Week 5

  • Digital
  • Flipped preparation (required): Fill out the Google Form at tinyurl.com/DigitalCompetenceTML to reflect on your own digital competence, and to also indicate whether you are receiving the weekly email communications from The Mind Lab by Unitec.DONE
  • Flipped preparation (required): View the TED Talk by Linda Liukas 'The poetry of programming' Consider these questions as you watch. 
  • Should we/could we ‘teach kids to code’? Why or why not? Yes! We teach children to write because this skill will be essential for them in all areas, coding will be just the same for our children's in their future.
  • What is the relationship between Computational Thinking and coding? Coding is writing instructions for computer/technology and computational thinking is how we can solve problems using what we know about computers and technology. I am still developing my understanding of this.
  • What is the role of storytelling in teaching coding?
  • Story telling gives context like with all learning. You can tell a story through code. 

Leadership
  • Flipped Preparation (required): Take the Mindset Quiz (tinyurl.com/tmlmindset)


  • Flipped Preparation (required): Use one of the referencing/citation tools listed on the portal in week 4 to store and generate a citation/reference from a useful resource about Growth Mindset
Done
Computational Thinking
In his book 'Mindstorms', Seymour Papert (1980) stated that 'when a child learns to program, the process of learning is transformed. It becomes more active and self-directed. In particular, the knowledge is acquired for a recognizable personal purpose. The child does something with it. The new knowledge is a source of power and is experienced as such from the moment it begins to form in the child's mind." (p.21)
Computational Thinking is a problem solving process. It is a fundamental skill for everyone, and involves solving problems, designing solutions and systems to solve open ended problems based on multiple variables. We illustrate the concept in this week's session with the following quotes:
“Everyone should learn how to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think.” (Steve Jobs, cited in Sen, 1995)
"Computational thinking is a way humans solve problems; it is not trying to get humans to think like computers." (Wing, 2006)
"Computational thinking is taking an approach to solving problems, designing systems and understanding human behaviour that draws on concepts fundamental to computing." (Wing, 2006)
According to Google (n.d.), Computational Thinking Means Solving problems by using:
  • Decomposition: Breaking down data, processes, or problems into smaller, manageable parts
  • Pattern Recognition: Observing patterns, trends, and regularities in data
  • Abstraction: Identifying the general principles that generate these patterns
  • Algorithm Design: Developing the step by step instructions for solving this and similar problems
Scratch for Computational Thinking
Last week we used Scratch with Makey Makey. This week we will be using Scratch for computational thinking. 
Pair Programming
Pair programming is a common technique in agile software development. One member of the pair is the ‘driver’ (does the typing, and focuses on tactics) while the other is the ‘navigator’ (can review and suggest, and focuses on strategy). When pair programming you should change your roles within the pair on a regular basis, and also change your partner on a regular basis.
"This combined effort, which requires frequent role changes between the two developers, and changes of pairing, has been argued to provide benefits such as improved team discipline, cohesion and morale, better code, a more resilient work flow and creation of better solutions. It raises the working knowledge of the entire code base by all the developers, and enables mentoring of team members" (Parsons, Ryu & Lal, 2008).
Scratch Examples 
With Scratch examples you can click the 'See Inside' button to see how the code was written and, if you want to, you can make a copy to modify yourself by pressing the 'Remix' button. This example shows repetition and selection
There is also a ScratchJR for 5-7 year old and Snap! (formerly BYOB) which is an extended reimplementation of Scratch that allows you to Build Your Own Blocks. It also features first class lists, first class procedures, and continuations. These added capabilities make it suitable for a serious introduction to computer science for high school or college students.
Celebrating 50 Years of Kids Coding
This Google Doodle (which appeared the Google homepage in 2017) is a short coding game to celebrate 50 years of kids coding.
Digital Curriculum
The new digital curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2017) emphasises computational thinking. 
“In this area, students develop algorithmic thinking skills and an understanding of the computer science principles that underpin all digital technologies. They become aware of what is and isn’t possible with computing, allowing them to make judgments and informed decisions as citizens of the digital world” (Ministry of Education, 2017). 
We will be looking at the 8 progress outcomes/whakatupuranga of the Computational Thinking technology area, which you can find through the following links: 
This image from the curriculum shows how the 8 progress outcomes are intended to align to levels.
Digital Passport
The Digital Passport is The Mind Lab by Unitec's contribution to helping teachers get up to speed with the new digital curriculum, supported by the Next Foundation. Teachers can sign up for the Digital Passport for free until 31st August at www.digitalpassport.co.nz
If you need your school's signup code, email digitalpassport@themindlab.com with your school’s name and your teacher’s registration number
References:
Carnegie Mellon University. (n.d.). Center for Computational Thinking. Retrieved from https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~CompThink/
Google. (n.d.). What is Computational Thinking? Computational Thinking for Educators. Retrieved from https://computationalthinkingcourse.withgoogle.com/unit?lesson=8&unit=1
Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. New York: Basic Books.
Parsons, D., Ryu, H. & Lal R. (2008). Better, Not More Expensive, Faster? The Perceived Effects of Pair Programming in Survey Data. In Proceedings 19th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, Christchurch, New Zealand. Retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=acis2008
Sen P. (1995). Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, Retrieved from: https://itunes.apple.com/au/movie/steve-jobs-the-lost-interview/id632407040
Ministry of Education. (2017). Technology in the New Zealand Curriculum. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/content/download/167461/1235900/file/Technology%20in%20the%20New%20Zealand%20Curriculum%202017

