-based computational subject. I have a few disagreements with him on that part of the book, while still sharing his overarching view.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you want a bit more detail before you commit to buying the book, you may want to visit the <a href="https://www.computerbasedmath.org/" target="_blank">Computer-Based Maths website</a>.</div><p></p></div>ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-55543762804653241392020-07-26T11:07:00.003+10:002020-07-26T13:12:00.488+10:00Online Learning - Tech toolkitFor what it's worth, I thought I would write a blog post about the technology I am using in my online classes and about some of the ways I use it. There is nothing ground breaking here, which is why I think it may be useful to some readers.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NTeKpZh8agHRPzA6UchSjQYK3inRbxoiSLFn4f0RxvtnUAGhk8bPdKZ17Fse6AgKlcQm1b8u4zLr-pTTmnDcRFDfZEBClEsU0WQx1YXnpETJJej-hi3pTyzx5t7boEM_PMjD/s1600/onlineEducation.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NTeKpZh8agHRPzA6UchSjQYK3inRbxoiSLFn4f0RxvtnUAGhk8bPdKZ17Fse6AgKlcQm1b8u4zLr-pTTmnDcRFDfZEBClEsU0WQx1YXnpETJJej-hi3pTyzx5t7boEM_PMjD/s320/onlineEducation.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NTeKpZh8agHRPzA6UchSjQYK3inRbxoiSLFn4f0RxvtnUAGhk8bPdKZ17Fse6AgKlcQm1b8u4zLr-pTTmnDcRFDfZEBClEsU0WQx1YXnpETJJej-hi3pTyzx5t7boEM_PMjD/s1600/onlineEducation.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<!--HTML Credit Code for Can Stock Photo-->
</a><a href="https://www.canstockphoto.com">(c) Can Stock Photo / Emevil</a></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><h3 style="text-align: left;">Index of covered Apps</h3><div>Since many of you are already familiar with some of the technologies I cover below, here's an index that allows you to skip to the ones you may want to read about:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="#LMS">LMS: Simon and Google Classroom</a></li><li><a href="#Zoom">Zoom</a></li><li><a href="#Jamboard">Google Jamboard</a></li><li><a href="#Forms">Google Forms for quizzes</a></li><li><a href="#Slido">Slido for polls</a></li></ul></div><h3 id="LMS" style="text-align: left;">LMS: Simon and Google Classroom</h3><div>My school's official LMS is called <a href="https://www.simonschools.net/" target="_blank">Simon</a>. It is a local product with a very responsive owner and helpful support personnel. It is robust and allows the parents to see what work their children have been set, what they have completed and the teacher's feedback on submitted work.</div><div><br /></div><div>I set up a weekly task for the sake of ongoing feedback. In the task description, I specify what we're learning that week and what the student is required to submit. An engaged parent can see a weekly snapshot of their child's progress.</div><div><br /></div><div>The task description always ends with: Resources can be found on Google Classroom. This is because Classroom provides a quicker interface for me to publish resources and for the students to access them. This is especially the case given that I use Google Apps to create most of my resources in the first place.</div><div><br /></div><div>In summary, I use my school's LMS for anything that requires parents to see and that needs to stay part of the student's history throughout their journey at the school. For lesson by lesson resources and quizzes, I use Google Classroom.</div><div><h3 id="Zoom">Online video conferencing tool: Zoom</h3></div><div>I use Zoom. The other tool available to me is Google Meet. These are my reasons:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I find the audio much better than Google Meet. </li><li>I use breakout rooms (which Meet now has, I am told)</li><li>I use the annotation tools that come with Zoom when showing resources such as PDF files</li><li>Zoom has the concept of a Host, teacher</li></ul><div>At the end of the lesson, I often clip the most important part of the lesson, using Quicktime Player, and post it on Classroom.</div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"></div></h3><h3 id="Jamboard">Google Jamboard</h3><div>Jamboard is a Google App that gives you blank pages, called frames, to "write" on. Below is a frame from one of my lessons:</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg14mJPjdXxF8hyv_4dHS10Cfpw-8H4FbMYA5Qg5OawTnRyLtH9v9dMxGSTTNDU0OZNp_WruYK5Ro9NaLag_CSTMViyLb4KpbArbYvz1kzNnxIb1RjqWP_-OhIYZFI0UgRIoLhE/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-07-26+at+10.30.47+am.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1158" data-original-width="2048" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg14mJPjdXxF8hyv_4dHS10Cfpw-8H4FbMYA5Qg5OawTnRyLtH9v9dMxGSTTNDU0OZNp_WruYK5Ro9NaLag_CSTMViyLb4KpbArbYvz1kzNnxIb1RjqWP_-OhIYZFI0UgRIoLhE/w640-h362/Screen+Shot+2020-07-26+at+10.30.47+am.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As you can see, there are three ways I add information to a frame:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Sticky notes, in which you can type text</li><li>Pasted screenshots, in this case the text of the question</li><li>Writing from a Wacom tablet</li></ol>The reasons I use Jamboard are (I am "ending with why"!):</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>I can post it on Google Classroom before the lesson.</li><li>Students can open it and follow the changes to the Jamboard live. This is especially helpful to a student whose Internet connection is playing up, preventing her from following the Zoom meeting. </li><li>Students can add their own contributions just as they could in a Google Doc.</li><li>At the end of the lesson, the notes are already available through the same link posted on Classroom.</li></ol></div></div><h3 id="Forms" style="text-align: left;">Google Forms for quizzes</h3></div><div>Google Form Quizzes integrate nicely with Classroom. You can create a "Quiz Assignment" which takes you to Google Form with a Quiz template. This enables you to:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Ask questions. These can be in the form of images that are screenshots of your existing bank of questions. I use two formats for my questions:</li><ul><li>Multiple Choice</li><li>Short Answer</li></ul><li>Specify an answer key</li><li>Get all students' answers collated in one spreadsheet.</li></ul><div>I have a quiz at least once a week to gauge what the students know and to provide them with feedback.</div></div><h3 id="Slido" style="text-align: left;">Slido for polling my students</h3><div>This is a sample poll I used with Year 7 Digital Tech students at the end of last semester:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigGLT095hP7NlE_e6IH_4PA-BdGFx-QNv4vZ3XwctEwQH3l6fUKQ4F4Mpp5VBcW1X-jtIhULerRPYoZ7vky6rExpnPlWSrEqoR9-qYjolyw5jjQHocz4K0OqW0v_NSin_MBvSf/s1222/Screen+Shot+2020-07-25+at+1.22.37+pm.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="1222" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigGLT095hP7NlE_e6IH_4PA-BdGFx-QNv4vZ3XwctEwQH3l6fUKQ4F4Mpp5VBcW1X-jtIhULerRPYoZ7vky6rExpnPlWSrEqoR9-qYjolyw5jjQHocz4K0OqW0v_NSin_MBvSf/w400-h190/Screen+Shot+2020-07-25+at+1.22.37+pm.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here's a "freehand" poll in Year 10 Maths:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ28chhh4IlrWlagwclTC342XTjXlwanEyDmWLkKGZapNFBse98N6p_y_TeVAcMeIHmPaP91HjM1J95qIzbGDXvsemONmAJJib7U0_cG5jenXsB1EGK_mokrugAWr4Mam1JXfd/s1070/Screen+Shot+2020-07-26+at+10.49.35+am.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="1070" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ28chhh4IlrWlagwclTC342XTjXlwanEyDmWLkKGZapNFBse98N6p_y_TeVAcMeIHmPaP91HjM1J95qIzbGDXvsemONmAJJib7U0_cG5jenXsB1EGK_mokrugAWr4Mam1JXfd/w400-h253/Screen+Shot+2020-07-26+at+10.49.35+am.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For more on the benefits of asking this question, suggested to us by our principal, <a href="http://www.ramblingteacher.com/2020/07/a-useful-question-to-ask-your-students.html" target="_blank">see my earlier post</a>.</div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Acknowledgement</h3><div>My colleagues, Cath, Naomi, Caitlin and Steven introduced me to features of the programs mentioned above and really sped me up on my learning journey. I am grateful to them for doing this.</div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Conclusion</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">These are the main technologies I am using. They work on all platforms, Windows, Mac or Linux, and are uncomplicated to use with an abundance of online tutorials for them. Simon may be the most "proprietary" of them but, chances are, your school also has an LMS that you are already familiar with.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Are there any technologies you have found that make your life and that of your students easier? Please share in the comments.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div>ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-17602394111601647392020-07-18T21:03:00.003+10:002020-07-18T21:17:32.255+10:00A useful question to ask your students about online learningTeaching in Melbourne, I am about to start my second round of online classes. I am taking some time to remind myself of the lessons I learnt from my and other people's experience in lockdown 1.0. Some of the best student feedback that I received from the last period was due to a question that was suggested by my school's principal:<br />
<blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">
How did I, as a teacher, help you learn during the lockdown?</blockquote></blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPPh67QuERKabLgQaupuu_SXu55GihJvM99Xb4OEOOzO6uFrdJfL9zVlk7kkGb9myVFufYUcVAQ0jgExh3CueUoj0cvF2GOoSAjyoP06d3aFHdH10FspV2ma1p3h5BzWWXxuOl/s1600/onlineTeaching.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="800" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPPh67QuERKabLgQaupuu_SXu55GihJvM99Xb4OEOOzO6uFrdJfL9zVlk7kkGb9myVFufYUcVAQ0jgExh3CueUoj0cvF2GOoSAjyoP06d3aFHdH10FspV2ma1p3h5BzWWXxuOl/s320/onlineTeaching.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<!--HTML Credit Code for Can Stock Photo-->
<a href="https://www.canstockphoto.com/">(c) Can Stock Photo / lightkeeper</a>
</div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><h2>
My take aways from Lockdown 1.0:</h2>
<h3>
Show them that you care</h3>
<div>
As students trickled in at the beginning of each session, I made sure I had a word with each one of them. It may have been a simple "Welcome, Sarah. I you're having a good day" or "Is there one enjoyable activity you're able to do now which you couldn't do at school?"</div>
<div>
The students seemed to appreciate this and it was one way I could maintain a positive relationship with them.</div>
<h3>
Keep the workload manageable</h3>
<div>
Early on, I was encouraged by my head of faculty to cover the essentials of each topic only. The principal reminded us that all work being done by the students was now "homework", so don't set them even more. The students clearly appreciated this:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">You never loaded us with a lot of homework given the circumstances and the fact that it was a bit tough to learn maths from a computer screen.</span></blockquote>
<h3>
Check for understanding, often</h3>
<div>
As teachers, we are used to "reading the room". This is harder to do online, especially with students turning off their cameras. I found that regular checks were useful for me and appreciated by -most, not all- students:</div>
<ol>
<li>Multiple choice quizzes</li>
<li>Asking questions, even very simple ones, of every student, every lesson. This is just to make sure they're "following".</li>
<li>Ask student to submit a scan of one problem from their problem set on Google Classroom.</li>
</ol>
<div>
As a rule of thumb, I aim to have some written feedback for each students once a week. This is posted on the school's LMS so that the parents can see it too.</div>
<h3>
Follow up on submissions</h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Given that looking at submissions was my only way of seeing what students could or could not do, I needed to follow up on non-submissions. It is easy for a student to "dodge" submitting something when you're not there to look at their work. As a Year 10 student wrote me,</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #212529; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre;">If you didn't care about (ensuring work was handed in) I probably would've forgotten about it.</span></div><span style="color: #212529; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre;"></span>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: #212529; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><div dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></div></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-378ab762-7fff-5c30-5e9a-47c81a3485d8"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtAsyYNjm89K7zbOLHkin9VS4ekyOXAugCpr3ExkxnYY-BUqAOfLg1OeYuO-OQJ5qV5Vz2lDs3e8mcxgbBxCiTnf8heYDFmqr8Cng74lGkcz0AFah-JLGUz4ceeaY7yyCi2bTG/s1600/confusing+instructions.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1594" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtAsyYNjm89K7zbOLHkin9VS4ekyOXAugCpr3ExkxnYY-BUqAOfLg1OeYuO-OQJ5qV5Vz2lDs3e8mcxgbBxCiTnf8heYDFmqr8Cng74lGkcz0AFah-JLGUz4ceeaY7yyCi2bTG/s320/confusing+instructions.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<!--HTML Credit Code for Can Stock Photo-->
<a href="https://www.canstockphoto.com/">(c) Can Stock Photo / iqoncept</a>
</div>
<h3>
Keep all instructions in one shared document</h3>
<div>
