Research on Classroom hardware kits

[Linda McIver]

Dear PPIGers,

Quick CS Ed Research question for you lovely people: I have an honours student looking at the usability of classroom hardware kits for teaching K-12 kids - things like lego mindstorms, arduinos, etc - and he's trying to find some relevant research for his lit review. 

He has, of course, found stuff going "hey! we created a thing! and it's cool!" but interviews with teachers, actual studies of use... we can find very little. Do you know of anything we might have missed, or sensible places to look? Surely there's *something*?

Thanks in advance!

Linda

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[Huw Lloyd]

Hi Linda,

I offer a hopefully clarifying question: usability of (classroom) hardware kits for what?  What you and I may assume the kits are to be used for (and valued for) may not correspond to the values of formal (classroom) education...

Best,

Huw

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[Stumpf, Simone]

Hi!

I think there is some stuff out there on various platforms  but it might not all be for K-12 e.g.

on Gadgeteer: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/net-gadgeteer-a-new-platform-for-k-12-computer-science-education/

on Micro:bit: Sue Sentance, Jane Waite, Steve Hodges, Emily MacLeod, and Lucy Yeomans. 2017. "Creating Cool Stuff": Pupils' Experience of the BBC micro:bit. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 531-536. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3017749

on the SenseBoard: Mike Richards, Marian Petre, and Arosha K. Bandara. 2012. Starting with Ubicomp: using the senseboard to introduce computing. In Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 583-588. DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2157136.2157306

Hope that helps

Simone

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[Paola Kathuria]

Hey Linda,

Quick CS Ed Research question for you lovely people: I have an honours student looking at the usability of classroom hardware kits for teaching K-12 kids - things like lego mindstorms, arduinos, etc - and he's trying to find some relevant research for his lit review. 

I had to look up K-12 - is it primary and secondary school kids?

If so, below are some projects that were crowdfunded on Kickstarter. They’re kits to teach programming principles to young kids. Some have interviews with teachers and case studies, also talking about getting feedback from kids themselves.

They each include links for you to contact the people behind the projects for more information.

Cubetto

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primotoys/cubetto-hands-on-coding-for-girls-and-boys-aged-3

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primotoys/cubetto

Primo

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primotoys/primo-teaching-programming-logic-to-children-age-4

https://www.primotoys.com/resources/#casestudy

Jewelbots

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1345510482/jewelbots-friendship-bracelets-that-teach-girls-to

Boolean Box

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/71092263/boolean-box-a-technology-discovery-kit-for-girls

PETS

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1693273185/pets-the-first-programming-learning-kit

Kano

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alexklein/kano-a-computer-anyone-can-make

https://kano.me/

I hope this helps.

Paola

[Linda McIver]

Thanks Simone, and apologies for my delayed reply. These look like mostly descriptive papers, of which there are many. We are looking more for evaluative studies that use some kind of structured or formal approach to evaluate the usability of a system. It seems to us that many of the hardware kits that are currently used in the classroom are advertised as easy to use and great entry points, but are actually quite challenging for teachers and students without much technical experience to get started with. 

Huw, you make a good point when you ask "usability for what". Of course that is the essential first question when considering usability - who and what do you intend it to be usable for? Our initial research has raised the question "why use hardware?" with teachers and their answers are mostly "to introduce the digital technologies curriculum", which is a new Australian CS curriculum from prep (5 year olds) through to year 10. That is a pretty vague goal! :) We have the usual problem here that we have teachers with no training in CS being asked to teach CS concepts. There is a buzz around hardware and they are advertised as easy to use, but in practice we fear they put more people off than they engage, due to their poor usability.  I've written a bit about it here:

https://computeitsimple.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/as-easy-as-pi/

But that's just opinion (informed by my in-school teaching experience). We're trying to be more rigorous!

Thanks everyone for all of your responses, there was a lot of useful info in there. Much appreciated!

Linda

[Huw Lloyd]

Hi Linda,

I would suggest that your domain of analysis is much larger than the kits. No-one is being explicit about what is going on here. The kits are perhaps 25% of the ingredients. To assert that the kits are "too hard" etc, is really not to have any more insight into the real situation than the pupils, the authors of the curriculum, or the young teachers. Why should "hardness" be a function of the kits?

Generally what seems to happen is that an experienced teacher will come up with a personal solution to one of these issues of curriculum-media-pupil problems and then share it with hundreds of other teachers.

