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For the past decade or so education has been based on not allowing students unlimited access to the internet.
It will be interesting how teachers will teach and test when their students are allowed unlimited/unrestriced access.
Of course there will be the discussions for cheaper, faster, reliable unrestricted access.
Education and the Internet
#1
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Posted 2013-August-26, 00:36
#2
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Posted 2013-August-26, 06:31
I can supply two examples, I think they are at opposite extremes. I retired, sort of anyway, nine years ago. Far more than I expected, I have been involved since then. Here are my samples:
1 (the bad one, imo): .A guy scheduled to teach Calculus II in a large lecture was hospitalized and, later, died. I was asked to teach the course, and I agreed to do so. Part of the course involved electronically graded homewor, for which the students received credit toward their grade. Here is what many did: They sat in their room with a computer, brought up the electronically presented problems, copied the problems into Wolfram Alpha, got the answer, and copied the answer back into the electronic homework program. I caught onto this early on. I accept student questions via e-mail, in fact I sometimes write up a substantial answer and send it to the entire class if the question seems to me to be of general use. But this semester the questions were different. Instead of "I can't seem to get this, can you help?", I would get something like "I know my answer is right but the software won't accept it". Of course the answer would not be right. It was not hard to guess that they were using software and that something had gotten lost in the process. Other times, the software would accept the answer because it was in fact right, but it would be in a peculiar computer-like form that no human would ever use.
In my view we were wasting the student's time having them do this, but I did make something out of it. I used it as an opportunity to discuss just how it is that you can carefully interact with computers to get correct mathematical results. It is important to accurately understand the objective before setting the computer to work on it. Obvious enough, but often ignored.
2. (Working much better, I think). I have been conducting a summer program where the students, as part of the program, carry out guided inquiry. REU is the acronym for Research Experiience for Undergraduates. What we do is sort of research, by which I mean that we look into something where I do not know the answer but it is unlikely that the answer is totally unknown to everyone. I see this as useful. Most of these students will be going to work in a setting where the important thing is to see how to use mathematics to accomplish something specific, but whether the mathematics is publishable as absolutely new is not important. We select a topic, we investigate it, using the internet is fine by me. They are expected to say what they found on the net, what they did by thinking it through themselves, how it addresses the topic at hand, what they have accomplished overall, what is left undone, etc. In my possibly biased judgment, the students come out of this program with a much more effective approach to problem solving than they had when they started.
1 (the bad one, imo): .A guy scheduled to teach Calculus II in a large lecture was hospitalized and, later, died. I was asked to teach the course, and I agreed to do so. Part of the course involved electronically graded homewor, for which the students received credit toward their grade. Here is what many did: They sat in their room with a computer, brought up the electronically presented problems, copied the problems into Wolfram Alpha, got the answer, and copied the answer back into the electronic homework program. I caught onto this early on. I accept student questions via e-mail, in fact I sometimes write up a substantial answer and send it to the entire class if the question seems to me to be of general use. But this semester the questions were different. Instead of "I can't seem to get this, can you help?", I would get something like "I know my answer is right but the software won't accept it". Of course the answer would not be right. It was not hard to guess that they were using software and that something had gotten lost in the process. Other times, the software would accept the answer because it was in fact right, but it would be in a peculiar computer-like form that no human would ever use.
In my view we were wasting the student's time having them do this, but I did make something out of it. I used it as an opportunity to discuss just how it is that you can carefully interact with computers to get correct mathematical results. It is important to accurately understand the objective before setting the computer to work on it. Obvious enough, but often ignored.
2. (Working much better, I think). I have been conducting a summer program where the students, as part of the program, carry out guided inquiry. REU is the acronym for Research Experiience for Undergraduates. What we do is sort of research, by which I mean that we look into something where I do not know the answer but it is unlikely that the answer is totally unknown to everyone. I see this as useful. Most of these students will be going to work in a setting where the important thing is to see how to use mathematics to accomplish something specific, but whether the mathematics is publishable as absolutely new is not important. We select a topic, we investigate it, using the internet is fine by me. They are expected to say what they found on the net, what they did by thinking it through themselves, how it addresses the topic at hand, what they have accomplished overall, what is left undone, etc. In my possibly biased judgment, the students come out of this program with a much more effective approach to problem solving than they had when they started.
