Serendipity35 - Classroom

Computational Thinking

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 08:08:00 -0500

I stumbled upon a Google site to promote computational thinking in K-12 classrooms. http://www.google.com/edu/computational-thinking/

Computational thinking (which they abbreviate as CT, but I think of CT as critical thinking) involves a set of problem-solving skills and techniques that software engineers use. It makes sense from a Google perspective to approach things like an engineer, but I am not so sure that all things in education need to be approached that way. I always thought that Google's problem with doing social (see Orkut, Wave, Plus) was that it was designed by engineers rather than a mix of people with the emphasis on non-engineers.

Nevertheless, here are a few examples they give of techniques that their engineers use to write programs.

Decomposition: When we taste an unfamiliar dish and identify several ingredients based on the flavor, we are decomposing that dish into its individual ingredients.

Pattern Recognition: People look for patterns in stock prices to decide when to buy and sell.

Pattern Generalization and Abstraction: A daily planner uses abstraction to represent a week in terms of days and hours, helping us to organize our time.

Algorithm Design: When a chef writes a recipe for a dish, she is creating an algorithm that others can follow to replicate the dish.
That last item, Algorithm Design, is something we hear about frequently these days even though most of us have no idea what that measn other than "it has something to do wih math." They define it as the ability to develop a step-by-step strategy for solving a problem. Algorithm design seems to include the other techniques: look at the decomposition of a problem and the identification of patterns that help to solve the problem. In computer science as well as in mathematics, algorithms are often written abstractly, utilizing variables in place of specific numbers. Look at the examples they provide:
- When a chef writes a recipe for a dish, she is creating an algorithm that others can follow to replicate the dish.
- When a coach creates a play in football, he is designing a set of algorithms for his players to follow during the game.
- In mathematics, when we calculate the percent change between two numbers, we follow an algorithm along the lines of:

If the original number is greater than the new number, use the following equation to calculate the percent change: percent decrease = 100*(original - new)/original.
If the new number is greater than the original number, use the following equation to calculate the percent change: percent increase = 100*(new - original)/original.
If neither is true, then the original and new numbers must equal each other and there is no percent change.

They lose me when they say that you can take it "a step further" and implement this algorithm in Python so that a computer calculates this for us:

original = float(input('Enter the original number: '))
new = float(input('Enter the new number: '))
if original > new:
percent_decrease = 100 (original - new) / original
print 'Percent decrease:', percent_decrease, '%'
elif new > original:
percent_increase = 100 (new - original) / original
print 'Percent increase:', percent_increase, '%'
else:
print 'There is no percent change.'

Of course, the "step further" is the key for an educator. Google says in its professional development section that this is intended for math teachers and on the web resources page it is all math, science and computer science. What I would be interested in seeing are some applications in other areas.

The one site I could find was the Interactive Journalism Institute for Middle Schoolers which is a research project that introduces students to CT via the creation of online magazines. The computational thinking is via digital media, interactive graphics, animation, video and database design in a collaborative setting. It is designed to foster computational and writing skills and they also get to to share their online magazine with family, friends and teachers. This research project is led by three computer science and journalism faculty and a gender-equity specialist at The College of New Jersey.

Advance Your Search

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:09:00 -0500

I'm always a bit surprised when I see someone do a search online and be disappointed to get either too few results or, more likely, too many irrelevant results. Most search sites have an "advanced search" feature which often solves those issues and others.==On my Serendipity35 tech learning blog, I wrote about using Google for better search. That's useful for yourself and is also something anyone who teaches should make sure their students know and use.

I want to note here an example of a vendor search. Most of us use Amazon to find books and media, but far fewer people use their advanced search feature.==Start by going to the Advanced Search on Amazon. From there I could set up a search for books on "HTML5" published after "2011", and available for the Kindle and get only those results.

After doing my advanced search, I can even limit the search further from the list provided in the left column on the results page. If I wanted the really new publications, I could choose to see only the titles published in the last 30 days.

Amazon's advanced search also works for music, TV, movies, magazines and toys and games.

Using Wikipedia To Kill A Mockingbird

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 07:30:00 -0500

UPDATED from 11/20/07

As a follow-up to my post on using wikis, I came across a short post from gearfire.net with 4 suggestions on how students should use Wikipedia in research.

