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Christina Schindler

Study: Computer Science Gender Gap Widens Despite Increase in Jobs | Data Mine | US News - 0 views

www.usnews.com/...idens-despite-increase-in-jobs

gender computer science coding EdTech

shared by Christina Schindler on 21 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Middle School Is Key to Girls' Coding Interest
  • study offers insight into factors that create either positive and negative associations with computer science for girls at the middle school, high school and college levels, as well as strategies for educators to make computer science more appealing to girls.
  • computing appeal for girls peaks in middle school, where having an inspiring teacher and thinking that coding is "for girls" are instrumental in sparking interest
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  • The study suggests generating coding enthusiasm through fun hands-on experiences like computer games, and supporting parents and teachers as they educate young girls about coding
  • Christina Schindler on 21 Oct 16
     
    This is a summary of a study that offers insights into the impact that early exposure to coding can have on possible post secondary study and careers in computer science for girls.
kcardinale

Coding at school: a parent's guide to England's new computing curriculum | Technology |... - 1 views

www.theguardian.com/...computing-children-programming

shared by kcardinale on 15 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • mary and secondary school pupils in
  • Teaching programming skills to children is seen as a long-term solution to the “skills gap” between the number of technology jobs and the people qualified to fill them
  • Our new curriculum teaches children computer science, information technology and digital literacy: teaching them how to code,and how to create their own programs; not just how to work a computer, but how a computer works and how to make it work for you.”
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  • At primary level, it helps children to be articulate and think logically: when they start breaking down what’s happening, they can start predicting what’s going to happen. It’s about looking around you almost like an engineer at how things are constructed.”
  • But when you learn computing, you are thinking about thinking.
  • There are lots of transferable skills.”
  • algorithms
  • But they will also be creating and debugging simple programs of their own, developing logical reasoning skills and taking their first steps in using devices to “create, organise, store, manipulate and retrieve digital content”.
  • more complicated programs
  • variables and “sequence, selection, and repetition in programs
  • two or more programming language
  • mple Boolean logic (the AND, OR and NOT operators, for example), working with binary numbers, and studying how computer hardware and software work together.
  • computer and internet safety
  • Even if you’re daunted by programming as a subject, seeing it through the eyes of a child will hopefully make it much less intimidating.
  • kcardinale on 15 Nov 14
     
    Fantastic read that I discussed and annotated with my Grade 11 and 12 Computer science students in class yesterday!
kcardinale

Python bumps off Java as top learning language | PCWorld - 0 views

www.pcworld.com/...-as-top-learning-language.html

shared by kcardinale on 22 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Eight of the top 10 computer science departments now use Python to teach coding, as well as 27 of the top 39 schools
    • kcardinale
      kcardinale on 22 Nov 14
       
      What schools in Ontario are actually using Python to teach students computer science?
  • Java is frequently used in high school advanced courses, so the transition to Java in college is a natural one for students
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  • Java for computer science students and Python to teach programming skills for noncomputer science majors.
  • Other popular languages for teaching include MatLab, a mathematically oriented language often used to introduce scientists and engineers to programming. MatLab, however, seems to be increasingly supplanted by Java.
  • kcardinale on 22 Nov 14
     
    Interesting article that I just read, answering some computer science questions!
garth nichols