Ken
#3
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Posted 2013-August-26, 07:37
IMO, computer-aided learning is fine in principle. Not for everybody but good for most. In 1969, I joined ICL to work in education research, later seconded to London University. In the early 70s, Electronics students used our computer lessons and performed as well as others who attended lectures. For Computing students, we wrote a system that supervised student's programs to perform designated tasks. For each student, the system monitored how many compilations he needed to get a program to run and how many runs he needed to get expected results from test-data. Our main problem was computing costs.
Nowadays, computing is dirt-cheap and there are lots of educational opportunities on the internet but the perceived problem is internet plagiarism -- from school-projects to postgraduate-papers. (There is a science-fiction short-story about a future society where computers have taken over most information functions. When the hero learns how to count on his fingers, he is hailed as a genius). Some examining bodies implement a partial solution. The student is free to use any resource to research a problem; but is then required to reproduce his work and answer relevant questions in a controlled environment isolated from outside help. Arguably, it matters more whether you can use information than how you acquire it.
The Bridge analogy is the double-dummy problem like those that were published in Bridge Magazine by Hugh Darwen. Then, we struggled with them over a weekend but now, computers solve them in less than a second. Even more humiliating, it seems that many of the published solutions to the old problems are flawed. Again, however, the real test is at the table, where experts often seem to play double-dummy, in real-time, unaided.
Nowadays, computing is dirt-cheap and there are lots of educational opportunities on the internet but the perceived problem is internet plagiarism -- from school-projects to postgraduate-papers. (There is a science-fiction short-story about a future society where computers have taken over most information functions. When the hero learns how to count on his fingers, he is hailed as a genius). Some examining bodies implement a partial solution. The student is free to use any resource to research a problem; but is then required to reproduce his work and answer relevant questions in a controlled environment isolated from outside help. Arguably, it matters more whether you can use information than how you acquire it.
The Bridge analogy is the double-dummy problem like those that were published in Bridge Magazine by Hugh Darwen. Then, we struggled with them over a weekend but now, computers solve them in less than a second. Even more humiliating, it seems that many of the published solutions to the old problems are flawed. Again, however, the real test is at the table, where experts often seem to play double-dummy, in real-time, unaided.
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Posted 2013-August-26, 10:33
Perhaps this all relates to what education is expected to do. For all too long, it's mostly been a matter of students eating and then regurgitating "facts" rather than learning to think, research, evaluate, come to conclusions.
Some suggest anything else is requiring people to reinvent the wheel but imo that's not so. Once kids have the basics - having some understanding of words and numbers - the rest of it is all there for the plucking. However, if they don't know how to think and evaluate then they have no idea how to tell if that delicious looking fruit is nutritious or poisonous. By and large, teachers/schools do not encourage critical thinking.
Kenberg seems to me to have hit on exactly the sort of approach which is desperately needed. Teachers need (imo) to start regarding themselves as mentors whose responsibility it is to help the students learn how to sift through data and arrive at gold, rather than simply giving them a map and telling them to memorize it, then testing them to see how well they did.
This applies for some students to a greater degree than others, obviously, but should apply within the limits of the students rather than within the limits of the teacher to cope with a degree of somewhat controlled chaos.
Found this some time ago but this is pertinent and I found it fascinating.
http://www.ted.com/t..._education.html
Some suggest anything else is requiring people to reinvent the wheel but imo that's not so. Once kids have the basics - having some understanding of words and numbers - the rest of it is all there for the plucking. However, if they don't know how to think and evaluate then they have no idea how to tell if that delicious looking fruit is nutritious or poisonous. By and large, teachers/schools do not encourage critical thinking.
Kenberg seems to me to have hit on exactly the sort of approach which is desperately needed. Teachers need (imo) to start regarding themselves as mentors whose responsibility it is to help the students learn how to sift through data and arrive at gold, rather than simply giving them a map and telling them to memorize it, then testing them to see how well they did.
