Computer Science - The Early Grades

There has recently been a lot of discussion about improving computer science education and the need to include the elementary and middle school students in the process.  As a K-8 technology teacher, this age group is always on my mind.  After attending a recent Scratch Conference at MIT, I am convinced, more than ever, that 21st century technology skills have an important place in even the earliest rungs of the K-8 ladder.

Kindergarten, and, in some cases, pre-school, is the ideal time to expose young children to computer science.  According to the educational philososphy of Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator, young children are primed for learning.  Her approach focuses on developing a child's independence, freedom within limits, and respect for child's natural pyschological development. She believed "Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the enviornment."

Montessori emphasized constructivism - the idea that children acquire knowledge by acting on the world around them. This model is a perfect fit with computer science and computational problem-solving.  Constructivism stresses the importance of a child’s active participation in the learning process   Computer programming places the emphasis of learning on the child by allowing her to take on the active role of designer and builder.  At the same time, the iterative nature of computer programming, (i.e, start with a clearly-stated idea, create a working prototype, experiement with it, debug it when things go wrong, get feedback from others, then revise and redesign it) teaches students to think reflectively about the problem-solving process itself.  Hence, computer science is a practical and powerful way for teachers to implement constructivist learning  in the elementary classroom.

In order for young children to develop competency in computer science from a natural learning process, parents, teachers and administrators should support this effort. Unfortunately, many adults, instead of encouraging their children to explore computer science, share their knowledge of computer technology in the form of “smart” devices and Apps.  According to a 2012 study conducted by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop (iLearnII, An Analysis of the Education Category of Apple’s App Store, Carly Shuler, 2012) over 80% of the top selling apps in the Education category of the iTunes store target children.  In 2009, almost half (47%) of the top selling apps targeted preschool or elementary-aged children.  By 2012 that number increased to almost three-quarters (72%).  While not necessarily a bad thing, parents and teachers should focus their energy on encouraging children to become developers, not consumers, of technology.

It has long been assumed that only adults, including college and high school students, can understand the basics of computer science.  However, recent studies have shown that even children as young as age four, can learn to program. 

The Tangible Kindergarten (TangibleK) Project, a study conducted by the DevTech research group at Tufts University, demonstrated the potential of integrating robotics and computer programming into early childhood learning experiences.  This research team found that children as young as four and half were able to successfully program a robot to complete a variety of challenges (Kazakoff & Bers, 2011)

According to their website, “The overarching goal of the Tangible Kindergarten project was to explore how we can help young children to develop computational thinking by engaging them in computer programming and robotics in a developmentally appropriate way.”   

Building on the philosophy of Maria Montessori, where students are provided specifically designed “materials for development”, the TangibleK curriculum provides ways for young children to engage directly with the programming environment, thus helping preschoolers to take charge of the learning process.

Because of the proliferation of Apps and other technologies, families and educators are looking for guidance.  Now is the time to take charge of the conversation and steer it towards creating a generation of technology producers.  According to Professor Marina Bers, Director of the DevTach Research Group, "Computers for most people are black boxes.  I believe kids should understand objects are 'smart' not becuase they're just smart, but because someone programmed them to be smart.'

Students no longer have to wait until high school to experience the learning benefits of computer science.  I am eager to share my love of computing with my K-8 students and thanks to the research from Tufts University, I now have the resources to make that happen.  

Resources:

• Lego WeDo
• Scratch
• Scratch Jr

    

    

Using Computing as a Tool For Good

A March 29^th press release by Northrop Grumman Corporation (1) on STEM education captured my attention.  The headline was “Azusa campus recently hosted the Lego™ STEM project competition, to introduce [middle school] students to the practical application of science, technology, engineering and mathematics”. The goal of this competition was to challenge students to design a solar-powered product with their Lego™ kits that would benefit the environment.

To support the competition, Stephen J. Toner (VP of Northrop's Azusa Operations) wrote that "Tomorrow's leaders in the STEM fields nned to be cultivated at an early age during their academic journey in the educational system."  As I've expressed earlier blogs, I fully agree with Toner's belief that early exposure to computer science increases the likelihood of students' future interest in STEM careers.