The preface is something students have already figured out for most classes: Never cite Wikipedia in an academic paper. But that's just for the benefit of your teacher (and your grade) because you should use Wikipedia.

Here's my take on those suggestions in a classroom scenario of my own where I'm teaching To Kill A Mockingbird.

Okay class, now I know some teachers here have you told you that you can't use Wikipedia for your research, but I know that you are using it. So, I actually will require you to use it for this paper we're going to be doing on the novel. I've got some suggestions for right now while we are formulating topics. Look up at the Wikipedia page I have on the projector and let's use Wikipedia to get background information.

For example, I would be happy to see one of you decide to learn something about Harper Lee's hometown which served as a model for the book's setting. Not a bad topic, though I caution you that it might be tough to find out very much. Then again, these papers are short, so do you really want to find five whole books on your topic?

What else do we see here?

Yes, one of you future lawyers might want to write something on the impact of the fictional Atticus Finch on the real legal profession.

We won't have time in class to talk much about the Great Depression, but I assume that the class has studied it at least once in some history class. Just in case, before we get into a discussion tomorrow, I put two questions on the side board for homework. Take a look at this on Wikipedia in order to answer them and if you can add something from your study of history or find any errors, let us know tomorrow.

Melissa, as our lovable class radical, perhaps you'd like to look at the controversial nature of this book for your paper? Think about it.

Did everyone notice the LINKS at the bottom of the article? These are EXTERNAL links (unlike the ones we just looked at that are internal and go to other Wikipedia entries). TIP: the sources cited in these links are more likely to be accepted on a final paper by the other teachers in this school.

I thought that someone might want to read some or all of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, a book about the author. Drew, you seemed intrigued that Harper Lee never wrote another novel, and remembered her as a character in the movie Capote. Want to take this book as your topic?

If you are going to the library or a search engine to find interesting topics for your TKAM paper for me, consider the KEYWORDS hyperlinked in the articles.

Linda, a legal eagle in my other class, read this section online this morning:

When Lee was 10 years old, a white woman near Monroeville accused a black man named Walter Lett of raping her. The story and the trial were covered by her father's newspaper. Lett was convicted and sentenced to death, but a series of letters claiming Lett had been falsely accused caused his sentence to be commuted to life in prison where he died of tuberculosis in 1937.^[9]Scottsboro Boys incident occurred when she was six years old and would also be covered by her father's paper, Lee has stated that she had in mind something less sensational than that, although the case served the same purpose in displaying Southern attitudes about prejudice.^[1] -

Linda decided to do her paper on the actual cases of that time to see how realistic the legal portrayal is in the novel. She decided to focus on the Scottsboro Boys incident to start even though it's not the incident that really inspired Lee. She'll see if she can come up with more on the case in Monroeville. I look forward to that paper.

Oh, Drew - if you come across anything in that biography you're reading on Lee about this, please share it with Linda. No, that's not cheating. It's collaboration. It's good, and, No, I didn't say it was for extra credit - but maybe I'll make collaboration a requirement of the grade. OK, stop groaning.

I would like to point out to the class those little superscript numbers in that passage. Look familiar? Yes, that's right, much of what is on Wikipedia has footnotes. Those REFERENCES at the bottom are to books and articles that were used to put this article together. I'm hoping that this year I can get you guys to read some of those original sources. Yes Jason, you can cite those if you actually use them.

So what we're trying to do here is have you use Wikipedia to get started.

You need to really focus your research, get some background and context for the topic, so that you won't waste time looking up stuff and reading things you don't need.

Yes, this will save you time. You don't want to write a long paper for this, and I don't really want to read a pile of them for the next week. I want 2 or 3 pages of brilliance on something neither one of us ever thought about before this assignment.

No one will be able to do their paper by just using Wikipedia, but all of us can get started there.

And don't cite Wikpedia as a source - cite the source that was used to create the Wikipedia entry. Got it?

So, have a nice Thanksgiving weekend, give this some thought and we'll hit the road with it on Monday.