This applies for some students to a greater degree than others, obviously, but should apply within the limits of the students rather than within the limits of the teacher to cope with a degree of somewhat controlled chaos.
Found this some time ago but this is pertinent and I found it fascinating.
http://www.ted.com/t..._education.html
#5
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Posted 2013-August-26, 10:43
Yes all good points but I think we are still thinking of a future where the internet is not fully integrated with the human mind.
Or to put it another way when a cell phone was a phone not an actual human appendage.
Or to put it another way when a cell phone was a phone not an actual human appendage.
#6
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Posted 2013-August-26, 10:48
This is just the next phase in a concern that has been going on for years. A couple of decades ago, parents and teachers were worried about letting students use calculators -- they imagined a world where people wouldn't know how to do simple arithmetic.
Naturally, you don't let kids use calculators when they're learning basic math principles in 1st and 2nd grade. But later on, when they're doing science problems, the calculator becomes a useful tool -- you can learn more science if you don't have to waste time doing all the calculations by hand.
The same thing applies to the Internet. In a world where everyone has a smartphone that gives them immediate access to all mundane facts, is it really necessary to make students do lots of rote memorization? Isn't it more important to teach them how to understand the information that's available? You should also be teaching them how to tell the wheat from the chaff, since the Internet has so much of the latter.
Naturally, you don't let kids use calculators when they're learning basic math principles in 1st and 2nd grade. But later on, when they're doing science problems, the calculator becomes a useful tool -- you can learn more science if you don't have to waste time doing all the calculations by hand.
The same thing applies to the Internet. In a world where everyone has a smartphone that gives them immediate access to all mundane facts, is it really necessary to make students do lots of rote memorization? Isn't it more important to teach them how to understand the information that's available? You should also be teaching them how to tell the wheat from the chaff, since the Internet has so much of the latter.
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Posted 2013-August-26, 11:03
Yes but in a country where many are not sure who fought in the civil war that ideal may be bridge too far.(yes a reference from another war) 
#8
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Posted 2013-August-26, 11:16
mike777, on 2013-August-26, 00:36, said:
For the past decade or so education has been based on not allowing students unlimited access to the internet.
It will be interesting how teachers will teach and test when their students are allowed unlimited/unrestriced access.
Of course there will be the discussions for cheaper, faster, reliable unrestricted access.
It will be interesting how teachers will teach and test when their students are allowed unlimited/unrestriced access.
Of course there will be the discussions for cheaper, faster, reliable unrestricted access.
Quote
Back in college my linguistics professor had a long-running, optional assignment in which any student attending the school could participate. We were allowed to work on it for the entire four-year span in which we attended, and could turn it in for a mysterious and unexplained "extraordinary credit bonus" at any point in time before the last four weeks of our senior year. We were to make our best attempt at creating our own language, and learn to speak it well enough to carry on a detailed conversation with him on stage at a free assembly to be attended by any current or former student or faculty members who wished to come.
Well, I was never one to back down from a challenge, so I started working on my language that same night. I finished the assignment six weeks before graduation, turned in the requested language bible I had created, and spent the next few weeks preparing for the coming conversational exam extravaganza. The day came, and there were hundreds of people in attendance. The professor took the stage and explained the premise of the exercise to everyone, then introduced me to a round of applause. Nervous, but determined, I made my way to the stage.
I had expected this exercise to simply consist of him asking me various questions in English and me replying in my language; I was leveled, however, when he began the conversation by speaking fluently in my created tongue. The conversation went as follows:
Him: "Ror grubburg, mossom non lil tomot dud. Ses nin?" (Good morning, my favorite student of all. Are you ready to begin?) Me: "Oho ror grubburg, klinenilk. Ses." (Good morning to you as well. I am.) Him: "Ses ror asasa hoh ririr ana gooloog momom sis dered ini sopa?" (Are you aware that I found this language of yours on the 'sopa'?) Me: "Istsi sunus sopa? Roor goonoog non ses isi dodod lel boddob reder gooloog." (What is a 'sopa'? That word does not exist in my language."
From here on I will just type what we said translated into English.
