[Yr7-10it] girls, IT, computer literacy

Tue Apr 1 14:06:35 EST 2008

the educause paper from rob and the kindergarten learning paper from sarah
have different approaches to the acquisiton of fluency

the educause paper tries to analyse and dissect what fluency is, step by
step (cognitivist or conceptual approach)

the kindergarten learning paper regards it as something that arises from a
cycle which involves imagine, create, play, share, reflect (constructionist
approach)

IMO the kindergarten learning paper works - I'm not so sure about the
educause approach. It might be true that that kids from disadvantaged
backgrounds initially require more didactic input - that the play approach
works well because middle class parents have already taught their kids lots
of conceptual understandings

note this quote from the kindergarten learning paper:

Kindergarten is undergoing a dramatic change. For nearly
200 years, since the first kindergarten opened in 1837,
kindergarten has been a time for telling stories, building
castles, drawing pictures, and learning to share. But that is
starting to change. Today, more and more kindergarten
children are spending time filling out phonics worksheets
and memorizing math flashcards [5]. In short, kindergarten
is becoming more like the rest of school.

In my mind, exactly the opposite is needed: Instead of
making kindergarten like the rest of school, we need to
make the rest of school (indeed, the rest of life) more like
kindergarten.

Is he (Resnick) correct?
-- 
Bill Kerr
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 9:29 AM, Sarah Pulis <Sarah.Pulis at latrobe.edu.au>
wrote:

>  Hi Kent and others,
>
>
>
> It's fantastic to see discussion on girls and computing. We are few and
> far between, that is for sure!
>
>
>
> Another tool that you may consider which combines simple programming
> concepts and the 'making something pretty' aspect is Scratch [1]. Scratch
> has been mentioned before on this list. It's really intuitive and easy for
> kids to pick up and is very versatile. Lots of projects online to give kids
> inspiration – you can make games, plays, animate your name in as many
> different ways as you can think off… and big kids can waste hours playing
> with it too (can you tell that is me?). And [2] is an interesting article
> about creative thinking and learning.
>
>
>
> Just for your interesting, I am piloting an online mentoring program this
> year with a small number of schools that aims to encourage girls in
> secondary school to consider careers in Information Communication Technology
> (ICT). We hope that through the eMentoring program, students will be
> provided with insights into careers in ICT through interactions with
> graduates and current students. We hope the program will encourage students,
> particularly female students, to consider undertaking ICT at senior
> secondary and tertiary level.
>
>
>
> Regards, Sarah.
>
>
>
> [1] http://scratch.mit.edu/
>
> [2]
> http://www.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/kindergarten-learning-approach.pdf<http://www.media.mit.edu/%7Emres/papers/kindergarten-learning-approach.pdf>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Sarah Pulis
>
> Program Coordinator
>
> Science Teachers' Assistance Program
>
> Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering
>
> La Trobe University
>
> Ph: 9479 1283
>
> Fax: 9479 3060
>
> www.latrobe.edu.au/scitecheng/stap
>
>
>
> --
>
> If you would like to stay informed of new developments within STAP and be
> notified of upcoming education program and professional development
> opportunities, please subscribe to the STAP mailing list<http://www.latrobe.edu.au/scitecheng/stap/mailing-list.php>
> .
>
> --
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:
> yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au] *On Behalf Of *Kent Beveridge
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 25 March 2008 3:37 PM
> *To:* Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List
> *Subject:* RE: [Yr7-10it] girls, IT, computer literacy
>
>
>
> Hey folks, it seems we are getting in a few meters deeper than I
> originally planned. I am not writing a thesis on girls in computing, just
> after some basic ideas on typical things that some 7/8/9/10 year level girls
> might like to do to increase their participation rate in the subject of IT.
>
>
>
> Keep in mind here, that it is still a separate subject here and not
> integrated a la VELS into other disciplines. Also, my classes are all mixed
> sex so I dont have the luxury of all girls (or all boys) classes, the
> numbers just cant justify that yet.
>
>
>
> Its nice to hear that lots of research has been done etc etc..but, the
> bottom line (and we all love a nice bottom line!) is, what will enthuse
> teenage girls into IT that can be started with a simple single session one
> lunchtime per week with basic software programs, the internet(filtered) and
> no PhD?
>
>
>
> Kent.
>
>
>
> *Kent Beveridge**,*
>
> *I.T. co-ordinator*
>
> *St. Brigids Catholic Sec. College*
>
> *Horsham*
>
> *email.. kbeveridge at stbc.vic.edu.au*
>
>
>
> *|<3|\|7  b3\/3r1D93 ?  ;-)*
>
> *Wishes and Eggs, one you make and one you break!  A bit like
> promises.....*
>
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>  ------------------------------
>
> *From:* yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of Bill Kerr
> *Sent:* Tue 3/25/2008 2:59 PM
> *To:* Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List
> *Subject:* Re: [Yr7-10it] girls, IT, computer literacy
>
> great resources - thanks rob
>
> yes, I want to be part of this discussion group, when and if it is set up
> :-)
>
> alan kay's material complements the turkle quote - she focuses on social
> relations being embedded in simulations; he focuses on how they are embedded
> in the user interface
>
> insofar as we conceptualise computers as "mere tools" then they will
> continue to be used poorly in schools IMO - better to see them as
> interactive medium which either molds the user in its image (eg. an
> application or a GUI) or the user molds the machine, expresses themselves
> through the medium, including the ability to modify and develop aspects of
> the medium
>
> --
> Bill Kerr
> http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/
>
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:00 PM, Costello, Rob R <
> Costello.Rob.R at edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:
>
> I sent something through yesterday re Kent's questions about girls in IT.
>
>
>
> It hasn't appeared  maybe because I added a largish attachment
>
>
>
> Anyway, here's another link I found yesterday that might be of interest  -
>
>
>
>
> paper is sub titled :  "Using the Storytelling Alice programming
> environment to create computer-animated movies inspires middle school girls'
> interest in learning to program computers."
>
> www.thinkingcurriculum.com/alice.pdf
>
>
>
> (having a student login at a uni opens up amazing journal resources over
> the web  seems nearly all journals have been digitised  back issues and all
>
> Be worth schools having an account)
>
>
>
> it talks about the overlap between animation and programming and the
> appeal in this approach  appeals to me as well !
>
>
>
> also a copy and paste of whats I sent yesterday :
>
>
>
> Sherry Turkle did some pioneering work on computer cultures, gender, etc
>
>
>
> I think it would be fair to describe her as a feminist orientated scholar;
>
>
>
>
> She has some powerful arguments in favour of programming; and critiques of
> its general removal from school curriculum over the last 20 years
>
>
>
> Here's an excerpt from the 20th anniversary edition of the "Second Self :
> Computers and the human spirit"
>
>
>
> (in other work with Papert, they looked at how gender interacted with
> programming style and knowledge construction
>
>
>
> I worked in a girls school for quite a while and agree with Rachel's
> observations about preferred activities
>
>
>
> But seems pretty crucial to me that we offer programming in accessible
> forms and styles as well
>
>
>
> (while I'm on that  here's a review of introductory programming languages
>  -
>
> "Lowering the Barriers to Programming: A Taxonomy of Programming
>  Environments and Languages for Novice Programmers"
>
>
>
> looks at about 200 of them
>
> http://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/lowerbarrier.pdf
>
>
>
> Turkle :
>
>
>
> In *The Second Self *I report on my studies of children learning Logo.
> Their
>
> styles of programming were varied and revealing. The computer, as I have
>
> said, served as a Rorschach, and programming was one of the most powerful
>
> manifestations of its projective power. Twenty years later, programming
>
> is no longer taught much in standard classrooms, relegated for the
>
> most part to special after-school computer clubs. These days, educators
>
> most often think of computer literacy as the ability to use the computer
>
