Learn By Doing

A Lifelong Learner Shares Thoughts About Education

  • A strange phenomenon is happening today in technology: it’s evolving, it’s proliferating, and it’s changing the way people learn. But more than that, it’s creating a knowledge gap that’s affecting a certain demographic of people in the world. While the Internet is responsible for more global economic growth than renewable energy, mining, and agriculture, there are still hundreds of thousands of people who do not have access to a stable Internet connection. So while all those lucky people with broadband access get to take online classes and enjoy the fruits of knowledge transfer on the web, a staggering number of people are left in the dark. As it turns out, the digital chasm between the haves and have-nots is only getting larger. This graphic explores the digital divide: what it means for you, for the world, and for the people who are left behind.  From Online IT Degree

    Digital Divide
    Created by: Online IT Degree

  • I found this article today by .  Read the entire article and the related material and comments Should Computer Science Be Required in K-12?

    It resonated with me as I was unable once again to get a substantive step forward in teaching CS at my current school.  Sadly, the competition for existing Science classes, and for electives in general stopped it again.  I do have an entry semester in Game Programming for entering freshman and recently I met a number of students and parents who are attending the nearby community college as early as their sophomore year; however, no new courses and especially not CS.   I appreciate Audrey’s insight.

    Computer science is not widely taught, even though programming may be one of the most important skills of the 21st century. While most schools do recognize the importance of helping students learn how to use new technologies, you’ll still find scant opportunities in K-12 classes for students to learn how to actually build those very technologies.

    A report issued last year by the Association of Computing Machinery found that very few states offer K-12 computer science education at all. Just nine states allow CS courses to count towards graduation requirements for math or science. And no states require computer science for graduation.

    Teaching computer science isn’t simply about learning to program. It’s about computational thinking, logic, reasoning, and problem solving too.

    Why the absence of CS courses from elementary and secondary schools? A recent article in Technology Horizons Journal points to a few obstacles to teaching computer science: questions about teacher certification, debates about what a CS curriculum should contain, and concerns about where CS fits into the curriculum and/or the schedule. Is computer science math? Is it science? Does it replace another course?

    There are, no doubt, increasing opportunities for kids to learn programming. But these often occur as after-school projects (things like the First Lego League) or as self-directed programs (such as learning to code with online materials like Hackety Hack). While these do attract those students who are interested in programming, they do little to expose the general student population to computer science.

    Studies have repeatedly shown that early exposure to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) subjects is important in convincing students to think about STEM careers. Earlier this year, Microsoft surveyed some 500 college students pursuing STEM degrees, and nearly four out of five of them said they had made the decision to be a STEM major in high school or earlier. One in five said they made the decision in middle school or earlier. These students pointed to the influence of a particular teacher or a particular class as sparking their interest — notably, almost 70% of girls said this was what made them decide to study STEM (versus just 51% of boys).

    But just one in five of these college students said that their K-12 education helped prepare them extremely well for their college courses. While that can be interpreted as a challenge to the state of STEM education broadly, this is particularly true when it comes to computer science. There are plenty of opportunities for students to take biology before stepping into a Biology 101 class in college; there are very few opportunities for students to take programming before stepping into CS 101.

    “Program or be programmed,” as author Douglas Rushkoff says, noting that we must learn how to be producers not just consumers of computer technology.

    But teaching computer science isn’t simply about learning to program. It’s about computational thinking, logic, reasoning, and problem solving too. These skills are imperative to what K-12 students should be learning. The challenge: finding the support among administrators and teachers to make learning computer science the way in which students gain these skills.

  •   Automate tasks across Google Products

    Scripts that are easy to build and fast to run

     

     

     

     

     

    Google Apps Script is a JavaScript cloud scripting language that provides easy ways to automate tasks across Google products and third party services.

    With Google Apps Script you can:

    • Automate repetitive business processes (e.g. expense approvals, time-sheet tracking, ticket management, order fulfillment, and much more)
    • Link Google products with third party services (e.g. send custom emails and a calendar invitation to a list from a MySQL database)
    • Create custom spreadsheet functions
    • New! Build and collect user inputs through rich graphics interfaces and menus (e.g. a company could power an internal application for purchasing office supplies where users could shop via a customized menu interface)

  • Interesting that yesterday Codecademy announced Code Year Meetups for those struggling to keep up.  The future of education is being shaped by those exploring today.  So, while I am stuck at home on a snow day I am off to work on this week’s lessons.

    Codecademy is taking its classes to the classrooms. This morning press and public have their eyes on the White House and Codeacademys’ announcement: a partnership to teach programming skills to underprivileged youth. But we feel it’s important to highlight another new move: Code Year Meetups.
    Connecting online education tools to offline communities speaks to a larger trend—a growing value for face-to-face interaction. We invest in technologies that connect people online, but the hope is that these connections will improve our quality of life offline. Skillshare, TaskRabbit and Kickstarter all illustrate this goal. Collaborative Fund is excited to see how solid curriculum and physical teamwork will influence people as they learn skills like programming that have great implications for the future of education and our economy.