Sub Ubi

Most people will probably never bother to learn any alternative handwriting system. (Eric Lee)

In some ways, true. In other ways, the Palm Pilot taught countless people how to use a stroke-based writing system that was modeled closely on the standard English alphabet, but not entirely.

Graffiti, Palm’s stroke-based writing system.

Today, I had a marvelous conversation with the Sandra DuChene, Asisstant to the President at Allegheny College. I helped her with something she was struggling with in Meeting Maker (some thrice-damned scheduling application for Windows), tried to diagnose an infinite print job she had running, and discovered that she knows shorthand. (I went in to make an appointment with El Presidente, but these kinds of conversations just happen to me.)

I have never had the opportunity to speak at length with someone proficient in shorthand. It was absolutely fascinating—shorthand is a glyph-based writing system that is completely phonetic. As notational systems go, it makes absolute sense. While the alphabet is larger than English (Gregg shorthand has around 360 glyphs, from what I understand), it maps directly to the sounds of words, meaning the glyphs can be spoken out loud with no loss of information. From my recent readings regarding reading research (really!), this makes for a very learnable and readable system.

I stole this example from omniglot.com:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act
towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Palm created Graffiti (their stroke-based writing system, above) because it was easier to correctly recognize standardized glyphs than it is to recognize freehand writing in the wild. I think a good Senior thesis project might be to develop a shorthand recognition system. Shorthanders can achieve speeds of 135+ words per minute if they are proficient, which is far faster than I can type (80-90 WPM with a reasonable error rate). However, the transcription process is tedious. A system coupled with modern dictionary lookup techniques could easily transcribe the glyphs of shorthand (which are finite in number) and use dictionary-based techniques to convert those glyphs into text. Yes, there are few users of shorthand now, but that doesn’t make it a fascinating (and potentially useful open-source) project.

I’ll have to start a file of ideas for student projects*.

My stop by the President’s office yielded an unexpected and wonderful conversation, and I invited Sandra to please give a lecture in one of my Programming Language slots early next semester. Given that the study of programming languages involves the study of notational systems and their interpretation, having an experienced shorthander talk about the language and how she has used it during her lifetime should be a fascinating talk.

* Ah. It turns out I’ll want to do some more literature work before I consider such a thing. Perhaps it wouldn’t make a good project. Either way, it will still be a neat talk.

I have used a lot of different tools for creating websites.

I’ve written the HTML by hand. I’ve used Userland’s Frontier. I’ve written software to generate sites—in Perl, Java, and Scheme. Nothing does what I want, and in the end, it’s mostly a disaster.

In needing to get course websites up in a big hurry this semester, I gave up. I used Apple’s iWeb. This is a program that was made so that a complete newbie could create a website and host it on Apple’s (expensive) .Mac service. I felt ashamed and dirty using it, because I thought that (as an “expert”) I should be using something less… amateurish.

iWeb has worked amazingly, amazingly well. I can drag-and drop things, nudge them around… and really, just get some pages put together quickly. And, it generates valid XHTML and CSS. It is far, far simpler to throw things into iWeb than to use anything else I’ve ever used. After I’m done, I export it, and send it across the internets using Fetch, which works just great.

Now, iWeb is far less powerful than other tools in many ways, but… it gets the job that I needed done. If you’re a busy faculty member who needs to get a website put together for your course, I highly recommend just using iWeb as opposed to any ungainly, nasty tool that you might otherwise be contemplating (eg. Dreamweaver).

The second thing that has made my life easy is Google Calendars. For example, I’ve embedded here the calendar from CMPSC190, a new course at Allegheny called Virtual Worlds and Real Robots. It’s a “pre-intro” to computing for students who think computing could be a lot of fun (it is), but aren’t sure about the whole programming thing yet. A fun, gentle introduction to the discipline. It’s awesome.

That’s a small, weekly-view of the course. On the course schedule page, I have a larger, monthly version. What I love is that I just need to edit the calendar in Google, and the homepage is in sync, because the calendar is embedded, not copied. This means I don’t have to actually edit the course homepage to update the course schedule.

The Internet, as they say, is an amazing thing.

This is an absolute treasure/time-saver. I can edit the course calendar in a calendar, and I don’t have to touch the website to make it update. Absolutely mind-bendingly amazing.

Alright. Back to work. I have more updates to make…

I’ve had a marvelous year at Olin College. And this week, that year is coming to a close. Finals are over, and only EXPO and graduation remain.

Last week, my students threw at surprise going away party for me. By “surprise,” I mean “I had no idea it was coming.” By “my students,” I guess I mean “all the students at Olin I’ve interacted with in some significant way.” They came from Software Design in the fall, to HFID and Robotics in the spring, to SCOPE and independent research and projects… and even just a few who don’t fall into any particular category at all. For the time being, the blog’s header is a slightly larger version of our group photo:

This was a wonderful, wonderful surprise. They baked cakes (absolutely amazingly tasty), and all signed a huge card. The front of the card read “You’ve been an amazing teacher, mentor, and friend to all of us.” As teaching awards go, I think it counts as one of the best. I will say, however, that I had some incredible material to work with; every one of my students made my first year as a full-time faculty member an absolutely joy. These people were the reasons I wanted to go to work every day.