Do girls learn differently? - 2 views

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girls coeducation STEM

shared by garth nichols on 11 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • To hear some ed tech enthusiasts tell it, online learning is sweeping aside the barriers that have in the past prevented access to education. But such pronouncements are premature. As it turns out, students often carry these barriers right along with them, from the real world into the virtual one.
  • These dismally low numbers provide a reminder that “access” to education is more complicated than simply throwing open the digital doors to whoever wants to sign up. So how can we turn the mere availability of online instruction in STEM into true access for female students?
  • One potential solution to this information-age problem comes from an old-fashioned source: single-sex education. The Online School for Girls, founded in 2009, provides an all-female e-learning experience.
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  • But evidence is weak that there is such a thing as “girls’ learning,” online or offline, if what is meant by that is that each gender has cognitive differences that should be accommodated by different instructional methods. Neuroscientist Lise Eliot has argued persuasively that, while small inherent differences in aptitude between males and females do exist (even as infants, for example, boys seem to have an edge in spatial cognition), society takes these small differences and makes them much bigger—by supporting boys in math and science, and by discouraging girls who study these subjects.
  • These same dynamics play out online, as Cheryan demonstrated in a subsequent study. Changing the design of a virtual classroom—from one that conveyed computer science stereotypes to one that did not —“significantly increased women’s interest and anticipated success in computer science,” Cheryan and her colleagues reported.
  • Cheryan notes, “was sufficient to boost female undergraduates’ interest in computer science to the level of their male peers.”
  • Another way to promote female students’ sense of belonging in online math and science courses would be putting more women at the head of virtual classrooms.
  • All these approaches have in common a focus, not on teaching girls and women differently, but on helping them to feel differently about their place in the fields of math and science. Just as in the physical world, in the virtual sphere the barriers to girls’ and women’s advancement in STEM fields remain very much in place. With informed intervention and clever design, however, the digital walls may prove easier to scale.
  • garth nichols on 11 Sep 14
     
    This article is great for those at BSS, Branksome, Havergal, oh and any other school! I was on a panel with Brad Rathgeber, the Director of the OnLine School for Girls, and he was a great speaker on this front...
kcardinale

ISTE | 3 ways to get every student coding - 3 views

www.iste.org/...ArticleDetail

shared by kcardinale on 17 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • 3 ways to get every student coding
  • nstead of starting with an elective for computer science, create a class that is required for all students. Better still, integrate it into the core curriculum for a math or science class, or maybe even art.
  • day it is integrated into a required class called CSTEM (the C stands for creativity, collaboration and computer science)
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  • Collaboration also makes coding more fun. Group projects turn it into a social activity, which engages all students, including girls
  • e rules of pair programming are simple: Each pair of students must share a single computer. One student acts as the “driver” and takes control of the mouse and keyboard. One students is the navigator, whose responsibilities include checking instructions, reading code and finding errors as they occur.
  • ast year, three sixth grade girls decided to use Processing with Khan Academy’s JavaScript implementation to create a multi-page yearbook.
  • kcardinale on 17 Nov 14
     
    A great article that was passed to me about coding and computer science in schools. Very fitting seeing as the Hour of Code is coming up soon.
garth nichols

Why I'm Asking You Not to Use Laptops - Lingua Franca - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher... - 3 views