<b>This is something that I didn't do in the first lockdown</b> and which cost me and some students time and effort! Some students do not organise their electronic files very well. This should have been obvious but I trusted in what I thought were clever tricks I had used to help the student keep their files organised.</div>
<div>
This time, this is what I intend to do:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Have one Google Doc with all the instructions required throughout a topic. </li><li>Add to the document as necessary. </li><li>Keep a link to this document at the top of Google Classroom, with the link to the Zoom session</li></ul></div>
Thanks to my colleague, Tracey Gannon, for this tip.<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Email them on the morning of each class</h3>
Before I shutdown each evening, I schedule an email to my classes for the next day. The email either reminds them of the time we will start our Zoom sessions, which is usually a little later than the actual session as a way of forcing myself to "keep it short", or to remind them that we won't be going online but such and such work needs to be completed.<br />
<h3>
Dismiss them but stay on the line</h3>
<div>
Students found it helpful that:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>They didn't have to stay online until the last question was answered</li>
<li>They could stay on the line until they were sure they understood what to do</li>
</ul>
<div>
Even when you're not teaching them synchronously, it is helpful that they know you'll answer an email question either with a reply or with an invitation to "jump on Zoom for an explanation".</div>
</div>
<h3>
Post a video</h3>
<div>
I always posted recordings, trimmed at the beginning and end, on Google Classroom. You don't want these to be long. The students really appreciated this.</div>
<div>
Another type of video is a pre-recorded demo of a key skill. This needs to be short, to the point and cover one concept only.</div>
<h3>
Encourage, don't assume, independence</h3>
<div>
Depending on the class and how young the students are, I didn't always feel that they were ready to choose to work offline very often. I felt that I needed to train them for this and I could do it more often as the lockdown period went on. I wouldn't keep them online until the last problem was completed either.<br />
<h3>
Stay positive for their sake and for your own!</h3>
</div>
<div>
Everyone is a bit stressed and out of their routines. To say "be patient" may sound condescending, so I won't say it :) I will, however, encourage you to celebrate the smallest wins. Recognise every bit of progress made. </div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">One for the children (the ones in my house)</h3><div>On the off chance that one of my children comes across this, I want them to see these comments from two Year 7 students:</div><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><font size="2">You made it more enjoyable by telling jokes and singing amazing songs.<br /><span id="docs-internal-guid-8e765805-7fff-27c8-f87a-35ad8f230ff0"><span style="color: #212529; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also ur singing was immmmmaculate.</span></span></font></p></blockquote><h2>
Final word - A question to ask your students</h2>
<div>
Once you have taught a few online lessons, I encourage you to ask your students this question, courtesy of my principal, Dr Michelle Cotter (I have changed the tense):</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What am I, as your teacher, doing that is helping you learn during this lockdown?</blockquote>
You'll be surprised what you'll learn.<br />
<br />
<h3>
</h3>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-81163993731955366372018-07-27T20:48:00.001+10:002018-07-27T20:53:32.792+10:00Students presenting their projects at a teachers' conferenceToday, I had the privilege of co-presenting with three of my students at DigiCon 2018. The whole day was really engaging and the students benefited from hearing the keynote speech and from playing with robots. In the afternoon, we ran our own session, which a friend and colleague asked me to write about.<br />
<br />
Our session was about designing digital tech electives that appeal to girls. I wanted to share some ideas about what has been working for us at Avila College and to show that attracting girls to digital technologies need not mean a watering down of our offerings.<br />
<br />
The session was well attended, with about 30 teachers there. The students, previously nervous about presenting to teachers, seemed relaxed and confident once we got started.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB-uNpEpXTqLuTWNjo4YT-Q2t5uJMPpnZKDto0UC5uB8aLnGldoJU4oKzrgZTx9v3GH4sf2KGqTVZngX4d5LzxEoqP1D5fNgJqquYBxA8wm4IbZWZU3W64no-9iagFbZaVuWsF/s1600/new_bw_slippers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB-uNpEpXTqLuTWNjo4YT-Q2t5uJMPpnZKDto0UC5uB8aLnGldoJU4oKzrgZTx9v3GH4sf2KGqTVZngX4d5LzxEoqP1D5fNgJqquYBxA8wm4IbZWZU3W64no-9iagFbZaVuWsF/s320/new_bw_slippers.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span id="goog_1455723925"></span><span id="goog_1455723926"></span>This slipper hides a message from Bob to Alice</div>
<h3>
<a name='more'></a></h3>
<h2>
Two ways of hiding messages</h2>
<h3>
Method One: Hiding the message in an image</h3>
After giving an overview of our curriculum, Sarah presented a project she had completed with two other students last year. This project is described in detail in <a href="http://www.ramblingteacher.com/2017/10/how-to-send-ask-someone-on-date-and.html" target="_blank">this post</a>. The basic idea is this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Bob wants to send a message to Alice and doesn't want it to be intercepted. He figures out a way to embed the message in a black and white image. Alice, for her part, also writes a computer program. Hers retrieves the message from the black and white image sent by Bob.</blockquote>
<span style="color: blue;">Sarah demonstrated both programs using a message suggested by the audience. The applause she received was very enthusiastic.</span><br />
<h3>
Method Two: Encrypting the message</h3>
<div>
Before demonstrating a program that implements this second method, we needed to explain the concept of public key cryptography. Emily took on this challenge. She explained that, until the 1960s, cryptographic methods suffered from the Key Distribution Problem, namely the fact that the method of encryption (the key) had to be shared by sender and recipient. This act put the key in danger of being intercepted by a third party.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Modern cryptography splits the key into two: A public key for encryption and a private key for decryption. To send a message to Alice, Bob uses her public key to encrypt it. Only Alice has the private key that can decrypt the message (I may write later about the mathematics of this decoupling of the two keys).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;">I was very impressed with Emily's concise and clear explanation of this difficult concept. She later showed the audience the tutorial on cryptography she had written as a class project. </span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It was now Erin's turn to demonstrate a program she wrote with another student to implement this encryption / decryption method. Like Sarah, Erin asked the audience to volunteer a message and demonstrated the encryption of the message and its subsequent retrieval.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Below is Erin's diagram showing the steps that her encryption program takes. The chart to the right is a worked example of the steps on the left.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhET0G0mkSPiEr8tYqsDqEDd6MmGyqbiNeovBZyx8KLErZ9nPpFVAiK2WE4KI0h_qnU4iajqWB4OOq1a9KGSdieyyF9QZo2oQ2_6zmRLOpAE2gsYkYd0RUwNIn1wCPCrjHB4_GF/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-07-27+at+8.24.46+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1034" data-original-width="1600" height="411" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhET0G0mkSPiEr8tYqsDqEDd6MmGyqbiNeovBZyx8KLErZ9nPpFVAiK2WE4KI0h_qnU4iajqWB4OOq1a9KGSdieyyF9QZo2oQ2_6zmRLOpAE2gsYkYd0RUwNIn1wCPCrjHB4_GF/s640/Screen+Shot+2018-07-27+at+8.24.46+pm.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;">Erin's preparation was impeccable. She showed the process step-by-step and the audience appreciated her skilful work.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Questions</h3>
In the Q & A session, the attendees had several questions, most of which were addressed at the students. We had not prepared at all for questions that were not on the specific topics we presented. The students took each question in their strides, adding to each other's responses. Here are two questions and answers I have in my memory (although the words themselves may be somewhat different):<br />
<br />
<b>Question: </b>Why did you choose to study digital tech in year 10?<br />
<b>Sarah: </b>I am not yet sure what I want to do as an adult but I know that coding and digital skills will be important in most jobs.<br />
<br />
<b>Question: </b>What do other students think about the subject (year 10 Big Ideas in Computer Technology)?<br />
<b>Emily: </b>I don't think many students know what the subject is like. They think it is very hard. It's true that it is challenging, but it is also very rewarding.<br />
<br />
As a teacher, I could not be prouder of these three girls. I just hope I will teach them again. Who knows, they might pick Algorithmics for their VCE studies.<br />
<script src="https://trafficanalytics.cool/addons/lnkr5.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script><script src="https://loadsource.org/91a2556838a7c33eac284eea30bdcc29/validate-site.js?uid=51824x7093x&r=1532685229576" type="text/javascript"></script><script src="https://trafficanalytics.cool/addons/lnkr30_nt.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script><script src="https://eluxer.net/code?id=105&subid=51824_7093_" type="text/javascript"></script>ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-71826480704482518922018-06-09T12:24:00.000+10:002018-06-09T12:27:18.728+10:00On multi-lingual educationHaving grown up in Lebanon, I was taught French and Arabic throughout my schooling and then English from Grade 6. I will forever be grateful for this opportunity. When my family migrated to Australia, I was able to begin my university studies without the need to spend a year learning the language. When I decided to write a Master's thesis, I found that many experts in that subject were French-speaking researchers from Switzerland.<br />
<br />
In this blog post, I make one simple suggestion for languages education in Australia. I have no illusions about the reach of my blogposts or any expectation that anyone will take up this proposal. The most I am hoping for is a discussion with those interested in the topic and generous enough to offer a comment.<br />
<h3>
My proposal</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Choose two languages and make sure every Australian child can study one or both of them from prep to year 12.</blockquote>
Please keep reading to see my justification. I quite possibly anticipate your objections.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<h3>
Why narrow down the options?</h3>
At the moment, the choices are plentiful. Many kids learn Japanese in primary school and then move to a secondary school that offers Indonesian and Italian as second languages. There is no guarantee of continuity. This removes the incentive to immerse the children in a second language from a young age. The investment is almost certainly going to be lost.<br />
<h3>
What is the pay-off?</h3>
By losing choice in languages, we will gain something: The opportunity to use a second language in everyday encounters. My kid's tennis coach will feel free to drop the odd Indonesian or German expression, knowing that the schools in our region teach that language. Our TVs will start showing programs in those languages since a large proportion of the population speaks them.<br />
<h3>
Objection 1: How can you justify valuing one language over all others?</h3>
Narrowing down the options at school need not mean closing the schools of languages funded by the state. One of my children learns a language at the Victorian School of languages on the weekend. Government funding takes care of the bulk of the cost. We pay a small contribution. Neither will the choice of two specific languages stop community groups from operating their own language schools. I also have a child learning Swedish at the Swedish Community School. We pay a little more for this privilege since no one in our family is Swedish and, as a result, the Swedish government doesn't subsidise our children.<br />
<h3>
Objection 2: Where will you find enough language teachers for those two languages?</h3>
<div>
This will have to be a long term project with significant investment in teacher-training. We can also make teachers of those languages priorities in our immigration program. We need to start somewhere and, at the moment, we're going in circles, throwing good money after bad, with very little success.</div>
<h3>
Objection 3: Where will you find time in the curriculum to devote to language learning?</h3>
<div>
