My favorite learning environment would fail today's education technology standards

I want to tell you about one of my favorite ways to learn new things:

• It is essentially a lecture, I'm not able to ask questions or get clarification from it, I just sit there in my chair for hour after hour. 
• Occasionally it is available online, but this option is relatively new, nonetheless I am able to access it from anywhere. 
• It doesn't cost much money and I often get myself involved in at least 2 at a time. There's rarely an extrinsic motivation for me to learn this way but yet I have a pretty high completion rate.

If you haven't guessed by now, I'm talking about books. However, these talking points (and many more) have been raised in support/derision of MOOCs. You know, those Massive Open Online Courses everyone is talking about. Its funny to me that people are not raising the same issues about books that they are about education technology. The number of kids turned off to education by bad pedagogy using books is likely far greater than those who have not completed a MOOC. Yet everyone is coming out strongly for or against the idea of MOOCs. I guess books have just been around longer.

Now about completion rates, a physical classroom has a monopoly on your time. Say you signed up for: Physics 101 for 3 days a week / 1.5 hours a day (plus homework) at your local university. You have likely paid for this class and your ability to get a degree and potentially a job requires that you pass the class. You have a lot of extrinsic motivation and perhaps an equal amount of intrinsic motivation (because Physics is awesome).

MOOCs have a few things working against it. You signed up for the course (or multiple courses) because you've always wanted to learn more about     fill in the blank    . You likely have none of the extrinsic motivators mentioned above, in fact you probably have a few working against your completion of the course like your day job, the school you are attending for credit, or other aspects of your life.

What to do, where/how should we learn? Well that's a question that is different for each topic and learner but here are some of my thoughts.

• When a student tells me they want to go to college to study     fill in the blank     because it sounds interesting, I tell them to go buy the book, get an internship, or something else like that. I've heard universities defend their place in society because of the experience and community. That's great and I agree, but I can have a discussion about a topic anywhere. I've said this to students for years, and I'll say it now, "Go to college to get a job (about something you are passionate about)". If you are paying a university tens of thousands of dollars a year just to learn something, with little or no job prospects, you are either fabulously wealthy or out of your mind. Make sure you are going to get a return on your investment.
• Semester long courses and video tutorials are not my preferred method of learning but they may work for you. It used to be the only way to learn something was to get a book or take a class. Now you can find all kinds of ways to learn a topic in whatever medium you wish. There are hundreds of videos about the Pythagorean Theorem alone! There's also websites, books written for all levels of learner, MOOCs, forums, meetups, etc.
• If you want to learn more about a topic, a long course might not be the best way to start off. Do a little research on your own first to find out if you really want to invest weeks of time and energy into it (plus it would greatly improve the registration/completion ratio).

I love the Web and books because I can get what I need and thats it. But, before you bring up the shallows argument, believe me I read giant tomes cover to cover because once I learn a little, I want to go deeper and understand more. MOOCs are a fantastic resource, but we need to be a little less obsessed with completion rates and as my colleague says determine whether or not people are meeting their learning goals/needs. Learning is a messy lifelong process and sometimes it takes weeks/years to fully understand something.

I've always defended things like this (we seem to have shifted our ire from Khan Academy to MOOCs) not because of what they are, but because of what they could be. Formal classrooms have existed for hundreds of years, the technology powering these MOOCs are not even a decade old. Technology will catch up with pedagogy and even provide opportunities to learn in ways not easily accomplished otherwise. That's no excuse for a poorly designed class. A poorly designed online course is no better (and often worse) than its live counterpart so please think of your learner experience but also think of how the new medium impacts your content.

I'm excited that more people are talking about education and technology's role in effectively supporting it. Regardless of your opinion of MOOCs, they have made pedagogy and are making content accessible to learners a part of the national conversation. We should always defend others right to experiment (and fail) and continue to be skeptical of overhyped claims.

Job Posting: Google Teaching Fellow

Here's what you need to know, Google's looking for an awesome educator.

