Author Archives: witchyrichy

Stanford also wrote a report about women in the computer sciences. Their suggestion is “Also, the department should investigate what they can do to keep women or to encourage women to pursue higher education in computer science.” All they need to do to investigate what to do to keep women in computer science is to look to feminist theorists who can help them get below the superficial ideas to a real understanding of what is going to have to change in order for women to fit in and be heard.

http://cse.stanford.edu/class/cs201/projects-00-01/women-faculty/conclusion.html

The summary of the section titled, “The Masculine Environment,” says: “These factors can cause a woman to feel out of place in a computer workplace and make it difficult for her to picture herself as a computer professional.” (The factors are evidently pinup posters, sports-dominated talk, and denegrating remarks.) Really? Is that what MIT’s computer science department is like? Or is she describing the world of the computer room in general? I’m having trouble reading it with a straight face especially since the obvious question here isn’t “How can we change the computer workplace?” Instead, she seems to ask, “How can we help women deal with this type of workplace?” where she feels like a professional because she is working with other professionals.

“Most important, with a positive attitude, women can make the most of their situation.” Ellen Spertus, Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists? (http://people.mills.edu/spertus/Gender/pap/pap.html)

This report, an internal study by MIT about why women avoid computer science, is the perfect starting place for my article. They recognize the problem but the solution is just beyond their grasp. The suggestions about how to attract more women to the profession make no recognition that it may be the profession that needs to change. It’s just going to be tough for women because they aren’t as good at math as men so they’re naturally going to have to work harder. The report seems to be more about harassment. It does acknowledge that women have different styles of thinking and that there should be a place for their type of programming. But that doesn’t really come out in the final recommendations. How convenient that it is written by a woman.

For my paper on integrating technology into instructional models, I want to look at three ways that technology can dovetail with strategies:

1. Technology can provide the structure for instructional models such as direct instruction, mastery learning, and simulations in the behavioral family. They can provide the structure for more student directed learning in the inductive thinking, inquiry and group investigation models.

2. Technology can provide the resources needed to support most of the models. These might be in the form of teaching materials and lesson plans for teachers (as well as additional information about the models) or in the form of research materials for the students.

3. Technology can provide particular tools to support different pieces of the syntax:

• Concept mapping tools for conceptualizing models or brainstorming
• Communication tools for exploring, discussing and publishing findings

Judi commented on my post Thinking About Rules. I asked if students would react differently to rules that were imposed from without rather than within:

“Good question. I suspect that this differs among learners ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù that for some, having the rules imposed from outside is preferable, and for others, creating and following one?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s own rules is best. The ?¢‚Ǩ?ìLogo folks?¢‚Ǩ? tended to think that everyone was naturally a more self-directed learner than someone who needed structure imposed by someone else (e.g., a teacher). What we may never know is whether that?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s actually true about all of us, but the system of schooling has ?¢‚Ǩ?ìbeat it out?¢‚Ǩ? of us ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù or whether this truly is an individual difference, perhaps expressed differently at different times of our lives.”

Some of this goes to motivation. Csikzenmihalyi (Flow) would argue that in order to achieve flow, the motivation needs to be internal. He defines certain people as being autotelic personalities who draw their strength and motivation from internal rather than external sources: “The term “autotelic” derives from two Greek words, auto meaning self, and telos meaning goal. It refers to a self-contained activity, one that is done not with the expectation of some future benefit, but simply because the doing itself is the reward.”

I would suspect that most students are influenced by some combination of external and internal motivation, and my observation has been that there are various combinations falling along a continuum from somone who is completely externally motivated and someone who is completely internally motivated. And I think people move along the continuum for each particular learning environment. An historical reenactor may have lots of internal motivation to learn about a certain era, but more external motivation may be needed to get him to take an accounting class that could lead to a raise.

Prensky, M. Digital game-based learning. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

This book is Prensky’s introduction to games-based learning. Interesting overview of today’s gaming generation including the now famous idea about kids being digital natives. Plus, Prensky is the first person I’ve read who mentions Csikszentmihalyi and the state of “flow.” In terms of games-based learning, Prensky sees two challenges: keeping people in the state of flow by making the game just challenging enough and being sure they are still learning as well: “In the flow state, the challenges presented and your ability to solve them are almost perfectly matched, and you often accomplish things that you didn’t think you could, along with a great deal of pleasure” (p. 124).

The Learning Circuits Blog: Curious about the future of history based simulations?

Clark Aldrich makes the argument that the Star Trek video games are a good example for historical simulation developers. The material is similar and the Star Trek developers have chosen lots of different types of games to show their material. The post includes a list of lessons learned that should be helpful as I consider my own game.

I have been poking around Marc Prensky’s Social Impact Games website, browing through the games. Many are just descriptions of games that are in development or that have been developed but are not free or web-based. For instance, in his book Prensky talks about The Monkey Wrench Conspiracy, a game used to teach engineers how to use a new 3D CAD program.
But there are several that are available to try out:

MassBalance: This is a simulation that asks the user to balance the Massachusetts state budget. The game warns you when your budget cuts are dangerous, and you can also raise taxes. Pretty realistic and shows the complicated nature of balancing budgets. (Listed under Public Policy Games)

Kinetic City: This series of games was created by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, based on a National Science Foundation grant. It is an interesting mix of online and offline activities.

Brain Connection: Billed as brain teasers, these online activities help with phonemic awareness and other early literacy skills including sound discrimination.

Team Up: From Girls Inc, a game that emphasizes team building. Each girl has her own strengths and they have to work together to move to new levels.

Girls seem to be a big concern of game designers. Here’s one that’s still under development:

Rapunsel: A constructionist site that hopes to encourage girls to become computer programmers. Rapunsel stands for Real Time Applied Programming for Underrepresented Students’ Early Literacy. So, here’s a game with social concern as a basis for its creation.

Judi commented on my post about Social Impact Games that one of the reasons Logo may not have taken off the way its developers would like is that “there were no ?¢‚Ǩ?ìrules?¢‚Ǩ? in the ways that learners usually thought of them.” In Turkle’s book, Second Self, she describes a girl who created her own rule about Logo: her turtle could only go in 30 degree angles. She created intricate drawings but they were much more difficult to do than if she had abandoned the rule. Interesting that we tend to think of children as not liking rules but here was a child who sensed the need for a rule. Turkle suggests that for Deborah, the sense of power that usually accompanied children as they worked with the program was threatening instead. For her, the rule made the game more challenging and also made her different than the other students. So, how would she have reacted if the rule had been imposed from outside, as part of the game itself?

I finished Second Self this morning. Here’s my initial thought: my mantra when working with teachers has become that the computer is “just” a tool for learning. According to Turkle, it is much more than that: it’s a tool that supports your identity and indeed changes it. And since she was writing more than two decades ago, how has that increased? About ten-fold, I would guess.

Am I different because of my relationship with my computer? It has brought out a more technical side of me although I am definitely a “soft” programmer. Mostly, my computer is an extension of me. I understand the feeling that several of her informants described of not really typing, as though ideas are moving from the brain to the computer.

Right now, I have a brand new Mac ProBook sitting on the desk next to me. It wouldn’t be too hard to switch over to it especially since so much of my life isn’t just digital but also online, available no matter computer is in my hands. But I’ve had this laptop for two years now and it is definitely geared to my learning and working style. I go very few places without it, and I store text, photos, movies, and music on it. It’s where I go to interact with people. It’s where I go to relax. It’s going to take time to set up the new computer so it can work the way I do and in the middle of a semester, that’s not going to happen. Do I think of my computer as a person? Not really, but it’s definitely a partner.