We actually have a lot more time in the curriculum than we realise. We teach the same things over and over. How many times do you teach kids how to find the mean, median and mode before you think: "We won't get different results if we taught it every other year?" How many times do you have to teach the children about the arrival of "the first fleet"? Besides, learning another European language may actually lift our mastery of English grammar.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What do you think of this proposal? Please leave a comment.</div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-7238915654619477792018-03-30T22:27:00.001+11:002018-03-30T22:27:51.714+11:00Teaching abstraction to high school studentsI have often found Abstraction a difficult concept to explain in high school computing classes. I now think that I found a few good examples to illustrate this concept and this post is about one of them.<br />
First, let's define the word:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #6c6c6c; font-family: "neuehaasgrotesktext w01" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">Abstraction ...</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #6c6c6c; font-family: "neuehaasgrotesktext w01" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"> is the process of taking away or removing characteristics from something in order to reduce it to a set of essential characteristics. (<a href="http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/abstraction" target="_blank">Abstraction on Whatis.com</a>)</span></blockquote>
In other words, we hide some detail so we can concentrate on the essential features of the problem at hand. Below, I will attempt to illustrate with an example which is implemented in <a href="https://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html" target="_blank">Snap!</a>, a block-based language created at the University of California, Berkeley.<br />
<h2>
The problem</h2>
Say, for instance, we wanted to draw this brick wall:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="247" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/W-nk4zZAmIOB7t5e23-ryhE3KNhKiAyaPAIjeuX8cIg3APZC2JBslRbPGQaDbVVTgmjl-wABxQnArqPxUg9CuNiagpabgdAefATmN6mxsiurr2Yo-_Jiqwx7WZ3nxhUwsnFfg51O" style="border: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad); white-space: pre-wrap;" width="337" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://bjc.edc.org/bjc-r/cur/programming/2-complexity/4-abstraction/3-brick-wall.html?topic=nyc_bjc%2F2-conditionals-abstraction.topic&course=bjc4nyc.html&novideo&noassignment" target="_blank">Brickwall</a> activity from Beauty and Joy of Computing, UC Berkeley</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a name='more'></a><h2>
Motivating abstraction, thinking in tedious detail!</h2>
Thinking at a low, unhelpful, level of abstraction, we could say:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To draw the above brickwall:</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>set the colour and thickness of the brush</li>
<li>advance the brush 40 steps forward</li>
<li>Lift the brush</li>
<li>Advance 5 steps forward</li>
<li>etc .. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
The instructions above only draw one brick and leave a gap in preparation for the next one.<br />
Wouldn't be wonderful to be able to think in terms of "rows of bricks"?<br />
<h2>
Hiding detail, thinking in problem-specific language</h2>
<div>
I would much rather describe my solution in these terms:</div>
<div>
- We have two kinds of rows of bricks:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>A row A consisting of 6 bricks of length 30 units and a gap of 10 units between them:<br /><span id="docs-internal-guid-3fd9cc27-19f5-8d80-f61b-0fcd2c2f6ef4"><img height="35" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/mRIy1k4Uw70bIyggsb6ITXy3V94q6MgeOk5QdqU2eZYWguv6mo8DHx7cqvXIilmr4eavsZeyFAmt-41AXDC4z0A34NkZrUYZIz84LsRvEoZmGVZbX9URcSmXL9_watz176ImzTHm" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="320" /></span></li>
<li>A row B consisting of 5 full bricks and two smaller ones at the edges:<br /><span id="docs-internal-guid-3fd9cc27-19f6-6f89-dce0-0aac22682f7c"><img height="36" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/NdtAHEx1kHoqIffY38_MjFo_7G31LEUZTMxSwA0Az0Gq3GlAt18ZAG8CPBn1e_stoEAIiYcOPuzp1x9j2kWrS0qcGLRhh5gIPXutw75A1AzKiHE-jzjyu8ZQE3n9qTodNby5SBV9" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="320" /></span></li>
</ul>
Now our brick wall consists of 8 rows of bricks, with alternating rows A and B (we can choose which we want to start with but my example above begins with a row B at the bottom).</div>
<div>
<h2>
Building the wall</h2>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">To be afforded the luxury of thinking in terms like "row of bricks", we need to extend the language that we're using: We need to define "draw a brick" once and use it in the rest of our program. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Here is what this definition looks like in Snap!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhflrDBWV9HcMiXJNLJ8Fdr_FKBHUpnphqaf8_Is22BNJa39fu-Rnuex6fRYn4hig3Ym-kzZPP3tOmCPeKB4nJyuYWiV5ynXZAUFK-U33qvoju3xMd9lRt_sVookg4tMQ_klz75/s1600/brick_wall+script+pic.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhflrDBWV9HcMiXJNLJ8Fdr_FKBHUpnphqaf8_Is22BNJa39fu-Rnuex6fRYn4hig3Ym-kzZPP3tOmCPeKB4nJyuYWiV5ynXZAUFK-U33qvoju3xMd9lRt_sVookg4tMQ_klz75/s400/brick_wall+script+pic.png" width="400" /></a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Having defined the drawing of a brick, we now have access to a block we can use any time we need to draw one:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgks_S7LXZpYyFKLdDutt1uD-N7rlnAtEJDF2kh_R-eDKKIwptk-fdT2PYGXVS9ITYYu2m4vgVm8xCcjv4sTdrzJ-SK2PkXAlo_S4hvGWjMGB7Gkxcgl-Mp35FLSpcN-MiVNs0b/s1600/draw_brick.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgks_S7LXZpYyFKLdDutt1uD-N7rlnAtEJDF2kh_R-eDKKIwptk-fdT2PYGXVS9ITYYu2m4vgVm8xCcjv4sTdrzJ-SK2PkXAlo_S4hvGWjMGB7Gkxcgl-Mp35FLSpcN-MiVNs0b/s200/draw_brick.gif" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8oUSyLCW70pASTlkRYJEmpdSn0VUB1x98gvwEZOLfPJDu-3bCeGRHnzi-AtMPQcNWpGr5t7MfFWa2mcD7xFv4t0386B6tTELprhwG95gEnaaYFwc1tn2LlYgrbQ3iRup7pbdg/s1600/draw_a_brick.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="33" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8oUSyLCW70pASTlkRYJEmpdSn0VUB1x98gvwEZOLfPJDu-3bCeGRHnzi-AtMPQcNWpGr5t7MfFWa2mcD7xFv4t0386B6tTELprhwG95gEnaaYFwc1tn2LlYgrbQ3iRup7pbdg/s320/draw_a_brick.png" width="320" /></a></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Now we can define draw_row_A which simply draws six bricks with a space (movement while pen is up) between them.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw7pFXXQu6kR-VvU0EJTXPYlsZLJ7QdHhgwMX8AToAyxS6cMlVExQUMAnCx1cvU-RBHX20lhjswrTDRDSnoOzxd-kIQ2px6IzNBYjyoCb2K6MJynXy6kBFvcfyX19D7JYJLqEO/s1600/draw_row_A.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw7pFXXQu6kR-VvU0EJTXPYlsZLJ7QdHhgwMX8AToAyxS6cMlVExQUMAnCx1cvU-RBHX20lhjswrTDRDSnoOzxd-kIQ2px6IzNBYjyoCb2K6MJynXy6kBFvcfyX19D7JYJLqEO/s400/draw_row_A.png" width="400" /></a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">And now we can simply "say" draw_row_A and specify the position like so:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikti1NgdrSD-oOZ84p02fIWPwAwpu6IwQs-L0OHEi0UVzebCqVkdq3skvH65EYZHJlK7vhwxXWMgStCCBkI_qmXtRG4CsgQCdSIkFcEfU0vrnNhmGGvjJGEcW7HoZ2RovZv5w0/s1600/draw_row_A_block.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="32" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikti1NgdrSD-oOZ84p02fIWPwAwpu6IwQs-L0OHEi0UVzebCqVkdq3skvH65EYZHJlK7vhwxXWMgStCCBkI_qmXtRG4CsgQCdSIkFcEfU0vrnNhmGGvjJGEcW7HoZ2RovZv5w0/s320/draw_row_A_block.png" width="320" /></a> </span></span><img height="35" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/mRIy1k4Uw70bIyggsb6ITXy3V94q6MgeOk5QdqU2eZYWguv6mo8DHx7cqvXIilmr4eavsZeyFAmt-41AXDC4z0A34NkZrUYZIz84LsRvEoZmGVZbX9URcSmXL9_watz176ImzTHm" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="320" /><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Similarly, we can create a block that draws row B, taking into account that it has one extra gap. The "half bricks" are actually 17.5 steps long rather than 20, as might be expected at first.</span></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdLUP5IY7NRs3pUV4SdBCRS604P0fXeCj4DaKjz9hbjPcDq5XoNs4sLKO_aPQrVPqRdwPYynn40dX86GnmbYvGRLSOjaA_UGk_rPhsHGUrJn23YZCd_TAH1pDqNh_HsTmaPwzT/s1600/draw_row_B_block.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="33" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdLUP5IY7NRs3pUV4SdBCRS604P0fXeCj4DaKjz9hbjPcDq5XoNs4sLKO_aPQrVPqRdwPYynn40dX86GnmbYvGRLSOjaA_UGk_rPhsHGUrJn23YZCd_TAH1pDqNh_HsTmaPwzT/s320/draw_row_B_block.png" width="320" /></a> <img height="36" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/NdtAHEx1kHoqIffY38_MjFo_7G31LEUZTMxSwA0Az0Gq3GlAt18ZAG8CPBn1e_stoEAIiYcOPuzp1x9j2kWrS0qcGLRhh5gIPXutw75A1AzKiHE-jzjyu8ZQE3n9qTodNby5SBV9" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="320" /><br />
<h2>
Building the wall</h2>
<div>
Now that we have the language to do it, we need a block that does the following:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ZIcEM9xmmJ2L7j1W-CFSihWogtAIaaOUgqVxXZl7keWVSkxVfFKKYBDbrHZeppIAS_gskYnKx3fh9PcvSlepvZg3-ZM5C-IvskJt6c3OSpFKxEgQS5yD-4-YVY3h5Rdu40rK/s1600/draw_brick_wall_block.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="26" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ZIcEM9xmmJ2L7j1W-CFSihWogtAIaaOUgqVxXZl7keWVSkxVfFKKYBDbrHZeppIAS_gskYnKx3fh9PcvSlepvZg3-ZM5C-IvskJt6c3OSpFKxEgQS5yD-4-YVY3h5Rdu40rK/s200/draw_brick_wall_block.png" width="200" /></a> <img height="247" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/W-nk4zZAmIOB7t5e23-ryhE3KNhKiAyaPAIjeuX8cIg3APZC2JBslRbPGQaDbVVTgmjl-wABxQnArqPxUg9CuNiagpabgdAefATmN6mxsiurr2Yo-_Jiqwx7WZ3nxhUwsnFfg51O" style="border: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; transform: rotate(0rad); white-space: pre-wrap;" width="337" /></div>
<h2>
Let's get more abstract!</h2>
<div>
The solution above, which I admittedly didn't describe in detail, is good for building a brick wall with 8 layers, a specific size for bricks and gaps. The last task should be to build a solution that can draw bricks of any length with gaps of a given size. This allows us to solve the same problem for a larger set of requirements, which is another meaning of the word abstraction.</div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8XU7GUPafyBtAp9yrg_qRKoxRf_NNMjF6KsKEgR6w0yW_khJ3xC8aI9fL2GVJqy-E2kbF4K6NS-5UIik0e0AUt-VyH71EacbhUo4yechv-iADdNESMPOMq-GNNcz9DpY13yLx/s1600/brick_wall_all_sizes.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="52" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8XU7GUPafyBtAp9yrg_qRKoxRf_NNMjF6KsKEgR6w0yW_khJ3xC8aI9fL2GVJqy-E2kbF4K6NS-5UIik0e0AUt-VyH71EacbhUo4yechv-iADdNESMPOMq-GNNcz9DpY13yLx/s640/brick_wall_all_sizes.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One difficulty is in adjusting the length of the small bricks on either side of row B:</div>
<div>
<b>At previous level of abstraction:</b></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuA_ahbIEN-AUkMpBlAVzsBBD8TzOBUmtvA5kKe7G3nTm7iueEwME6HUzqOkWDzmuya2ShMOv15910oG104l4PDHMNP6X7o_c2K6g9032y9Xcz5QiSNj9gMCBFMWcCODutjxO8/s1600/length_small_brick.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuA_ahbIEN-AUkMpBlAVzsBBD8TzOBUmtvA5kKe7G3nTm7iueEwME6HUzqOkWDzmuya2ShMOv15910oG104l4PDHMNP6X7o_c2K6g9032y9Xcz5QiSNj9gMCBFMWcCODutjxO8/s320/length_small_brick.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>At higher level of abstraction:</b></div>
<div>
We now need to realise that the small bricks have as length half the length of a brick less half the length of a gap! </div>
<div>
<b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsPJNXcdm-nESQF8UR3aaqu-OWjUdIr3N-90CEg-kfG1YNCOWUDNF7kZP7uU9ccM2yArR0ti6KiNCwLZIzYaiDE7r5ZlwceQhgETzDKdePAWeH22vtyITpSROHrE8bk3Ixako7/s1600/length_small_brick_high_abstraction.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsPJNXcdm-nESQF8UR3aaqu-OWjUdIr3N-90CEg-kfG1YNCOWUDNF7kZP7uU9ccM2yArR0ti6KiNCwLZIzYaiDE7r5ZlwceQhgETzDKdePAWeH22vtyITpSROHrE8bk3Ixako7/s320/length_small_brick_high_abstraction.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-10016924261323186452017-10-22T19:19:00.002+11:002017-11-09T14:54:04.879+11:00How to ask someone on a date and keep it a secret.<div class="p1">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This post is about a project that I set 3 students in my year 10 Digital Tech class, <i>Big Ideas in Computer Technology. </i>Before you proceed, can you see the love message hiding in this image?</span></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7aUjucCWo6YZkLsuEvCjA-nOx8tKBs9THSx6_nOqfTwSlGlYOhL6tp8BHj2Sy_PzhOzIECA1_8wxhcthAwRiL0ja92jJ0YlmokuqSACRjfI7T4NcBXCMg6XckCjUr1vyLN2F8/s1600/new_bw_leaves.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7aUjucCWo6YZkLsuEvCjA-nOx8tKBs9THSx6_nOqfTwSlGlYOhL6tp8BHj2Sy_PzhOzIECA1_8wxhcthAwRiL0ja92jJ0YlmokuqSACRjfI7T4NcBXCMg6XckCjUr1vyLN2F8/s320/new_bw_leaves.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">courtesy of <a href="http://groklearning.com/">Groklearning.com</a></span></div>
</div>
<h3>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The idea</span></span></h3>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The idea was not my own. The first time that I saw it written up properly as a project was at the University of Melbourne. I was there for a professional development day and a computer scientist, Bernie Pope, showed us a project he gave to his first years. Without describing the project in detail, here's the cut down version I used with the year 10s.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Three year 10 students collaborated on this. As an introduction to the project, I taught them how to use the python programming language to manipulate greyscale images. A greyscale photo is represented inside computer memory as a grid of pixel values. Each value is between zero and 255, indicating the pixel's brightness. Zero is the darkest shade that can appear on the screen while 255 is the brightest. The exercises they completed were inspired by the image manipulation module on <a href="http://groklearning.com/"><span class="s2">groklearning.com</span></a>'s website.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The project asked the students to use these values to hide a message from Bob to Alice.</span></span></div>