Him: "The sopa is a worldwide system of computers and servers connected by data transmission cables. The sopa enables its users to communicate and share files and information with each other over long distances." Me: "Oh... That." Him: "The sopa is also where last year I, under a pseudonym, published a manual--much like this one of yours--designed to teach readers how to speak a language invented by me which features only words that are palindromes."
Yeah, I thought I was slick copying from the internet back in the early days when you almost always got away with it. And not only did I get caught, it turns out I had accidentally stolen the work of the same professor who gave me the assignment. I had found the manuscript on the net and spent the last four years becoming fluent in this language, the existence of which I had believed no one else could have possibly discovered. The audience had no idea what we were saying; though, they had to have known I was feeling very nervous and embarrassed about something. Sweaty, nervous, and knowing the jig was up, I decided to continue the conversation in hopes that he at least would not let everyone in attendance know what I had done.
Me: "So, if 'sopa' means 'the internet', why is it not a palindrome?" Him: "Because it's an acronym for 'ses oo pep arapepooses', which means 'You win the prize."
It turned out the whole assignment had been a trap he set years ago in an attempt to trick some clever-yet-lazy student into not only learning to speak his made-up palindrome language fluently, but also to serve as a school-wide example of how the coming internet boom would soon make the act of plagiarizing material for college assignments all but impossible. I marveled at his genius and or insanity. The man invented an entire language based on an arbitrary and bizarre rule for the sole purpose of an endgame that not only might never occur, but, if seen to fruition, would end up costing him tons of money. The professor, still speaking our secret language, then informed me the SOPA prize was a full-honors recommendation to any university of my choosing, with my whole first year's tuition, housing and supplies paid in full by the professor himself.
As I stood there trying to pick up my jaw from the floor, he explained everything to the audience--the genesis of his plan, the trials of creating the language, how I fell for the trap, our conversation on stage, and my prize for being the now multilingual butt of his joke. They loved it. Everyone was cheering and a bunch of my friends started chanting my name, which spread over the whole audience. It was one of the greatest moments I had ever experienced.
After the show ended, the professor took me out to lunch. As we sat there eating a king's feast at a restaurant much fancier than any I had ever seen before, a thought occurred to me. I asked him, "Did you really plan this whole thing in advance? I mean, is that why you created that language in the first place; or did you create the language, then later on hatch this idea to use it for this assignment?" He stared at me blankly for a few moments, then replied, "You can't stop the internet, Steve." I said, "Huh? My name's not Steve, it's..." Before I could finish, his eyes started rolling in the back of his head, and he went into convulsions.
Panicked, I went over to him to try and help him, not knowing what I should be doing. He stopped convulsing and told me everything was okay--that every once in a long while he would have some kind of fit like that. Right before one happened he would become confused and briefly lose touch with reality; but everything would return to normal after a minute or so. Relieved, I sat down and asked him the question again. He never answered. He just stared out of the window and sipped his wine.
I thought maybe he was about to have another fit. He just sat there staring off in complete silence, as if I had not been there. After about ten straight minutes of this awkwardness, I started to realize I had been had. This old son of a bitch had been playing games with me. There was no paid tuition. There was no prize at all. This was just some old weirdo with a brain condition that made him screw with people. I had just been bamboozled by a sociopath who was now sitting across from me pretending I was a ghost.
I had gotten myself so worked up that I was just seconds away from flipping over the table and screaming obscenities at the crazy jerk. At the last moment, I stopped myself, thinking it better to just walk away than to make things worse by falling into whatever sick endgame he might have planned that involved him using mind-games to make me so angry that I would assault him in public, go to jail, be raped by people in there he paid with cartons of cigarettes, and so on and on.
I found out later that night that all of that was just in my head. Trying to make sense of his bizarre behavior, I had let myself slip into having thoughts even more bizarre than anything I had experienced that day. He came to my dorm at about 9 PM and proved to me that he wasn't just some crazy, old man. He was, in fact, a violent criminal. And he beat me. Over and over, he beat me. He beat me until I completely blocked out the last four years of my life to ensure I would never remember anything about this hours-long beating. He beat me so hard my brain actually invented a full four year's worth of fake memories to hide this incident behind. And to this day I still can't recall anything that happened to me during those four years; though, I do remember being beaten repeatedly on that cold, dark September night.
