Taste of Tech

For the last 20 years, I’ve had this love-hate relationship with computer programming. I took a high school programming course at the suggestion of a math teacher, and found that I enjoyed it and was relatively good at it. I liked the idea of controlling the machine — deciding what I want it to do, and giving it the commands to do it. I was the puppeteer. I was pulling the strings.

This led to taking a structured programming class as an elective my first year in college, which led to my adding “computer science education” as a major.

Unfortunately, at that time, nobody really had any idea what a computer science education major should know, so they basically just told me to get a minor in systems analysis. I took data structures. That was kind of fun. I learned about stacks and queues and linked lists and trees and all sorts of things I don’t understand anymore. I learned Cobol (why?) and Fortran (why?) before finding out that I had inadvertently skipped the first class and had to go back and learn BASIC. Then it was on to IBM mainframe assembly language.

None of this had any real relevance in the world of education. No schools had IBM mainframes. I might get to teach a little BASIC and Pascal. If I was really fortunate, I could teach C (which, oddly, was about the only language that wasn’t required). The college of education predicted that we were going to leave the university and get jobs teaching high school computer science, where we’d be using the only computers schools had available — the Apple IIe. So in our methods courses, we learned 6502 Assembler, how to build analog-to-digital converts to interface with the Apple II, and how to program in LOGO. (The programming part of LOGO, not just the turtle graphics stuff).

By the end of all this, I had had enough of programming. I got a job teaching middle school computer applications. I was teaching students to use productivity applications. The closest I got to programming was writing spreadsheet formulas. Two years later I switched jobs, and inherited another middle school course that had previously been a programming class. “Irrelevant,” I declared. “The kids don’t need to know this stuff.” I taught productivity tools, some Internet basics, and the concept of hypermedia. The closest I got to programming was teaching them HTML from scratch. Now that I look back on it, I’m amazed at what those kids could do, simply because they didn’t know it was supposed to be hard.

I eventually did get a job teaching high school programming. I taught Visual Basic for two years. I always felt it was an awkward language, and that it doesn’t serve the students very well. I’ve been disappointed twice that they’ve kept the same language in place when revising the courses of study. While I can’t say I didn’t like teaching programming, I also wasn’t too sad when my duties shifted into other directions.

I’ve always advocated for teaching kids to use technology to be productive in non-technical ways. Use email and the Internet as communication tools. Use word processors to make your writing better, to simplify editing, and to make professional-looking documents. Use spreadsheets to organize data, answer “what-if” questions, and draw conclusions based on the numbers. Use presentation tools to augment the message you’re delivering in the presentation. There have been many variations on this theme, but I’ve never strongly advocated for learning about the machine for its own sake. So I’ve never really pushed programming.

Apparently, I’m not alone. According to Carnegie Mellon University, the number of computer science majors declined by more than 60% between 2000 and 20004. In the same time period, the number of females majoring in computer science declined by 80%. Some point to the lack of emphasis on the more technical side of computing as a major contributor to this decline. People like me are de-emphasizing how computers work in favor of an emphasis on how we work with computers.

Two recent projects are aiming to change this. Scratch is a programming environment designed for 8- to 16-year-old students by the MIT Media Lab. In it, kids combine graphics, pictures, video, and audio in new, innovative ways. At the same time, they can snap programming blocks together to control how the elements are displayed, or how the computer user can interact with them. Windows and Mac versions of the free program are available on the project web site. There are also lots of teacher resources and an envrionment for students to share their creations.

For older students, Carnegie Mellon has developed the Alice environment. It can be used to create 3-D animated worlds, with characters that move around and interact. It’s a great way to tell a story, create an interactive game, or make a video to share online. It’s targeted especially toward the middle school and high school crowd, with an emphasis on attracting girls. Like Scratch, it’s easy to use, allowing you to drag and drop the various elements to determine how they interact on the screen.