This competition exemplified the core ideals I have been sharing with my students since the beginnning of the school year.  The information contained with the release provided examples of how other organizations were utlizing computer programming to address environmental concerns.  I was busy planning my school's annual Earth Day celebration, so the timing of this article couldn't have been better.

Enviornmental literacy is an important part of a framework developed by the Parnership for 21st Century Skills (2).  So I decided to focus the students' energy on investigating and analyzing environmental issues and then coming up with technological solutions.  In addition to researching concerns and brainstorming ideas, I was eager to have my students design solutions which would inspire action on environmental issues - another important component of the 21st Century framework.

Using technology as a tool for change is not a new idea.  While preparing my unit, I came across a few other programming competitions with similar goals.  One such competition, Games for Change (3) states on their website that their mission is to "Catalyze Social Impact through Digital Games" by "facilitating the creation and distribtion of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts".

After I presented the challenge to my students, I was pleasantly suprised when, in addition to the usual onslaught of PowerPoint slide shows and Animoto Videos, a couple of my students set their sights a little higher.  They decided to create Scratch programs or design their own websites.

I have always been a big proponent of social action.  Thanks to current research supporting social justice initiatives in education, I now have the tools to make this happen and the impetus to see it through.

Earth Day is only three days away.  My students are eagerly putting the finishing touches on their projects to share them with their classmates.  Their excitment is palpable.  They believe their actions can make a difference, and so do I.  A popular quote by Bill Gates says it all "As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others".  Thanks to technology, my students can now be an instrument for change.  What more could a teacher ask for?

1. http://www.irconnect.com/noc/press/pages/news_releases.html?d=250665.

2. http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/P21_Framework_Definitions.pdf.

3. http://www.gamesforchange.org/.

Patrice Gans

CSTA K-8 Representative

Collaboration – An essential skill for the Elementary Classroom

Motivation often comes from the most unlikely of sources. My mother recently waxed nostalgic about life before computers. She said, “Life was much simpler then. The internet brings the evils of the world into our homes and shows us how dangerous it is out there”. I felt that while I did not agree with her sentiments, I did share some of her concerns about the use of the internet. As a teacher, I was now on a mission to find a definitively positive use for this technology, and, as luck would have it, I did. I decided to use the power of the internet to create an authentic collaborative learning experience for my 3rd graders.

Collaboration is an essential skill for the 21st century and also an integral part of CSTA’s K-12 National Computer Science Standards It is also an important skill for the elementary classroom. A large part of the socialization process for young students is learning to work together, to share responsibility, respect each other’s opinions and negotiate compromise. Moreover, according to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (http://www.p21.org/) it is imperative that students learn the 4Cs (Critical thinking and problem solving, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity and innovation

After a rough start convincing my young charges of the importance of collaboration, I decided to combine a variety of educational mediums in which to engage my 3rd graders. They had been eager, since the beginning of school, to share the experiences of their older classmates programming with Scratch. According to the developers of Scratch, the Scratch Online Community was designed to be a source of inspirational ideas, to provide an audience for children’s creations and to foster collaboration among its members. Collaboration takes many different forms on the website, from contributing to programming projects, commenting, tagging, bookmarking, joining galleries, participating in discussion forums and remixing, thus making Scratch the perfect vehicle for my students’ collaborative experience.
Using their desire to explore this paradigm, I embarked on a mission to find another classroom with similar goals. I posted a request on the Scratch Educators’ website http://scratched.media.mit.edu for a class and, thanks to the wonders of global communication via Twitter, a teacher from a private elementary school in Dublin, Ireland responded. Our adventure in a global partnership, an important 21st century skill, was about to begin.

The first step in the project was the creation of a blog, where the students would introduce themselves, share their projects, and brainstorm ideas for future collaborative Scratch programs. The students couldn’t wait to get started. They eagerly shared relevant information about themselves, their families and their schools on the blog (created using www.kidblog.org). We also created a post on the blog for shared resources.

The first programming exercise used the Scratch curriculum guide draft’s Dance Party outline. (http://scratched.media.mit.edu/resources/scratch-curriculum-guide-draft) After the students finished their programs, I uploaded them to my school’s account on the Scratch website and then placed them into a specific gallery http://www.scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/152596.