Thank you.

Continuing on from my previous post, I continue to wonder about conversational (or dialogic) forms of course evaluation. A cursory search of a few online databases doesn’t yield anything in this area, which means a more serious, systematic literature search is required. While it is true I’ve never seen anyone take a conversational approach to course evaluation, that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been done or investigated.

Some papers I’d like to investigate, however:

• A Longitudinal Study of Student Feedback: Self-Assessment, Course Evaluation and Teacher Evaluation
• Evidence for a Student-Centered Course Evaluation Form
• A Student-Centered Course Evaluation Form (same authors as previous)
• From Feedback to Reciprocity
• Student centered evaluation (webpage)

What is interesting was how enriching and valuable a conversational approach to course evaluation turned out to be. And, after receiving the college-issued anonymous course evals, I cannot even begin to imagine how I could evolve and refine my course based on the (blunt) instrument they employ. As I investigate these ideas further, I’ll make note of them on this blag.

This past autumn I taught Software Design at Olin College. It was an excellent experience, and I enjoyed myself a great deal. As I was experimenting with a number of things (a transition from material found in HtDP to an OO introduction to GUI programming, pair programming, the use of version control with novice programmers, extended projects in a first programming course, etc.), I was very interested in getting good feedback regarding how the course went. Translated, I mean “better feedback than a bog-standard feedback form would yield.”

I often close my courses with a discussion as to how the course went. This year, I took the results of the 45 minute discussion that the students and I had, and reflected on how I might evolve the course the next time I teach it. I then pushed those reflections (4 pages of summary and 10 pages of reflection) back to the students, asking for them to verify whether they felt my proposed changes captured the spirit of their comments and criticisms. Of the 20 in the class, 6 came back to me with their thoughts.

I have now consolidated my proposed changes and the student comments into one document. I’ve titled it Feedback as a conversation (PDF, 5MB), and have made it available online (if you are interested… mostly, this is so I can point students and colleagues at it). Based on a quick poke around the literature, I’m curious whether the notion of “feedback as conversations” (in the spirit of the Cluetrain Manifesto) has made its way into the academic discourse. I may try and dig through this literature, as I have never actually seen anyone go through this kind of iterative, reflective process with their students before. Certainly, it is outside my experience at Kenyon, Indiana, and Kent.

For now, it feels like I’m still at camp. After five years abroad, we’ve moved back to the US, have ravaged craigslist for all it is worth, and are slowly putting a “home” back together. Perhaps, in a few months time, I’ll be more settled in, and I’ll start to miss England in ernest. For now, everything is still new, and just a bit overwhelming at times. But the move was the right one at the right time, and as fast a move as it was, it does feel good.

Part of what has made this move so excellent for me are the people I’ve met at Olin. I don’t know what kinds of stories people have heard or told about the school, but I find that many of the things I loved about Kenyon I have found here. The students are engaged and going somewhere—and sometimes they’re doubling back to try another path, but that’s just fine. Likewise, the faculty are shaping the school with and through their students, helping to make it an exciting and energizing place to be. The staff, like any great institution, provide a foundation for both the students and the faculty that has been nothing but excellent in my experience so far.

The Academic and Campus Center, from the Olin Center

Wednesdays are the longest day in my schedule: independent study meetings, class, faculty meetings, and touching base with the SCOPE team all fell on that day. Carrie and I decided it would be easier/faster if she picked me up instead of my walking home, so I had a few minutes to enjoy the warm, autumn air before she arrived. On my way out the door, I decided to grab my camera, and shoot a few pictures of the campus.

The Olin Center, from the quad

Despite the busy schedule, it was a good day. I think that says something about a place, that you can be busy and engaged all day long, and come out… if not refreshed, at least feeling good about the day. And coming out to a warm, autumn night, where the air is full of the intoxicating smells of the changing of seasons, it really was marvelous. The pictures don’t capture this at all, nor do these words—it was just so relaxing, to just stand there and enjoy the moment.

My schedule is now online.

http://www.jadud.com/people/mcj/files/jadud-schedule.pdf

When I update this, I’ll post updated versions of the PDF, so it should always be up-to-date.

(Yes, my schedule is made with little bits of PostIt on a grid I drew all by myself. It was a therapeutic process. Next time, I will find a way to work crayons into the process, as I believe they have greater creative potential than PostIts.)

Via BoingBoing, from Wired:

The bill, known as the Protect America Act, removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers. (…)

E-mail is plain-text. Currently, I even outsource my email to Google, a company that specializes in search. While I’m not (hugely) paranoid, I don’t believe the government has the right to read my mail. Or listen to my phone conversations. Not without due process, anyway.

