As the 2014 Hour of Code challenge offered by Code.org draws near (Dec. 8-12), I wanted to spend a little time with the history of what has gotten us to the place we are in today. To many educators, the ideas of edtech and coding in schools still seems far off and mysterious. However, the innovators who embrace these ideas are incorporating them into learning experiences and seeing children become inspired and motivated by code.
From 1980 to 2003, technology moved forward, but what moved backward? Examined through the lens of two thinkers: Seymour Papert and Why the Lucky Stiff
Why the Lucky Stiff (_why) was “a prolific writer, cartoonist, artist, and computer programmer notable for his work with the Ruby programming language” (Wikipedia). Seymour Papert was a mathematician and professor at MIT. He was one of the creators of the Logo programming language (remember the turtle?) and author of the 1980 book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (and others).
Papert and _why are indeed very different types of thinkers. Papert was a scholar, rooted in academia and with time logged collaborating with constructivist learning theorist Jean Piaget. _why was a self-proclaimed “freelance professor”, who created art, code, and everything in between as tools for social provocation and advocacy. I refer to them both in the past tense because while both are still alive, neither are actively engaged in the contemporary public conversation. Their work and legacies are what live on and serve as inspiration.
In 2003, _why wrote an essay titled: The Little Coder’s Predicament, specifically calling to task all the companies who have systematically been adding layers of features, regulation and security to their technology. These anti-piracy measures had resulted in a societal distancing from the understanding of code, and a lack of ability to access actual code.
…I’m thinking a toy language for consoles and desktops alike could be monumental…
…You’ve got to be able to write a single line of code and see a result. We need some instant results to give absolute beginners confidence…
…Tinkering with hardware is learning. Lobotomizing and renovating is meaningful, magical. On behalf of those who prefer to code, I make these wishes. Not to take away jobs from the Phillips screwdriver…. (2003 essay)
In my post on the Logo, I share that Papert advocated for his dream of children being able to program. He called for easy and accessible tools almost 20 years before _why’s plea. In his essay, _why reminisced about the era of being able to program directly from your Commodore 64, or Atari 800 (which was the very same era that Papert was working on Logo with his MIT team). So what happened between Papert’s call for accessibility in 1980 and _why’s call for accessibility in 2003?
Advancement. Piracy. Fear.
Innovation has driven a more user-friendly experience. However, the more user-friendly the experience, the deeper the code becomes buried. Companies are creating better and better tools, and protecting them more and more fiercely. The more protections, the harder the code is to access. Everything in technology has gotten faster, better, closer, more useable, more understandable…except the code. In the 2003 environment in which _why wrote his article, there were many barriers to children getting involved in coding because it was so hard to get to the code and be able to play with it.
This is my last post about Barbie, I promise! I just couldn’t resist using to Feminist Hacker Barbie site to look at the bright side before this whole internet controversy dissolves away. At the end of the day, this book gave us the opportunity to start a meaningful dialogue about gender roles, so let’s keep talking about it! (This is for Alex…thanks for the idea!)Continue reading →
Do you view yourself as bad at math? Bad with technology? Incapable of understanding computer code?
Great news! These things are only true if you continue to believe them! If you change your messages to yourself, you will be more than capable of being good at math, good with technology, and capable of understanding computer code (among any number of other possible things you could choose to learn).
These are my original goals identified two months ago when I started this project:
Goal #1: Learn to code
Goal #2: Write a blog about my learning in order to process my thinking, share with other people, and gain insights from readers.
I have learned a great deal since I started working toward these goals almost 2 months ago, but have recently identified an unexpected outcome: I’ve begun to consume and process my technological experiences differently. (Clarification: This outcome was unexpected to me…not necessarily anyone else!) Continue reading →
This is the fatal page from the 2010 Barbie book I Can Be a Computer Engineer. Barbie goes on to give her sister Skipper’s computer a virus, get some boys to help her fix it, and finally take individual credit for the whole shebang (including the robot puppy game that the boys programmed). At no point does Barbie do any coding at all. You can read the original blog post that brought this controversy to light here.