Wing, J. M. (2006). Computational thinking. Communications of the ACM, 49(3), 33-35.

Mindsets
Mindsets are beliefs; how you think about yourself, your intelligence and talents, what it is you can and cannot do. Ultimately, this affects how you perceive other people and their abilities, talents and capabilities, what they are and are not capable of.
One of the flipped learning tasks before the session was to complete a quiz to explore your own mindset
Intelligence
In the session we will address the question of whether Intelligence is innate and, therefore, cannot be developed beyond what you are born with. Claxton (2008) notes that "intelligence [has] become defined as the kind of mind that responds most readily to the peculiar demands of school."
Dweck's Theory of intelligence
Dweck (2006) descried two different views of intelligence. The previous view is that there is a fixed intelligence that can be measured using an IQ Test. No matter how much you learn, or how hard you work, your intelligence stays the same. Her view of intelligence is that  the brain is malleable: it is like a muscle that can get stronger and work better as you learn and stretch yourself. Over time, you can get smarter. This leads to two contrasting views of mindset, fixed and growth:
Fixed Mindset
People with a Fixed Mindset believe that the abilities and capabilities they have are fixed traits. Their intelligence is set, they are talented at certain things and not others. They believe that it is whether or not someone is talented at something is what allows them to be successful at something or not. Intelligence is fixed and can be measured.
Growth Mindset
People with a Growth Mindset believe that their intelligence, and abilities can be developed and grow. Through hard work, dedication and time, people can learn new talents, learn new things and become more intelligent. Teaching a growth mindset encourages learning, develops relationships and self efficacy. The brain is malleable, it can grow, stretch and expand. The harder you work, the more you can learn.
Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset
By changing the language we use. The power of 'not yet' in the classroom. "I have not learnt this yet" shows a growth mindset, rather than saying "I can't do this", or "I failed" which shows a fixed mindset. Changing the way we talk in the classroom, 'What we are learning' rather than 'Here is the work to do'. What is it that we value? Do we value the end product or the learning process? (Dweck, 2006)
Myth Busting
During the class session we will be making 'myth busting' stop motion videos where we bust myths relating to human brains and growth mindset. One of those we mention in class is 'False Growth Mindset'
“It all started when my Australian colleague Susan Mackie informed me that she was seeing more and more false growth mindset. This is when educators think and do all sorts of things that they simply call growth mindset. And then I started noticing it, too.” (Dweck, 2016, January 11). 
Stop Motion Movie Making
Stop motion is an animation technique that physically manipulates an object so it appears to move on its own. An object is moved in small increments, then individually photographed, creating the illusion of movement when played. Dolls, LEGO® and clay figures (claymation) are often used since they are easy to re-position. Stop motion films can also involve humans, household appliances etc. for comedic effect.
Stop Motion Tools
You can make stop motion movies manually using generic video editing tools like VideoPad or iMovie, or use a dedicated stop motion tool such as those listed below.
Stop Motion Studio (for iOS or Android)
Dedicated stop motion app for smartphones and tablets. It includes many features such as frame-by-frame preview at different speeds, fade in/out, select, copy, paste, reverse and delete frames, green screen, themes etc.
Stop Motion Builder (iOS/Android)
This app allows users to create stop motion videos by taking pictures frame by frame with their cell phone camera and adding sound effects and music.
Pic Pac (Android)
Stop motion movie app for Android that can also do time lapse.
A simple and easy to use animation app that will capture frames using either camera on your iOS device
Time-lapse and stop-motion app for iOS.
Windows based software, frame grabber, for creating stop motion and time lapse animation.
Frames Per Second (fps)
One of the main question you need to think about when making stop motion movie is how many frames per second (fps) you will use. The more frames per second, the smoother the action is, but the longer it will take to make the movie. Typical options are:
  • 2 fps - recommended by Slowmation
  • 10 or 15 fps - bouncy type of animation used on Instagram/ Facebook
  • 24 fps - cinematic
Growth Mindset in Leadership
If you want to include the role of growth mindset in your leadership assignments, you might consider some of these ideas. 
Growth mindset in a leadership context comes from a belief that those we lead can be motivated to improve and grow their practices. This choice usually involves including many stakeholders in decision-making, over-communicating the vision, mission, and goals, building shared values, and providing specific, targeted, timely feedback. Dweck (2006) reports on a number of studies of CEOs that suggest that CEOs with a fixed mindest, who believe in natural talent rather than growth, are less successful over the longer term than growth mindset CEOs, even if the former can achieve short term success.
A Growth-Minded [Leadership] Choice (Diehl, 2013) might be one that:
  • Validates and addresses staffs fears and barriers
  • Communicates the vision explicitly
  • Provides support to those who lack knowledge or skills
  • Creates an opportunity to share research and information
  • Allows everyone access to growth opportunities
  • Shares the work load among all staff  
An Oracle blog post (Oracle, 2015) suggests that leadership is all about the willingness to grow and change and to help your people do the same. The Harvard Business Review (2014) suggests that organizations focused on employees’ capacity for growth will experience significant advantages.
References:
Claxton, G. (2008). What's the point of school? Richmond: Oneworld.
Diehl, E. (2013). Leading Change with a Growth Mindset. Community.mindsetworks.com. Retrieved from http://community.mindsetworks.com/blog-page/home-blogs/entry/leading-change-with-a-growth-mindset
Disidealist. (2014). The Growth Mindset: Telling Penguins to Flap Harder? Retrieved July 26, 2016, from https://disidealist.wordpress.com/2014/12/05/242/
Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
Dweck, C. (2016, January 11). Recognizing and Overcoming False Growth Mindset. Retrieved July 26, 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/recognizing-overcoming-false-growth-mindset-carol-dweck
Dweck, C. (2016, January 13). What Having a “Growth Mindset” Actually Means. Retrieved July 26, 2016, from https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actually-means
Harvard Business Review. (2014). How Companies Can Profit from a “Growth Mindset”. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2014/11/how-companies-can-profit-from-a-growth-mindset
Hilton, A. (2017). Prominent Scholar Calls Growth Mindset A “Cancerous” Idea, In Isolation. Huffington Post.Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/prominent-scholar-calls-growth-mindset-a-cancerous_us_5a07f046e4b0f1dc729a6bc3
Oracle. (2015). Are You Leading With a Growth Mindset? Retrieved from https://blogs.oracle.com/sandye/entry/are_you_leading_with_a

