coding | OpenSTEM Pty Ltd

On Teaching Programming

Being involved with teaching young students to code, I have come to the tentative conclusion that many coding kids have not actually been taught programming. This has been going on for a while, so some of this cohort are now themselves teaching others.

I have noticed that many people doing programming actually lack many of the fundamental skills that would make their programs efficient, less buggy and even just functional.

A few years back, Esther Schindler wrote an article Old-school programming techniques you probably don’t miss (ComputerWorld, April 2009).

Naturally, many (most!) of the things described there are familiar to me, and it’s interesting to review them. But contrary to Esther, I still do apply some of those techniques – I don’t want to miss them, as they serve a very important purpose, in understanding as well as for producing better code. And I teach them to students.

Programming is about smartly applied laziness. Students are typically aghast when I use that word, which is exactly why I use it, but the point is that smartly applied laziness is not the same as slackness. It’s simply a juicy way of describing “efficient”.

Suppose you need to shift some buckets of water. You could carry one bucket at a time, but you’ll quickly find that it’s hard on your arm and shoulders, as well as wasting the other arm you have. So we learn that if you have more than one bucket to shift, carrying only one bucket at a time is not the best way of going about it. Similarly, trying to carry three or more buckets is probably going to cost more time than it saves, as well as likely spilling water all over the place.

Thus, and this was of course worked out many centuries ago, carrying two buckets works best and is the most efficient as well as being quite comfortable – particularly when using a neat yet simple tool called a yoke (as pictured).

Inevitably, most kids will have at some time explored this issue themselves (perhaps while camping), and generally come to the same conclusion and insight. This is possible because the issue is fairly straightforward, and not obscured by other factors. In programming, things are not always so transparent.

Our modern programming tools (high-level languages, loose typing, visual programming, extensive APIs and libraries) enable us to have more convenience. But that convenience can only be applied judiciously when the programmer has the knowledge and skills required to make appropriate judgements. Without that, code can still be produced rapidly, but the results are not so good.

Some would say “good enough”, and that is somewhat true – when you have an abundance of computing power, memory and storage, what do a few bytes or cycles matter? But add together many of those inefficiencies, and it does become a rather dreadful mess. These days the luxury of abundance has become seriously abused. In our everyday life using laptops, smart-phones, tablets and other devices, we frequently encounter the consequences, and somehow regard it as “normal”. However, crashing apps (extreme case but very common) are not normal, and we should not regard any of this as good enough.

I see kids being taught to code using tools such as MIT’s Scratch. I reckon that’s fine as a tool, but in my observations so far the kids are only being shown how to do specific things the particular app or environment. Some kids will have a natural knack for it and figure out how to do things properly, others will plod along and indeed get through by sheer determination, and some will give up – they might conclude that programming is not for them. I think that’s more than a pity. It’s wrong.

When you think about it, what’s actually happening… in natural language, do we just give a person a dictionary and some reference to grammar, and expect them to effectively use that language? We wouldn’t (well actually, it is what my French teachers did, which is why I didn’t pick up that language in school). And why would computer programming languages be different?

Given even a few fundamental programming techniques, the students become vastly more competent and effective and produce better code that actually works reliably. Is such understanding an optional extra that we don’t really care about, or should it be regarded as essential to the teaching?

I think we should set the bar higher. I believe that anyone learning programming should learn fundamentals of how and why a computer works the way it does, and the various techniques that make a computer program efficient and maintainable (among other attributes). Because programming is so much more than syntax.

The Raspberry Pi is succeeding in ways its makers almost imagined | The Register

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/27/the_raspberry_pi_is_succeeding_in_ways_its_makers_ialmosti_imagined

Mark Pesce writes about kids solving real world problems.

They create code (programming) but these days it’s not always necessarily about that. I think that makes sense. When I got into coding, it was quite hard to solve real world problems that way or interface with the real world. It’s actually just a reflection of where the hardware and related infrastructure was at – at that time.

Back then kids (or any people) explored computers and programming as a target in itself, not as a tool to be used. Obviously it was still a tool, but the primary use case was clearly different for those explorers (of which I was one).

Press coverage for OpenSTEM Robotics Program at Grovely State School

A journalist and photographer from Brisbane’s North-West News visited Grovely State School, providing this very nice write-up. This is a great acknowledgement of all the work and achievements by the students in the senior classes on electronics soldering, robotics and programming!

It’s been fabulous working with the students and staff at Grovely, and everybody is having a great time – almost forgetting that the OpenSTEM Robotics Program is real curriculum related school work rather than just an incursion experience!

