Week 2: Coding for Purpose
Why do we teach kids programming? (Code.org vs Scratch as an example)
This article ties to explain the answer of “Why” students should learn coding through two famous ways commonly used nowadays. One is the way of Code.org , a non profit organization that believe “ every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer programming. and the other is Scratch , a free educational programming language that was developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).2
The first impression the author got from Code.org vision is” We teach kids programming, because our nation needs more programmers” There were statistics about number of schools that teach Programming as subject, like History and Math, compared to the job demands in the computing field, which is ranked as the highest paid Jobs in US. This the way most people and educators see as the purpose of coding in an educational setting, for young people to get a job in this new industry that is in high demand for employees.
The author learned this from Prof. Mitchel Resinck and Scratch team, Programming is a tool, a tool for creativity and self expressing, not an objective in it’s own. Which is the exact feeling you get while working on Scratch Curriculum Guide. The objective of Scratch in general again isn’t to teach kids computational concepts (like looping ,functions and variables), but using this computational concepts in Scratch as a medium for creative expressing through 3 main fields : Art, Storytelling and Games. Which in my opinion makes Scratch the superior of the 2 programs.
In either case, the purpose of this article is to incourage kids to get involved with coding. THe author lists 4 big reasons for alls tudents to learn coding through these programs or any other means
1 Express yourself through programming. It’s like a kind of art
2 Learn important life skills
3 —Learning best happens when people are engaged in constructing personally meaningful products
4 Encourage kids to be technology producers instead of only technology consumers
A Different Approach to Coding: How kids are making and remaking themselves from Scratch By Mitchel Resnick & David Siegel
The designers of the Scratch program view coding differently then most people because they see coding differently then mostly people. they believe coding is not a set of technical skills but rather it is a new type of literary and personal expression valuable for everyone much like learning to write. They see coding as a new way for people to organize express, an share their ideas. . Scratch is similar to other coding approaches because it requires systematic and logical reason. Students need to learn a variety of problem-solving strategies so they can revise projects that didn't work as expected. Scratch is also different from many coding approaches because it puts a high priority on children learning to express themselves creativity and to share their creations with others. This is related to the Paulo Freire recognized that writing and literary are more important that just practical skills. The reason he lead literary campaigns in poor communities was not simply to help people get jobs but to help people learn that they can make and remake themselves. This is exactly what Scratch aims to do, allow young people to express themselves through programming computer code.
After using Scratch, I can see how and why the designers created such a program. This article helped me to bring my use of Scratch into the real-world and how the skills I learned by using this program can be applied outside of the computer based world. Skills such as problem-solving, thinking creatively and testing and playing around with ideas are all topics that modern education is trying to instill in children without much success. It is programs such as Scratch that will help fill this void in education by providing student with a new technology that they are intersted in and giving them the opportunity to mess around with allows to these topics to be adapted by students and the educational system as a whole.
Computer as Material: Messing About with Time By Seymour Papert
The message of this work by Papert begins with the title of this work, the phrase "messing about" is taken from a well-known paper by David Hawkins entitled Messing About in Science. Papert describes the work of Hawkins as he "introduced children to the study of pendulums by encouraging the students to "mess about" with them. This would have horrified teachers or administrators who measure the efficiency of education by how quickly students get to "know" the "right" answers. Hawkins, however, was interested in more than right answers. He had realized that the pendulum is a brilliant choice of an "object to think with." This idea is also found in Papert's
Mindstorms were he states, "one that can build a sense of science as inquiry, exploration, and investigation rather than as answers." Just as pendulums, paints, clay, and so forth, can be "messed around with," so can computers. Many people associate computers with a rigid style of work, but this need not be the case. Just as a pencil drawing reflects each artist's individual intellectual style, so too does work on the computer.
That was the premise for the project, Timer and Clocks. Student were allowed to use any material they please to create the clock so computers were used like wood, string, and electricity as material to mess about with, it quickly evolved into something else as the LOGO timers became more differentiated and sophisticated. A significant difference of the computer clocks became apparent in the area of extensibility. While many of the sand or water clocks were excellent timers, their use could not be extended beyond that. The computer clocks, however, were put to a variety of uses. For most of the students, creating LOGO timers was the first time they had used computers to make programs that made connections with the physical, tangible, non-computer world. The insight that LOGO could be used to solve real-world problems was further amplified when they used their LOGO timers to determine the speed of their homemade cars and when they interfaced their clocks with the temperature sensor. This then made the students aware of the role of computers not only in the classroom but in there daily live. Which lead to the realization that computers are like any other classroom material and can used as such. Here are some of the listed ways computers can be used in the classroom;
Some important guidelines, then, for the placement and use of computers in schools include the following:
- Seek out open-ended projects that foster students' involvement with a variety of materials, treating computers as just one more material, alongside rulers, wire, paper, sand, and so forth.
