How to be an Unplugged Artist

Original post at: https://computingnorthampton.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/how-to-be-unplugged-artist.html

A recently released book Teaching Computing Unplugged in Primary Schools  edited by Helen Caldwell (University of Northampton) and Neil Smith (Open University) has a number of interesting chapters by authors who are passionate about how computing is taught in schools. The central theme is unplugged activities, without using computers, but still teach the fundamental of computational thinking.

Ok, confession time. I co-wrote, along with Katharine Childs (Code Club), Chapter 3 Artists so I am biased here, but I believe in the central theme of Unplugged Computing. Computing, and Computational Thinking in general,  is not just about programming and using a computer (though using computers and  programming are vitally important to Computing) but it is also about many other things including problem-solving, being creative and working collaboratively.

Chapter 3 is about linking these computational thinking ideas to produce visual art, by applying computing principles including  repetition, following and refining algorithms, and abstraction. The chapter also looks, how these links have already being made, with examples such Sol Le Witt where not all the work that was produced by the artist himself, but some by others following his written instructions - in other words an algorithm. There is even a game Thomas's Tangles

The other chapters make links with areas such as Robots, Musicians, Explorers, Magicians, Gamers, Cooks and Scientists.

References

Barr, D., Harrion, J., and Conery, L. (2011) Computational Thinking: A Digital Age Skill for Everyone Leading and Learning with Technology, ISTE, March/April 2011 [accessed via http://www.csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/CurrFiles/LLCTArticle.pdf on 26/12/2015]

Barr, V. and Stephenson, C. (2011) Bringing Computational Thinking to K-12, ACM Inroads, Vol 2. No 1, pp 48 - 54 [accessed via http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/CurrFiles/BarrStephensonInroadsArticle.pdf on 26/12/2015] https://doi.org/10.1145/1929887.1929905

Computing at School (2013) Computing in the National Curriculum: A guide for primary teachers [accessed via http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/data/uploads/CASPrimaryComputing.pdf on 13/3/2016]

Denning, Peter J. (2009) Beyond Computational Thinking, Communications of the ACM Vol 52, Issue 6, pp 28 - 30 [accessed via http://sgd.cs.colorado.edu/wiki/images/7/71/Denning.pdf on 26/12/2015]

DfE: Department for Education (2013) National Curriculum in England: computing programmes of study

Freedman, J. (2015) Cycloid Drawing Machine [online] URL: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1765367532/cycloid-drawing-machine accessed on 3/3/2016.

Google. 2016 Project Jacquard [online] URL: https://www.google.com/atap/project-jacquard/ accesed on:1/3/2016.

Knuth, D. 1968. Preface, The Art of Programming vol 1., Boston: Addison-Wesley.

Knuth, D. 1996. Foreword. In: Petkovsek, M., Wilf, H., Zeilberger, D. A=B.. Natick: A K Peters/CRC Press, vii.

Koetsier, T., 2001. On the prehistory of programmable machines: Musical automata, looms, calculators. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 36(5), 589-603. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0094-114X(01)00005-2

Menegus, B (2016) CDMS: Built with Processing [online] URL: http://wheelof.com/sketch/ accessed on 4/3/2016

MoMA. 2012. MoMA| Video Games [online] URL: http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the-collection-for-starters/ accessed on: 1/3/2016.

Papert, S (1993) The children's machine: Rethinking schools in the age of the computer. New York: Basic books

Pearson M (2011) Generative Art: A practical guide using Processing, New York: Manning, 3-12

Selby, C. and Woollard, J. (2013) Computational thinking: the developing definition University of Southampton [accessed via http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/356481/7/Selby_Woollard_bg_soton_eprints.pdf on 26/12/2015]

The Art Story (2016) Sol LeWitt [online] http://www.theartstory.org/artist-lewitt-sol.htm accessed on: 6/3/2016

Wing, J. (2006) Computational Thinking Communications of the ACM Vol 49 pp 33 - 35 [accessed via https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15110-s13/Wing06-ct.pdf on 26/12/2015] https://doi.org/10.1145/1118178.1118215

Wing, J. (2011) Computational Thinking - What and Why The Link - News from the School of Computer Science, Issue 6.0, Spring 2011 [accessed via http://www.cs.cmu.edu/sites/default/files/11-399_The_Link_Newsletter-3.pdf on 26/12/2015]

Liukas L (2015) Activity 7 The Robots Hello Ruby - Adventures in Coding, New York: Feiwel and Friends, 94-97.