The thing that’s striking about both of these tools is that they’re teaching programming while doing other things. They’re teaching kids to be good problem solvers, innovative thinkers, and collaborators. That’s meeting half of the 21st Century Skills. If they happen to learn a little programming while they’re at it, and maybe decide that they like telling machines what to do, so much the better.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be taking a closer look at both of these tools.

My brother and I had walkie-talkies when we were kids. I think we got them for Christmas one year. They were red, ran on 9-volt batteries, and had ridiculously long antennas. We used them constantly until the batteries died. Then, they fell into disuse (we never seemed to have a battery surplus). In the half-dozen years that followed, occasionally one would be discovered, and a new battery installed. The trouble was that we never seemed to be able to find both walkie-talkies at the same time. Since the range was pathetically short, about all we could do with one of them was listen to static. So it would go back in the toy box. A few months later, the other one would show up, but by that time the first one was lost. We never seemed to get both working at the same time after that first Christmas.

Years later, when I signed up for my first email account, I didn’t really have a good idea of what I was going to do with it. In truth, I just needed an account on the university’s mainframe so I could participate in some online forums. I didn’t even know I had an email account until several weeks later.

The new account, and the discovery of what it could do, weren’t much help to me. I didn’t know anyone else who had an email address, so there wasn’t anyone to write to. Eventually, I met some other people on campus who had email accounts, so I started writing to them. It was a year or more before I started emailing people who lived more than half a mile away.

Last week, I spent some time with a group of teachers in a class on developing personal learning networks. We focused on collaborative tools and technologies, like social bookmarking, Internet telephony, video conferencing, and shared online productivity tools. I talked a lot about my network. I’ve met a lot of smart people who have similar interests and goals, and I can rely on them to help when I’m in a pinch. As we went through the various tools, I tried to describe how I use that tool to interact with my network. I’ve certainly learned more from my network over the last two years than I ever learned in a college classroom.

The teachers liked the tools, and immediately starting thinking of ways to use them in their classes. That’s great. I expected them to do that. But they were less keen on the idea of a professional learning network. Sure, they can share their bookmarks with other Delicious users. But no one they know uses Delicious. It’s great that they can use Skype to conference with other second grade teachers, but they don’t know any other second grade teachers who use Skype. They only have one walkie-talkie. There’s no one to talk to.

The solution — I think — is blogging. Nearly everyone I interact with online in a professional way is someone I met through blogging. When I started writing a blog, I wrote it for my district staff. Most of them don’t read it. I think it was a year or more before anyone read my blog who doesn’t live in my house. At the same time, though, I started reading other blogs. I commented on those, and contributed to some conversations. Occasionally, I’ve posted on things people are interested in, and I’ve received some comments on this blog. That’s how I started building connections.

The same could be said for other “pull” technologies. I’ve met some people by listening to their podcasts (most notably those crazy people at EdTechTalk). I’ve found some new friends through Twitter, too, mostly by looking at who the people I’m following are following. Take recommendations from people you trust and respect.

It’s hard to get traction. It’s hard to see how interactive technologies work when you don’t have anyone to interact with. If you work at it, you’ll develop your own network. It starts with a lot of reading and a little writing. But if your network is as good as mine is, you’ll wonder how you lived without it.

I’ve received a couple questions lately about keeping kids safe online. We see news reports all the time about the danger of social networking sites, and the problems with posting personal information online, and the number of children who have been exposed to inappropriate material online. Today, I’m starting a series of blog posts about cybersafety to take a fairly comprehensive view of the issue and what we can do about it.

Today, we’re starting with a look at the problem itself. Maybe you’ve heard about the softball player who was stalked by someone she met online. She thought he was a 14-year-old boy halfway across the country instead of a 40-year-old man in her town (the story is fiction, by the way). We’ve seen plenty of news items about how dangerous the Internet is for kids. Most of them cite statistics that claim that one out of every seven teens with Internet access has been sexually solicited online. We hear stories about children and teens getting tricked into meeting online predators. Theoretically, all of those things can happen. But the problem may not be as serious as many would have you believe.

