TechIntersect

I’m currently enjoying again a book I read a few years ago: “Teacher Man” by Frank McCourt. In “Teacher Man” the author of “Angela’s Ashes” recounts his thirty years of teaching in New York City public schools.

I laughed aloud during the very first chapter, and I quickly remembered why I enjoyed this book so much the first time. I sympathized with the brand new teacher and his hopeful idealism, as he faced his very first class in complete bewilderment.

McCourt tried to teach English to his rowdy group of teenagers, but they wouldn’t pay attention so he told them stories; stories of his childhood in Ireland.

He was supposed to teach them grammar, but they wouldn’t listen; until he hit upon an idea. “Psychology is the study of how people behave. Grammar is the study of how language behaves.”

McCourt discovered that by connecting two seemingly unrelated subjects, he could make both interesting and engaging. He talked about how gibberish is made through using incorrect grammar. He said if you always speak gibberish, men in white coats will come and take you away to the gibberish wing of the state mental hospital. This connection resonated with his students, and a started a discussion, albeit a covert discussion, of grammar.

When I read the passage about McCourt connecting Psychology and English, it really stuck in my head. That is what I do. That is what my blog TechIntersect is about. I love to find overlapping areas in sometimes very different fields such as Art and Science. I love to discover the hidden connections.

In some of my classes we talk about art and its relationship to technology. After all, a digital camera or a computer display is just an electronic pointillist painting with pixels.

We use storytelling and anthropomorphization to create tales of how tiny but hardy network packets make a treacherous journey through the internet, at great risk to their own well-being just to bring us all of the goodness the internet can offer.

Even though I am a college teacher, I suppose I am closer in style and philosophy to McCourt’s teaching in a vocational school than I am to college professors in many elite institutions of higher learning. My thinking simply is not so narrowly focused that I only think about one thing. There is too much in this world to wonder about.

I am a computer teacher, but I don’t expect I will ever be an innovator in the field of computer science. I teach art and design concepts, but I do not currently devote enough time to this to be considered an artist.  (I design cake graphics for my wife’s business, but that’s about it right now.) But I am definitely interested many things related to science, technology, the arts and humanities.

I guess if there is a single subject that I am most concerned with at the moment, it is how to become a better educator; how to best facilitate student learning and achievement. One way I think I can do this well is by often connecting various fields of study together. After all, nothing stands in isolation; there is always overlap with other areas.

What do you think? Is there more value in a broad view of the world, or do you think it is better to become a narrowly focused expert? Perhaps to become a superstar in higher education it is better to be narrowly focused. But experience with my own teachers, and how I hope to teach myself, it is the broad, interconnected view that seems to work best for me.

After a rain shower yesterday, I made these cool photographs of a spider repairing its web and of it capturing a nice snack.

The spider has captured a housefly and readies it for storage.

Repairing the web after a rain shower.

My wife and son look on as the spider rebuilds the web damaged by the rain.

I liked the setup for this last photo best, however I couldn’t get my subjects to cooperate and let me make adjustments. I would have liked the spider in front of a somewhat less busy background. But you get the idea.

While I was taking photos, a fly lit on the web and in an instant, the spider was upon it, wrapping it up in a cocoon for safe keeping. My wife was startled by the speed at which the arachnid could move. Needless to say, she keeps a safe distance from all things creepy-crawlie. But at least she tolerated my fascination with the scene, and included our son as well.

Masks by Elizabeth Layton - 1978

I work in an Engineering Technology department teaching computer systems technology. My campus is primarily technology oriented, and students who attend my school are very interested in technology. Since my arrival five years ago, I have worked hard to bring the arts and humanities into the consciousness of my students. It has often been a challenge reaching these students. Establishing relevancy is vitally important, and sometimes it is difficult to convince a technology student that learning about art is a worthwhile pursuit. Anything I can do to connect what we are learning to their lives really helps in the process.