Serendipitously, the Queensland government has recently announced an intention to focus specifically on programming and robotics in education:

“Our goal is to make sure our students are at the cutting edge of innovation through the development of skills to become the technology architects of the digital age,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said, “This will include an assessment of coding and computer science, as well as early stage robotics, something I firmly believe should be a part of our education system.”

— ‘Advance Queensland’ package announcement (July 2015)

We’d love to work with your school too, contact us today! We’re currently accepting expressions of interest for the second half of Term 4 (2015) and 2016, and we’re also happy to visit you to meet and discuss your ideas and needs. We love our Robotics Program, but we do much more!

Coding a Topic in Parliament

Opposition leader Bill Shorten recently announced Labor’s Plan for Coding in Schools. In a nutshell,

A Shorten Labor Government will ensure that computer coding is taught in every primary and secondary school in Australia so the next generation have the skills they need for the jobs of the new economy.

Coding is the literacy of the 21^st Century, and every young Australian should be able to read and write the global language of the digital age.

I can agree with that and the rest of the text, although it speaks of future developments and need, whereas I would note that many of those developments took place over say 20 years ago and the need has existed for quite some time – still, better late than never, right? And for a politician, catching up to an old idea doesn’t look so sexy as pretending it’s a brand new issue they have identified and jump on.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott responded in parliament:

Let’s just understand exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has asked. He said that he wants primary school kids to be taught coding so they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11? Is that what he wants to do? Seriously? Seriously?

After all, when you don’t understand something, you make fun of it and draw it into the ridiculous. Sigh.

Leon Sterling of Swinburne Uni wrote about the relevance of kids learning coding last week (An education for the 21st century means teaching coding in schools).

Some people will become programmers and that’s very important, but that’s not at all the main reason for teaching coding. Learning to code is, among many other aspects, a means to practice logic and structured thinking. Those are awesome skills to develop, regardless of what you later do for fun and profit.

OpenSTEM views this topic on an even broader level, we regard it as important that students gain a reasonable level of understanding of the entire STEM space and beyond. Why? Let’s quote master Yoda, just for fun:

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

Almost everybody uses computers, the Internet and appliances every day, but very few understand how they work even on a basic level. Is that a problem? Well, it essentially does lead to a lot of suffering. Frustration and anger at wasted time, but also blaming ludicrous causes. And that is a big problem. The realisation whether a suggested cause is realistic or not comes with more knowledge.

When a farmer’s crop fails, long ago they would have said the bad fortune was somehow related to their local gods of choice. We can appreciate such “logic” in the context of their understanding at the time, but we also know that their rituals and remedies were quite ineffective (or worse).

If something happens “to us” and we incorrectly assess the situation, we will not take the appropriate actions necessary to remedy and prevent in the future, nor to keep others safe.

For those more proficient in any matter, they can see this clearly for topics that relate to that matter. Information Technology is so pervasive in our society that it is arguably more important, but in any case it’s very visible and affecting most of us. Broadening our understanding and proficiency is not a luxury but a necessity, both for adequately dealing with issues now, as well as for future developments.

As I mentioned, OpenSTEM addresses this need in a broader sense, for instance in our Introduction to Robotics and Programming program for Primary School senior (approx year 5-6) students. Developing skills is more engaging when it’s for a known purpose, with some results quickly visible – and in this case even in the physical space, which is great for kinaesthetic learners.

In a way this is not even pioneering, as students of around age 10 were involved with Logo turtle programming in the late 60s and early 70s. That’s before the era of the personal computer, the web, etc! We’re catching up with some ideas from 40 years ago. We’re happy to acknowledge that though, it drives us to “get on with it”. This understanding also enables us to have a relevant discussion when people ask whether it’s possible, useful or appropriate to do these things at the senior primary school level.

The students assemble the Mirobots and program them, optionally also soldering the electronics. The students are enabled to explore every aspect of the robots, as there are no secret or otherwise proprietary parts – the mechanics, electronics and software are all open. That’s our particular angle, and we reckon it really helps.

So, back to politics… do our politicians understand all this? They are a product of our society, which has not valued these skills in recent decades. Nevertheless, I do regard the fact that coding is discussed in (ok, I use the term in a loose sense) parliament as positive.

E.A.K. | Erase All Kittens

E.A.K. (Erase All Kittens) is an online platform game that teaches kids (yes that’s you!) to code and create on the web. It does this in a unique way – by encouraging hacking into levels, written in HTML and CSS (the languages of websites) – in order to complete the game.

Now go forth and save some kittens!