A couple of years ago, +Dan Meyer  posted that the Curriculum Fellow job at Google he had previously worked on was hiring again. I saw that post, and immediately posted my resume to the Google Jobs website. I had no idea how much that action would change my life.

I was very happy as an educator. I worked at an awesome school that used Project Based Learning and had a great robotics team. But there were two things that compelled me to apply. First off I told my students and friends that the only two things that would make me leave my classroom were if the Mythbusters or Google wanted me to work for them. The second was how much I wanted to see others use Computer Science and Computational Thinking in their classroom.

I blogged often about Computational Thinking but I still wanted to reach a wider audience, plus it is difficult to create high quality lessons when you have a class everyday. Since working at Google I've been able to accomplish both of those things (in my humble opinion). The Exploring Computational Thinking reaches many educators each month who are starting to implement the lessons but more importantly the philosophy and tools into their classes. I've also had the privilege of working on many other awesome projects impacting education.

I'm happy to pay it forward and let you know about another awesome opportunity for educators, take a look at the job posting and see if it would work for you. You will have amazing managers, an exciting mission, and you will have freedom to create and innovate. Sounds awesome? You have no idea....

How I Used Google Drive to Create and Host My Web App and Hello Oppia

Has this ever happened to you? Back when my students and I were exploring Computational Thinking and developing using Python, and Processing. We ran into a big stumbling block, which was saving, sharing, and hosting our files.

Even though I had a very supportive IT manager, it was still difficult to have students develop anything substantial. Our students accessed all of their school files on a networked drive which was tricky and slow to access from home, students were not able to create or send zip files, and sharing their work publicly was difficult for numerous reasons. Have you experienced something similar?

For a project in my Masters program we were asked to develop a learning environment. After brainstorming for a little bit, I decided to create a environment where people could determine how well they could recognize the sound of a note and perhaps improve their ability to identify a pitch.

I realized this was an opportunity for me to dangerously overcommit and accomplish four additional tasks within this project:

• Improve my knowledge of web development by creating the environment using HTML and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics like those created in Inkscape or Illustrator)
• Write higher quality code than I have in the past (Physics Gizmo refactoring is at the top of my list when I graduate)
• Develop and deploy 100% in the cloud
• Support my colleague's 20% project Oppia (more on that later)

Leaving Behind Bad Programming Habits

I am not a professional programmer and I did not study Computer Science at college, so I've picked up some habits that make it difficult to have code that is easy to update and maintain. I recently read Code Complete which taught me a lot about how to improve how I design and write code. I realize it is a tome, but I would highly recommend it and you can skip to the parts you want or need. I'm learning a lot from my previous creations and like any art, it takes a lot of practice to become good at programming.

I have been reading up on some of the new fun features HTML5 provides, but based on some advice from my colleague Neil, I decided to use SVG rather than the canvas. This turned out to be excellent advice and it was fascinating to learn how one can programmatically create graphics. Creating shapes using Python Turtle is one of my favorite activities for students to learn how to think computationally and creating your own SVGs is a great next step. In my experience, students love creating their own works of art and will endlessly play with it until they get it just right, then they'll tweak it to see what happens.

Developing in the Cloud

Why was it so important for me to be able to develop my application using only web-based tools? Well there's the reasons I mentioned above, where my students and I found it difficult to develop, save, and host code (let alone collaborate) from their school laptops. Plus, I have become so spoiled that I like the ability to have all of my files automatically backed up and accessible from any device.

When I started looking into options for ways to develop software online, there were some high quality paid services but these were more than I needed, were cost prohibitive for a classroom, and sometimes required you to use a command line / terminal which was not an option for students at school. On the other end of the spectrum there are many great websites that allow you to code in the browser, but often lack the ability to save your work, Sage and IPython notebooks are two excellent exceptions that would be great additions to your classrooms.

Recently it was announced that you could host a website from Google Drive. I added Neutron Drive and ShiftEdit from the Chrome Web Store and enjoyed using them both. They have many awesome feautres like syntax highlighting, lint testing, and collaborative editing and are each adding new ones all the time. Best of all I was able to write 100% of my code within Google Drive which meant my work was always backed up and I could keep working on it anywhere.

