Hi Linda, I would suggest that your domain of analysis is much larger than the kits. No-one is being explicit about what is going on here. The kits are perhaps 25% of the ingredients. To assert that the kits are "too hard" etc, is really not to have any more insight into the real situation than the pupils, the authors of the curriculum, or the young teachers. Why should "hardness" be a function of the kits?
Generally what seems to happen is that an experienced teacher will come up with a personal solution to one of these issues of curriculum-media-pupil problems and then share it with hundreds of other teachers. On this basis the bright kids get to be playful for a brief period of the school day whilst the rest are merely introduced to some more stuff that you do stuff with. Because the curriculum does not address the real requirements (or the thing that really matters) we have this muddle of a status quo. Best, Huw -- http://www.bootstrapsystems.co.uk On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 4:07 AM, Linda McIver <linda.mci...@gmail.com> wrote: > Thanks Simone, and apologies for my delayed reply. These look like mostly > descriptive papers, of which there are many. We are looking more for > evaluative studies that use some kind of structured or formal approach to > evaluate the usability of a system. It seems to us that many of the > hardware kits that are currently used in the classroom are advertised as > easy to use and great entry points, but are actually quite challenging for > teachers and students without much technical experience to get started > with. > > Huw, you make a good point when you ask "usability for what". Of course > that is the essential first question when considering usability - who and > what do you intend it to be usable for? Our initial research has raised the > question "why use hardware?" with teachers and their answers are mostly "to > introduce the digital technologies curriculum", which is a new Australian > CS curriculum from prep (5 year olds) through to year 10. That is a pretty > vague goal! :) We have the usual problem here that we have teachers with no > training in CS being asked to teach CS concepts. There is a buzz around > hardware and they are advertised as easy to use, but in practice we fear > they put more people off than they engage, due to their poor usability. > I've written a bit about it here: > > https://computeitsimple.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/as-easy-as-pi/ > > But that's just opinion (informed by my in-school teaching experience). > We're trying to be more rigorous! > > Thanks everyone for all of your responses, there was a lot of useful info > in there. Much appreciated! > > Linda > > > On 8 August 2017 at 21:32, Stumpf, Simone <simone.stump...@city.ac.uk> > wrote: > >> Hi! >> >> I think there is some stuff out there on various platforms but it might >> not all be for K-12 e.g. >> >> on Gadgeteer: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publicat >> ion/net-gadgeteer-a-new-platform-for-k-12-computer-science-education/ >> >> on Micro:bit: Sue Sentance, Jane Waite, Steve Hodges, Emily MacLeod, and >> Lucy Yeomans. 2017. "Creating Cool Stuff": Pupils' Experience of the BBC >> micro:bit. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on >> Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 531-536. >> DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3017749 >> >> on the SenseBoard: Mike Richards, Marian Petre, and Arosha K. Bandara. >> 2012. Starting with Ubicomp: using the senseboard to introduce computing. >> In Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer >> Science Education (SIGCSE '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 583-588. DOI= >> http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2157136.2157306 >> >> Hope that helps >> Simone >> — >> Dr Simone Stumpf >> Senior Lecturer, Centre Co-Director >> Centre for HCI Design, SMCSE >> City, University of London >> http://twitter.com/drsimonestumpf >> http://www.city.ac.uk/people/academics/simone-stumpf >> >> Join us for our MSc in HCI and UX! http://www.city.ac.uk/ >> courses/postgraduate/human-computer-interaction-design >> >> >> >> On 8 Aug 2017, at 12:14, Huw Lloyd <h...@bootstrapsystems.co.uk> wrote: >> >> Hi Linda, >> >> I offer a hopefully clarifying question: usability of (classroom) >> hardware kits for what? What you and I may assume the kits are to be used >> for (and valued for) may not correspond to the values of formal (classroom) >> education... >> >> Best, >> Huw >> -- >> http://www.bootstrapsystems.co.uk >> >> On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 5:02 AM, Linda McIver <linda.mci...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> Dear PPIGers, >>> >>> Quick CS Ed Research question for you lovely people: I have an honours >>> student looking at the usability of classroom hardware kits for teaching >>> K-12 kids - things like lego mindstorms, arduinos, etc - and he's trying to >>> find some relevant research for his lit review. >>> >>> He has, of course, found stuff going "hey! we created a thing! and it's >>> cool!" but interviews with teachers, actual studies of use... we can find >>> very little. Do you know of anything we might have missed, or sensible >>> places to look? Surely there's *something*? >>> >>> Thanks in advance! >>> >>> Linda >>> >>> -- >>> >>> Exploring Life, Parenting and Social Justice: >>> http://lindamciver.wordpress.com/ >>> Computational Science Education: http://computeitsimple.wordpress.com/ >>> >>> >>> Dr Linda McIver >>> Teacher & Freelance Writer >>> -- >>> Buy Fair Trade - Change the world one coffee at a time >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "PPIG Discuss" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to ppig-discuss+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to ppig-discuss@googlegroups.com. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "PPIG Discuss" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to ppig-discuss+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to ppig-discuss@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "PPIG Discuss" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to ppig-discuss+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to ppig-discuss@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > > > -- > > Exploring Life, Parenting and Social Justice: > http://lindamciver.wordpress.com/ > Computational Science Education: http://computeitsimple.wordpress.com/ > > > Dr Linda McIver > Teacher & Freelance Writer > -- > Buy Fair Trade - Change the world one coffee at a time > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PPIG Discuss" group. 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