Take, for example, the one-in-seven statistic. That comes from Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later, a report from from the Crimes Against Children Research Center. Here’s what the report actually says:

…approximately 1 in 7 youth Internet users (13%) received unwanted sexual solicitations or approaches in the past year. Close to half of the solicitations were relatively mild events that did not appear to be dangerous or frightening. Four (4) percent of all youth Internet users, however, received aggressive sexual solicitations, which threatened to spill over into “real life” because the solicitor asked to meet the youth in person; called them on the telephone; or sent them offline mail, money, or gifts. Also 4% of youth Internet users had distressing sexual solicitations that left them feeling very or extremely upset or afraid. Two (2) percent of youth had solicitations that were both aggressive and distressing.

So while the implication is that 13% of our teens are being stalked by predators, the reality is that only 4% of teens are upset or afraid, and only half of them were in situations where the person tried to initiate offline contact. While one in fifty is still a serious problem, it’s not on the same scale as one in seven. A panel discussion of these findings took place recently among experts meeting in Washington, D.C. Video and transcripts of this discussion are online.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project studied teens and online stranger contact in 2007. They found that nearly a third of online teens have been contacted online by someone with no connection to them or their friends. That’s not too surprising. I meet new people online all the time. It’s not necessarily any more dangerous than striking up a conversation with someone in line at the store, or the people in adjacent seats at a concert or sporting event. Considering the facts that they count social networking friend requests and spam email messages in this count, I’m surprised that the number isn’t higher. A more important number is the percent of teens who have been contacted by a stranger online who made them feel frightened or uncomfortable. The Pew study reports a figure of 7%. Again, it’s not an insignificant number, but it’s not a third of online teens.

Interestingly, the biggest predictors of stranger contact are social network profiles and posting photos online. Teens who have publicly-viewable profiles on social networking sites, or who have posted photographs of themselves online are twice as likely to be contacted by people they don’t know.

Writing in the New York Times, David Pogue points to some of the findings reported in a recent PBS Frontline documentary, Growing Up Online. Pogue points to several quotes from producer Rachel Dretzin, including these:

The data shows that giving out personal information over the Internet makes absolutely no difference when it comes to a child’s vulnerability to predation.

The vast majority of kids who do end up having contact with a stranger they meet over the Internet are seeking out that contact.

All the kids we met, without exception, told us the same thing: They would never dream of meeting someone in person they’d met online.

These statements directly contradict most of the cyber-safety information that’s intended to help protect kids. The first item, certainly, contradicts the Pew report I just mentioned.

The Byron Review released its report on cybersafety in March, 2007 (an executive summary and a guide for students are also available). The report focuses on video games, media content, and Internet use among children and teens. I like the analogy to swimming. The odds that you are going to die by drowning are approximately 1 in 1100. Yet we still have swimming pools and water parks. We still go to the beach. Some people even have dangerous bathing tubs in their own homes. We put up fences around the pools. We post signs warning about the dangers of drowning. We post lifeguards in busy swimming areas. We have shallow ends. We do everything we can to protect people from the danger. But at the same time, we also teach people how to swim, so they can protect themselves.

Conclusions? Children need to be protected online. Certainly. Especially at younger ages. As they get older, they need to learn how to protect themselves. This is really important, and cyber-safety is something we should be addressing with every student. But it’s not more important than teaching kids how to cross the street or ride a bike. The Internet is not more dangerous than firearms or alcohol or cars, all of which kill a significant number of teens each year. The problem calls for a balanced, reasoned approach. And we’ll start there with part 2.

Once upon a time, there was a voice in the darkness. The voice spoke, and her words were truth.

The truth enlightened the huddled masses, who were huddled because they were cold. The heat was lower and the lights dimmer than normal because there was an energy crisis. As they sat on carpet squares in the overcrowded room, they absorbed her truth.

Never end a sentence with a preposition.