I highly recommend using this process for students to easily create, save, share, and host their work. I would love to see students collaborating on code much like they do with Google Docs for writing. If your school has Google Apps for Education, your IT manager can deploy these apps to your students right away.

On the right is a screenshot of the app I created for my class, click here to try it out. I plan to continue to develop this after I graduate. I'm also sharing the Oppia Opera code if you would like to play with it yourself.

Oppia

My colleague Sean, who works on the Course Builder project, spends his 20% time working with others on a project called Oppia that allows you to create branching explorations.

Think of it like a choose your own adventure tool, but the learner can explore any topic you set up. When I first met Sean almost a year ago, he demonstrated the idea that would later become Oppia using an exploration in combinatorics using three balls. Since then, the team has added more features so you can explore language, music, and more.

When I was developing the music app for my class, I asked Sean if it would be possible to integrate content from another site into an Oppia exploration. I had the PhET tools in mind when I proposed this to Sean and I'm glad to see they were able to pull it off as it opens up many of the simulations and tools that we use and love to have added functionality so students can have a guided exploration through a topic.

Here's a screenshot of a sample exploration where Oppia provides feedback to help you find a landmark:

The team has worked hard over the last few months to make it relatively easy to create and modify an exploration so try it out and send the team your feedback and ideas. Oppia is open source so you can run your own instance or modify it to meet your needs. It will be interesting to see Oppia evolve over time and I am excited to see how we can interact with content online so it is more interactive and feels more like a conversation.

Lots of updates in this post,  I appreciate you reading to the end. I've wanted to share these updates with you for a long time but my Master's program is consuming every minute I have these days. I expect to graduate in May at which point I can continue to explore, develop, and share many other projects I am working on. 

This Year, Rediscover Your Ability to Learn Anything

As I was reading an article critical of MOOCs and online learning (there seem to be no shortage as everyone likes a good straw man), I was annoyed by a certain statement made about halfway into the article.

"Every age has its autodidacts, gifted people able to teach themselves with only their books. Woe unto us if we require all citizens to manifest that ability."

Learning is our natural state of being. We can't help but learn new things. I don't want citizens to manifest the ability to "teach themselves" I want them to rediscover that with resources and support, one can learn anything.

If you are letting someone else set the curriculum and pace for your learning you will inevitably be disappointed. I have enjoyed my formal schooling thus far and have benefited from great educators but I considered them a supplement to my learning not the other way around. I've have always kept a stack of books at my desk since I learned to read. When the Internet emerged, I found both resources and community that addressed my questions that books and the classroom could not answer.

When I was a child, if I wanted to learn about a topic there were two options: learn about it in school, or buy the book. Now I have books, school, videos, forums/conferences, web pages, virtual simulations, online classes, and more. Almost all of these can be found via the Internet from a computer that fits in my pocket.

In this new world, enriched with technology, Educators are not obsolete, they are more useful than ever before. We no longer need to be disseminators of information, and this should be welcome news. For how could we ever hope to keep up with the rapid increase in information. We must be mentors, and as my colleague +James Sanders puts it, curators of quality resources. The author seems to agree with this when she says that education at it's core is, "one mind engaging with another, in real time: listening, understanding, correcting, modeling, suggesting, prodding, denying, affirming, and critiquing thoughts and their expression."

There has never been a better time to learn. Resources and communities are plentiful. Never stop learning.

What programming language should I use/learn?

I get asked often, "Which programming language should I start with?" or "I teach _______ which language would be the best for my classroom?" My goal is not to promote one language but show you the benefits of each of the more popular choices out there and let you make your own decision. There really is no one "best" language, just the best language for what you are interested in doing.

As always I promote technology that:

1. Enhances or encourages learning. Programming is one great way to implement Computational Thinking into your class.
2. The software is free and open source.

Disclaimer: These are intended to be a summary. They are presented in no particular order.

Python

Free? FOSS (Free as in zero cost and open source)

Requires an installation? Yes but there are web based options like sage math notebook. Python comes preinstalled on Mac and Linux.