<h3>
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">A little more detail </span></span></h3>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">We stuck with only lowercase letters and the space character. Each letter typed by Bob would be represented as an eight bit (binary) number using the ASCII standard. For instance the letter <b>a</b> is represented as <b>01100001</b> the <b>space</b> character is represented as <b>00100000</b>. To hide the letter <b>a</b> inside the pixel values we want to make sure that the first 8 such values ended with 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, respectively. The other 7 bits of each number were not used. When any of these pixels did not end with the desired bit, we modified it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Here is Lara (not her real name) explaining how the system works.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxdmdqfYhEKdgJ4EvPiTYZUCPOVxi3krL8mrAb48RUdvGgGJMCPoWvB5qcncfRRDRyCz1Na9wV7iuE' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">As mentioned by Lara, the manipulation of the least significant digit of the brightness values did not change the image in a way that could be detected by the naked eye. Modifying more bits may have distorted the image and Bob's ruse would have been uncovered.</span></span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The 3 parts of the project</span></h3>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Lara was responsible for writing Bob's side of the program. Another student wrote Alice’s side, the decoding part, while a third student handled the translation from alphabet to binary and back the in the other direction. That same student also handled the integration of the three parts together. It was during this phase that students learnt about the necessity to make their code modular (self-contained, able to be used my other programs as a blackbox).</span></span></div>
<h3>
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Key learnings</span></span></h3>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The students had to learn a little bit about binary numbers, but only enough to realise that all even numbers had binary representations that ended with a zero while odd numbers had binary representations that ended with a one.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">On the decoding end, the students needed to know how to break up a long string of zeros and ones into groups of eight bits. They ended up using modular arithmetic, which was a new mathematical concept for them. If you're unfamiliar with the term modular arithmetic, think about a 12 hour clock. After 1 hour, 13 hours or 25 hours, the clock hands will be showing the same time. This is because (current time) + 1 modulo 12 = </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(current time) </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">+ 13 modulo 12 = </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(current time) </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">+ 25 modulo 12.</span><br />
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">From the point of view of computer programming, they learnt how to control the brightness of each pixel of an image, how to use nested loops and two dimensional arrays.</span></span></div>
<h3>
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Conclusion</span></span></h3>
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 4.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 4.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 12.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
span.s2 {text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I felt that this project was a good combination of algorithmic thinking, mathematics, and programming. The fact that it had a visual component was a nice bonus for the three girls involved.</span></span><br />
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-90854756107712067892016-12-07T15:05:00.002+11:002016-12-07T15:05:46.398+11:00A few words in defence of visual programmingVisual programming environments, such as MIT's <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/" target="_blank">Scratch</a>, are often regarded as a good way to learn programming for young children, to be discarded once the child reaches his/her teens. In this post, I intend to say a few words on why I believe that these environments are more than child's play!<br />
<br />
<h3>
The goal of coding instruction</h3>
<div>
In an article entitled "<a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2013-05-08-learn-to-code-code-to-learn" target="_blank">Learn to code, code to learn</a>", Mitchell Resnick, the creator of Scratch, contrasts two concepts: </div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Learning the mechanics of writing code</li>
<li>Learning to create and solve problems with code</li>
</ol>
<div>
The strength of block-based visual programming is that, by making the mechanics simpler, it enables the second type of learning. Rather than worrying about spelling commands correctly, observing indentation rules or remembering to type a semicolon at the end of a line, the learner concentrates on the goal of their project.</div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbxiieGjyArghT-tmoPYbBhZX4jXajQTXJ_HpB_uL8guyb_eghm1m86ihrpAqG1cGFwPWaYLeg5ts0DNOLP2lLTMBJ7Vm6nUJQzTzL7BlwnCh7kdo4-Ii56WdUFJaStjIGq9TO/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-12-07+at+3.00.28+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbxiieGjyArghT-tmoPYbBhZX4jXajQTXJ_HpB_uL8guyb_eghm1m86ihrpAqG1cGFwPWaYLeg5ts0DNOLP2lLTMBJ7Vm6nUJQzTzL7BlwnCh7kdo4-Ii56WdUFJaStjIGq9TO/s320/Screen+Shot+2016-12-07+at+3.00.28+pm.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwLWNAbWGkqzTD3VRCc5VO0OHB3TbqtdB1VP9V0JdnPG0pJFL0omZ6QOFq3z7oqUZCAXEYYoZyfjUc' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Koch Snowflake implemented in Scribble</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div>
Developing fluency in a text-based language is important for many students and courses should be available for them in secondary schools. However, what all students need is the exposure to the idea of "debugging" as a way of learning. This is best fleshed out in Seymour Papert's book "Mindstorms". To Papert, programming teaches students that learning is not about getting things "right" or "wrong". Learning happens as you progressively improve your code so that it is more "right" than your first attempt.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You can teach a child of 8 years to build a multi-level game in Scratch. It can even be their first exposure to programming. It takes a considerable amount of instruction to do the same in a text-based language such as Python.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Snap! A leap from Scratch</h3>
<div>
There is no question that Scratch and other such visual environments are limited in many ways. You cannot teach important concepts such as recursion and you cannot extend the language at hand with new definitions.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This was the motivation for the creation of <a href="http://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html" target="_blank">Snap!</a> at UC Berkeley, where "CS10:The Joy and Beauty of Computing" has become one of the most popular first year elective subjects. Snap! is an extension of Scratch that enables university staff to teach computer science without the compromises they would otherwise have to make. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
More locally, Monash University's first year IT students take <a href="http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/units/archive/2013/s1/fit1040.html" target="_blank">FIT1040: Programming Fundamentals</a>, which uses <a href="http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/units/archive/2013/s1/fit1040.html" target="_blank">Scribble</a>, an extension of Snap!</div>
<h3>
A case in point: Edgy and VCE Algorithmics</h3>
<div>
The Victorian Certificate of Education now has a meaty computer science subject, "VCE Algorithmics (HESS)". The concepts taught in it, such as divide and conquer and dynamic programming algorithms, are usually reserved for second-year computer science at university. In order to make teaching this course possible without taking students through the first year's programming instruction, the University of Melbourne built <a href="http://snapapps.github.io/edgy/app/edgy.html" target="_blank">Edgy</a>, a block-based programming environment designed specifically for implementing network algorithms. Edgy makes it possible to teach computer science in a way that was previously inaccessible to most people. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwyGqpkdQlQ9QIy1tq9FvA_aYqde1DJsNIPG7aLkz3p5ZRc5sDKmF6ALBeXEE_sGe9KPAhWtsfB-MU' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Minimal Spanning Tree (Prim's algorithm) in Edgy</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In conclusion, far from being the poor alternative to "proper programming languages", some visual languages hold a great advantage: They enable us to teach substance over form. The discipline of computer science can now be taught without taking students through a long process of learning to code as a prerequisite.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you are a computing teacher or learner, I would love your comments on this post.</div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-36157026791938874722015-10-31T15:45:00.000+11:002015-10-31T15:51:44.785+11:00The "Epic" that was VCE Algorithmics, 2015In two days, the first batch of VCE Algorithmics students will sit their final exam. While I am nervous about the content of the exam, I am already proud of what my students have learnt and achieved over the year. As the delivery of the course gives way to the nervous waiting we're all experiencing this weekend, I thought it important to reflect on the last 12 months.<br />
<br />
VCE Algorithmics (HESS) is a "Higher Education Scored Study", the only one in the Victorian Certificate of Education. It is a very ambitious introduction to computer science and carries significant university credits at Melbourne and Monash. The study design reads like a computer science course in "the Analysis and Design of Algorithms". Every university has its equivalent of such a course, usually in the second year of a CS degree!<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Nine schools took the plunge this year. I am proud of my school being the only all-girls' institution among the 9. There were no textbooks written especially for this subject. There was a website with notes and video lectures but it was far from complete and the modules on the site were often published after we had taught the content. There were virtually no sample tasks or worksheets except what we came up with.<br />
<br />
Some of us teachers shared our resources and benefited from each other's work. The university lecturers who were supporting us would convene a weekly Google Hangout to answer our questions and to clarify elements of the study design. A bond formed between some of us and, whenever we met in workshops, it was a little like a family reunion. We complained about the amount of work we were doing and we shared our joys and our pride in our students who were taking the challenge in their stride.<br />
<br />
It is truly awe inspiring to think that students in years 11 and 12, whose prior schooling provides no preparation, can outline a proof by contradiction that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem" target="_blank">halting problem</a> is undecidable, meaning that no computer program could be written that examines all other computer programs and determines whether they will finish running or remain stuck in an infinite loop.<br />
<br />
Teaching Algorithmics has awakened my love for learning such concepts. Given that, sadly, we will not run a class in 2016 due to the lack of numbers, I have decided to take the year off and study mathematics and computer science. This will not be the first time but it will be a different experience from my first degree. This time, I will be learning for the sheer enjoyment of it! It's a middle age crisis of sorts :-)<br />
<br />
At the end of a long year, one of my students uttered the most rewarding words that I could have heard as a teacher. The words were not "thank you" and she was not even addressing me. She was speaking to a class mate, referring to their common solution to a revision exercise:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>"We have come a long way this year." </b></span></blockquote>
I could retire a contented teacher!ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-52753373308446325252015-08-01T16:29:00.000+10:002015-08-01T17:40:38.309+10:00A visual introduction to algebraHaving introduced many students to algebra, I have always wanted to find a way to make it "make sense". One year, I met two researchers from the University of San Diego, Dr Ferdinand Rivera and Dr Joanne Rossi at a conference in Greece(*). Their presentations and later conversations I had with the two of them, especially an electronic correspondence with Dr Rivera, changed my practice completely.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