An Online Digital Citizen Curriculum

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:00:56 -0400

I recently discovered a Google/YouTube collaboration for teaching proper digital citizenship practices. The curriculum is for teachers to use to teach students what digital citizenship means and how it impacts their online and offline lives.

The interactive curriculum is on YouTube. There was a time in the early days of the Internet when I would hear that teachers felt an obligation to educate students on how to be safe, engaged and confident model "Netizens." It has been awhile since I heard that term used, and I'm not sure if this is still a topic that is taught. Perhaps, we are assuming that students are born into Net citizenship.

This initiative is aimed at students aged 13 to 17, but elements could certainly be used with older and younger students with some adaptations. For example, the lesson on Copyright includes a Teacher's Guide and Slides that would easily work with an introductory college group.

Google is using its own YouTube as the content for the lessons provided. They cover YouTube’s policies, how to report content, how to protect their own privacy, and how to be responsible YouTube community members. Teachers would hopefully lead students to see the wider implications of being part of an online community and how this applies to places like Facebook.

Each lesson comes with guidelines for teachers and ready-made slides for presentation. There’s also a YouTube Curriculum channel where videos related to the project will be posted.

http://www.google.com/edu/teachers/youtube/curric/

http://www.youtube.com/user/YouTubeCurriculum

Flipping Video Lectures for the Classroom

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:19:00 -0400

As a follow up to yesterday's post about the flipped classroom, here are "Lessons Worth Sharing" which is TED-Ed’s idea of sharing presentations (lectures? sort of) on great ideas.

Probably some of you already use a TED talk with your students. The example mentioned in the video promo below is "Just How Small is an Atom?" By Jon Bergmann. More videos that were flipped by teachers are being posted all the time.

I have used videos online as flipped (and short) lectures. One I like to use is from a talk given by Sir Ken Robinson about "Changing Education Paradigms." Though I had education majors in my class this semester, the class was on critical thinking. Students watched, enjoyed and remembered the video throughout the semester and the discussion was lively.

One thing I liked about this particular version of his talk is that the video of Robinson actually speaking is replaced by an animated version of someone drawing (very well) on a white board to illustrate Robinson's points. I ask them to answer some questions based on their viewing at home the 12 minute video.

Robinson assumes you know this - What is a paradigm?

Why does he believe that we need to change public education today?

What is his opinion about ADHD?

How would he group students in classes?

How would he compare divergent thinking versus creativity?

Explain his example of geniuses in kindergarten.

How would Robinson compare/contrast cheating versus collaboration?

Summarize what you feel are his 3 main arguments.

How does having the visualization of his talk change the way we hear/see his talk? Is this visual thinking?

cross-posted from pcccwriting.blogspot.com

YouTube for Teachers Site Launches

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:38:00 -0400

YouTube has launched a channel specifically aimed at teachers at http://www.youtube.com/teachers.

It contains guides on how to use YouTube in the classroom, curated video playlists that will be suitable for teachers to use and a YouTube Teachers Community to receive regular updates from the YouTube team, including tips and tricks for incorporating YouTube in your classroom, best practices from other teachers, and new content uploaded to YouTube.

This is an additional area to the EDU section of the site at http://www.youtube.com/education

National Jukebox

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 17 May 2011 01:59:00 -0400

Teachers can now listen to more than 10,000 historical sound recordings using the Library of Congress' new National Jukebox. From ragtime to novelty songs to opera, these songs are now available in an easy-to-use player that lets users create and manage their own playlists. More songs will become available over time, so please visit and explore often.

The Library of Congress makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives.

Try out the National Jukebox Sampler which has 14 selections representing the diversity of repertoire to be found in this repository. These performances were recorded between 1901 and 1912.

9th Annual Around the World Videoconferencing Event

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Wed, 11 May 2011 17:23:32 -0400

Check out an innovative use of video conferencing by Passaic Valley Regional High School, New Jersey, USA. Their 9th Annual Around the World Videoconferencing Event starts on Wednesday, May 11th at 7:30 am EST and continues to Thursday, May 12th at 4 am EST.