This week in the Visual Literacy course I am teaching, we began to look at “Line” as a design element. When discussing “Line” I always like to introduce students to one of my favorite artists, famous for contour line drawings, Elizabeth Layton. (http://elizabethlayton.com/)

Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton was a Kansas-born artist who took up drawing at the age of 68 to help combat the depression that she struggled with throughout her life. According to the American Psychiatric Association, half of all college students struggle with depression to such a degree that it affects their ability to function. With depression running rampant at college, role modes such as Grandma Layton are vitally important.

Layton used a drawing technique known as “partial blind contour drawing”. She would study her own face in a mirror, then put the lines that she saw down on paper, only occasionally looking down to see if she was on track. Anyone who has actually tried to do a “blind contour drawing” as described in Betty Edwards’ book, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” knows that if you do it right, you enter a near trance-like state; some call it a condition of “flow” when everything outside of what you are doing no longer matters to you.

Drawing in this way can certainly provide an escape from the outside pressures of the world. If you select subject matter to draw that is important to you as Grandma Layton did, all so much the better for your mental health. Sometimes it is just a good release to draw about something that has been eating away at you.

Censored by Elizabeth Layton - 1989

For example, the drawing “Censored” certainly communicates a sense of powerlessness, doesn’t it? When people feel helpless and powerless over their own lives, what else can be felt but anger and depression? If there is one thing that the youth and the elderly have in common, it is this sense of having no control over their own lives. But by drawing about it, some sense of control can be regained.

Art saved Elizabeth Layton’s life. From the time she took up art at age 68 until she died at age 83, she claimed that she never felt the pain of depression again. That she worked simply with paper and colored pencils using contour line drawing helps me to communicate one of the fundamental concepts of design. That she conquered depression through art will hopefully help to provide hope to some of my college age students who may also be feeling depressed.

I just read an interesting article on the Chronicle of Higher Education website today entitled “Generational Myth: Not all young people are tech-savvy” by Siva Vaidhyanathan. The article seems to confirm my suspicion that all of the talk of digital natives and digital immigrants isn’t entirely accurate.

As one who teaches digital technology courses on a regular basis, generalizations about this generation’s facility with technology has left me a bit confused since many of the so-called digital natives seem to be as bewildered by some of the technology concepts as their non digital native counterparts.

Vaidhyanathan writes, “I have taught at both public and private universities, and I have to report that the levels of comfort with, understanding of, and dexterity with digital technology varies greatly within every class.” I couldn’t agree more. Some students seem to be truly digital natives, charging fearlessly into the unknown and acquiring new skills with incredible ease, while others can’t quite ever seem to get off of the ground. To make generalizations about “digital natives” ignores the fact that people are people with incredibly diverse skills, interests and abilities.

In recent years, I have been requiring nearly all of the homework assignments in all of my classes be submitted in webpage format, viewable in a browser. My belief is that all students studying computer technology ought to be able to communicate using the language and formatting of the world wide web. You would not believe the grumbling and resistance I have met since making this a requirement.

As long as it’s not a web development course, I don’t even care if they use MS Word and save their document as HTML, as long as my browser can read it as a native web file. But the grumbling comes when I ask students to secure a web host, even a free host such as AwardSpace or 50Webs. Many don’t have the first clue how this should work, even when I provide step by step instructions how to do it, and many really do not seem to have an interest in learning anything about it.

This semester, I’ve permitted students in some of my classes to go ahead and use a Wordpress blog if they desire, while still encouraging them to make their own website. Most elected to use the blog.

I’ll admit that to some degree, I had bought into the mindset that all young people, being “digital natives” would want to learn using technology tools. But my experience in the classroom after implementing some of these kinds of activities made me quickly realize that students today are no different than previous generations. They are a diverse group with many preferred ways of learning.

Vaidhyanathan also writes, “Once we assume that all young people love certain forms of interaction and hate others, we forge policies and design systems and devices that match those presumptions. By doing so, we either pander to some marketing cliché or force an otherwise diverse group of potential users into a one-size-fits-all system that might not meet their needs.”