I never really identified with Barbie. Sure I played with her, but what little girl in the 80’s didn’t? However, I wasn’t blonde or skinny. I didn’t care to drive a pink corvette, wish to own a “dream house”, or marry my very own Ken doll. I didn’t want to be Barbie, and didn’t care what kinds of new careers she was trying out. I mostly liked to dress her up, which might have had a slight impact on my love of costuming and fanciness, but that is the extent of her influence.
She was fun, but never any real impact on my life (or so I like to think…) Continue reading →
I’ve argued on this blog that children can all benefit from learning to code, but I wonder at what point this will be considered a right. Should it be?
If metacognition can be considered a hobby, then it is definitely one of mine. (I fully realize how nerdy that sounds.)
I love thinking about thinking! When you work with young children, you have to become a “thought detective”. Young children’s brains are developing so quickly and efficiently, and teachers have to know how to support that. We have to be able to speak and interpret lots of different languages, many of which are nonverbal. In order to do this, we have to really dig deep into our own analytical brains and constantly evaluate and reevaluate things we see happening in front of us.
We have to be able to think about children’s thinking, but also about our own! Continue reading →
(from website) It’s never too early to be standards compliant! Show your little ones HTML markup code along with letter forms to get them started on the visual patterns and symbols that make up the essential building blocks of the Web. The first in a three-volume set, originally designed by a NYC Web Designer for his baby, this beautiful book is a fun and colorful introduction to the world of web design for babies.
I’m not too sure how I feel about this!
On the one hand:
I mean…I know that giving any book to a baby is better than giving no book to a baby.
Exposure to print is great (and necessary) for babies’ pre-literacy development.
I also know that exposure to simple, clean designs with high contrast is naturally interesting and engaging for them, while also supporting their ocular development.
I also know babies have an incredible capacity for learning language before the age of 3. The more language exposure babies get results in more foundational neurochemistry being established for learning languages later in life.
I also know that part of the barrier to learning to code is just being exposed to it, and NOT thinking that it looks and sounds alien. (I know this from experience…I can say that now!) Thus, this simple exposure could provide some foundations for code being accepted as a cultural reality in one’s world.
I also think this is clever! I mean…”It’s never too early to develop”…that is fantastic!Continue reading →
Hello. My name is Lauren and I’m an over-thinker…I’ve been learning to program for 29 days.
I commented this week that it seems like the Ruby tutorials I’ve been working through are getting harder and it’s taking me longer to figure out write the code that’s prompted. I have recently realized that half of the time I’m completely overthinking, which just makes me laugh at myself.
For example, I spent 25 minutes trying to solve one particular prompt, trying all angles of writing the code only to result in error message after error message. I stuck with it, miserable yet determined, and eventually realized that I had simply read the prompt wrong. The prompt was to add some code before the print command, and I was adding the code after. It turned out that I had correctly written the code the first time. Rather than going back and re-reading the instructions, I just spiraled down the rabbit hole…my code getting more and more complex with each try.
This is not the first time something like this has happened. I’ve noticed that the fewer angles I examine, the faster I’m able to complete the prompts. This is interesting to me, because it does not feel natural at all! Continue reading →
I have been focusing pretty singularly on learning Ruby, but have noticed that the tutorials are getting harder for me to work through. Of course this is expected, but I find that when my brain gets overloaded, it’s helpful to take breaks. I try to keep my breaks productive by and working on something easier, totally different, but still coding: Logo.
I’ve worked through the Logo lessons on Turtle Academy, and think it’s fun to go back to the Logo play ground and draw pictures. This gives me a chance to give my memory a workout, do something I love (draw), and feel successful.
A friend who knows I’ve been playing with Logo lent me a great book called Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, by Seymour Papert, one of the inventors of the Logo programming language. I started reading it today, and was blown away by the relevance of the ideas, even though the book was written in 1980. Continue reading →
Teacher Learns to Code 