Every year on that night I sit outside looking at the moon--wondering if maybe somewhere out there, someone is being beaten on the moon, or beaten by a moon, or just a good old-fashioned guy named Steve, who had the good sense to take his beating operation to the moon, where cops can't go yet because flying cop cars is a silly thought, and they would use too much fuel to justify their existence. Good for you, Steve. Beat 'em good, boy. Beat 'em for me.
Well, I was never one to back down from a challenge, so I started working on my language that same night. I finished the assignment six weeks before graduation, turned in the requested language bible I had created, and spent the next few weeks preparing for the coming conversational exam extravaganza. The day came, and there were hundreds of people in attendance. The professor took the stage and explained the premise of the exercise to everyone, then introduced me to a round of applause. Nervous, but determined, I made my way to the stage.
I had expected this exercise to simply consist of him asking me various questions in English and me replying in my language; I was leveled, however, when he began the conversation by speaking fluently in my created tongue. The conversation went as follows:
Him: "Ror grubburg, mossom non lil tomot dud. Ses nin?" (Good morning, my favorite student of all. Are you ready to begin?) Me: "Oho ror grubburg, klinenilk. Ses." (Good morning to you as well. I am.) Him: "Ses ror asasa hoh ririr ana gooloog momom sis dered ini sopa?" (Are you aware that I found this language of yours on the 'sopa'?) Me: "Istsi sunus sopa? Roor goonoog non ses isi dodod lel boddob reder gooloog." (What is a 'sopa'? That word does not exist in my language."
From here on I will just type what we said translated into English.
Him: "The sopa is a worldwide system of computers and servers connected by data transmission cables. The sopa enables its users to communicate and share files and information with each other over long distances." Me: "Oh... That." Him: "The sopa is also where last year I, under a pseudonym, published a manual--much like this one of yours--designed to teach readers how to speak a language invented by me which features only words that are palindromes."
Yeah, I thought I was slick copying from the internet back in the early days when you almost always got away with it. And not only did I get caught, it turns out I had accidentally stolen the work of the same professor who gave me the assignment. I had found the manuscript on the net and spent the last four years becoming fluent in this language, the existence of which I had believed no one else could have possibly discovered. The audience had no idea what we were saying; though, they had to have known I was feeling very nervous and embarrassed about something. Sweaty, nervous, and knowing the jig was up, I decided to continue the conversation in hopes that he at least would not let everyone in attendance know what I had done.
Me: "So, if 'sopa' means 'the internet', why is it not a palindrome?" Him: "Because it's an acronym for 'ses oo pep arapepooses', which means 'You win the prize."
It turned out the whole assignment had been a trap he set years ago in an attempt to trick some clever-yet-lazy student into not only learning to speak his made-up palindrome language fluently, but also to serve as a school-wide example of how the coming internet boom would soon make the act of plagiarizing material for college assignments all but impossible. I marveled at his genius and or insanity. The man invented an entire language based on an arbitrary and bizarre rule for the sole purpose of an endgame that not only might never occur, but, if seen to fruition, would end up costing him tons of money. The professor, still speaking our secret language, then informed me the SOPA prize was a full-honors recommendation to any university of my choosing, with my whole first year's tuition, housing and supplies paid in full by the professor himself.
As I stood there trying to pick up my jaw from the floor, he explained everything to the audience--the genesis of his plan, the trials of creating the language, how I fell for the trap, our conversation on stage, and my prize for being the now multilingual butt of his joke. They loved it. Everyone was cheering and a bunch of my friends started chanting my name, which spread over the whole audience. It was one of the greatest moments I had ever experienced.
After the show ended, the professor took me out to lunch. As we sat there eating a king's feast at a restaurant much fancier than any I had ever seen before, a thought occurred to me. I asked him, "Did you really plan this whole thing in advance? I mean, is that why you created that language in the first place; or did you create the language, then later on hatch this idea to use it for this assignment?" He stared at me blankly for a few moments, then replied, "You can't stop the internet, Steve." I said, "Huh? My name's not Steve, it's..." Before I could finish, his eyes started rolling in the back of his head, and he went into convulsions.