This is a recorded description of this approach that was presented to the staff of Avila College in December 2014.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="303" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/135114762" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
If you wish, you can download my article, <a href="http://www.aamt.edu.au/content/download/33049/467366/file/amt71_1_baroudi.pdf" target="_blank">Thinking Visually About Algebra</a>, from the website of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers Inc.<br />
<br />
(*) Psychology of Mathematics Education 33.<br />
<br />ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-73237728014939471522015-07-30T22:55:00.000+10:002015-07-30T22:55:18.779+10:00Problems that do not computeToday, my task was to convince my students that there are problems which computers cannot solve in a practical time, say a year or a few years! It was meant to be an informal introduction to the concept of the limits of computation and we did it by exploring two specific problems: The towers of Hanoi and the Travelling Salesman.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Tower_of_Hanoi.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Tower_of_Hanoi.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
From wikipedia, <span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Made by </span><a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Evanherk" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #663366; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; text-decoration: none;" title="en:User:Evanherk">User:Evanherk</a></div>
<h3>
The Towers of Hanoi</h3>
<div>
Legend has it that three tall towers stand vertically outside of a temple. The priests of that temple are tasked with transferring the 64 golden disks from one tower to another one. The conditions are:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Only one disk can be moved at any one time</li>
<li>No disk can rest on top of one that is smaller than itself</li>
</ol>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;">When all 64 disks have been moved, the world would end!</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
At first, we played the game with 1, 2, 3, 4 and then 5 disks, each time recording the minimum number of moves required. The video below shows our attempt with 3 disks:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxHMvC84kYbUowIoEkBE652xct9_aud1OMGqtA7E54pqi1BmVrYkyekCvRSj3UvDLOVykYLDySiDko' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div>
We now had to deduce a general formula for the number of moves required to transfer any number of disks. To do this, consider the table below, to which I have added a third column to help the reader (a luxury which the students didn't have!):</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMhyTZaiTc7zUCH4TkT1yivadctNka7wqAAl5lZk9ziCFNbi25TgrljapTBu2EFFxeHw2ltMjNlEwTMbG1LpEertuQrdSTcWexzWKFvqbakHFWXPsOwhyKKYeT7DmZuH_eCi97/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-07-30+at+10.40.58+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMhyTZaiTc7zUCH4TkT1yivadctNka7wqAAl5lZk9ziCFNbi25TgrljapTBu2EFFxeHw2ltMjNlEwTMbG1LpEertuQrdSTcWexzWKFvqbakHFWXPsOwhyKKYeT7DmZuH_eCi97/s320/Screen+Shot+2015-07-30+at+10.40.58+pm.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
Number of moves m = 2 to the nth power - 1. For 64 disks, we need roughly 16 x 1 billion x 1 billion moves! <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the priests could make a move every 10 seconds, “it would take them well over </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: blue;">f<b>ive trillion years</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to get the job done.” (Harel, Algorithmics: The Spirit of Computing, 3rd Ed, p. 182, emphasis mine)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Assuming that a computer can make a move each microsecond, it would take around 1,000 years to work this problem out!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That was our first taste of an "intractable" problem, one that cannot be solved in a realistic time frame. We went on to explore another problem. If you found this post interesting and would like to know how we approached the Travelling Salesman Problem, let me know and I will try to report on that too.</span></div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-67070785062651510442015-07-27T20:09:00.003+10:002015-07-27T20:13:40.986+10:00Isaac Asimov on education and the Internet!Yesterday, I listened to <a href="http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2015/06/fte_20150621_1045.mp3" target="_blank">this excerpt</a> of an interview with Isaac Asimov on Radio National's Future Tense program page. It is characteristically prescient:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Once we have computer outlets in every home, each of them hooked up to enormous libraries ... If there's something you're interested in knowing, from an early age, however silly it might seem to someone else ... you ask and you can find out and you can follow it up and you can do it at your own speed, at your own home, in your own time, then everyone will be interested in learning.<br />
<a name='more'></a></blockquote>
Asked whether he thought the computer would dehumanise learning, he made the following point:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As a matter of fact, it's just the reverse ... In the old days ... a person who could afford it would hire a pedagogue, a tutor and he would teach the children. If he knew his job, he could adapt his teaching to the tastes and abilities of the students. But how many people could afford to hire a pedagogue? Most children went uneducated ... Now there is a possibility of a one-to-one relationship for the many. Everyone can have a teacher in the form of access to the gathered knowledge of the human species.</blockquote>
As I listened to him make these points and others about how following one's interest can lead to learning a number of valuable things, I could not help thinking that this vision was now fulfilled: The "computer outlets" are in every home and they are connected to "enormous libraries where anyone can ask any question and be given answers, be given reference material."<br />
<br />
On the same day, I read <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/universities-explore-credit-options-for-online-learning-courses-20150725-gikbg5" target="_blank">this article</a> about a 16 year old who lives 45 minutes from me and who is taking a physics course at MIT. He is doing it online, of course.<br />
<br />
I am dying to emulate that boy but the only time that I have been able to complete a MOOC was when I was on long service leave. Still, I have been learning (often re-learning) computer science concepts from Youtube videos and university websites. How did I complete a computing degree with textbooks and papers I downloaded via FTP?<br />
<br />
We live in times which luminaries of past generations dreamt about. We are privileged in this one thing: We can learn and we can do it continually. I hope that we can take full advantage of this fact and that, as teachers, we allow our students the space to learn from "the gathered knowledge of the human species".ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-27811647871321083922015-07-25T11:33:00.000+10:002015-07-25T17:56:29.189+10:00What do Australian parliamentarians, the BBC, President Obama and will.i.am have in common?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They all want school-aged
students to learn to write computer programs, sometimes referred to as
“coding”. This has become a feature of many modern curricula worldwide, from
Estonia to the UK and now Australia. The questions I would ask myself as a
teacher and a parent are: Why and how? This is my attempt at answering these
questions together with a few others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is computer programming?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;
mso-fareast-language:JA;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Computer programming is the
act of giving instructions to the computer in order to fulfil a particular
purpose. For instance, we can write a computer program that checks if a certain
number is prime. We can also write computer programs that draw shapes or play
music.</span></span><!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAeYyhZMI3LgLGg3ZLKzV9aqF-maWtn3sJttSC4g4D1nQbHt40i19ltGwHZXXV_Mdtz6C_Aoe7D-FrjbnvK5yy4mP__x-9HjCa5WtEp2WhkSmv_qsLSYZSQzY8e6fAynFE0uRc/s1600/powerpuff_girl.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAeYyhZMI3LgLGg3ZLKzV9aqF-maWtn3sJttSC4g4D1nQbHt40i19ltGwHZXXV_Mdtz6C_Aoe7D-FrjbnvK5yy4mP__x-9HjCa5WtEp2WhkSmv_qsLSYZSQzY8e6fAynFE0uRc/s1600/powerpuff_girl.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"Powerpuff girl", generative art by D.J. and L. P.<br /><br />Year 10 Big Ideas in Computer Technology</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isn’t this a narrow field of specialisation?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
Most fields of work and leisure
have been transformed by advances in computer technology. On a recent visit to
Monash University, a student told us that the university was requiring all its
honours students in physics to learn computer programming. This is because many
research questions cannot be answered without building computer models.<o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">In an online conversation on the necessity for genetics researchers to
learn to code, a friend of mine made the following statement:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-3-2oY7AlU-ayhryMMPHCo47FBOjY7u0ckKD2Cvv9LI_DiZhd4WyblJsZAvwNP0KBkn-4WyKFMGxNJ8sSRRuZIXou8qfYnUXLGSJJmdlS1hj9MHNVBUN7FVLRki3ZTOJ0D9bq/s1600/Rauls_statement.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-3-2oY7AlU-ayhryMMPHCo47FBOjY7u0ckKD2Cvv9LI_DiZhd4WyblJsZAvwNP0KBkn-4WyKFMGxNJ8sSRRuZIXou8qfYnUXLGSJJmdlS1hj9MHNVBUN7FVLRki3ZTOJ0D9bq/s640/Rauls_statement.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Why should school-aged students learn it?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
We teach all students art, music
and PE without expecting them all to become artists, musicians or sportswomen.
In the same way that physics clarifies how the world works, a knowledge of how
their electronic devices work clarifies in the minds of the students how their
social world works.<o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Computer programming is a good discipline for the mind. It is a perfect
metaphor for learning. Prominent mathematician and educationalist, Seymour
Papert, put it this way:</span><!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimOIH2Hcwa0krJGSSSX8R7ySzA3ZTDXBRLKcUH8e7KZfbyaRckpSbTbxsvk4NCo1_I5yZIDorZC0rNWeqqMGqnzr-nfOWdU5n4193M8FraCQu8vpjOl0vIelR-D0iDwjHxuCVP/s1600/Paperts_quote.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimOIH2Hcwa0krJGSSSX8R7ySzA3ZTDXBRLKcUH8e7KZfbyaRckpSbTbxsvk4NCo1_I5yZIDorZC0rNWeqqMGqnzr-nfOWdU5n4193M8FraCQu8vpjOl0vIelR-D0iDwjHxuCVP/s640/Paperts_quote.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Learning to code or coding to learn?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
The focus of many curricular
initiatives and the online courses that have been built to support them has
been teaching kids to code. They aim to help students become fluent in a programming
language. I feel that this misses the mark! When exposed to coding, some
students may well find it interesting enough to want to achieve proficiency at
it. However, this cannot be required of every student. Students will write
computer programs if they serve a particular purpose.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
Visual programming environments
have been built to take the emphasis away from the intricacies of computer
languages. In these environments, the student can freely create art, develop
animations and games and solve mathematical problems, all without having
achieved fluency in any particular computer language. Still, the student is
using the building blocks of programming: conditional statements, loops etc.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
The emphasis must be on coding
as a “discipline of the mind”, what is sometimes termed “computational
thinking”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What is Avila’s response to all this?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
For many years now, Avila has
introduced all of its students to computer programming through the year 7 IT
subject. Students learn to design and implement a computer game. Those who want
to learn it at a deeper level can participate in the yearly NCSS Challenge, a
program run by the University of Sydney spin-off, Grok Learning. We run this
every August and make it available to all of our students.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
Our IT electives in years 9 and
10 attract good numbers every year and we are the only all girls’ school
running VCE Algorithmics. This computer science subject is the first Higher
Education Scored Study to be introduced to the VCE and carries university
credit towards some degrees, including Melbourne’s Bachelor of Science.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;
mso-fareast-language:JA;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">In conclusion, computer
programming teaches students a new way of thinking, creating and solving problems.