Now we wait for the dialogue to begin. As my students will shortly find out, the real fun comes from exchanging ideas and listening to each other. It is not enough to share, but to engage. Progress only comes from working together. And they are more than ready to be full participants in this experience. In the charming words of one of my students “I can’t wait to work on Scratch with you”. I share their enthusiasm, and I am equally eager for them to get started.

Time to Change the Conversation from Consuming to Creating

At a recent family gathering, my father-in-law delighted in the accomplishments of his four year old granddaughter who effortlessly navigated her mother’s iPad. He was awed by the ease with which she used the technology and, on the surface, who could blame him.

My niece is not alone. Technology has become a mainstay in the lives of most American children. What began as an infatuation with computer games has grown into a multi-media explosion, affecting even the youngest children long before they can read or write.

According to a recent report Zero to Eight – Children’s Media Use in America issued by A Common Sense Media Research Study - Fall 2011 “Computer use is pervasive among very young children, with half (53%) of all 2 to 4 year olds having ever used a computer, and nine out of ten (90%) 5 to 8 year olds having done so. For many of these children, computer use is a regular occurrence: 22% of 5 to 8 year-olds use a computer at least once a day, and another 46% use it at least once a week.”

What does this obsession with using technology mean? Is it something to be envied, as evidenced by my father-in-law’s pride in his granddaughter’s dexterity, or should parents, grandparents and educators encourage, even very young children, to become creators, not just users, of technology? While on the surface, computer usage may be viewed as a necessity, I would argue that in today’s techno savvy world, we should be celebrating the creative energies of our children, not extolling the virtues of using media that has been pre-selected and created merely to sell merchandise.

Elementary students are no longer too young or too inexperienced to understand rudimentary computer science concepts. The numbers speak for themselves. By the time they are 8 years old, 60% of children have used handheld games, 81% have played console games, and 90% have used a computer. I expose my students to computer programming in kindergarten. While they are eager to play games and paint picutres on the computer, my students true successes occur when they effectively create their first computer program.

So maybe now is the time to change the conversation, from exploring how much time children spend consuming media to examing ways to enhance the quality of their experiences. According the 2011 report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop entitled Always Connected: the New Digital Media Habits of Young Children, “the challenge going forward is in establishing new models of using technology in effective, developmentally appropriate ways with young children.”

The time is ripe for change, and computer science is no longer the sole domain of adults. In the future, success will hinge not on how much our students know, but on their ability to think and act creatively. So why not help our children and our future by believing in them and by believing in their ability to learn. You are never too young to learn computer programming.

Inspiring Students To Pursue Computer Science

Unlike the solar calendar which marks January as the beginning of the new year, my new year, like that of all teachers, begins in September. A new school year means new beginnings and new opportunities. I couldn’t wait for this school year to start because I was determined to make a difference in how my students perceived computer science. Consequently, my goal for the 2011-2012 school year was to inspire my students to consider computer programming as a viable creative outlook. I felt that over the past three years, while I had been successful at teaching them programming concepts, few had fully embraced the medium. What was I doing wrong?

I decided to explore this concept in further detail. How could I reach my students? I began by scouring the internet for inspiration. Not surprisingly, I found plenty of generic suggestions on how to engage students in the learning process Some examples were to (1) make it real by creating learning activities that are based on topics relevant to students’ lives, (2) provide choices so that students feel some sense of autonomy in the learning process, or (3) provide students with role models that help them to identify with the subject matter. Not bad. I could work with these recommendations.

Unfortunately, I had another hurdle - the negative stereotype of the computer programmer as a socially awkward young man who spends his days hiding in his parents’ basement working 12 to 16 hours a day on his computer. [McConnell, Steve. Orphans Preferred. Chapter 7. http://www.stevemcconnell.com/psd/07-OrphansPreferred.pdf] In addition, USA Today reported that because the techie nerd stereotype is so well entrenched, students in every grade ranked computer jobs near the bottom of their lists of career choices. USA Today, February 16, 1998, pp. 1B–2B.

Ok, now what? How was I to overcome decades of negative stereotypes and gender type casting? How was I to reach my students? All of them. Not only the ones who already found computers exciting.

