[Yr7-10it] girls, IT, computer literacy
Bill Kerr
billkerr at gmail.com
Wed Apr 2 23:27:16 EST 2008
I don't disagree with anything you say Rob but do think Resnick's approach
to promoting fluency might be more successful because of the overt
recognition of the importance of play
I thought this part from the Resnick (kindergarten) paper was very relevant
to the girls in IT question
Has anyone used Cricket technology? (I haven't)
When my research group developed Cricket technology,
for example, we explicitly tried to broaden the range of
projects that children could create [15]. Crickets are small
programmable devices, small enough to fit in the palm of a
child's hand. Children can plug motors, lights, sensors, and
other electronic blocks into a Cricket, then program their
creations to spin, light up, and play music. Children have
used Crickets to make a wide range of imaginative
creations. For example, a group of girls at an after-school
center in Boston used Crickets and craft materials to create
an interactive garden, with flowers that danced and
changed colors when you clapped your hands. At a
workshop in Hong Kong, a 12-year-old boy created a
wearable jukebox that played different songs when you
inserted different coins, and an 11-year-old girl added
lights to her boots and programmed them to turn different
colors based on the pace of her walk, as measured by
sensors that she attached to her boots (see Figure 2).
Cricket kits are similar, in many ways, to the Mindstorms
robotics kits developed by the LEGO toy company, in
collaboration with my research group. But there are
important differences. While Mindstorms kits are designed
especially for making robots, Cricket kits are designed to
support a diverse range of projects combining art and
technology. Cricket kits include not only LEGO bricks and
motors but also a collection of arts-and-craft materials,
colored lights, and a sound-box for playing sound effects
and music. By providing a broader range of materials, we
hoped to encourage a broader range of projects – and spark
the imaginations of a broader range of children. In
particular, we aimed to encourage broader participation
among girls. Even with strong efforts to increase female
participation, only 30% of the participants in LEGO
robotics competitions are girls [9]. In Cricket activities at
museums and after-school centers, participation has been
much more balanced among boys and girls [16].
As we develop new technologies for children, our hope is
that children will continually surprise themselves (and
surprise us too) as they explore the space of possibilities.
When we created Crickets, we didn't imagine that children
would use them to measure their speed on rollerblades, or
to create a machine for polishing and buffing their
fingernails. To support and encourage this diversity, we
explicitly include elements and features that can be used in
many different ways. The design challenge is to develop
features specific enough so that children can quickly learn
how to use them, but general enough so that children can
continue to imagine new ways to use them
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 9:09 AM, Costello, Rob R <
Costello.Rob.R at edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:
> Hi Bill
>
> while the educause paper analyses information fluency i don't think it
> precludes play / exploration as the means of developing it
>
> it suggests project based learning, rotating roles, personal exploration -
> and cautions that while we need a strong "core" curriculum, just defining a
> "core" curriculum is like shipping apple cores around the country, hoping
> they will grow - the culture of how it is done is crucial; so play based
> explortation etc may be the way
> the main point i take from the paper is that information literacy as
> "skill sets" is insufficent since they not deeply transferable to genuinely
> new problems - not enough enough staying power in the face of change
>
> (from a blooms point of view - tends to limit us to "how to use")
>
> however information fluency based on understanding of underlying concepts
> - however that is obtained - allows creative problem solving across a wider
> range of unfamiliar domains
>
> i think we need a more rigourous core - but delivered in the spirit of
> VELS - depth rather than shallow breadth, and personalisation - not trying
> to get everyone to swallow standard computer science curriculum
>
> but rasing the bar in terms of depth
>
> here is one apple core
> http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/ACMK12CSModel.html
>
> cheers
>
> rob
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of Bill Kerr
> Sent: Tue 4/1/2008 3:06 PM
> To: Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Yr7-10it] girls, IT, computer literacy
>
>
> 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><
> 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.....
>
> "This email and any attachments may be confidential. You must not
> disclose or use the information in this email if you are not the intended
> recipient. If you have received this email in error, please notify us
> immediately and delete the email and all copies. The School does not
> guarantee that this email is virus or error free. The attached files are
> provided and my only be used on the basis that the user assumes all
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> not necessarily those of the School."
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
> Important - This email and any attachments may be confidential. If
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> Development.
>
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>
>
>
>
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> Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by
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> Information Technology Teachers Association Inc
>
> Important - This email and any attachments may be confidential. If
> received in error, please contact us and delete all copies. Before opening
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> _______________________________________________
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> Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by
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--
Bill Kerr
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/
http://www.users.on.net/~billkerr/
skype: billkerr2006
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