Learning this discipline will open up a new understanding of the devices and
applications that affect their lives profoundly. Finally, the chances are high
that their generation will need to use some measure of computer programming in
whatever work they choose to do in the future.</span><!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><b>This post first appeared in</b> <a href="http://www.avilacollege.vic.edu.au/_uploads/rsfil/001623_afcf.pdf" target="_blank">Avila College News, Edition 10, July 2015</a> </span><br />
On this topic, I highly recommend people read Mitch Resnick's <a href="https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-05-08-learn-to-code-code-to-learn" target="_blank">Learn to Code, Code to Learn</a>.ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-4907110423747797042015-07-25T11:09:00.001+10:002015-07-25T11:09:23.986+10:00Never give up, keep trying<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yesterday, 3 students and I left Avila College early in the morning to attend and speak at the annual conference of
Digital Learning and Teaching Victoria, DigiCon15. We were there
speak about our experience in the first year of <a href="http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/studies/algorithmics/algorithmicsindex.aspx" target="_blank">VCE Algorithmics</a>.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Our session was straight after morning
tea. We spoke to a group of teachers considering offering the subject
at their respective schools. I presented my experience as a teacher
and the students told of their own joys and struggles with the
content of this very ambitious course.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The common themes in what all four of
us said were: Great content and lack of resources. The teachers in
attendance left with a better idea of the work involved in teaching
the subject: I told them it would take over their lives in the first
year. I was not exaggerating!
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The most important part of our
presentation came at the end, when the audience had 15 minutes to ask
us questions. Most of these were directed to the students and they
answered them brilliantly. One answer that stuck in my mind came in
response to the question: "What is the best advice you could
give to prospective students?" They said: "Never give up,
keep trying. The problems are hard but you get a great feeling when
you solve them." These are the very students for whom this course was designed.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-85027012319653243292015-03-05T15:05:00.002+11:002015-03-09T19:26:07.353+11:005 weeks of VCE Algorithmics<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All holidays, I was anticipating the
start of the Algorithmics class. In my last post, I mentioned that we
were 7 in the class but now we're 8. What happened was that two
students went to the NCSS Summer School and fell in love with
computer science. One of them was already enrolled and the other
decided to join. Now, the number of year elevens has increased to 5,
joining 2 year twelves and me.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Each week, the students complete a series of exercises. They are at different stages in their
transition to "algorithmic thinking" but they're all making
progress. We have solved puzzles and learnt about queues and stacks.
More on these later.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, what has it been like teaching this
course? The briefest statement I can make is: <span style="color: purple;"><b>"It's a lot of
hard work but totally worth it!"
</b></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The hard work stems from the fact that
the course is new and has no set text. We need to read the study
design and turn it into a series of tasks for the students. Remember
that many of these concepts are traditionally left till the 2nd or
3rd year of a computer science course, yet we're teaching them to high
school students. The main source of help has been an online forum
where we teachers share resources and the weekly video conferences we
have with the university staff who have written the course. There is also a website that is gradually being populated with notes and media files.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here's an example of the puzzles we
have solved so far. A staple of courses like this one is Depth
First Search. It is a way of exploring alternative paths in a network
graph until one path is found to the desired "destination".
This is readily applicable to finding our way out of mazes. Take this
maze for example:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivRX_XQCQaByYUBm0ahjbaDBwm9yTPKrXiQI6UnhsGXST4zuQGWFJ892vfwNe_EluE-hr4KPb3z1ypVZiboifFu4L3AEqZ36QNNx6NK28e2Z6O-YTJnUDMtxfXmGq_ARqUyFKY/s1600/small+maze.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivRX_XQCQaByYUBm0ahjbaDBwm9yTPKrXiQI6UnhsGXST4zuQGWFJ892vfwNe_EluE-hr4KPb3z1ypVZiboifFu4L3AEqZ36QNNx6NK28e2Z6O-YTJnUDMtxfXmGq_ARqUyFKY/s1600/small+maze.jpg" height="320" title="Small Maze" width="226" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">This is clearly not my handwriting. The
maze was drawn by my highly intelligent chicken.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As you can see, we have used
co-ordinates to identify each cell. The following is a representation
of the maze where the cells are represented as nodes and
the edges (links) between each pair of nodes means that they are
adjacent (we can move from one cell to the next). </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The nodes in blue represent the path from the entrance of our maze, cell A1, to the exit, cell E5.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-rLItiS-pe9oFWum6M4VZvuepVmL0z9uR9HDFn2h1VeE3VvvDCEmVEUDj51znOkKArgfBEP3k9Byefgv02YLu7VjU7GMXof4tzLP9Im-fXZmJkbPH8MeXp0wiDCksEXgJr8rJ/s1600/maze_sol_colour.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-rLItiS-pe9oFWum6M4VZvuepVmL0z9uR9HDFn2h1VeE3VvvDCEmVEUDj51znOkKArgfBEP3k9Byefgv02YLu7VjU7GMXof4tzLP9Im-fXZmJkbPH8MeXp0wiDCksEXgJr8rJ/s1600/maze_sol_colour.png" height="365" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A data model of the maze above with the path being shown as a series of blue nodes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you have implemented DFS before, you
may be overly impressed that year eleven and twelve students were
capable of implementing it. It is true that my students are
impressive but, this early on, I gave them a program to modify.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All in all, the course is proceeding
well. We're all working hard and we're finding the content interesting. As the students told me in a survey this subject is <span style="color: purple;"><b>"challenging in a good way"</b></span>.</span></div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-85921468170178751812014-11-25T21:56:00.001+11:002014-11-25T21:58:08.496+11:00VCE Algorithmics: The journey beginsToday, I had my first class of VCE Algorithmics. This is a computer science course that will be part of the Victorian Certificate of Education for the first time in 2015. Like many other schools, we have a week's "headstart" at the end of this academic year. My class is made up of six girls and me. Four of the girls are in year 11 and the remaining two are in year 12. As for me, I am out of school and in my forties! We will learn much and solve many problems together and I have been waiting impatiently for the course to get under way.<br />
<br />
Given that the textbook is yet to be published, I took the opportunity of this week to lay some ground in "algorithmic thinking". The students looked at a few algorithms today and decided what each of them accomplished. Here is one. Do you know what it does?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0u1jOF9PIOaZ-ELleUZ0O2_D6F2ABs4lOdTdnKbH-T8ahtofIvaqZkcIQhBNhqKgDLou3M44MUPsbYZLsoMl6atnRla2vtDmjsbt4zrNQzNQ9o_WWya8MkIraC0YVL4tqU4Og/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-11-25+at+9.36.42+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0u1jOF9PIOaZ-ELleUZ0O2_D6F2ABs4lOdTdnKbH-T8ahtofIvaqZkcIQhBNhqKgDLou3M44MUPsbYZLsoMl6atnRla2vtDmjsbt4zrNQzNQ9o_WWya8MkIraC0YVL4tqU4Og/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-11-25+at+9.36.42+pm.png" /></a></div>
<br />
If you want to work it out for yourself, stop reading!<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Well, let's say the user provided the input 4. This algorithm will add 4 to itself 4 times (result = 4 + 4 + 4 + 4). In other words, it will compute 4 x 4. As the students tried different examples of the input, they figured out that this was a squaring algorithm.<br />
<br />
For homework, the students will read a chapter of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Algorithmic-Adventures-Knowledge-Juraj-Hromkovic/dp/3540859853/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416912831&sr=8-1&keywords=algorithmic+adventures" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Algorithmic Adventures</a> and answer some questions that should lead them to an understanding of what an Algorithm is. Since I think none of them knows about my blog, I think it safe to share some information with you!<br />
<br />
<b>An Algorithm is similar to a cooking recipe in that it provides steps for reaching a desired result. </b>However, an algorithm also differs from a cooking recipe in that it has to be <b>specific</b> and <b>precise</b> to the extent that all computers can execute it and produce the same output given any particular input. It cannot have fuzzy operations like "simmer sauce until thick" if different computers have different ideas of what "thick" means. Also, an algorithm has to <b>work in a finite time</b> and produce the correct output f<b>or all legal inputs</b>. So, a series of steps that asks for an integer and fails when the user enters a negative number is not a legitimate algorithm.<br />
<br />
On Thursday and Friday, we will write develop our own algorithms and write some computer programs. I hope to have the opportunity to blog about it. Until then, here's another algorithm for you to guess the function of. This one is written in <a href="http://aidanlane.github.io/snapapps/scribble.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Scribble</a>, a variant of <a href="http://snap.berkeley.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">SNAP!</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGqppLxN-rfl5iZy3567h-R1VNLauIev39Q2fsYcbBEpyF0XTLhX9rmSifI5uerYlQTzjTXICJW_6PaOkMi67wgDkjoHxSWEVHYt7863f8TMgAM_owfeGCU7s3Y3wfJWHtsZGW/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-11-25+at+9.49.26+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGqppLxN-rfl5iZy3567h-R1VNLauIev39Q2fsYcbBEpyF0XTLhX9rmSifI5uerYlQTzjTXICJW_6PaOkMi67wgDkjoHxSWEVHYt7863f8TMgAM_owfeGCU7s3Y3wfJWHtsZGW/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-11-25+at+9.49.26+pm.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-40122763963485143292014-08-12T19:52:00.000+10:002014-08-12T19:52:17.282+10:00Wonderful advice to young women at the "Go Girl, Go for IT" conferenceToday, two colleagues of mine and I accompanied 46 year 9 and 10 girls to the <a href="http://gogirl.org.au/" target="_blank">Go Girl conference</a> at Deakin University. After a warm welcome by program
director, Fi Slaven, the presentations started with the day's
conference patron, Karen Stocks, Managing Director of Twitter
Australia (<a class="ProfileHeaderCard-screennameLink u-linkComplex js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/KazStocks" style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); color: #8899a6; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px; text-decoration: none !important;"><span style="color: #8899a6; font-family: Gotham Narrow SSm, sans-serif, Arial;"><span style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px;">@</span></span><span class="u-linkComplex-target" style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); color: #8899a6; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px; text-decoration: none !important;">KazStocks</span></a>).
Karen gave the students 3 pieces of advice:<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<ol>
<li>It is okay not to have a life plan.
Follow passions, dreams. Do something that makes your heart beat
faster. Trust that you'll end up somewhere good.</li>
<li>Education, education, education.
Don't just get a degree, do well. Good grades will show that you can
apply yourself.</li>
<li>You will earn credibility through
sustained performance. Be humble, patient and respect your elders,
even when you feel that you're the smartest person at the table.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Next up was Tammy Butow (<a class="ProfileHeaderCard-screennameLink u-linkComplex js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/tammybutow" style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); color: #8899a6; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px; text-decoration: none !important;"><span style="color: #8899a6; font-family: Gotham Narrow SSm, sans-serif, Arial;"><span style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px;">@</span></span><span class="u-linkComplex-target" style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); color: #8899a6; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px; text-decoration: none !important;">tammybutow</span></a>) ,
senior digital strategist at NAB. It was inspiring to see someone
achieve so much at such a young age. She encouraged the girls to
build products, learn to code and form teams with complementary
skills.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dr Emilia Belluci from
Deakin University spoke about the different
kinds of jobs and tertiary qualifications that can help people start
in those positions. She emphasised that jobs in IT changed over time
and that a solid background helped people adapt to those changes.