Schofield, S (2016) Generative Artworks [online] URL: http://www.simonschofield.net

Turner S (2016) 3 'Art' Scratch Projects [online] URL: http://compuationalthinking.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/3-of-my-scratch-projects-for-week.html accessed on: 12/3/2016.

All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruonAll views are those of the author and should not be seen as the views of any organisation the author is associated with.

Opinion: Blast from the past

Image taken from: The Museum of Computer Adventure Game History

Though I know there is a lot more to Computational Thinking than programming. I recently came across a website (http://mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getcompany=usborne-hayes)  that has some of the covers of books from the publisher Usborne-Hayes that I used when I started to learn to program and computing.

I am not sure of the whether the books are being made available copyright free at the site. Therefore, I am not advising anyone to do download them, but for those who started learning about Computers in the 1980s the covers may bring back a few memories.

Apart from that though, the style of the books is interesting and I feel relevant to needs now (even if the languages used may not be as relevant). The reader is taken, step by step, through concepts by cute robots - I am starting to wonder as I writing this whether my own style of teaching computing has unconsciously being inspired by these books. 


All views are those of the author and should not be seen as the views of any organisation the author is associated with.

Computational Thinking is for Everyone

Problem solving is not trivial (Beaumont and Fox, 2003).  In fact, if we think about Bloom’s Taxonomy’s (Bloom 1956) and the Cognitive Domain, problem-solving involves the high-level skills of synthesis, evaluation, analysis and applications, so perhaps it is not surprising that student’s often struggle in this area and with subjects based around problem-solving (such as programming). A much discussed and related area of Computational Thinking (Wing, 2006) has raised the profile of areas such as problem-solving, by highlighting the importance of “thinking like a computer scientist” (Wing 2006). The thought processes involved in being a computer scientist are more complicated than just being able to program, “Computational thinking is reformulating a seemingly difficult problem into one we know how to solve, perhaps by reduction, embedding, transformation, or simulation.” (Wing, 2006). The skills of computer scientists are applicable to a much wider range of areas or as Wing states: “One can major in computer science and go on to a career in medicine, law, business, politics, any type of science or engineering, and even the arts.” (Wing, 2006).

Characteristics of Computational Thinking (Wing 2006):

“Conceptualizing, not programming. Computer science is not computer programming. Thinking like a computer scientist means more than being able to program a computer. It requires thinking at multiple levels of abstraction;

Fundamental, not rote skill. A fundamental skill is something every human being must know to function in modern society. Rote means a mechanical routine. Ironically, not until computer science solves the AI Grand Challenge of making computers think like humans will thinking be rote;

A way that humans, not computers, think. Computational thinking is a way humans solve problems; it is not trying to get humans to think like computers. Computers are dull and boring; humans are clever and imaginative. We humans make computers exciting. Equipped with computing devices, we use our cleverness to tackle problems we would not dare take on before the age of computing and build systems with functionality limited only by our imaginations;

Complements and combines mathematical and engineering thinking. Computer science inherently draws on mathematical thinking, given that, like all sciences, its formal foundations rest on mathematics. Computer science inherently draws on engineering thinking, given that we build systems that interact with the real world. The constraints of the underlying computing device force co puter scientists to think computationally, not just mathematically. Being free to build virtual worlds enables us to engineer systems beyond the physical world;

Ideas, not artifacts. It’s not just the software and hardware artifacts we produce that will be physically present everywhere and touch our lives all the time, it will be the computational concepts we use to approach and solve problems, manage our daily lives, and communicate and interact with other people; and

For everyone, everywhere. Computational thinking will be a reality when it is so integral to human endeavors it disappears as an explicit philosophy.”(Wing 2006)

Carnegie Mellon now has a Centre of Computational Thinking 

Beaumont, C., & Fox, C. (2003). Learning Programming: Enhancing Quality Through Problem-Based Learning (pp. 90-95) 4th Annual Conference of the ICS HE Academy Galway: ICS.

Bloom, B., S. (ed.) (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the classification of educational goals – Handbook I: Cognitive Domain New York: McKay.

Wing, J. (2006). Computational Thinking, Communications of the ACM 49(3) 33

http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2010/10/exploring-computational-thinking.html

All views are those of the author and should not be seen as the views of any organisation the author is associated with.