Panicked, I went over to him to try and help him, not knowing what I should be doing. He stopped convulsing and told me everything was okay--that every once in a long while he would have some kind of fit like that. Right before one happened he would become confused and briefly lose touch with reality; but everything would return to normal after a minute or so. Relieved, I sat down and asked him the question again. He never answered. He just stared out of the window and sipped his wine.
I thought maybe he was about to have another fit. He just sat there staring off in complete silence, as if I had not been there. After about ten straight minutes of this awkwardness, I started to realize I had been had. This old son of a bitch had been playing games with me. There was no paid tuition. There was no prize at all. This was just some old weirdo with a brain condition that made him screw with people. I had just been bamboozled by a sociopath who was now sitting across from me pretending I was a ghost.
I had gotten myself so worked up that I was just seconds away from flipping over the table and screaming obscenities at the crazy jerk. At the last moment, I stopped myself, thinking it better to just walk away than to make things worse by falling into whatever sick endgame he might have planned that involved him using mind-games to make me so angry that I would assault him in public, go to jail, be raped by people in there he paid with cartons of cigarettes, and so on and on.
I found out later that night that all of that was just in my head. Trying to make sense of his bizarre behavior, I had let myself slip into having thoughts even more bizarre than anything I had experienced that day. He came to my dorm at about 9 PM and proved to me that he wasn't just some crazy, old man. He was, in fact, a violent criminal. And he beat me. Over and over, he beat me. He beat me until I completely blocked out the last four years of my life to ensure I would never remember anything about this hours-long beating. He beat me so hard my brain actually invented a full four year's worth of fake memories to hide this incident behind. And to this day I still can't recall anything that happened to me during those four years; though, I do remember being beaten repeatedly on that cold, dark September night.
Every year on that night I sit outside looking at the moon--wondering if maybe somewhere out there, someone is being beaten on the moon, or beaten by a moon, or just a good old-fashioned guy named Steve, who had the good sense to take his beating operation to the moon, where cops can't go yet because flying cop cars is a silly thought, and they would use too much fuel to justify their existence. Good for you, Steve. Beat 'em good, boy. Beat 'em for me.
--The Professor
OK
bed
bed
#9
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Posted 2013-August-26, 11:37
Well that story took some unexpected tangents.
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Posted 2013-August-26, 11:53
mike777, on 2013-August-26, 10:43, said:
Yes all good points but I think we are still thinking of a future where the internet is not fully integrated with the human mind.
Damn straight!
The internet will pry my brain from my cold dead synapses.
Ken
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Posted 2013-August-26, 12:04
mike777, on 2013-August-26, 10:43, said:
Yes all good points but I think we are still thinking of a future where the internet is not fully integrated with the human mind.
Trying to make reasonable predictions about the other side of a singularity is nothing more than an exercise in verbal diarrhea.
Alderaan delenda est
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Posted 2013-August-26, 14:05
nige1, on 2013-August-26, 07:37, said:
(There is a science-fiction short-story about a future society where computers have taken over most information functions. When the hero learns how to count on his fingers, he is hailed as a genius).
There's another one in which the main character is failing first grade arithmetic because he's solving the problems in his head instead of using the computer.
--------------------
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
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Posted 2013-August-26, 15:24
blackshoe, on 2013-August-26, 14:05, said:
There's another one in which the main character is failing first grade arithmetic because he's solving the problems in his head instead of using the computer.
If the lesson is about learning to use the computer, he should fail. I understand that the story is making a point, perhaps a valid one, but it is absurd to think that we would ever get to the point where adults would be confused about a first grader solving problems in their head and inadvertently failing them for it.
While absurdity can enhance a point, such stories as this undermine the point; by being so easily dismissed as absurd.
#14
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Posted 2013-August-26, 15:32
My Mathematica background (shh: I used to work for their major competitor) would be: "you're doing the assignments so that you can learn how this works. You can use Mathematica to solve it for you - I do it all the time - but it won't teach you how to do it. Of course, in the exam, you're not allowed Mathematica...