I went back to the internet. This time I focused my research on locating articles that would provide insight into what students like and how computers could support these preferences. I discovered that I could tap into recreational activities that my students were already enjoying, specifically computer games, to capture their attention. By leveraging students’ interest in video games, I hoped to replace the negative perception of computer programming with the allure of computer gamming. At the same time I hoped to entice students to explore computer programming in more detail while possibly helping them to discover a new passion.
According to a recent statement issued by Allyson Peerman, president of the AMD Foundation (the philanthropic division of Advanced Micro Devices, a computer chip manufacturer), "We know from research that playing games provides some STEM skills, but when [students] get involved with creating games, those skills [and interest] go up exponentially”.

So, I decided to tap into their love of computer games by assigning them the task of creating computer games, using Scratch, to teach either mathematics or language arts skills to younger students. I was surprised at how quickly they embraced this goal. They couldn’t wait to get started. One student (a fifth grader) even eagerly suggested a programming competition, where they present their projects to the younger students, who then decide which games they enjoy the most. I was thrilled with their enthusiasm. Is real learning occurring? Yes it is. And are my students having fun? Yes they are. It is too soon to know how successful the computer games will be at teaching the younger students, but I am hopeful once the programs are completed and presented both groups will have benefited from the experience. The older students will have a sense of accomplishment for having created real-world applications,applications and the younger students will have a new and exciting “game” to use for drill and practice.

Recently, I complemented one of my younger students (a third grader) on his computer skills, and he responded that he loves computers, and that “he wants to be a computer technology teacher when he grows up, just like me”.

So it seems that developing computer games, with an educational purpose, definitely motivates my students. Will this interest last into middle school and beyond? I don’t know. All I do know is that it seems to have captured their attention for the moment, and for that I am grateful. Maybe their excitement will inspire administrators, parents and teachers to consider computer science an important educational directive for the future. Because, as I see it, computer science is more than just programming computer games. But don’t tell my students.

Patrice Gans
CSTA K-8

Creative Computing with Scratch

Creative Computing with Scratch
I recently had the good fortune to participate in this year's Creative Computing workshop at MIT. The program, which ran from July 27-30, was organized by the MIT Media Lab in collaboration with Google's CS4HS initiative. The four day workshop provided K-12 teachers with an opportunity to explore computational thinking and creativity in the classroom.

Over the course of four days, I met with teachers from around New England (and some even as far away as California) to experiment with new educational technologies and instructional strategies to engage students in creative design activities. The workshop focused on Scratch as the vehicle for cultivating creativity and problem solving. Scratch:

http://scratch.mit.edu/

a programming language geared for children and teens, was developed at the Lifelong Kindergarten Group

http://llk.media.mit.edu/index.php

at the MIT Media Lab and was created to provide children with the opportunity to learn how to design, create, and express themselves through technology. I saw the workshop as the ideal vehicle for me to develop lessons which will motivate my students to become creators, not just users, of the technology that permeates their world.

During the workshop, I experienced first hand the joy and wonder that Scratch brings to learning. We started the program by exploring three essential questions:

(1) What is Scratch?,
(2) What is Scratch good for?, and
(3) What is good Scratch?

My initial response to those questions was pretty straightforward. Obviously, I knew what Scratch was and I believed that I knew what Scratch is good for, and I definitely thought I knew what was good Scratch. But over the course of four days, as I built new computer programs with my colleagues, toured the Media Lab, and heard from a variety of experts, I came to realize that these three questions mean more than I had ever imagined.

I discovered that Scratch is much more than a computer programming environment. It is a community. Scratch is not only good for making computer games, animations, stories, and art. It is also good for making social connections. It is a place where today's technologically savvy students can come together to exchange sprites, remix programs, and collaborate on projects with other Scratchers. The same experience of sharing and collaborating can be found at the educator's website, ScratchEd

http://scratched.media.mit.edu

And good Scratch, well, that is what ever you want it to be. As a teacher, I feel that my students produce "good" projects when they are actively engaged in the learning process. For the most part, every time a student builds a Scratch program, engagement takes place. I can't wait for the school year to begin so my students can start "scratching."

Patrice Gans
CSTA K-8 Representative