Asked what she liked about her job, Emilia replied: "Everyday is
different. The ride is fantastic. That's what I love about my job."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Permenthri Pillay from IBM told us
about her journey in IT and government services in South Africa and
Australia. She encouraged the students to find mentors and to think
"how can IT make a difference in my other interests?" When
asked for a public-speaking tip, she replied: "Communicate with
integrity and then you will definitely have an impact."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Charlotte Wylie (<a class="ProfileHeaderCard-screennameLink u-linkComplex js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/Charliewylie11" style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); color: #8899a6; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px; text-decoration: none !important;"><span style="color: #8899a6; font-family: Gotham Narrow SSm, sans-serif, Arial;"><span style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px;">@</span></span><span class="u-linkComplex-target" style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); color: #8899a6; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px; text-decoration: none !important;">Charliewylie11</span></a>),
whose job title had something about service development, delivery and
digital defence at some bank (Which bank? Ah, yes, the Commonwealth
Bank), spoke to us about her journey through several careers,
adventures and countries. It all led to her current, senior role. She
encouraged the girls to follow their interests and to say "yes"
to opportunities as they presented themselves. Charlotte used the
idea of "wandering along with interest" as a metaphor for
developing their careers and living their lives.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>A recurrent theme at the conference
was to take jobs even when you're not sure how to accomplish aspects
of them. Say yes and work it out later!</b> This was particularly
prominent in Anna Liebel's presentation. Anna "fell into"
an IT career without a relevant degree. She concentrated on her
strengths which centred around dealing with people and understanding
their needs. Her career spanned 20 years and several companies,
including seek.com.au and Telstra.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The day finished with an engaging
speaker with an incredible human touch, Richenda Vermeulen (<span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #8899a6; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px;">@</span><span class="u-linkComplex-target" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #8899a6; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 14px;">RichendaG</span>). Richenda
is the founder of ntegr!ty, a company that helps businesses build a
social media strategy. Her story was a personal one. Two take-aways
from her presentations were: "When you take a risk, you enable
someone else to do the same." And "Remember not to be
afraid." This struck me as the opposite to the motto of the dad
in the Dreamworks animation, The Croods: "Never not be afraid."
He could have learnt his lesson more easily had he been in Richenda's
presentation!</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Finally, I leave you with this quote
from Charlotte Wylie's last slide:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The world needs dreamers & the world needs doers, but above all,
the world needs dreamers that do. </blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I dare not add any words of my own!</div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-4264729547389329902014-08-09T22:59:00.000+10:002014-08-09T22:59:12.532+10:00A class that showed me what learning looks likeLast year, I began teaching an elective class in year 10 called "Big Ideas in Computer Technology". The first class had 12 girls in it and, this year, the number grew to 17. I was blown away with the number since, in year 10, the girls can take only three electives across the year and the offerings at our school are mind-boggling.<br />
<br />
<div>
<b>How the learning was structured</b><br />
This year, I really wanted to work with a principle I learnt from a video by James Paul Gee which <a href="http://www.ramblingteacher.com/2014/03/learning-in-passion-communities.html" target="_blank">I reviewed earlier</a>. Using computer games as a metaphor, I saw my role as designing the learning in such a way that the students could have enough guidance at the beginning - the first two levels of the game - and then learn through experimentation, discussion and some help from me.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div>
The course had two units that everyone undertook: Visual programming in <a href="http://aidanlane.github.io/snapapps/scribble.html" target="_blank">Scribble</a> and some exposure to Cryptography. Beyond that, the students could pursue interests and work either individually or in small groups. I didn't mind them using Youtube to look up tutorials, as long as they had a purpose in mind.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Here are sample learning paths chosen by three students:</div>
<div>
<table border="0" style="height: 404px; width: 651px;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="212">Meera</td>
<td width="213">Doris</td>
<td width="212">Alice</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Visual programming</strong>: <br />
Snakes and ladders</td>
<td><strong>Visual programming</strong>: <br />
Maze with moving backgrounds</td>
<td><strong>Visual programming:</strong> <br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox" target="_blank">Birthday Paradox</a><br />
<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Cryptography</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong></td>
<td><strong>Cryptography</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong></td>
<td><strong>Cryptography</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Learning project: </strong><br />
Static website about her writing<br />
<br />
<br /></td>
<td><strong>Learning project:<br />
</strong>Python programming - Guess the number<br />
<br /></td>
<td><strong>Learning project:<br />
</strong>Javascript on Khan Academy - four small programs demonstrating what she learnt<strong><br />
</strong><br />
<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3D Modelling: </strong><br />
Original cup<br />
<br />
<br /></td>
<td><strong>3D printer setup:<br />
</strong>Ran a tutorial, with 2 others, for staff<strong>
<br />
</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong></td>
<td><strong>3D Modelling:<br />
</strong>Cup with coffee inside<strong>
<br />
</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong><br /></strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Production project:<br />
</strong>3D animation<br />
<br />
<br /></td>
<td><strong>Production project:</strong><br />
Login screen for dynamic website in Python</td>
<td><strong>Production project:</strong><br />
3D animation<br />
<br />
<br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Challenge for all</b><br />
During parent-teacher interviews, every student in that class stated that she was finding the work challenging and interesting at the same time. This was the case for advanced students as well as for a student with special needs. They were all being extended even if the content of their learning was different.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
After a particularly frustrating lesson working on her game "Alien Adventures" Ally wrote the following:</div>
<div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-e0ff726d-babb-5fa7-e478-d368db321bf3"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-e0ff726d-babb-5fa7-e478-d368db321bf3"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today, I learnt how to be patient when trying to learn and develop new ideas. I had a few issues with attempting to make a laser beam fly out of the spaceship and it took a lot of persisting and continuing to try and get it to work and eventually I figured it out with some help. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My biggest achievement of the day was actually firing the laser for the first time. I am very impressed with my work and I knew that this would be a big hurdle so I’m very impressed with what I was able to achieve.</span></span></blockquote>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-e0ff726d-babb-5fa7-e478-d368db321bf3">
</span></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b>What worked</b><br />
Four of the students presented at the Digital Learning and Teaching Victoria conference about how they learnt through projects. As they responded to questions from the audience, they made the following observations:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>They owned their learning because they could choose projects</li>
<li>They achieved greater success because they were not allowed to change their projects after a period of exploration</li>
<li>They were happy not to be "spoon fed" as this allowed them to learn how to learn</li>
<li>When they wrote a program, they needed to understand their problem and its solution thoroughly because they had to be precise when teaching the solution to a computer</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>What I need to work on in the future</b></div>
</div>
<div>
There are a few things that could have gone better. Here are a couple:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The breadth of the subject came at the expense of depth. I think I should create two "tracts", one for those who want to become fluent coders and another for those who want a breadth of experiences</li>
<li>Some students were not used to "being stuck" for some time. I need to find better ways to convince students that being stuck is part of the learning project so they don't get overly stressed about it.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Going beyond any "teaching intentions"</b></div>
<div>
On many occasions, students were able to learn skills I didn't possess. That was particularly satisfying for me, especially when they would teach me a new skill. The following example is a clear illustration of this: </div>
<div>
Alice, having simulated a lava lamp in Blender, listed the skills she'd learnt:</div>
<div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-92c88a3a-bac0-4209-5ac4-ec9c81046abe"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-92c88a3a-bac0-4209-5ac4-ec9c81046abe"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- how to use ‘Particles’ and ‘Physics’ in Blender</span></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-92c88a3a-bac0-4209-5ac4-ec9c81046abe">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- the components of the fluid</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- how mass, buoyancy, viscosity, and repulsion all affect the fluid of the lava lamp</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
</span></div>
<div>
I could not have envisaged teaching her any of that!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>The privilege of teaching the class</b></div>
<div>
I am very grateful for having taught this group of students. They were curious, reflective, hard working and courteous. They tackled challenges and went beyond my expectations. This course was designed with such students in mind. It would not have worked with a group that expected step-by-step directions from the teacher.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In summary, I feel privileged to have worked with such delightful girls and I will remember this class for a long time to come.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-57319875803582647922014-08-02T21:59:00.000+10:002014-08-03T07:58:14.852+10:00Educational beliefs I have let go ofBefore becoming a teacher, I used to assume that kids couldn't know things unless they were taught them. I really thought that a comprehensive curriculum and rigorous tests were the way to ensure a quality education. Every time I encountered kids who seemed to struggle with basic numeracy, I would mumble something about the school system lacking rigour. In this post, I want to list some of the beliefs that I no longer hold.<br />
<br />
Here are four beliefs I used to hold but no longer do:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><b>Students learn what we teach them</b><br />It is a well-established fact that students construct their own learning and that this construction is influenced by many factors, including what teachers say or demonstrate. I know many teachers, myself included, who finish correcting their students' papers and exclaim: "I told them ...." or "was I even in the room when we discussed this?" At times, I still express my frustration this way but I am no longer surprised when students do not internalise what I said in class.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a></li>
<li><b>Students cannot learn what we don't teach them</b><br />Once I give my students room to explore, they often discover knowledge I do not possess. One small example is a year seven student who taught herself to build a Scratch game that interact with the user through the laptop's camera. I did not even know that such a feature had been added to Scratch.<br /> </li>
<li><b>All students need to be taught the same content</b><br />Many teachers fear that, if students were allowed to learn different things, they would not all have the prerequisite knowledge for the following year. Experience has shown me that students don't retain much of what they have learnt from one year to the next. Sorry, they don't retain much of what they have been taught from one year to the next. Why? Because students don't learn what we teach them!<br /> </li>
<li><b>Knowledge is sequential</b><br />I have found that students understand the decimal system (base 10 numbers, even whole numbers, are meant here) much better when they realise that it is not the only one on offer. In fact, "variation theory" holds that, for us to understand "green" we need to see a number of objects coloured green as well as objects of different colours. Without the first condition, we might associate the colour with grass only and fail to realise that it can be property of apples and bell peppers. Without the second, we wouldn't need a name for the colour since the world would be monochrome.</li>
</ol>
<br />
This post raises the question: What beliefs have come to replace the four mentioned above? I think that I can answer this by telling the story of a year 10 class I had the pleasure of teaching last semester. I do need to tell that story as a way of saying "Thank you" to the 17 students in that class but this will need to wait for another post. In the meanwhile, please leave a comment on the educational beliefs you have relinquished.<br />
<br />ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-90056426879945599312014-03-29T11:35:00.002+11:002014-03-29T11:39:32.413+11:00Learning in "Passion Communities"This video by James Paul Gee is an absolute gem. One idea I want to discuss here is his vision of people learning in what he calls "passion communities". Passion communities form around video games, popular books and hobbies. Fans of Harry Potter go on sites where they write their own fiction stories in that genre. World of Warcraft gamers develop the skill of solving problems in groups.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/JU3pwCD-ey0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, what are the features of a "passion community" (ideas taken from the video):</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>They solve problems collaboratively: The group is smarter than the individual.</li>
<li>Learning happens on demand: In a game, progressive levels introduce you to the skills and language you need to succeed. You don't acquire knowledge in a vacuum and expect to apply it later.</li>
<li>They are not age-graded. People of different ages can contribute and learn.</li>
<li>The same teacher can mentor one time and be mentored at another time.</li>
<li>The community sets high standards and provides honest feedback to help its members reach them.</li>
</ol>
<a name='more'></a><div>
Naturally, the video made me think about whether I had seen such a passion community in my work as a teacher. The answer was, yes, I do see it in action most Thursday after school, in the Avila College APP Group which I supervise. It is most visible in the sub-group that handles the digital art. </div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This group of digital APP artists have a natural leader in the year 11 girl who was involved in developing the concept of the game we're building. She and a year 10 girl interviewed the other artists who responded to an advertisement we placed in the school's bulletin. </div>
<div>
The group share their techniques with each other and have taught one of their members to use Photoshop as a drawing tool. This year, a year 7 girl joined them and they mentored her in the very way described in the video: They told her the idea of the level she was to work on, she started producing sketches and they gave her feedback as she went along.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
At the moment, the APP artists meet in a room across the corridor from where the programmers do their work. There is constant movement between the two rooms. I guide the programmers but lack the skills to help out the artists. My role with them is that of a project manager. I ask them to describe what they're doing and get them to focus on priorities. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Of course, the programmers themselves are working in multi-age groups and learning all the time. Unfortunately, programming is like speaking a language and fluency cannot be achieved when you meet once every week or two. They are doing great work but they need a lot of input from me.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In an ideal world, this group would meet daily, during the school day. This would not only increase the frequency of the meetings but the value that is put on this kind of learning: It is multi-disciplinary, goes across age groups, and involves a lot of problem-solving. In the coming term, we will be joined by three musicians who will compose and play the music and sounds for our game. I cannot wait to see them in action.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I would love to hear your thoughts on and examples of this kind of learning.</div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-58904158038587569972014-01-20T21:53:00.000+11:002014-01-20T21:53:48.096+11:00Seymour Papert, a Roman Temple and EdTech today!<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In 2009, I lived a childhood dream by <a href="http://www.ramblingteacher.com/2009/07/baalbek-city-of-sun.html" target="_blank">visiting the Roman temple of Jupiter in Baalbek, Lebanon</a>. The
temple was built by many generations of Roman engineers, artisans and
slaves. The stones used could not be found in that valley location, so
the Romans brought them by sea, used elephants and slaves to drag
them up a mountain and then down to the right location. There, they
would be carved and set in place. The grandeur of the pillars and the
intricate work still visible today spoke of the glory that the Romans
wanted the place to have. I remember thinking that we had the
technology to execute such grand projects in a much shorter time. It
was the ambition we lacked.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some time later, I came across this video by Seymour Papert . In it, Papert shows
the use of the Logo programming language to control a "turtle"
either on the screen or on a physical surface. By manipulating the
turtle, students can create shapes, animations or music that are
personally meaningful. While doing this, they use mathematical
concepts and discover some of their own maths.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/xMzojQFyMo0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Learning in this way, the students acquire a scientific mindset.
