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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Alice - a new way to learn programming

If you have done any programming papers, you'd know what I am talking about. The 'make it or break it' case eventuates when you do the first paper, if you find it hard you'll probably quit the major and choose something else.

Having done a major is programming, I at times wondered in my first year, why was I wasting my time, learning the rigid programming syntax. In the first semester of the major, I ended up programming a basic calculator and a wage calculator, it didn't make sense. Why was I reinventing the world? Not mentioning the boring moments I had to put up with almost everyday while working on the computer doing my assignments. You are stuck with a black screen (Borland C++) that had a miserable interface and very basic help library.

Black screen

The thought of quitting the major had crossed my mind so many times but I persevered and finished my major.

Teaching programming to year 12 and 13's would probably be the biggest challenge I faced quite early in my career. I did struggle at times and so did my students. Reflecting on my struggle while finishing my major, I could understand what my students were going through. The process of 'doing' and 'learning from it' was disjointed. The process fell apart because the students were not keen on 'doing' hence the latter never eventuated. Some of the reasons for not 'doing' - not fun, boring and nothing to conceptualise. I managed to work around some of these issues by making the class more game oriented and getting students to reflect at the end of every session. However the problem of teaching the rigid syntax or for students to remember these syntax always proved difficult. Somewhere down the line I discovered Alice, invented by the late Randy Pausch (watch his video: The Last Lecture).



Alice is a 3D platform for students to learn programming. Students learn the concept and logic for programming by controlling Alice and what she does inworld. The students can make her dance, walk, run, jump and many other complex maneuvers meaning rising the level every time and with it the need to learn complex programming skills. The immersive nature of Alice appears to have broken the barrier of 'not doing'. You are not just writing codes but you are actually getting Alice (Avatar) to do something. It's fun, it is easy (possibly because the pain of remembering the rigid syntax is outweighed by the enjoy students get out of using it) and best of all it works!

According to ScienceDialy a research done at Duke University, students were


  • highly engaged (unheard comments in a classroom like: ""'Oh, wow, look!' they told each other. 'Come here. Show me. Look at this!'" ). The students were creating stories with Alice.

  • keen on asking for more time to finish their work (students having spent 5-6 hours on Alice were still keen on continuing).


It also helped balance the male to female ratio in class, programming classes are mostly male dominated. It also created a very good platform for students hence the student turnover for the next class was good.

By the time I discovered Alice it was too late for my high school students but I had an opportunity to try it with my students in 2007. The feedback I received from my students were very similar to what's stated by Duke University. Students loved the fact that they actually created something, and that they could control what happened inworld. The understanding of key programming concepts became more apparent and easier to understand. I also noticed that students were highly engaged in the process and that they were willing to invest huge amount of time developing their world.

Second Life is another platform that could be used but has a steep learning curve. It maybe more suited at a university level. Second Life is more developed and has it's own scripting language (very similar to java) and is not free unlike Alice.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

ClickHeat | Clicks heatmap

ClickHeat is an OpenSource web application that helps monitor the behaviour of the visitors on your website. ClickHeat shows the 'hot' and 'cold' areas on the page.
ClickHeat

Read more about ClickHeat.

Friday, June 26, 2009

eAssessments

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Wordnik

Wordnik
Wordnik
An ongoing project devoted to discovering
all the words and everything about them

Wordnik includes definition, examples of the word in use, images, pronunciation, related words, users can leave notes and tag, and a summary page.

Good tool for vocabulary and general use.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

From eLearning to Social Learning

Jane Hart from the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies has done some great work around social learning. The 3 series presentation she has done are awesome. You can have a look at them here. Or click on the links below.










VoiceThread

What is VoiceThread?

VoiceThread is a voice forum.
Let me call it 'second generation' discussion forum and I'll call the text discussion boards present in Moodle, Blackboard and websites 'first generation'. Unlike the first generation discussion forums that are mainly textual, VoiceThread takes 1st gen discussion forum to another level. You can now have online discussions without even typing a word! You can post a video, picture or simply a small introductory voice message to get the discussion going. People posting replies to your forum can do it either by posting a voice message or typing in a response. The VoiceThread environment offers you all the tools necessary to do this, meaning you don't need to open or install any additional application, all you need is a mic and a speaker on your computer to get started and these are standard in almost all computer.

7 things you should know about VoiceThread (EDUCAUSE article (pdf)) does a great job on explaining what VoiceThread is all about and its implications for teaching and learning.

Below is an example VoiceThread is use:

Social eLearning

Created using Stripgenerator.

Social eLearning

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Need more than 140 characters on your twit?

Write4net

Write4net is a separate service to twitter, it allows you to compose a blog, meaning you can insert pictures, videos etc. It publishes it to your twitter account by converting the blog url into a small url (something like TinyURL), your followers receive the twit as a link which when linked takes the users through to the original posting on Write4net.

Write4net is a free service and is very easy to use. Basically when you link through to the Write4net website, you land on the compose page. You type whatever you want and then click on the publish link. It will then ask you for your twitter username and password, allow access and you are ready to go.

It's like blogging in micro-blogging, I like that!

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Moodle tutorials

For all your Moodle needs go to this one-stop Moodle tutorial shop --> http://www.moodletutorials.org/index.php

It has video tutorials on Moodle for almost all Moodle modules and more.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Google image labeler

I came across this new feature in Google called Google Image Labeler.

What it does?

It throws a series of pictures and finds you a partner online to work with. What you have to do is label the image with as many words as possible in 2 minutes and your partner will do the same (you and your partner see the same image). Google then scores you and your partner. At the end of the 'game' Google will display the source of the image and the words that were attached with it.

Possible use with students

A fun way to practice vocabulary.