Happy Holidays

   I saw this video in a NPR blog site (the two-way) and liked the way it combines history with state-of-the-art technology.  I also liked the reminder that we all live on one world....earth. 

Hour of Code III

   I'm writing as we're concluding our Hour of Code week at GSB.  This is a program organized through the efforts of a variety of prominent technology people and companies. Supportive partners include Amazon, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Khan Academy and YouTube, to name a few.  Many prominent technologists (e.g.: Bill Gates, Hardi Partovi, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg) have lent their support as well.

   What's the Hour of Code about? It's been a national effort to introduce students, grades 
K - 12, to computer coding.  The rationale is simple, though not one-dimensional.  One reason why it's important to introduce students to coding is that an increasing amount of job opportunities will depend on coding skills and knowledge. We simply do not graduate enough students with adequate computer science literacy, and the shortfall will grow in the coming years.  

From the 2010 - 2012 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/

   But the Hour of Code project is built on more that an economic foundation.  There is also an understanding that by learning coding, students become better thinkers.  It's hard to improve on what Steve jobs said about this idea: "Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer....because it teaches you how to think."
   One more educational reason why the Hour of Code makes sense. It provides an introduction to an academic discipline that many students otherwise might not encounter.  It's impossible to get through twelve years of schooling with no English or history or science or math. Virtually all students have exposure to other languages, music, the arts and physical education. But a surprisingly small group of students have had a academic exposure to computer science. This is a gap in our system and needs to be addressed. This program provides a step in the right direction.
   Not sure that learning computer coding will change how you think? You might want to read an article that appeared very recently in the December 15th edition of the NY Times. It's titled "The Code of Life," by Juliet Waters, and it presents a very personal and compelling case.
   The Hour of Code program provided coding tutorials that were categorized by coding language and grade appropriateness.  Our Lower School students spent time with several coding languages, but especially with Scratch, and object-oriented language that is highly visual and easy for kids to learn.
   When I asked Carrie Petkiewich, our Middle School computer instructor, about her experience with the Hour of Code, this is what she said: “The Hour of Code was a fantastic opportunity to introduce something new to my middle school students. The programs we tried were fun, but also challenging. I enjoyed seeing the students thinking, strategizing, and troubleshooting to fix a step they got wrong. They were excited when they got the code right. This was problem solving in programming and all the students who were able to do it really enjoyed it. Coding is something I hope to continue to incorporate.” 
   Below, a few pictures of the Middle School students at work on coding projects.

   In the Upper School, computer science classes participated in the Hour of Code, as did the physics classes and some math and chemistry classes. Older students were introduced to somewhat more complicated coding projects using languages like JavaScript, Python and M.I.T.-designed code to allow students to write apps for mobile devices.  I personally worked with two classes as they coded.  One was a statistics class, the other a filmmaking class.  In both, students were engaged and productive.  Feedback was positive along the lines of "It's pretty cool learning how computers are instructed to operate" and "I thought this would be dull but it's actually pretty interesting."  Below, a few pictures of Upper School students at work.

    Many, many projects were completed, but most were not saved. I did manage to grab one saved file from Marisa, an Upper School student.  She was working in JavaScript, a language that utilizes a combination of text and symbol instructions with numbers.  If you wanted a prompt for a web site page to be printed, for instance, the JavaScript instruction would look like this: 

<p>"Print" dialog with printer icon:</p>
<p><a href="JavaScript:window.print();">Print this page</a></p>
<div class="more-info">
<p>More info: <a href="/javascript/javascript_print.cfm">JavaScript Print</a></p>
</div>

   Marisa created a greeting card through JavaScript. Here's the finished product, done in an hour of coding:

   In the Lower School, Lynn Prosen and Jill Fedon used class time to introduce all of our LS students to coding.  Some of the work was done off-line using basic coding instructions (forward, back, left, right) to direct Bee-Bot robots through a maze.  Because the coding instructions had a direct relationship to the physical movements of the robots, the students were able to see for themselves the cause and effect of computer coding.

   Jill Fedon did a great job of filming students at work and creating a short video.  You can see for yourself that students were engaged, motivated and active as they participated in the Hour of Code.

   Probably best to end this post with a short video describing an actual coding story. It involves a man with a laptop and an offer to a homeless man.  The story, as it unfolds, is one version of a modern day fairy tale.

         

Paperless Grading

   Recently, I was reading a review of iAnnotate.  It’s an app that has been designed to allow users to annotate documents.  The review (in the ProfHacker blog, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/3/13) promoted the use of the app as a grading tool.  

   The premise for the utility of the app is simple.  In the traditional model, students submit assignments on paper. Faculty mark up the assignment with comments and grade it.  The paper is then handed back to the student.  Students may or may not read the often barely legible comments, and then they typically toss the assignment. The cycle begins again with the next assignment.  iAnnotate takes the paper out of the equation and as a bonus, offers legible comments to students and makes more permanent assignment storage easier.

   The app, available for iPad and Android users, offers a full array of comment features for any imported document.  So if a student writes a paper, it could be emailed to the teacher and then opened in iAnnotate.  From that screen, an array of tools is available.  Graders can highlight, underline, add text boxes or simply type text directly on to the document.  Annotators have control over color and font choices. There’s also a stamp feature which is useful to offer final grades or "stamp" symbols suggesting a comment (e.g.: check marks, stars, questions marks, etc.) After grading is complete, the assigned work could be emailed back or synced to a cloud-based storage account (e.g.: DropBox, Google Drive or Box) with shared permission to the student.

In the app, you can read or annotate an assignment.

    iAnnotate costs a bit, as far as the pricing of apps go. It’s $9.99 for iPad users in the iTunes store. Android users get a scaled back version but right now it appears to be free.

   Just to be clear, there are apps that offer similar features to iAnnotate. In fact, there’s an excellent web site that will summarize strengths and weaknesses of similarly featured apps: appcrawlr.com  By all means, take some time to find the app that works best for you.

   Not everyone is a tablet user. For computer users, whether desktop or laptop, another tool is available that offers the similar promise of paperless grading. It’s Microsoft Word.  Current versions make it quite easy to comment on student work using the Comment feature in the Review tab.  

 

   Additionally, add a text box, available in the Insert tab, and a comment can be offered anywhere in the document. That comment can be sized, and there are options to control font and color.

 

    After fully grading an assignment, the work could be emailed back to the student.  It might look something like this:

  What’s the advantage of using available technologies to move towards paperless grading? There are two big advantages. First, there’s a paper savings.  For any one teacher giving an assignment, paper savings would not amount to much. But in the aggregate, a real environmental difference can be made. No less important  is the very real possibility that more students will be paying attention to the comments teachers offer about assigned work.  A great deal of time and labor goes into grading papers. Shouldn’t we want students to pay attention to what we have to offer in the way of constructive criticism? But it’s hard for students to pay much attention to your comments if they are difficult to read. Fortunately, solutions are available.