"But the real, non-education reason to do it by hand (and check it, if desired, through Mathematica) is to understand what you are doing. Only by understanding what you are doing will you know how to solve the problem you get next year by knowing that it can be shaped into one of these kinds of problems (and you know how to solve them, or you know that they're solvable and you can re-learn how as necessary). You aren't cheating the University by doing this - you're cheating yourself. Your choice."
I am quite in favour of Feynman's discussion of education; especially having run into it in spades in my work (there are so many system administrators who are brilliant in a "problem A = solution A' " way - they know thousands of these pairs, and can do them perfectly. Given them a problem Q that isn't in their list, and they stall faster than a clutchless shift. Unfortunately, our product has a lot of Problem Qs in it...) Having said that, tailoring homework as much as possible to being problem-solving, rather than turning the crank, is therefore a good idea in my view (knowing that there will be a bunch of "turn the crank" in there eventually); at which point if the punters are using Mathematica to turn the crank, is that a real problem? They've already solved the "problem".
"But the real, non-education reason to do it by hand (and check it, if desired, through Mathematica) is to understand what you are doing. Only by understanding what you are doing will you know how to solve the problem you get next year by knowing that it can be shaped into one of these kinds of problems (and you know how to solve them, or you know that they're solvable and you can re-learn how as necessary). You aren't cheating the University by doing this - you're cheating yourself. Your choice."
I am quite in favour of Feynman's discussion of education; especially having run into it in spades in my work (there are so many system administrators who are brilliant in a "problem A = solution A' " way - they know thousands of these pairs, and can do them perfectly. Given them a problem Q that isn't in their list, and they stall faster than a clutchless shift. Unfortunately, our product has a lot of Problem Qs in it...) Having said that, tailoring homework as much as possible to being problem-solving, rather than turning the crank, is therefore a good idea in my view (knowing that there will be a bunch of "turn the crank" in there eventually); at which point if the punters are using Mathematica to turn the crank, is that a real problem? They've already solved the "problem".
When I go to sea, don't fear for me, Fear For The Storm -- Birdie and the Swansong (tSCoSI)
#15
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Posted 2013-August-26, 20:19
dwar0123, on 2013-August-26, 15:24, said:
If the lesson is about learning to use the computer, he should fail. I understand that the story is making a point, perhaps a valid one, but it is absurd to think that we would ever get to the point where adults would be confused about a first grader solving problems in their head and inadvertently failing them for it.
While absurdity can enhance a point, such stories as this undermine the point; by being so easily dismissed as absurd.
While absurdity can enhance a point, such stories as this undermine the point; by being so easily dismissed as absurd.
As I recall it, the point was that manual arithmetic was never going to be taught - the expectation is that you would know how to use the computer to solve the problem, because the computer would always be available and you'd never need any other tool (such as knowledge of how arithmetic works). Absurd, perhaps, but given some of the things "educators" have come up with, perhaps not so absurd after all.
Or perhaps the point was that the adults couldn't figure out how he was coming up with the answers - all they could see is that he wasn't programming the computer to get them, so he must have got them from somewhere else - IOW he must have been cheating.
I confess I can't imagine how such a society could last very long. Maybe that was the point.
--------------------
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
#16
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Posted 2013-August-26, 21:16
blackshoe, on 2013-August-26, 20:19, said:
As I recall it, the point was that manual arithmetic was never going to be taught - the expectation is that you would know how to use the computer to solve the problem, because the computer would always be available and you'd never need any other tool (such as knowledge of how arithmetic works). Absurd, perhaps, but given some of the things "educators" have come up with, perhaps not so absurd after all.
Or perhaps the point was that the adults couldn't figure out how he was coming up with the answers - all they could see is that he wasn't programming the computer to get them, so he must have got them from somewhere else - IOW he must have been cheating.
I confess I can't imagine how such a society could last very long. Maybe that was the point.
Or perhaps the point was that the adults couldn't figure out how he was coming up with the answers - all they could see is that he wasn't programming the computer to get them, so he must have got them from somewhere else - IOW he must have been cheating.