> as an information appliance for such purposes as word processing, running
>
> simulations, accessing educational CD-ROMs, navigating the Internet, and
>
> using presentation software such as PowerPoint. But the question remains
>
> whether mastery of these skills should be the goal of computer education.
>
> Do they constitute computer literacy?
>
>
>
>
>
> One unhappy seventh-grade teacher concurred,
>
> "It's not my job to instruct children in the use of an appliance and then
>
> to leave it at that." These teachers were struggling toward an argument
> for
>
> a certain kind of "computational exceptionalism." It takes as a given that
>
> people once knew how their cars, televisions, or telephones worked and
>
> don't know this any more, but that in the case of mechanical technology,
>
> such losses are acceptable. It insists, however, that ignorance about the
> fundamentals
>
> of computation comes at too high a price. One teacher put it
>
> this way: "Children know that the telephone is a mechanism and that they
>
> control it. But it's not enough to have that kind of understanding about
>
> the computer. You have to know how a simulation works. You have to
>
> know what an algorithm is."
>
>
>
> In the nearly ten years since I recorded these conversations, educational
>
> advocates for computational transparency have, in large measure, lost
> their
>
> battle. Educators who want to demystify the computer face a new generation
>
> of children that no longer finds enough mystery in the machine to
>
> care what an algorithm is. It is a generation that has made a transition
>
> from the transparency of algorithm to the opacity of simulation. This
> generation
>
> takes overland journeys along a simulated Oregon Trail and when
>
> it plays *The Sims *or *The Sims Online*, it designs houses, personal
> histories,
>
> and social engagements for the virtual citizenry. In *The Second Self*,
> when
>
> I wrote of the "computer as Rorschach," it was programming that served
>
> as the projective screen for personal and cultural differences. These
> days,
>
> computation offers far more immediate projective media: one can create
>
> multiple avatars in online communities and play with relationships, quite
>
> literally using one's "second (or third, or fourth, of fifth) self."
>
>
>
> I have suggested, in talking about Deborah, that on the level of the
> individual
>
> child, something interesting has been lost in the move away from
>
> authorship of the programs that underlie one's own game. On a societal
>
> level, there is an analogous loss. The aesthetic of transparency (common
>
> to the Logo movement and the early generations of personal computer
>
> hobbyists) carried with it a political aesthetic that was tied both to
> authorship
>
> and to knowing how things worked on a level of considerable detail.
>
> This is a kind of understanding that is not communicated by playing
>
> off-the-shelf simulations.
>
>
>
> On one level, high school sophomores playing *SimCity *for two hours
>
> may learn more about urban planning than they would from a textbook,
>
> but on another level, they may not know how to think about what they
>
> are doing. They "play" simulations but don't have a clear way to
> discriminate
>
> between the rules of the game and those that operate in a real city.
>
> Most have never programmed a computer or constructed their own
> simulations.
>
> They do not have a language for talking about how one might
>
> rewrite the rules of their games. So, for example, *SimCity *often gives
> players
>
> the impression that raising taxes will lead to riots. But, of course,
> there is
>
> a way to write the game so that increased taxes lead to an increase in
> health
>
> services, productivity, and social harmony. In my view, citizenship in a
>
> culture of simulation requires that you know how to rewrite the rules. You
>
> need tools to measure, criticize, and judge every simulation. Today's
>
> teenagers are comfortable as inhabitants of simulated worlds, but most
>
> often, they are there as consumers rather than as citizens. To achieve
> full
>
> citizenship, our children need to work with simulations that teach about
>
> the nature of simulation itself.
>
>
>
> Tim, who did not know how to program, worked in a complex system built by
>
> others. Tim played his simulation software as though it were a video game,
>
> moment to moment, with no understanding of the rules. Deborah was
>
> nurtured by transparency; Tim's skill set was centered on the artful
> navigation
>
> of opacity. His philosophy of play: "Don't let it bother you if you
>
> don't understand. I just say to myself that I probably won't be able to
>
> understand the whole game any time soon. So I just play it."6
>
> Tim's method enabled him to accomplish a great deal in simulation
>
> space. His comfort in his virtual world might serve him (not well, but
> adequately)
>
> in the many possible careers that lay before him, careers in architecture,
>
> law, business, medicine, or history. In all of these fields, dealing
>
> with information increasingly entails the navigation of simulations of
>
> other people's creation. However, as I meet professionals in all of these
>
> fields who move easily within their computational systems and yet feel
>
> constrained by them, trapped by their systems' unseen limitations and
>
> unknown assumptions, I feel continued concern. Are the new generations
>
> of simulation consumers reminiscent of people who can pronounce the
>
> words in a book but don't understand what they mean? We come to
>
> written text with centuries-long habits of readership. At the very least,
> we
>
> have learned to begin with the journalist's traditional questions: Who,
>
> what, when, where, why, and how? Who wrote these words, what is their
>
> message, why were they written, and how are they situated in time and
>
> place, politically and socially? The dramatic changes in computer
> education
>
> over the past decades leave us with serious questions about how we
>
> can teach our children to interrogate simulations in much the same spirit.
>
> The specific questions may be different, but the intent needs to be the
>
> same: to develop habits of readership appropriate to a culture of
> simulation.
>
> These habits of readership are central to computer literacy and social
>
> responsibility in the twenty-first century.
>
>
>
>
> http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10515&mode=toc
>
>
>
> (I've uploaded a few of these files sharing  illustrate the amazing
> resources which are hidden from google just a little sample sharing of
> what's out there with journals and electronic access to a uni library - but
> I guess I will take them pretty soon )
>
>
>
> More Turkle / Papert
>
> http://www.thinkingcurriculum.com/turklePapert.pdf
>
>
>
> (no copyright here I would think  there are various versions of this paper
> online  in fact Paperts classic book MindStorms can be downloaded for free
> here
>
> http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?id=SERIES11430&type=series&coll=ACM&dl=ACM
>
>
>
> needs a free web registration but then gives you the whole book )
>
>
>
> I'm in the middle of researching stuff  this is the tip of the iceberg of
> whats out there
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> *Rob *
>
>
>
>
>
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