A theme for the videos

[Clinton Blackmore]

Do we want to have a theme for the videos?

One theme I'd like to suggest is "Make Your Own Minions".  

I think a theme like this makes creating and watching the videos more fun.  Instead of saying, "Say I have an NXT with a light sensor attached to port 4, and want to see the value.  Go to the 'view' menu, and choose 'ambient light sensor'.", you can say things like, "This mindstorms minion has been outfitted with a light sensor.  Minion, report on the brightness in the room.  [Now you, as minion maker, go to the view menu, and choose 'ambient light sensor'.  The value that shows up on the screen is large if the minion sees something bright, and small if it sees something dark.]"

Another advantage to this theme is that it allows for discussing other topics -- Scratch "virtual minions", minions made with Arduinos, or other robot kits, and so on.

Any other theme ideas?

If we choose to go with "Mindstorms Academy", is there a thematic element to tie in?  (For example, I believe that Dr. Graeme has the young roboticists instruct their robots, and we could add flavour to the video by saying that the roboticists are mentors and the robots are pupils at the Mindstorms Academy).

Cheers,

Clinton

[James Floyd Kelly]

I would be more inclined to keep videos generic in use of terminology but I will go with the group consensus on this... Just not a big issue to me.

On Aug 5, 2011 4:25 PM, "Clinton Blackmore" <clinton....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Do we want to have a theme for the videos?
>
>
> One theme I'd like to suggest is "Make Your Own Minions".
>
> I think a theme like this makes creating and watching the videos more fun.
> Instead of saying, "Say I have an NXT with a light sensor attached to port
> 4, and want to see the value. Go to the 'view' menu, and choose 'ambient
> light sensor'.", you can say things like, "This mindstorms minion has been
> outfitted with a light sensor. Minion, report on the brightness in the
> room. [Now you, as minion maker, go to the view menu, and choose 'ambient
> light sensor'. The value that shows up on the screen is large if the minion
> sees something bright, and small if it sees something dark.]"
>
> Another advantage to this theme is that it allows for discussing other
> topics -- Scratch "virtual minions", minions made with Arduinos, or other
> robot kits, and so on.
>
>
> Any other theme ideas?
>
> If we choose to go with "Mindstorms Academy", is there a thematic element to

> tie in? (For example, I believe that Dr. Graeme <http://drgraeme.net/> has

> the young roboticists instruct their robots, and we could add flavour to the
> video by saying that the roboticists are mentors and the robots are pupils
> at the Mindstorms Academy).
>
>
> Cheers,
> Clinton
>

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[Graeme]

Thanks for the reference Clinton.
The idea of "student is teacher, robot is pupil" went down really well
with Grade 5 (11 year olds) & above in middle school, as it put the
students in a relationship they already understand, and for the first
time in their student life they could actually tell someone/something
what to do, instead of always being on the receiving end! (-:
With work aimed at University students or adults I have tended to
adopt a more factual approach.
I think the theme may depend on the age of student we are aiming at.

I'm wondering if this project may stand or fall on getting an agreed
theme, defined student audience and agreed roadmap.
Otherwise it may end up being a central point where links to a variety
of online-resources are stored (although even this might be a very
useful idea).
Cheers,
Graeme.

On Aug 6, 7:29 am, James Floyd Kelly <jktechwri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would be more inclined to keep videos generic in use of terminology but I
> will go with the group consensus on this... Just not a big issue to me.

> On Aug 5, 2011 4:25 PM, "Clinton Blackmore" <clinton.blackm...@gmail.com>

[Clinton Blackmore]

On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 10:05 PM, Graeme <docgraem...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the reference Clinton.

Not a problem; thanks for joining us, Graeme!

 

The idea of "student is teacher, robot is pupil" went down really well
with Grade 5 (11 year olds) & above in middle school, as it put the
students in a relationship they already understand, and for the first
time in their student life they could actually tell someone/something
what to do, instead of always being  on the receiving end! (-:
With work aimed at University students or adults I have tended to
adopt a more factual approach.

 

I think the theme may depend on the age of student we are aiming at.

I'd like to ask everyone: what are your thoughts on the scope and target age of the academy?

I think the primary target is young roboticists (say ages 10 to 16), and that if the videos are useful to other people, great!  [Alternatively, perhaps we can tag the videos to indicate the age they are useful for.]

As for scope, I really think keeping a scope that allows us to talk about things beyond just the NXT is a good thing -- and tags could help with that, too.  [Aside from videos on Scratch and mods based on Scratch, I don't really have any other topics I'm itching to address at the moment, but having that flexibility is a big plus!]