- Encourage activities in which students use computers to solve real problems.
- Connect the work done on the computer with what goes on during the rest of the school day, and also with the students' interests outside of school.
- Recognize the unique qualities of computers, taking advantage of their precision, adaptability, extensibility, and ability to mirror individual students' ideas and constructions of reality.
- Take advantage of such new, low-cost technological advances as temperature and light sensors, which promote integration of the computer with aspects of the students' physical environment.
I never considered before how and why we use computers in the classroom and how removed they usually are in a computer lab. My first encounter with computers was in a computer lab and was very teacher-directive, but in this day and age students use computers everyday for homework and other schoolwork so why not let them mess around with computer and give them the option to use them at their will instead of imposing our will on the way they use the computers.
The Gears of My Childhood By Seymour Papert
According to Papert "My thesis could be summarized as: What the gears cannot do the computer might. The computer is the Proteus of machines. Its essence is its universality, its power to simulate. Because it can take on a thousand forms and can serve a thousand functions, it can appeal to a thousand tastes. This book is the result of my own attempts over the past decade to turn computers into instruments flexible enough so that many children can each create for themselves something like what the gears were for me." This is an interesting idea in that it allows kids to not only learn to understand a topic or idea but it pushes children to learn for the purpose of enjoyment or even passion. Papert views his learning expereience with gear as something beyond what a classroom can teach a child and pushes learning into the realm of passionate pursuit. Lets look at his 3 reasons for my his interest in gears made the differential so easy for him. Papert lists the reasons here "First, I remember that no one told me to learn about differential gears. Second, I remember that there was
feeling, love, as well as understanding in my relationship with gears. Third, I remember that my first encounter with them was in my second year. If any "scientific" educational psychologist had tried to "measure" the effects of this encounter, he would probably have failed. It had profound consequences but, I conjecture, only very many years later. A "pre- and post-" test at age two would have missed them." Lets recap his points in order to understand his fundamental fact about learning; "anything is easy if you can assimilate it to your collection of models."
1. He pursued gears with his own accord thus creating a genuine interest and investment in learning
2. His allowed for his learning to become a passion, he felt love for his gears
3. His passion for gears could not be tested or understood by traditional learning standards because its profound consequences would be seen many year later but in ways that tests would miss
This led him to "develop a way of thinking that would be resonant with Piaget's.
The understanding of learning must be genetic. It must refer to the genesis of knowledge. What an individual can learn, and how he learns it, depends on what models he has available. This raises, recursively, the question of how he learned these models. Thus the "laws of learning" must be about how intellectual structures grow out of one another and about how, in the process, they acquire both logical and emotional form."
This is a very interesting idea in the way we learn and based on his personal experience with gears and how not everyone had the same experience leads to his laws of learning. So that the way we think is genetically imposed upon the individual and thus is the result of how we learn which would explain the difference in the way kids learn the same material. This idea really opened me up to understand the different types of learners and the origins and made me realize that they are not based on external and environmental but on internal and nature-induced method given to us at birth, thus as both Piaget and Papert state, " the understanding of learning must be genetic."
Summer Code: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR KAREN BRENNAN SHARES EXPERT TIPS FOR OUT-OF-SCHOOL COMPUTING FUN BY MATT WEBER, BARI WALSH
This article takes codings into the realm of fun which is an interesting premise because of the correlation with coding as something that in done by an individual which can be boring. One of the most articulate advocates for the power of computing as a creative, mind-expanding medium if Karen Brennan who founded Scratched ED. Brennan's says that there are 4 points to keep coding fun; Keep it fun, Keep it creative and open-end, Find communities online, and Keep it social. With these in place, coding takes a step in the right direction as it relates to other educational benchmarks. Brennan's ideas are something that can and should be applied to all educational subjects and therefore would allow for coding to fit into the educational sphere quite easily. By giving the opportunities for it to be seen by kids in a fun easy going atmoshphere is crucial for coding to be seen as a creative pursuit that can be accessible for all students.
CONCLUSION
This argument made over and over again in each of the articles was that all children should be taught coding, though whatever means they find engaging, so that they are not only ready for future careers but more importantly are able to express themselves in the future. With the rise of technology, computers are becoming more important and the need for young people to be fluent in computer languages is apparent but just like all education there is always a need for it but how do you get children to want to engage with these need. Students need to learn but the often don't want to learn. This is often the case with coding as well. Some of the answers can be found in programs such as Scratch that are encourage kids to engage with coding ideas in fun and interactive ways. I think the methods and ideas of Scratch should be applied to all educational system. As educators, we should be trying to engage all students in ways that are not just to get them to test well or learn in order to get a job, but rather to spark there interest, passion, and investment in an area that they want to pursue.