On this basis the bright kids get to be playful for a brief period of the school day whilst the rest are merely introduced to some more stuff that you do stuff with. Because the curriculum does not address the real requirements (or the thing that really matters) we have this muddle of a status quo.

Best,

Huw

--

http://www.bootstrapsystems.co.uk

[MANCHES Andrew]

Hi Linda

 

I used to teach Computing in Primary and Special Education and was my job to encourage my colleagues. I totally agree about the usability issues. I could point you to relevant work (e.g. Marina Bers) but most studies I know suffer from selective bias – most teachers signing up for computing research are already convinced of the rationale for using – i.e. fundamental for usability in my view. There is also often a lack of separation between those building the kits and those asking for feedback (i.e. ‘what do you think of my baby?’).

 

I also have experience (N.B. Conflict of Interest) from my company that created a sort of computing kit for Primary schools (RFID authoring). The design rationale was to remove all written instruction, and make simple enough for a four-year-old to start using. There is no interface difference for teacher and student. The aim was to make the learning curve for starting to use as low as I could imagine. For the company, I wrote* a short (possibly un-informed) vision of how I saw the future of computing kits – a means to scaffold hacking rather the motivational and learning challenges of building from scratch (where the value of interaction is more of a promise of what you may get if you persevere). I’ve learnt a lot from feedback from the product (feedback to distributors), mostly how the lack of examples didn’t address the key bit – rationale for using.

 

More experience than my research area so apologies if not appropriate for the list!

 

Andrew

 

 

* http://www.magiccloud.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ProgramminginChildrensEarlierYears-MagicCloud2014.pdf

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dr Andrew Manches

Assistant Professor/Lecturer in Learning Sciences

Director of Children and Technology group

School of Education

University of Edinburgh

Edinburgh EH8 8AQ

Staff Webpage

Children and Technology Research group

 

Tel: +44 (0)131 6516242

Twitter: @numbuko

 

 

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Dr Linda McIver
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[Mariana Ludmila]

Reach Funfación Ceibal in Uruguay, Fundación Zamora Terán in Nicaragua, Fudanción Marina Orth in Colombia and/or Paraguay Educa.

I am cc'ing pleople from each org.

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[Mariana Ludmila]

Just to give you all more context, all of these Foundations have research about what your student is looking for. 

Best.

Mariana Ludmila Cortes Bridging Cutting-Edge Education Initiatives into LATAM and Africa.  My mission: Social transformation through learning Mobile & Whatsapp: +52 1 442 247 3250  | +447 418 470126  Skype: marianaludmila1

2017-09-11 14:21 GMT-05:00 Patricia Escauriza Butterworth <patricia....@gmail.com>:

Hi Mariana thanks for connecting us

If you need interviews please send me an email of how many and if you can send the questionaire in spanish we can help with the research and would like to read the report afterwards

My work email: pesca...@paraguayeduca.org. Im the Education Manager and Im available for further questions.

Regards..

Patty

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[Linda McIver]

Huw, I think you have both misunderstood our research, and also the nature of what happens in schools. I am both a Computer science education researcher and a high school teacher (which is why it takes me so long to reply to emails!) and what I have observed happening in schools, and what my honours student has observed in other schools, have formed the basis of our research. Teachers buy kits such as lego mindstorms on the basis of marketing, and then founder on their appalling usability. This puts both teachers and students off technology in general, reinforces their idea that it's all "too hard" for them.

The Australian Dig Tech curriculum is actually pretty good, but teachers do not have the skills yet to teach it, so we need resources to give them a leg up. Teachers also don't have time to invest in learning this stuff - we are generally working at more than capacity pretty much all of the time.

As for hardness being a feature of the kits - usability is a fundamental feature of any system, and these kits have demonstrably poor usability. Which obviously makes it harder to learn with them. I'm not sure what your point is there.  

My honours student is trying to tackle the problem by building a website where teachers will be able to enter their criteria and target age groups, and access the reviews and experience of other teachers in using these systems. We hope that this will help teachers benefit from the experience of others, and choose hardware that meets their needs better, rather than hardware with shinier marketing brochures. 

[Huw Lloyd]

Hi Linda,

Why impute the task (and usability) to the kits?