Their current schedule includes the Isle of Jersey, Russia, the Kotel in Israel, Mexico, Georgia, USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Pakistan, India, and Croatia. An updated schedule can be found at http://pvhs.k12.nj.us/atw/atw.asp?FeatureID=13

To view the live stream of each video conference go to http://www.njvid.net/live-atw2011.php

From their site:

The purpose of our project is to bring students from different cultures and backgrounds together to promote global awareness and understanding.

We hope to do this through a combination of activities that utilize videoconferencing and an interactive website for the exchange of information and ideas. The culminating activity will involve Passaic Valley High School hosting a series of approximately one-hour individual videoconferences with participating schools during one 24-hour period. Students will be engaged in discussion on selected topics and problem-solving.

The project has two basic elements: the actual videoconferences themselves and an interactive website to promote the exchange of information and ideas. The advances in communication technology offers this generation valuable and fruitful multicultural dialogs. Videoconferencing allows people separated by distance to verbally and visually communicate in real time. Interactive websites allow for the continuation of dialogue long after the videoconferences are over. It is our wish here at Passaic Valley High School that this type of hands-on learning prepares our students to be intelligently engaged in diagnostic analysis and lively discussion with their peers from around the world. We also want this project to serve as a basis for our students to understand their relationships and responsibilities to people, institutions and the environment.

Lesson Plans for Martin Luther King Day

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:38:00 -0500

Teachers looking for new things to do for Martin Luther King Day (January 17) next week might find some ideas in these resources from Annenberg Learner.

"Egalitarian America," unit 20 of America's History in the Making, looks
at the struggle for civil rights in the U.S. from the 1940s to the
1970s. Be sure to fully explore the unit's rich video, audio, and text
resources. http://www.learner.org/courses/amerhistory/units/20/

Look back at the social movements of the 1960s and the work of Dr. King with A Biography of America program 24, "The Sixties." http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog24/ This program covers King's leadership in both the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War protest.

View a picture of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom http://www.learner.org/amerpass/slideshow/archivesearch.php?number=2254&fullsize=1 from the American Passages archive.

For Grades 6-8: Find an engaging lesson for teaching the book The Watsons Go to
Birmingham--1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis. Look at workshop 5 of
Teaching Multicultural Literature: A Workshop for the Middle Grades, http://www.learner.org/workshops/tml/workshop5/ and another lesson on the same novel in Making Meaning in Literature: A Video Library, Grades 6-8. http://www.learner.org/libraries/makingmeaning/makingmeaning/dramatic/

Grades K-5

In Social Studies in Action: A Teaching Practices Library, K-12, http://www.learner.org/libraries/socialstudies/
elementary teacher Cynthia Vaughn shows how the concepts of equality
and fairness can be incorporated into a general social studies lesson in
the session "Leaders, Community, and Citizens." The session "Unity and
Diversity" introduces ways of teaching students to overcome their
differences and develop a sense of community.

Observe teachers introducing their 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-grade students to
literature about Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement in
Engaging with Literature: A Video Library, Grades 3-5 in two programs http://www.learner.org/libraries/engagingliterature/ "Building Community," and "Finding Common Ground."

Isaac Newton - One Man STEM Lesson

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:04:00 -0500

Isaac Newton was born January 4, 1643. He was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and natural philosopher. He was also an alchemist and theologian.

Newton is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential people in human history. He's a great figure for study in the classroom and a natural way to mix science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) - and even some history and humanities.

His Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Latin for "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" and usually called the Principia), published in 1687, is probably the most important scientific book ever written.

The book lays the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws, by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation.

I have always found it very interesting that Newton was also highly religious. He was an unorthodox Christian, and during his lifetime actually wrote more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than on science and mathematics.

For some free and easy schooling, take a look at him in video program 6 in The Mechanical Universe...and Beyond, "Newton's Laws" http://www.learner.org/resources/series42.html

In "Physics for the 21st Century," Newton is discussed in the video and online text in unit 3, "Gravity." http://www.learner.org/courses/physics/unit/text.html?unit=3&secNum=0

And look at Mathematics Illuminated where Newton is discussed in the context of "Concepts of Chaos," program 13. http://www.learner.org/courses/mathilluminated/units/13/

Economics Yada Yada

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:44:00 -0500

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Seinfeld ran for nine seasons on NBC and I have seen every episode. The line was that it was a “show about nothing” but almost every episode is about at least three different stories which are sometimes intertwined.

Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer encounter odd people and unusual situation that are surprisingly not so different from our own lives.

If you have ever had to deal with a rental car agency at an airport, you can probably identify with Jerry's consternation at a reservation that doesn't actually hold a car for you.

Here's a clip of that episode (probably a copyright infringement and it will disappear at some , but...)

END

There's a good classroom lesson there for a business class. That's true for many of the episodes.

So, some academics have decided to use this popular series in their classrooms.

I first saw a piece on a Wall Street Journal blog about a professor using the show in their economics course.

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“This is a paper about nothing.” So begins Princeton economics professor Avinash Dixit’s academic paper “ An Option Value Problem from Seinfeld.” The paper uses option pricing theory to deconstruct Elaine’s decisions in the “Seinfeld” episode number 119 “ The Sponge.”

In it, Elaine’s preferred contraceptive sponge goes off the market, sparking an ultimately fruitless hunt for a greater supply. Her limited supply of contraceptive sponges forces her to reassess their usage, and decide whether a potential partner is “sponge-worthy” or not.

Using these clips (as well as clips from other television shows or movies) makes economic concepts come alive, making them more real for students. Ultimately, students will start seeing economics everywhere – in other TV shows, in popular music, and most importantly, in their own lives.

“You are deciding whether or not to make an investment decision,” Prof. Dixit says. “The mathematical techniques are exactly the same as financial options.”

Last week, I cam upon a site called "The Economics of Seinfeld" that has the nice URL of YadaYadaYadaEcon.com (an inside Seinfeld joke). The site creators select clips from the shows and suggest economic concepts that might be taught using them.

For example, in "The Apartment" we look at Jerry NYC rent controlled building. If you want an apartment, you need someone to die because no one moves from a rent-controlled place. Elaine is looking for a place and when Mrs. Hudwalker dies, she finds out about the opening from Jerry. She's the first one to get it, so it goes for $400 per month. But then the super realizes he can play around with the demand side of this situation. Yada, yada, yada, he is offered a $5,000 bribe and Elaine doesn't get the place.

Lessons? Price ceilings and rationing mechanisms.

The site wisely doesn't offer the clips, but does give you the DVD information (season, disc and the times for the key scenes) for using them.

These academics are not the first to consider another side of Jerry and friends.

I bought &ASIN=0812694090&tag=poetsonline" /> Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing when it came out. It's for those with or without any real philosophical background. There are essays grouped into four acts. Act One looks at the four Seinfeld characters through a philosophical lens - Jerry and Socrates: The Examined Life? Act Two examines historical philosophers from a Seinfeldian standpoint (Plato or Nietzsche? Time, Essence, and Eternal Recurrence in Seinfeld). Act Three is Untimely Meditations by the Water Cooler, which explores philosophical issues raised by the show - Is it rational for George to do the opposite? Act Four is called Is There Anything Wrong with That? and has discussions of ethical problems of everyday.

&ASIN=014095144X&tag=poetsonline" />Years earlier, I had gone through the series of books that used the characters from the Winnie the Pooh books in a similar way. The Tao of Pooh and Te of Piglet were two popular titles. Then came from another perspective Winnie-the-Pooh on Success and Winnie-the-Pooh on Management (subtitled: "In which a Very Important Bear and his friends are introduced to a Very Important Subject") and then Winnie-the-Pooh on Problem Solving.

A department could pick up the Seinfeld complete series on DVD for under $200 and yada, yada, yada, students are finally smiling in econ classes.

Teaching Physics With Movies

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 14:21:00 -0500

Class assignment: Stop the train loaded with hazardous chemicals before this “missile the size of the Chrysler Building” hits a populated area and “vaporizes everything in front of it.”

Okay, that's actually a summary of the premise in the new thriller film, Unstoppable. But that doesn't mean that a class couldn't consider the assignment virtually using the film.

Could a train even be as powerful as a Chrysler Building-sized missile?

The lesson idea comes from Emory physics professor Sidney Perkowitz. He is a good source considering that he wrote Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, and the End of the World.

MORE:
Science and Entertainment Exchange - National Academy of Sciences program to bring scientific accuracy to media entertainment.