It reminds me of VirtualDub's scripting language, which is meant for videos but could do audio, if I recall correctly. It's been about half a decade since I used it, though...
It'd be nice to see some more examples that show how sophisticated it is. What are some weird inputs that it can figure out? Still, this is a pretty awesome idea - definitely can see how it'll be useful for me.
So I'm not very knowledgeable about WebSec stuff. Why aren't more servers getting pounded by this, if it's such a big vulnerability? I expected reports of massive password and SSN reveals all over, but I haven't heard of any major spills. Am I just not in the right circles, or is there a reason an outbreak hasn't occurred?
Is the software demoed in the video the "TeachAPCS" thing? The site is currently down, but it looks like it is based on the github? I'd say it looks pretty spectacular!
And I think it has a strong sell for just that - It has good features now, I just want MORE features. I'm hoping this is just the start of something bigger.
I got into the demo over the summer, and I was pretty underwhelmed. They list the features on the front page there, and that's exactly what they have. So in other words, you can manage a feed of assignments ("X is due on Tuesday", "Here is a link to a video!") and some very simplistic google docs control. I really expected something on the level of Canvas or Moodle, but it's clearly just a few convenience features for running GAfE.
I'm surprised no one's been talking about Blockly's educational applications. My professor and I are using it in a course this fall for non-majors, to get them scaffolded through their first coding experience. After all, it lets you generate Python code directly.
It'd be interesting if we could break down academic papers into stand-alone facts, which could be cited more succinctly than the paragraphs of prose that we do now. Ideally, this would look more like academic proofs, and it'd be easier to argue and discuss components of a given paper. I'm sure that a good amount of beautiful subtext would be lost, but might it be worth it to have a more accurate way of linking knowledge?
If you're looking for a platform, I STRONGLY encourage you to look at either OpenDSA or Runestone, two open source interactive textbook platforms. I've been hacking on the latter this summer, porting it over to Runestone for a course I'm teaching (on Computational Thinking) (https://github.com/RealTimeWeb/runestone-flask is my public facing copy to give you an idea, but it's not a full copy of my port).
I'm very familiar with the development teams for both these platforms, and they're both very friendly and desirous of collaborations!
A lot of the documentation seems to be in a foreign language, including the comments for the examples. For those of us that don't speak Dutch[?], are there any plans to translate the entire thing to English?
You are correct that that is another large contributing factor. There are a few other ones too, such as the lack of real-world application of what they learn, stereotypes, a terrible culture towards women in CS, and a few other massive problems. They all work against the on-going efforts.
As for the Role Model aspect in particular... It's actually difficult to provide citations, because it's so commonly accepted in the community. I attended Grace Hopper '13 last year, and it's just recognized as a given. When I go through research papers from the past 5-10 years, they start off by just recognizing that its a known problem and then move onto subproblems or their new solution. Unfortunately, I don't really have the time to go mining the work that led to this problem being recognized. Still, I can recommend a book, "Unlocking the Clubhouse" http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/unlocking-clubhouse which should cover this!
The best role-models are not far away or long-dead, they are nearby and immediate. You can see their life and interact with them. Of course, there's also the problem of how many potential role models for women in computing don't really provide the level of support that their students expect (they got there without role models, so why should they hold their students hands?).
It's actually difficult to provide citations for the obvious problem of lack-of-role-models, because it's so commonly accepted in the community. I attended Grace Hopper '13 last year, and it's just recognized as a given. When I go through research papers from the past 5-10 years, they start off by just recognizing that its a known problem and then move onto subproblems or their new solution. Unfortunately, I don't really have the time to go mining the work that led to this problem being recognized. Still, I can recommend a book, "Unlocking the Clubhouse" http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/unlocking-clubhouse which should cover this!
This is a chicken-and-the-egg problem, so you can't narrow your focus, but instead approach it from multiple angles. Women aren't encouraged to get involved in tech because they can't find good role models, and there are no good role models because women aren't being encouraged to get involved with tech. It's important to have initatives like this to get more role models so we can encourage more women and get more role models to encourage more women ...
In my experience: ask any Computer Science professor interested in undergraduate education whether engineers should take an intro course using Matlab or Python, and they'll always say Python.
Ask any non-CS Engineering professor interested in engineering undergraduate education whether engineers should take an intro course using Matlab or Python, and they'll always say Python.
This argument seems pervasive across many institutions.
My takeaway from Learning@Scale, the first big CS Education conference to focus on Learning Sciences and Computer Science "at scale", is that the people who succeed at them are the people who already have some higher education and are driven and motivated. I don't think most of the serious researchers are convinced they'll be THAT useful in the long run. I'd dig up the research papers, but I'm supposed to be working :) I recommend a quick glance over their latest issues.
There should be a College of Computing, offering several different majors: "Computer Science", "Software Engineering", "Human-Computer Interaction", and, damn it I want this even if there's only 3 or so people qualified in the world to teach it, "Computer Science Education". They should also offer a 3-credit general elective named "Computational Thinking" that's comparable with an English 101 course.
+1 for actually providing meaningful contexts! This is right in line with Situated Learning Theory, to think about how your audience is full of Engineers that want relevant examples rather than abstract math.
Interesting twists on Piet would be:
* animated piet programs - perhaps where the incrementing the PC would also increment the frame of animation, or the current frame of animation is another property that can be manipulated.
* writing an editor to make it easy to convert works of art into Piet programs.
I need this as a library for Python, Java, and Racket; it'd be perfect for testing web services that return Java. I should probably fork the Javascript...
Something that really surprises me, as a new researcher in CS Education, is that people aren't doing much research on CodeAcademy. I hope that people within CodeAcademy start publishing any findings that they get.
A lot of the Computational Thinking movements seem to stress that "Computer Science is more than just computers!" And that's true, we have a lot more to offer! But at the same time, it's so misleading because so much of our really cool stuff is wrapped up in being able to program. I mean, CS is about solving problems at scale, and computers are how we best solve problems at scale. We can teach lots of carefully crafted things without them, but it's always going to ring a little false, and we won't get students more than an inch-deep into why we're truly cool.
Wish they would have included OpenGameArt, which is currently trying to become funded. It's such a wonderful resource for the tremendous number of programmers out there that, like myself, can't draw worth a darn.
As an upper class student in CS, I've become completely soured on all the students who want to make the "X for UD" and "Y for VT". I feel like I've seen it all: textbook buyback, craigslist, even some students who want to make it so that you can get change back on your credit card (I don't know why that's cropped up twice). Nowadays, I have to roll my eyes internally when a bushy-tailed, bright-eyed youngster describes their plan for dominating the market where so many others have failed (but I have to sign an NDA first!).
Absolutely correct. Using these abstract algorithms in such a "one-size-fits-all" pattern is very disengaging to students; Constructivist educators should work hard to find suitably contextualized algorithms to explore that individual students will find cognitively engaging.
So, this is markedly similar to the project I've been working on in grad school, only without static typing.
http://research.cs.vt.edu/vtspaces/realtimeweb/
Also, mine is explicitly geared towards education purposes. I'm about one third of the way thru version two, but I wonder if we can cross pollinate our code bases to get something even better.
This is beautiful looking, and seems exactly what I'm looking for as an Emulation Station. But it seems to be Mac only; any plans for Linux or Windows releases?