chronicle.com/...-asking-you-not-to-use-laptops

Laptops EdTech

shared by garth nichols on 05 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • On the first day of class, students and I spend the first 30-40 minutes learning something new about how language works (in order to set the tone for the class), and then we go over the syllabus. When we get to the laptop policy, I pause and say, “Let me tell you why I ask you generally not to use laptops in class.” And here’s the gist of what I say after that:
  • There’s also the issue of the classroom environment. I like to foster a sense of conversation here, even in a class of 100 students. If you are on a laptop, I and your peers are often looking at the back of your computer screen and the top of your head, rather than all of us making eye contact with each other. Learning happens best in a classroom when everyone is actively engaged with one another in the exchange of information. This can mean looking up from your notes to listen and to talk with others, which means you may need to make strategic decisions about what to write down. Note-taking is designed to support the learning and retention of material we talk about in class; note-taking itself is not learning. And speaking of what you choose to write down …
  • Now I know that one could argue that it is your choice about whether you want to use this hour and 20 minutes to engage actively with the material at hand, or whether you would like to multitask. You’re not bothering anyone (one could argue) as you quietly do your email or check Facebook. Here’s the problem with that theory: From what we can tell, you are actually damaging the learning environment for others, even if you’re being quiet about it. A study published in 2013 found that not only did the multitasking student in a classroom do worse on a postclass test on the material, so did the peers who could see the computer. In other words, the off-task laptop use distracted not just the laptop user but also the group of students behind the laptop user. (And I get it, believe me. I was once in a lecture where the woman in front of me was shoe shopping, and I found myself thinking at one point, “No, not the pink ones!” I don’t remember all that much else about the lecture.)
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  • In addition, I can find your multitasking on a laptop a bit distracting as the instructor because sometimes you are not typing at the right times; I am not saying anything noteworthy and yet you are engrossed in typing, which suggests that you are doing something other than being fully engaged in our class. And that distracts my attention.
  • First, if you have your laptop open, it is almost impossible not to check email or briefly surf the Internet, even if you don’t mean to or have told yourself that you won’t. I have the same impulse if I have my laptop open in a meeting. The problem is that studies indicate that this kind of multitasking impairs learning; once we are on email/the web, we are no longer paying very good attention to what is happening in class. (And there is no evidence I know of that “practice” at doing this kind of multitasking is going to make you better at it!)
  • A study that came out in June—and which got a lot of buzz in the mainstream press—suggests that taking notes by hand rather than typing them on a laptop improves comprehension of the material. While students taking notes on a laptop (and only taking notes—they were not allowed to multitask) wrote down more of the material covered in class, they were often typing what the instructor said verbatim, which seems to have led to less processing of the material. The students taking notes by hand had to do more synthesizing and condensing as they wrote because they could not get everything down. As a result, they learned the material better.* I think there is also something to the ease with which one can create visual connections on a handwritten page through arrows, flow charts, etc.
  • I figure it is also good for all of us to break addictive patterns with email, texting, Facebook, etc. When you step back, it seems a bit silly that we can’t go for 80 minutes without checking our phones or other devices. Really, for most of us, what are the odds of an emergency that can’t wait an hour? We have developed the habit of checking, and you can see this class as a chance to create or reinforce a habit of not checking too.
  • Of course, if you need or strongly prefer a laptop for taking notes or accessing readings in class for any reason, please come talk with me, and I am happy to make that work. I’ll just ask you to commit to using the laptop only for class-related work.
  • garth nichols on 05 Jan 15
     
    Why we need a balanced approach to the use of computers in the classroom. This is a great partner-piece to Clay Shirky's from 2014...
garth nichols

great technology requires an understanding of the humans who use it - 0 views

us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=bc04df008d4705e4e77c2eb35&id=a5ff5e74dc&e=352a91d6c3

edtech cohort21

shared by garth nichols on 17 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Clearly, MIT BLOSSOMS (the name stands for Blended Learning Open Source Science Or Math Studies) isn’t gaining fans by virtue of its whiz-bang technology. Rather, it exerts its appeal through an unassuming but remarkably sophisticated understanding of what it is that students and teachers actually need. It’s an understanding that is directly at odds with the assumptions of most of the edtech universe.
  • For example: BLOSSOMS is not “student-centered.” In its Twitter profile, the program is described as “teacher-centric”—heresy at a moment when teachers are supposed to be the “guide on the side,” not the “sage on the stage.” The attention of students engaged in a BLOSSOMS lesson, it’s expected, will be directed at the “guest teacher” on the video or at the classroom teacher leading the interactive session.
  • All this is blasphemy in view of the hardening orthodoxy of the edtech establishment. And all this is perfectly aligned with what research in psychology and cognitive science tells us about how students learn. We know that students do not make optimal choices when directing their own learning; especially when they’re new to a subject, they need guidance from an experienced teacher. We know that students do not learn deeply or lastingly when they have a world of distractions at their fingertips. And we know that students learn best not as isolated units but as part of a socially connected group. Modest as it is from a technological perspective, MIT BLOSSOMS is ideally designed for learning—a reminder that more and better technology does not always lead to more and better education.
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  • The creators of BLOSSOMS also candidly acknowledge that many teachers are threatened by the technology moving into their classrooms—and that they have reason to feel that way. Champions of educational technology often predict (with barely disguised glee) that computers will soon replace teachers, and school districts are already looking to edtech as a way to reduce teaching costs. The message to teachers from the advocates of technology is often heard as: Move aside, or get left behind.
  • Should the creators of educational technology care so much about the tender feelings of teachers, especially those inclined to stand in the way of technological progress? Yes—because it’s teachers who determine how well and how often technology is used.
  • Edtech proponents who think that technology can “disrupt” or “transform” education on its own would do well to take a lesson from the creators of BLOSSOM, who call their program’s blend of computers and people a “teaching duet.” Their enthusiasm for the possibilities of technology is matched by an awareness of the limits of human nature. 
  • garth nichols on 17 Jul 14
     