 

I'm wondering if this project may stand or fall on getting an agreed
theme, defined student audience and agreed roadmap.
Otherwise it may end up being a central point where links to a variety
of online-resources are stored (although even this might be a very
useful idea).
Cheers,
Graeme.

Graeme also asked about how his work can fit into the project.  While I'm all for having a consistent theme, I like the idea of grandfathering or assimilating other useful videos that do not follow the theme.  

I do like the idea of letting users find the videos on youtube, but, looking at Dr. Graeme's site, there really is something to be said for having more than just video.  I think having a site that the videos are embedded into, as an optional way of looking at the material (and supplementary materials) is a really good idea -- and it aids in absorbing existing materials (should their authors be agreeable to it).

Thoughts?

Clinton

[James Floyd Kelly]

Graeme's videos are great, but they seem to be more project based.  Maybe we can make a section on whatever webpage we use to collect the videos for project-related videos?  I think it's important to keep the more granular videos separated from any other types of videos, links, webpages, etc... make it easy for visitors to find the videos that are specific to one topic and as simple as possible.

--

[Graeme]

You are exactly right when you say the videos on my web site are
project based Jim - when I first started working with school teachers
that is what they wanted - something that would fit into a standard
lesson or robot club slot (1 1/2 to 2 hours). They wanted to help
their students understand robotics by fitting it into some sort of
real-world scenario that the students could relate to.
In effect, they wanted to teach what I would call "an engineering
experience" - the emphasis was not on a computer language, it was on
"here is a situation, here are robots, how can we use these robots to
improve this situation".
This was quite different from the way I've taught computing before
(mainly with adults), but I went along with it because they were the
experts on how to teach middle school children.
To give them credit, their system seems to have worked extremely well,
as Tasmania has produced students who are Junior and Senior double
World RoboCup Junior champions - a remarkable and outstanding result!

However I'm getting the feeling that this is not the approach that
this project prefers?
Since my first contact with computers in the mid 1960's (Elliott 503
programmed in Algol), my computer teaching over about 25 operating
systems and many languages has been mostly based on a granular bit-by-
bit approach emphasising the expansion of a student's knowledge base
of computing, starting from a small amount of computer language/
operating system knowledge, and expanding that knowledge bit by bit.
This is very similar to the way Khan teaches mathematics - my past
computing teaching emphasis being on a granular approach to the
intricacies of a particular "computer language/operating system
combination" rather than the "holistic" (sorry about the use of that
politically correct word, but I'm not sure what other word fits)
approach to robotics that was what the teachers wanted.

Does this project effectively want an index page that starts "click
here to go to a granular computer science approach to NXT-G" , "click
here to go to a granular computer science approach to RobotC", "click
here to go to a granular computer science approach to ..." , followed
by big web pages that each include a series of links to videos that
form a carefully graded approach to increasing a student's knowledge
of a particular "computer language/operating system" combination?
I'd be interested in hearing just where this promising project wants
to go...
Cheers,
Graeme.

On Aug 9, 12:21 am, James Floyd Kelly <jktechwri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Graeme's videos are great, but they seem to be more project based.  Maybe we
> can make a section on whatever webpage we use to collect the videos for
> project-related videos?  I think it's important to keep the more granular
> videos separated from any other types of videos, links, webpages, etc...
> make it easy for visitors to find the videos that are specific to one topic
> and as simple as possible.
>
> On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 10:11 AM, Clinton Blackmore <
>
>
>

> clinton.blackm...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Clinton Blackmore]

While I'm all for creating videos that expound on specific details, I also think we need ones that teach principles, and give a larger picture, providing context.  Some videos should show the forest, and others the tree.  Much as you can not teach vocabulary, sentence structure, and how to formulate a good thesis statement using the same technique, you can't teach specific blocks, simple programs, and how to come up with an interesting robot all with the same method.  Project-based videos are one way to show context.

I also think that there is a lot of power in structuring the videos so that one can explore information horizontally (ex., "Now that I know how that is done in NXT-G, how is it done in Enchanting?  How is it done using RobotC with VEX?") as well as in structured, vertical chains of knowledge.  

It seems to me if we create videos on different topics and at different levels of detail vs context, and tag them appropriately, and supplement them with non-video materials (like building instructions, downloadable programs, or write-ups), we can allow budding roboticists to explore the knowledge and learn what they are interested in knowing, building on what they already know, with tools suited to the task at hand.

Cheers,

Clinton