If the kids want to make a big heaps of the stuff, like models of the pyramids, then where is the usability problem? If they want to make a mosaic, where is the usability problem? For creative engagement, it is necessary for the kids to have insight into what they intend to construct and to construe it. Usability is a function if what is intended (and the alignment of the unitary design of the kits with that domain of intent). This is where experiencing problems (and learning to read situations) becomes key towards facilitating orientation.

None of this is about providing pre-baked tasks, with issues of usability. To follow the "pre-baked" line is to miss the most important factor which is orientation to problems and the teachers role in facilitating that. Without a concern for orientation, what you are dealing with are "teachers" (who do not need to know anything about creative engagement, orientation etc) and "classrooms" (a place to keep children out of trouble and to "teach" them to follow instructions etc.). So, if you are following the (default) administrative line of teaching, why go to the trouble with kits? And why go to the trouble of indexing "usability" of kits for administratively-run classes when orientation never gets beyond paint by numbers? Once it is clear to the teacher what units the (good) kits have, "usability" is not likely to be an issue.

This is why I say we have a muddle of a status quo. Without some scope for creative engagement, without some token gesture towards constructivist approaches, there would be revolt. But this does not square with a curriculum geared towards grades etc., hence creative approaches remain a minority sport.

Best,

Huw

--

http://www.bootstrapsystems.co.uk

[Linda McIver]

Huw,

I don't know what your background is,  but it seems unlikely that you have ever used a lego mindstorms robot, or worked extensively in classrooms with kids trying to learn how to use one in order to design, build, and program something that works.

There is a base level of usability which is essential to simply learning to use a kit. For example, to use an arduino you must know C - which is hardly a welcoming introduction to programming. You must learn to use a kit before you can build something with it. To work with a lego robot you must interact with the programming interface - which is appallingly unusable by any measure. To assert that kits that are fiendishly hard to use improve student experience by building their problem solving skills is on a par with suggesting that we immediately stop using the best proven teaching techniques and teach badly - if at all - in order to enhance the experience for our students. It is patently absurd.

I could not let that pass unchallenged, but I will now leave this conversation, as it is not achieving anything constructive. 

Linda

[Huw Lloyd]

Quoting an earlier email: "Huw, you make a good point when you ask "usability for what". Of course that is the essential first question when considering usability - who and what do you intend it to be usable for? Our initial research has raised the question "why use hardware?" with teachers and their answers are mostly "to introduce the digital technologies curriculum", which is a new Australian CS curriculum from prep (5 year olds) through to year 10. That is a pretty vague goal! :) We have the usual problem here that we have teachers with no training in CS being asked to teach CS concepts. There is a buzz around hardware and they are advertised as easy to use, but in practice we fear they put more people off than they engage, due to their poor usability."

This vague goal (goal 1) is what I am referring to as default teaching.

In addition to this, with careful and persevering work, we can identify another goal (goal 2) to encourage creativity, to encourage students/children to exercise their skills at construing problems, to learn how to think and to gain confidence in doing so. This is the historical origins of importing computing kits into schools.

I would say that goal 1 includes a naive attempt at goal 2, based on a fallacy that merely putting kits in front of kids will exercise their creativity. This is merely a token gesture.

The issue of "absurd usability problems" is a minor issue, not a major issue, when it is clear that the onus for an appropriate problem landscape belongs to the teacher. It is up to the teacher to manage the level of difficulty. It is only when a teacher is pursuing goal 1 (when they have abdicated attempts at orientation and problem structure), when they have put the onus of the teaching upon the kit that the problems become absurd.

Best,

Huw

Best,

Huw

--

http://www.bootstrapsystems.co.uk

[Paola Kathuria]

Linda asked:

the essential first question when considering usability - who and what do you intend it to be usable for?

Huw replied:

Why impute the task (and usability) to the kits?

You impute the task and usability to the kits because the people who designed the kits designed them for a specific purpose, e.g., teach concepts x,y,z

I have a personal anecdote about the BBC micro:bit.

I played with at the Over The Air conference and thought it was very cool. Frank, my husband, bought me the Inventor’s Kit and he  helped me through the first few projects. I’ve been a software developer for decades but had not interest, till the micro:bit, with hardware.

I could not continue with the Kitronik Tutorial Book that comes with the kit and, all the time while trying to use it, wondered how kids managed it.

On the surface, I found the booklet hard to read; the text is small and dark grey. re: findability, there’s no contents page or index.

Content-wise, the tutorials themselves don’t explain a practical problem to solve but things to do with the hardware. E.g., experiment 2: Using an LDR and analog inputs.