I have a growing list of possible projects that students might be interested in working on next year. An easy-to-use, end-to-end secure, open platform for messaging is one of them. PGP with email doesn’t really cut it, sadly; I need a solution that my mother can use without realizing she is communicating with me using military-grade encryption.) I think a good plan with a good group of students should easily get in the door for a Y Combinator summer internship or similar.

Ha! A teaser.

I will be spending next year as visiting faculty at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA. This is an excellent and interesting school, and I’ll be doing my part (most likely) teaching courses along the lines of HCI, software design… although, at this moment those details aren’t known.

This looks to be an exciting year, no doubt. Although, with the impending move from the UK to the US (July 26th gets closer every day), there’s a lot on my mind that must get done by then. The basic schedule seems to look like:

1. Fly on July 26th
2. Drive to S. Carolina on the 27th (I’m a passenger, most likely)
3. Spend a week at the beach with Carrie’s family
4. Drive back one week later
5. Move to Boston

My SkypeIn number remains the best way to reach me, although once we’re back in the US, my US mobile number will probably be a better bet.

I thought I’d run a post that is pulled straight from the greenfoot-discuss mailing list. I thought it was a good user story, as it illustrates some of how people “out there” are using Greenfoot, as well as being a fun read. At least, as someone who has taught Java using the Objects First textbook and used Greenfoot in the classroom, I certainly enjoyed the read.

This note comes in from Barry Brown at Sierra College:

I’ve been running a CS11 class this semester using BlueJ. I saw Greenfoot demoed at SIGCSE2 and participated in the Greeps competition.

Once the students completed chapter 4, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to have a bit of fun and give them lots of practice writing Java. For two weeks, my students tackled the Greeps competition.

A bit of background: my students range in age from 17-ish up to the 40s. I have three high school students among traditional and returning college students. The students’ experience with Java is mixed; some were beginners and others had been exposed to Java before.

I introduced the competition on a Monday. They were shown the Greep class and the inherited methods from Creature. I started them out with a few hints, such as the obvious improvement of having the Greeps turn away from the water or the edge.

On Wednesday (two days later) we had the first round of competition. Of course, I ran the Greep classes on all ten maps. The top five finishers scored 52, 56, 61, 68, and 244. Interestingly, the 244 score was earned by a pair of the high schoolers and falls only 1 point short of the overall winner at SIGCSE.

Next Monday, we ran the Greeps again. This time the top five scores were 150, 174, 195, 215, and 254. The top two scores were earned by the same pair of students who were the top scorers in the first round. (They decided to split up and run their Greeps separately. Later, I would find it was a carefully calculated strategy to win.) Nearly all of the students had figured out how to get the Greeps to stop at the tomato piles and most had some kind of algorithm to steer them around the water.

Finals were on the following Wednesday. As with the SIGCSE competition, we did best-of-three for the finalists. The top five scores were 198, 206, 230, 236, and 281 with the top two scores being earned by the same two high school students.

Feedback from the students were overwhelmingly positive. Memorable quotations:

This was a lot of fun.

Much more fun than BlueJ.

I spent more time on Greeps than my other classes.

All students got a lot of practice invoking methods, reading documentation, writing loops and conditionals, and learning to make use of limited resources. In fact, by the time we got to Chapter 8, the subject matter of inheritance was easy and obvious. They had seen it all before in Greeps!

Kudos go to the Greenfoot team. Playing with Greeps was a fun break from the BlueJ exercises. I’m not sure if I would use Greenfoot exclusively next time, but I’m really leaning toward mixing BlueJ and Greenfoot.

What I like about this post is not just that it is a positive reflection of the use of Greenfoot in the classroom, but that Barry has provided a glimpse of his thoughts on how he would use it in the classroom in the future. The notion of mixing Greenfoot in with exercises from the Objects First textbook is certainly a good one, and might provide some good direction for a set of companion modules that instructors might use throughout the text for enrichment.

Also, what I think is even cooler was the constructivist learning that took place through the use of the Greeps competition. In particular, the students were not phased by the notion of inheritance when they saw it in the text because they had leveraged it throughout the Greeps competition. The purpose of the competition was to score points; however, the students were willing to tackle new learning in their attempt to score more points in the Greeps competition. This kind of self-driven, authentic learning is (in my opinion) the most powerful kind of learning an instructor can encourage in their classrooms. It usually requires giving students ill-defined challenges, and being willing to relinquish some control over how things will progress… but the rewards in terms of learning outcomes can be significant.

So, very cool stuff. That’s it for today, but in my next post, I really want to dive into a new feature in Greenfoot: the ability to export projects for sharing on the web! This is at the heart of the MyGame site, and will factor heavily into what I’m working on over the next few months. I think it is awesome, and before I’m done, I expect you will too.

Footnotes

1 CS1 is shorthand in the USA for a first course in computer science. It often implies a programming-intensive course, but not always. (back)

2 SIGCSE is the ACM Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education. When used in this way, “SIGCSE” implies the annual conference held in the USA each spring. Roughly 1400 computer science educators from all over the world, typically working with high-school and university-level students, attend. (back)