    A very important message to all who are trying to integrate Tech into their school...
Justin Medved

Column: Futile fight on student tweets - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...1741067

shared by Justin Medved on 07 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Justin Medved on 07 Dec 12
     
    "Taking a cue from The Scarlet Letter, the website Jezebel compiled racially insensitive tweets directed toward President Obama by high school students across the country, naming names and even calling the students' schools. The tweets - posted by students under their real identities - covered the full range of bigotry, from racial epithets to basketball stereotypes, with the N-word in abundance. In response, Giga OMasked, "When does shaming racist kids turn into online bullying?" The answer to that is never. It would be a mistake to mischaracterize the denunciation of racially offensive speech as abusive. To the contrary, that give-and-take (or more precisely "say something deeply offensive and get verbally pummeled") is what free speech in America is all about. That's the flaw in virtually every strategy to keep students in both high school and college on the social media straight and narrow. High school is all about preparing the next generation for citizenship. We teach them civics, history, a smattering of math and science and hand them a diploma. But we too often also try to control their every move. That's literally the case with the news last week that a sophomore at John Jay High School in San Antonio was expelled after refusing to carry an ID with a computer chip designed to track the movements of every student in the school."
amacrae

The Third Teacher - 1 views

DIIGO_FILE_HOME/5qz9p/5nc2

shared by amacrae on 19 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • 2Getting Started with the Physical EnvironmentOVERALL ...It is both an art and a science to design (as opposed to decorate) a learning environment that responds to our ultimate goal as educators – to develop independent and rigorous thought. Therefore, if we want to foster discovery and reflection, dialogue and the sharing of ideas, the overall physical environment should include:•A large gathering space for whole-group work and discussions, located near whiteboards, easels and/or projector screens.•A gathering space for small-group and whole-group discussions – where students can see clearly the representations of learning that are posted on boards or screens and hear classmates as they share ideas.•Flexible and reconfigurable space for small-group collaborative work and inquiry – space must allow for groupings of various sizes, such as pairs, triads and groups of four or more.•Desks and tables configured to facilitate discussion by allowing eye contact with peers and teacher, the unencumbered flow of traffic and enough space for students to write collaboratively.•Active areas for inquiry, investigation and wonder and quiet areas for thinking and exploring technology – all areas need to be accessible to students for communicating and documenting their own learning (e.g., computers, computer software, tablets, digital cameras and video recorders, document cameras, interactive white boards).•Instructional materials organized in such a way as to provide easy selection and access for all students – materials may include computer software, educational web sites and applications, found materials, graphic organizers, newspapers and other media, resource texts, etc.FOR MATHEMATICS ...Mathematically literate students demonstrate the capacity to “formulate, employ and interpret mathematics” (OECD, 2012, p. 4); they view themselves as mathematicians, knowing that mathematics can be used to understand important issues and to solve meaningful problems, not just in school but in life. By extension, the physical environment for mathematics learning should include: •Spaces where students can use manipulatives to solve problems and record their solutions.•Board and/or wall space to display student solutions for Math Congress and Bansho – student solutions should be easily visible from the group gathering space.•Space to post co-created reference charts such as glossary terms and past and current summaries of learning that specifically support the development of the big ideas currently under study.•Instructional materials organized in such a way as to provide easy selection and access for all students; may include mathematics manipulatives, calculators and other mathematical tools, mathematical texts, hand-held technology.FOR LITERACY ... Today’s literate learners experience “a constant stream of ideas and information” – they need strategies for interpretation and making sense and lots of practice in identifying meaning, bias and perspective (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2009, 2006). By extension, the physical environment for literacy learning should include: •Spaces where students can talk, listen, read and write.A place for wonder, mystery and discovery ...“We need to think about creating classroom environments that give children the opportunity for wonder, mystery and discovery; an environment that speaks to young children’s inherent curiosity and innate yearning for exploration is a classroom where children are passionate about learning and love school.” (Heard & McDonough, 2009)
  • maintain that the key to learning in today’s world is not just the physical space we provide for students but the social space as well (
  • A large gathering space
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  • mall-
garth nichols