Paul Revere rode through the Massachusetts countryside calling “The British are coming!”

Around 150 million years ago, the plant-eating brontosaurus roamed the earth.

The best way to learn arithmetic is to understand set theory and alternate bases first.

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America.

Of the nine planets in the solar system, the furthest from the Earth is Neptune.

If you work hard and behave yourself, you’ll get into a good college, graduate in four years, get a good job, and be better off than your parents were.

They took notes, completed worksheets, and learned the truth. They repeated it on tests. They were rewarded when they accepted the truth, and they were penalized when they challenged it. In time, they learned that the voice is always right, the truth is absolute.

Over time, the voice changed. But the concept of the authority holding the keys of truth remained. The voice says there are weapons of mass destruction. The voice says we’re not in a recession. The voice says we don’t have to worry about global warming. The voice is right. The voice is truth.

And so the sins of the huddled masses — the sins of faith in the keepers of the truth — shall bring punishment unto their children.

But the children have other ideas. They listen to the voice, but they they don’t blindly accept the truth. They ask questions. They challenge assumptions. They check sources. They verify facts. The voice helps this process by asking more and speaking less. And when the children find discrepancies, they point them out.

Information is not at a premium. We don’t have to blindly accept what we’re told. I’m not worried about the quality of information our students are using because we’re also teaching them how to be intelligent information consumers. They’re learning that information is only as good as its source. That’s more valuable than the elusive truth.

It’s been an RSS day. It started last night, actually, when I was trying to figure out how to get an RSS feed of an entire Google Reader account into a Protopage (still haven’t figured that one out). Then, there was the challenge of helping my wife get an RSS feed of her Twitter messages on her blog. This morning, two colleagues and I were playing with RSS feeds for delicious tags and feeds for Technorati searches. I returned to the office and took a call from the developer of our content management system. He wanted to change the XML chicklet icon we were using to the standard RSS icon. We also talked about adding some explanation of what RSS is to the web site.

I’ve explained RSS at least twice before (here and here). Basically, it allows you to automate the checking of web sites, blogs, and other web resources for updates. When something new gets posted, you see the content in your feed reader.

I always use CNN as an example. You can get an RSS feed for any of their news categories. If I just want world news, or education news, I can subscribe to those feeds. Then, when something new is posted, it shows up in my feed reader.

Here’s the interesting thing, though. Take a look at this image of CNN’s home page from August 29, 2007:

Now, look at this image from CNN’s home page, May 2, 2008:

See what isn’t there? The RSS Feed link. You used to be able to click on that link in the upper-right corner of any CNN page. It then took you to a page listing all of the available RSS feeds. It explained what RSS feeds are, and how you can use them. That link isn’t there any more.

You can still get to the feeds though. All you have to do is scroll to the bottom of the page. Click on “Tools & Widgets.” That will take you to a page that will try to get you to install the Google toolbar widget, and the desktop alerter, and other things you don’t need. Scroll to the bottom of that page, and you’ll see an “RSS Page” link under “Other Products.” Click on that link and you’ll find the old list of RSS feeds available on the CNN site. Easy, right?

So if RSS makes it so easy to share information and aggregate content from multiple sources, why did CNN make it so hard to find?

Of course, I can only speculate about CNN’s motives, but I would guess that it has to do with advertising revenue. See, if I grab an RSS feed from CNN’s site, and I put it on my Protopage, that means I’m reading CNN’s content on my own page. That’s what RSS is for. Maybe I have CNN on one part of the screen, and the New York Times somewhere else, and some other news sources and blogs in other places. But by not going to CNN’s web site, I’m not seeing their advertisements. So they’re getting less traffic on their web site, and generating less advertising revenue. That hurts them financially, so they’re no longer actively encouraging people to do that. At least, that’s my theory.

And I hope it works. The alternative would be to put advertising in the feed, so I would get today’s headlines along with a few advertisements on my page. That would set a very unpleasant precident for news feeds, and I don’t think any of us really want to move in that direction.