I confess I can't imagine how such a society could last very long. Maybe that was the point.
all excellent points but you still are using old thinking...thinking the computer is "a something" separate from you rather than an integral part. Something that needs to be restricted for your own good. The logic is using the internet will some how harm your learning the ability to problem solve or use the scientific method.
I only bring this up seeing things such as google glass or smartphones or the next big thing becoming an appendage, not something you want to live separate from.
The ACBL has stopped taking cell phones, mobiles away from you. Just a few years ago some would say of course they are not allowed on your person.
At some point I am guessing education will say of course you may have unlimited super fast, cheap, reliable, access during teaching, testing, etc. That teachers will learn to teach those things that are important using the internet as a benefit while aware of the negatives it introduces. That the merging of the internet has become integral at some point in the lives of our children or grandchildren.
#17
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Posted 2013-August-27, 11:39
mike777, on 2013-August-26, 21:16, said:
The ACBL has stopped taking cell phones, mobiles away from you. Just a few years ago some would say of course they are not allowed on your person.
#18
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Posted 2013-August-27, 14:31
nige1, on 2013-August-27, 11:39, said:
Presumably that puts a stop to showing ACBL events on BBO. For example, if a player has his mobile-phone on vibrate, then he can receive useful information from kibitzers.
They still have the rule that if you have a cell phone, it must be turned off. Enforcing this rule is no harder than the old rule that you can't have a cell phone at all. In either case, they'd have to search you to find out if you're breaking the rule, unless the phone goes off audibly.
Actually, they still make an exception for events on Vugraph. When I was operating Vugraph for the Spingold this month, all the players had to turn their cell phones over to me. But if a player said he didn't have one, I took his word for it, I didn't do a pat-down.
#19
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Posted 2013-August-27, 14:41
mycroft, on 2013-August-26, 15:32, said:
My Mathematica background (shh: I used to work for their major competitor) would be: "you're doing the assignments so that you can learn how this works. You can use Mathematica to solve it for you - I do it all the time - but it won't teach you how to do it. Of course, in the exam, you're not allowed Mathematica...
"But the real, non-education reason to do it by hand (and check it, if desired, through Mathematica) is to understand what you are doing. Only by understanding what you are doing will you know how to solve the problem you get next year by knowing that it can be shaped into one of these kinds of problems (and you know how to solve them, or you know that they're solvable and you can re-learn how as necessary). You aren't cheating the University by doing this - you're cheating yourself. Your choice."
"But the real, non-education reason to do it by hand (and check it, if desired, through Mathematica) is to understand what you are doing. Only by understanding what you are doing will you know how to solve the problem you get next year by knowing that it can be shaped into one of these kinds of problems (and you know how to solve them, or you know that they're solvable and you can re-learn how as necessary). You aren't cheating the University by doing this - you're cheating yourself. Your choice."
This reminds me of when people post questions to Usenet programming groups, or Stack Overflow, asking for help writing a recursive program to perform some task. Someone will inevitably answer with a program that uses a built-in function that performs all or most of the task, obviating that recursive program. They don't get that the point of the assignment wasn't to learn how to achieve the task, it was to learn about recursion.
It's the same with algebra/calculus and Mathematica. When you're first learning calculus, you need to work the problems yourself so you'll get an understanding of what it all means, and appreciate what makes it useful. But once you get this behind you, and you need to use it in practice, let the computer do the work. You still need the background so you can enter the correct formulas into Mathamatica in the first place.
#20
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Posted 2013-August-27, 18:12
As a computer scientist, I'll say that being able to do rudimentary calculations in my head is actually quite handy. Typically there is not a need to get exact answers for these calculations, but the issue is that data entry errors on computers/calculators/phones are extremely common. The ability to eyeball the answers and immediately know if they "make sense" is quite valuable. And even when things are working correctly, I often find myself looking at a set of outputs and trying to determine a percentage or ratio. Again, I don't need exact numbers but the time saved by being able to just estimate division (instead of punching things into my phone) is really helpful.
Adam W. Meyerson
a.k.a. Appeal Without Merit
a.k.a. Appeal Without Merit