Tackling the Limits of Touch Screens - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...e-limits-of-touch-screens.html

screens nytimes edtech technology education iPad

shared by garth nichols on 18 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • uch tactile features can help build muscle memory and improve accuracy — skills lost in the rush to touch screens, said Scott MacKenzie, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at York University in Toronto who specializes in human-computer interaction. Many people who type on flat glass screens must keep their eyes focused on the surface to hit the correct key, he said. “It’s not just that visual attention is needed,” he added, “but a lot of visual attention.”
Adam Caplan

getting teens to focus when they're on the computer - 3 views

us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=bc04df008d4705e4e77c2eb35&id=0d22f5909a&e=63c72074c2

shared by Adam Caplan on 05 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Many a parent and teacher has despaired over how easily young people’s attention is diverted, especially when they’re online. Stay focused! we urge them. Don’t let yourself get distracted! Our admonitions have little sway against the powerful temptations of the Internet.
  • Let’s encourage teenagers to discover (maybe with the help of their peers) that the freedom and autonomy they feel when they’re at the helm of their computers is in some ways an illusion, and let’s help them develop the skeptical, critical stance that would allow them to be truly autonomous users of the Internet.
  • Although there have been some attempts to teach students “critical thinking skills” with respect to the web, too often these programs adopt a sanctimonious tone, with all the rebellious appeal of extra-credit study hall. The history of antismoking campaigns offers a potentially more effective alternative. Granted, clicking a link or posting a status update won’t give teenagers lung cancer. But the undisciplined use of technology can waste their time, fragment their focus, and interfere with their learning. Just like their health, young people’s attention is a precious resource, and they should be empowered to resist the companies that would squander it.
  • Adam Caplan on 05 Aug 14
     
    A new, teen-friendly approach to teaching critical literacy and attention dominance while on the internet. 
garth nichols

Multitasking while studying: Divided attention and technological gadgets impair learnin... - 2 views

www.slate.com/...and_technological_gadgets.html

multitasking edtech

shared by garth nichols on 05 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • For a quarter of an hour, the investigators from the lab of Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University–Dominguez Hills, marked down once a minute what the students were doing as they studied. A checklist on the form included: reading a book, writing on paper, typing on the computer—and also using email, looking at Facebook, engaging in instant messaging, texting, talking on the phone, watching television, listening to music, surfing the Web. Sitting unobtrusively at the back of the room, the observers counted the number of windows open on the students’ screens and noted whether the students were wearing earbuds.
  • tudents’ “on-task behavior” started declining around the two-minute mark as they began responding to arriving texts or checking their Facebook feeds. By the time the 15 minutes were up, they had spent only about 65 percent of the observation period actually doing their schoolwork.
  • The media multitasking habit starts early. In “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds,” a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and published in 2010, almost a third of those surveyed said that when they were doing homework, “most of the time” they were also watching TV, texting, listening to music, or using some other medium. The lead author of the study was Victoria Rideout, then a vice president at Kaiser and now an independent research and policy consultant. Although the study looked at all aspects of kids’ media use, Rideout told me she was particularly troubled by its findings regarding media multitasking while doing schoolwork.
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  • During the first meeting of his courses, Rosen makes a practice of calling on a student who is busy with his phone. “I ask him, ‘What was on the slide I just showed to the class?’ The student always pulls a blank,” Rosen reports. “Young people have a wildly inflated idea of how many things they can attend to at once, and this demonstration helps drive the point home: If you’re paying attention to your phone, you’re not paying attention to what’s going on in class.” Other professors have taken a more surreptitious approach, installing electronic spyware or planting human observers to record whether students are taking notes on their laptops or using them for other, unauthorized purposes.
  • garth nichols on 05 Jan 15
     
    Why digital multitasking is inhibiting our learning
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