Hi Linda, Why impute the task (and usability) to the kits?
If the kids want to make a big heaps of the stuff, like models of the pyramids, then where is the usability problem? If they want to make a mosaic, where is the usability problem? For creative engagement, it is necessary for the kids to have insight into what they intend to construct and to construe it. Usability is a function if what is intended (and the alignment of the unitary design of the kits with that domain of intent). This is where experiencing problems (and learning to read situations) becomes key towards facilitating orientation. None of this is about providing pre-baked tasks, with issues of usability. To follow the "pre-baked" line is to miss the most important factor which is orientation to problems and the teachers role in facilitating that. Without a concern for orientation, what you are dealing with are "teachers" (who do not need to know anything about creative engagement, orientation etc) and "classrooms" (a place to keep children out of trouble and to "teach" them to follow instructions etc.). So, if you are following the (default) administrative line of teaching, why go to the trouble with kits? And why go to the trouble of indexing "usability" of kits for administratively-run classes when orientation never gets beyond paint by numbers? Once it is clear to the teacher what units the (good) kits have, "usability" is not likely to be an issue. This is why I say we have a muddle of a status quo. Without some scope for creative engagement, without some token gesture towards constructivist approaches, there would be revolt. But this does not square with a curriculum geared towards grades etc., hence creative approaches remain a minority sport. Best, Huw -- http://www.bootstrapsystems.co.uk On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 12:33 AM, Linda McIver <linda.mci...@gmail.com> wrote: > Huw, I think you have both misunderstood our research, and also the nature > of what happens in schools. I am both a Computer science education > researcher and a high school teacher (which is why it takes me so long to > reply to emails!) and what I have observed happening in schools, and what > my honours student has observed in other schools, have formed the basis of > our research. Teachers buy kits such as lego mindstorms on the basis of > marketing, and then founder on their appalling usability. This puts both > teachers and students off technology in general, reinforces their idea that > it's all "too hard" for them. > > The Australian Dig Tech curriculum is actually pretty good, but teachers > do not have the skills yet to teach it, so we need resources to give them a > leg up. Teachers also don't have time to invest in learning this stuff - we > are generally working at more than capacity pretty much all of the time. > > As for hardness being a feature of the kits - usability is a fundamental > feature of any system, and these kits have demonstrably poor usability. > Which obviously makes it harder to learn with them. I'm not sure what your > point is there. > > My honours student is trying to tackle the problem by building a website > where teachers will be able to enter their criteria and target age groups, > and access the reviews and experience of other teachers in using these > systems. We hope that this will help teachers benefit from the experience > of others, and choose hardware that meets their needs better, rather than > hardware with shinier marketing brochures. > > > On 4 September 2017 at 19:12, Huw Lloyd <h...@bootstrapsystems.co.uk> > wrote: > >> 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. >> 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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