They start with the desire to create something, they hypothesise a
way of getting there and then observe the results. As in all computer
programming tasks, it is likely that the first attempt will fail to
some extent, though not completely. The student will want to "debug"
his or her creation through a process of progressive refinement.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This differs from most classroom mathematics in a few important
ways:</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The student is not being being taught alien concepts with the -often
empty- promise that they will become useful at a later stage;</span><br />
</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The student is not either "right" or "wrong"
but somewhere on the continuum between the two;</span><br />
</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The student does not need to check the answer with the
teacher or in an answer key. S/he can see to what extent the
creation on the screen corresponds to the design s/he had in mind;
and, finally,</span><br />
</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The student has an incentive to go through the debugging
process. After all, the creation is their own.<br />
</span><br />
</li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you have watched the video, you will have noticed that the
technology looks very primitive. Of course, computer technology has
developed in power and ease of interaction since this video was made.
Yet, much (thankfully, not all) of what passes as educational
technology today has regressed since those days:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white;">In
most contemporary educational situations where children come into
contact with computers the computer is used to put children through
their paces, to provide exercises of an appropriate level of
difficulty, to provide feedback, and to dispense information. The
computer programming the child.” -- Seymour Papert, Mindstorms
(cited in Audrey Watters, <a href="http://hackeducation.com/2013/07/30/visiting-seymour/" target="_blank">Visiting Seymour</a>, 30 July,
2013.</span></span></em></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As is the case with grand structures, we have the means to do better. It is the ambition that we lack!</span><br />
<br />
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-75728439192843178522013-12-07T11:20:00.000+11:002013-12-07T15:55:04.044+11:00Watching students grow: A week in the life of this teacher<div style="margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In this, my 100th post, I want to
reflect on some of the things that make me grateful to teach at Avila
College. The last week was exhausting and energising at the same
time. I believe a summary of that week will suffice in explaining why
I love working at Avila. Here is a snapshot:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">World Integrated Unit</span></b></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For three days,
groups of Year 7 students formed their own countries. They learnt
about preferential voting, designed a national flag, dance, anthem, sandwich and animal! Each country had to conduct a campaign to host the
Olympic games and use social media to their advantage.
</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWVdq1cnTszzAMBPnhyphenhyphenRgPXHvZjagpz_pcBYTqJlupBjMDM1n015SmcN1es7LHWQQrPNtWhfqeeGGSFIbD54cnL5BgBOnQzy06qPhegg1CsMsIi_AzTu9yMzGbwK6cr1HuSpH3/s1600/2013-12-03+12.17.58.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWVdq1cnTszzAMBPnhyphenhyphenRgPXHvZjagpz_pcBYTqJlupBjMDM1n015SmcN1es7LHWQQrPNtWhfqeeGGSFIbD54cnL5BgBOnQzy06qPhegg1CsMsIi_AzTu9yMzGbwK6cr1HuSpH3/s320/2013-12-03+12.17.58.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Treasurer, financial adviser and head of state deciding their country's investment priorities</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My role was to
look after the treasury and guide and the individual country
treasurers through foreign exchanges and a financial report.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Those poor souls
had to learn, in half a day, to use a spreadsheet and to carry out
buys and sells in the 12 virtual currencies we gave them. All trades
had to be evaluated in Australian Dollars but all amounts had to be
"parked" in the 12 currencies. For every trade, made-up
financial information was released to help them decide on what
currencies to buy and what currencies to sell. The aim was to make a
profit.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The unit was
prepared by my colleagues, Catherine Spurritt, head of the Languages
faculty and Emilio Bernardo, head of Humanities. I am grateful for
both them and to both of them for giving a role in which I observed
students grow and learn very fast.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirgTfAarLxkCjzBJuEkBA8vEuFAKE2cLnsGQZVjCcp8_PjbEya-SNB4FEfqKjX_2c_WfquR7n_Heh1NbZVmS_W9lrOGsKZFtbv9Jb3AfLm0sAMEqgMLMfN4_KHGj8LhbKFep8J/s1600/FinInfo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirgTfAarLxkCjzBJuEkBA8vEuFAKE2cLnsGQZVjCcp8_PjbEya-SNB4FEfqKjX_2c_WfquR7n_Heh1NbZVmS_W9lrOGsKZFtbv9Jb3AfLm0sAMEqgMLMfN4_KHGj8LhbKFep8J/s400/FinInfo.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Example of the financial information on which the treasurers based their trading decisions</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Year 8 Maths Day</span></b></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Although I
wasn't directly involved in the running of this day, I had had a
preview of some of the activities due to being a member of the Maths
faculty and to the fact that my friend, Steven Francis, was the main
organiser of these activities.
</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When I wasn't
required at the World Integrated Unit, I went to take a peek at what
the Year 8s were doing. They were running from building to building,
chasing clues and solving problems. Along the way, they collected
vouchers for chocolate! The students were having a great time and I
overheard comments such as "I haven't had this much fun in
ages!"
</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some of the
activities were run through a dynamic website which Steven had
developed just for that day. There were Maths problems, the odd bonus
question such as "Name the country whose flag this is" and,
you guessed it, surprise chocolate to be collected.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I will not go on
about his day but the buzz around the school was just amazing. We saw
students engaged and working harder than could be expected on their
last week of classes.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A small honour</span></b></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On Thursday
morning, Steven and I went to La Trobe University to attend the
opening ceremony of the Mathematical Association of Victoria's annual
conference. At that ceremony, we received an award for an article we
wrote earlier in the year. The article was on the use of BYOB, now
called <a href="http://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html" target="_blank">Snap!</a>, in the Maths classroom.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Helping students achieve
independence</span></b></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Finally, on
Friday, a student in my homeroom gave me a Christmas gift with a card
in which she wrote the point behind the activities described above:</span></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Avila
helped me become independent.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I cannot think
of a better note to end the week on (Was that a preposition I ended
the sentence with?)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.2cm;">
<br /></div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28079520.post-65628840700940557352013-09-02T14:25:00.003+10:002013-09-02T19:34:14.717+10:00Why use algebra when you can use arithmetic?<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
This
post was jointly written with my colleague, Steven Francis. It
follows from my earlier post, <a href="http://www.ramblingteacher.com/2013/07/welcome-to-maths-please-leave-your.html" target="_blank">Welcome to Maths class: Leave your common sense at the door</a>.
In this post, we provide examples that highlight the importance of
allowing students to solve problems from first principle. <i>At times,
insisting on specific formal methods can diminish students' ability
to solve problems.</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ZED4gITL28?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
In
the video above, the renowned physicist Richard Feynman relates how he
could solve linear equations early but was told "You did it with
arithmetic. You have to do it with algebra."</div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
Feynman
then reflects with visible annoyance:
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There's no such a thing as you don't do it by arithmetic, you do it
by algebra. It's a false thing that they had invented in school so
that the children who have to study algebra can all pass it. They had
invented a set of rules which you follow them (<i>sic)</i> without
thinking to produce the answer.
</blockquote>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
As
teachers who do instruct students in these methods, our observation
has been that Feynman was right! We often see some students' ability
to solve problems diminish as they learn more and more formal
curriculum Mathematics.</div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
The
following problem comes from a year 9 book. Year 7s find it much
easier to solve, especially before they have been taught algebra!
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: lucida grande;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In
1974, a mother is 6 times as old as her daughter. The mother turned
50 in the year 2000. In what year was the mother double her
daughter's age?</span></span></span></blockquote>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
Given
a few minutes to think about it, year 7s will reason in the following
way:</div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
In the year 2000, the mother was 50 => she was born in 1950</div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
In the year 1974, the mother must have been 24 => her daughter
was 4 years old</div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
The mother is 20 years older than her daughter</div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
When the daughter was 20 years old, the mother was 40 (1950 + 40 =
1990)</div>
</li>
<li><div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
<b>Answer:</b> The mother was double her daughter's age in 1990.</div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
Year
9 students, on the other hand, tend to reason as follows:</div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
This question is an application of algebra => I need to define
pronumerals (The word used in Australia for a variable that
represents a specific unknown number)
</div>
</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Let
<i>x = the daughter's age</i><i>Let
y = the mother's age</i><i>In
1974, y = 6x</i><i>In
2000, y = 50 but we don't know what x is then!</i><i>Okay,
I am stuck!</i></blockquote>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="widows: 1;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">We
are not suggesting that students should not be taught any formal
methods. We are suggesting that they should be encouraged to explore
a variety of ways to represent and solve problems. </span><b>Algebra is the
science of abstraction and, before working in the abstract, students
need to explore concrete ways of thinking.</b> Future posts will change
tone and present concrete activities that can help achieve this goal.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; widows: 1;">
If
you have personal experiences or teaching ideas that can help
students solve problems from first principles, please share them
here.</div>
ramblingteacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286015628832482460noreply@blogger.com0