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 11

Image
Leadership Flipped preparation (required): Watch the video 'Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding Explained' so that you understand the difference. Optionally, find an interesting crowdfunding project and share it on the padlet at tinyurl.com/TMLCrFunding DONE What is the role of entrepreneurship in education?  Education for Enterprise  (The NZ Curriculum) is about promoting an approach to learning – one that is real, relevant, and gives students responsibility for their learning. The Vision of NZ Curriculum (2016) is for young people who will be creative, energetic, and enterprising, who will seize the opportunities offered by new knowledge and technologies to secure a sustainable social, cultural, economic, and environmental future for our country. What are  Skills Every Entrepreneur Needs? According to Aileron (2017), the top skills every entrepreneur needs are Resiliency - The ability to weather the ups and downs of any business since i...
Read more

Week 28 notes

Image
Applied Practice - activity 4 This week we address  Applied Practice 1 Activity 4  “Discuss how issues of ethics, society, culture and professional environments (including law, regulations and policy) are being addressed while you are taking action”. To help you do this we discuss teachers legal professional obligations, ethics, ethical and legal issues in the digital age; and tools for ethical decision making. Legal professional obligations for teachers Teacher practice in New Zealand is governed by the Code of Professional Responsibility and Standard for the Teaching profession -  Our Code, Our Standards (Education Council, 2017a). The Education Council state “The Code applies to all certificated teachers and those who have been granted a Limited Authority to Teach, in every role and teaching context. It is a set of aspirations for professional behaviour and not a list of punitive rules. We believe that it reflects the expectations society puts on our professio...
Read more