Strengths: 

• The syntax is very high level so you and your students can take your ideas and very quickly turn them into code. 
• Python is interpreted so as soon as you press enter or run the code you can see the results. 
• It has a large number of modules and support for graphics (e.g. VPython), physics, math, language parsing and more.
• Great for prototyping, web, data mining/processing, and almost anything!

Recommended Tutorials:

    Think Like a Computer Scientist

    Codingbat

    Online Python Tutor

Javascript

Free? FOSS
Requires an installation? No

Strengths:

• Coupled with HTML5 and CSS allows you to add a lot of power and interactivity to your web pages and applications.
• Gives you to access web APIs (directory of available APIs) and use other services.

FYI: Javascript fails silently (meaning if there is a bug, it just won't work the way you intended, there won't be an error message) so use lots of debugging techniques and logs to debug. This is far easier than it may sound and is useful to learn regardless of what language you are using.

Recommended Tutorial:

    W3 School Tutorial

Processing

Free? FOSS

Requires an installation? Yes

Strengths:

• Designed to be very easy to make something visual, beautiful and/or interactive.
• With both Processing and Arduino, it provides an introduction to C++ that is less intimidating.

Recommended Tutorials:

    Official Processing Tutorials

    Examples in the Processing software (Select File and then Examples)

    Learning Processing

Arduino

Free? 

• Hardware: No but Open Source (Sparkfun, Adafruit, and Radio Shack are trusted suppliers)
• Software:  FOSS

Requires an installation? Yes

Strengths:

• Works with off the shelf parts (e.g. motors, LEDs) to cheaply and easily build projects that sense, move, light up, etc.
• Many "shields" are available to easily add functionality like Bluetooth, Wifi, audio, etc.
• Hardware is relatively inexpensive (~$20-30)
• Interfaces easily with Processing to add interactivity and data visualization.

Recommended Tutorials:

    Official Arduino Tutorials

    Examples in the Arduino software (Select File and then Examples)

    Sparkfun Education

Subscribe and follow Phil for more on education and technology.

Physics Gizmo is Open Source

I've put the source to Physics Gizmo at code.google.com. If you are interested in helping me develop a tool for students to collect and analyze scientific data in an affordable way I encourage you to join the project.

Physics Gizmo on code.google.com
Discussion Group Forum

Physics Gizmo on Google Play

More information on Physics Gizmo can be found at the original Physics Gizmo post on BrokenAirplane.


Subscribe and Connect to see how educators are innovating.

#CompThinkChat on Twitter - Join the discussion

Computational Thinking is showing up in discussions and talks everywhere I look. The Next Generation Science Standards reference them and the skills are implied in the Common Core.

A few days ago, I saw this tweet from @Kevin_Krenz:

and knew that this would be a perfect way to bring the community together to discuss and share experiences with Computational Thinking. Kevin put this planning document together and #CompThinkChat was born.

The first chat is Wednesday Aug 8th at 7pm CST (5pm PST/8pm EST) and continuing every other week. This may not be the best time for everyone who wants to be involved so add your suggested times to the planning doc and let's see what works out in the long run.

If this is your first Twitter chat, here's the steps to get started:

1. Sign up for Twitter.
2. Sign in during the scheduled chat time.
3. If you are using the Twitter homepage search for #CompThinkChat in the upper right corner. This filters out all tweets except those relevant to the chat.
4. Chat! Share your thoughts, questions, link, etc. Note: Make sure you add #CompThinkChat to your Tweets so everyone else can see them.

There are many ways to access Twitter, especially on your mobile device. I personally use Silver Bird for Chrome and Seesmic on Android but do a search and try a few out to see what works best for you.

If you miss out on a chat, they will be archived in the Exploring Computational Thinking General Forum.


Here's the document of Computational Thinking Resources I share in my presentations about Computational Thinking. All are invited to join the chat whether you have been using Computational Thinking since Papert, Wing, or if this is the first time you have heard about it. It'll be exciting to hear the community's thoughts on the implications and possibilities and I hope you will join us!