This semester in addition to teaching, I am taking a course called “Principles of College Teaching.” One recurring theme has been a discussion of preferred learning styles and the different ways of reaching students who can learn better with different approaches.

A question that I raised in class about this as a computer teacher is: Is it possible to recognize the fact that students are diverse learners, each preferring to learn in different ways, and still emphasize certain teaching and learning methods? Professionals in the field of computing have certain ways of learning that are most often employed, and I wonder if students who come to rely on classroom methods that are not available in the workplace will be at a huge disadvantage.

If I always develop digital media-rich methods of teaching computer technologies, am I hindering students who will eventually be expected to teach themselves new developments in computer technologies, often using nothing more than reference books or reading tutorials on websites?

I believe truly great teachers will use everything in their teaching arsenals to communicate the important concepts. But I also think they should be aware of how the life-long learning will continue once students have moved from the classroom into the workplace.

When I started learning about computer technology in high school in the 1980’s, we learned about computer programming, in part because commercial software wasn’t as widely available as it is today. Schools today often completely bypass the subject of software programming. I think we should take a hard look at this development in education. Are we really teaching computer technology if programming isn’t included?

If you have read this far, and are tired of being a Web 2.0 wimp, then I challenge you to do something about it and learn a little about programming! Download a free copy of Alice, and work through the tutorials. (I plan to write more about Alice in the near future.) At least then you will have a rudimentary understanding of how computer programming works. It’s fun, and you will have knowledge that 99% of the rest of the world knows nothing about.

It’s been a busy start of a new semester, but I want to try to keep posting to this blog on a somewhat regular basis in spite of everything going on. Yesterday’s lead story in our university newspaper the Collegian was “K-Staters urge equal rights, respect for transgender people“. It was an unusual story about one of K-State’s computer science professors who is a transgender person.

I was immediately reminded of computer game pioneer Dani Bunten, software programmer and designer of my all-time favorite computer game M*U*L*E. Born as Daniel Bunten, Dani struggled with issues of gender identity and had a sexual reassignment surgery but later regretted it.

I remember the surprise and amazement I felt when I first learned of Bunten’s story. I was a M*U*L*E fan since the 1980’s, but I had no idea of the struggles faced by the genius behind the game. I first heard of M*U*L*E when I was a young kid in the Navy around 1986. One of my chief petty officers told me that the game was one of the finest lessons on free market economics he had ever seen. Looking back, he was right.

Game play was simple but engaging. Up to four players could play the game at once, each staking out a claim as colonists on Planet Irata (Atari spelled backwards). We played this game for hours aboard ship, and although the 8 bit graphics were quite primitive, the game was compelling enough to play again and again because it was a wonderful multi-player experience. If you have ever played Civilization, or Age of Empires, where the multi-player experience includes buying and selling of resources, you have played a game that was directly influenced by M*U*L*E.

In M*U*L*E, each player obtains plots of land and places “mules” on them to gather resources necessary for the success of the colony. The resources all influence each other; for example food and energy can be produced, but are also consumed in the process, while smith-ore can be mined to build more mules for additional resource gathering. Each month, the players meet in the market place to buy and sell the resources needed. If there is a shortage of a needed item, if one player happened to have a surplus, he could become wealthy by demanding top dollar for his extras.

If you search the internet, you can find emulators to play the original game of M*U*L*E to try it for yourself. This blog post by Steve Steiner gives some pointers on how to do so. This game stands the test of time, because even though by modern standards it is primitive, it is still very fun and very playable because it addresses something that many modern games ignore– interactive game play with other players. It is non-violent and represents the best of what computer gaming could be.

Dani Bunten was truly a genius. Although she struggled with personal identity, I believe her work in this single game demonstrates a true understanding of what it means to be human. Although she passed away in 1998, her legacy lives on in the computer games that are still being played today.

Tags: diversity, games, software

The sky was extra beautiful this morning after a rain shower, so I grabbed my camera and took a little detour on my way to work to capture these bright sunflowers. The sunflower is the state flower of Kansas so these occupy a special place for us Kansans. This fall I have noticed that they are above average in number and beauty.

I am teaching a course in visual literacy this semester. We study elements of design that students can later apply to projects that they will be working on, whether is is a website, a printed promotional piece, a newsletter, or any other kind of work that requires knowledge of the visual arts. It is absolutely one of my favorite courses I teach. It teaches a completely new way of thinking for many of my students.

Today I encouraged the class to take time to stop and pay attention to subtle details that others usually overlook. I remember as an undergraduate the first time my professor challenged me to do this. I have not viewed the world through the same eyes ever since. Of course with the day to day hustle and bustle of life, I often forget to take time to look closely at details, but occasionally on days such as today if something is particularly interesting, I do remember to stop and really see the world around me.

After spending most of my summer working on very technical projects with little need for aesthetic consideration, it is nice to be back in my visual literacy class and thinking about visual communication once again.

Yes, my secret is out. I think Web 2.0 is for wimps. Certainly, Web 2.0 technologies are wonderful for providing wider access for the general masses, but you have to really respect someone who bothers to take the time to learn about the technology that’s behind these wonderful tools we now take for granted.

I am sort of attached to Web 1.0. The largest class I’m teaching this semester is a Web 1.0 course– a basic HTML course. My students are learning to write XHTML code along with CSS style sheets. It doesn’t get any more wonderfully geeky than that. It is one thing to upload original content using an internet application that someone else has designed but it is something entirely different to hand code an interesting web page you have designed from scratch.

I recently read an article by Marc Prensky, the Digital Natives/Digital Immigrants guy, holding that programming will become the new literacy in the 21st century as those who master human-machine interactions will be leaps and bounds ahead of those who have not learned these skills.

Yes, I have my beginning web students write their first web pages using nothing more than a simple text editor. I feel I am being generous by permitting the use of a code editor such as Scintilla, which color codes the HTML tags it recognizes, and highlights tags that are incorrectly applied.

This philosophy is akin to the beginning carpenter who learns the trade using  hand tools. There will be time for more efficient power tools once you understand the basics of swinging a hammer and sawing a saw. If I let my beginning students start off using Dreamweaver, they would never bother to learn to write and edit HTML like they do writing it by hand. And you should see my advanced students once they do graduate to Dreamweaver. Inevitably, the WYSIWYG editor will do something unintended, and the student who has taken time to learn it the tedious, hand-coded way will have no problem switching to code view to fix the problem.

Certainly, I would not expect someone who makes web pages for a living to use nothing but a text editor, although I know some who do just that. Just as a master carpenter understands the trade and effectively uses power tools to do the job, so too a master web developer ought to use the equivalent power tools for that profession.

I’m just saying I think it is important not to forget to teach people the basics of web page development. By skipping directly to Web 2.0, I think we are missing an important part of the mix. Artists, designers, programmers, entrepreneurs, writers and dreamers should all understand the basics of web development to get the most out of Web 2.0 tools that they use. They might never hand code a bit of HTML ever again, but having that basic understanding will provide them a foundation of understanding for the environment in which they work.

I first learned how to write a basic HTML page while reading “HTML for Dummies” sitting in a tent while camping on a very rainy camping trip over ten years ago. It only took an hour or so to grasp the basics, and I’ve been using that knowledge ever since! So don’t be a wimp! If you are a fan of Web 2.0 tools, take a little time and learn some basics of Web 1.0. You will never regret having this increased understanding of the tools you are using.

***Disclaimer*** The author recognizes the hypocrisy of making this post using a Web 2.0 blogging application and actually does love Web 2.0 in all of its variations. I’m just trying to have a little fun here!

Tags: web 2.0