I gave up after experiment #3: Dimming an LED using a potentiometer.

Below is the breadboard diagram I was supposed to reproduce. It comes with an accompanying program in Scratch (itself problematic as a first programming language, imo).

Because I had no clue why I was doing what, I had a split second wondering whether the wire colours mattered. I realised they didn’t but I copied the colours anyway, so I could keep track of which I had done. As I was placing pins in the breadboard, Frank was telling me that it didn’t matter that I got the exact pin placement. I felt uncomfortable veering off the exact diagram because I didn’t know what was going on. Asking Frank about it again now, he said that I could have placed the pin anywhere in the column for it still to work. See, that’s useful.

I gave up after this project (#3 of #10) - I was following the instructions but I found it stressful making progress whilst not really learning or understanding. Maybe, in a teaching environment, I’d have done one project in a hour, with someone maybe recasting the experiment into a solution of a practical problem and explaining what was happening, but that presupposes that the teacher has deep knowledge.

I also wondered if they’d tested the instruction booklet in classrooms - I doubted it. Being able to reproduce a circuit and Scratch program doesn’t necessarily show understanding or learning.

Paola

 

[Huw Lloyd]

On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 1:27 PM, Paola Kathuria <pa...@limov.com> wrote:

Linda asked:

the essential first question when considering usability - who and what do you intend it to be usable for?

Huw replied:

Why impute the task (and usability) to the kits?

You impute the task and usability to the kits because the people who designed the kits designed them for a specific purpose, e.g., teach concepts x,y,z

Quite to the point

​, Paola​

.  A specific task-oriented kit would be of poor worth from a constructivist point of view (unless it was one component amongst many).  What is desirable is a design that traverses a domain of actions and capabilities, that service many possible tasks

​ with implied units​

. Even when the tasks of the teacher-student and the (designed for) task of the kit are in agreement, the task belongs to the person. Let it be a clarification to assert that it is irresponsible to abdicate the task to the kit. First one must discern the problem domain and own it, then one is able to look for suitable materials to provide a

​n appropriate

 landscape.

​But if your usability requirement is​, rather, some superficial familiarity, then it doesn't really matter what you present so long it is paint-by-numbers.

Best,

Huw

--

http://www.bootstrapsystems.co.uk

 

I have a personal anecdote about the BBC micro:bit.

I played with at the Over The Air conference and thought it was very cool. Frank, my husband, bought me the Inventor’s Kit and he  helped me through the first few projects. I’ve been a software developer for decades but had not interest, till the micro:bit, with hardware.

I could not continue with the Kitronik Tutorial Book that comes with the kit and, all the time while trying to use it, wondered how kids managed it.

On the surface, I found the booklet hard to read; the text is small and dark grey. re: findability, there’s no contents page or index.

Content-wise, the tutorials themselves don’t explain a practical problem to solve but things to do with the hardware. E.g., experiment 2: Using an LDR and analog inputs.

I gave up after experiment #3: Dimming an LED using a potentiometer.

Below is the breadboard diagram I was supposed to reproduce. It comes with an accompanying program in Scratch (itself problematic as a first programming language, imo).

Because I had no clue why I was doing what, I had a split second wondering whether the wire colours mattered. I realised they didn’t but I copied the colours anyway, so I could keep track of which I had done. As I was placing pins in the breadboard, Frank was telling me that it didn’t matter that I got the exact pin placement. I felt uncomfortable veering off the exact diagram because I didn’t know what was going on. Asking Frank about it again now, he said that I could have placed the pin anywhere in the column for it still to work. See, that’s useful.

I gave up after this project (#3 of #10) - I was following the instructions but I found it stressful making progress whilst not really learning or understanding. Maybe, in a teaching environment, I’d have done one project in a hour, with someone maybe recasting the experiment into a solution of a practical problem and explaining what was happening, but that presupposes that the teacher has deep knowledge.

I also wondered if they’d tested the instruction booklet in classrooms - I doubted it. Being able to reproduce a circuit and Scratch program doesn’t necessarily show understanding or learning.

Paola

 

[Linda McIver]

Thanks Paola, that's exactly the kind of experience I, and many others, have had in the classroom, and the reason why we are attempting to provide teachers with better information on which to base their decisions.

 

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[Linda McIver]

I have had many productive conversations on this topic, for which I thank you all, but it saddens me that many of them have been off-list, often to avoid the tone and nature of some of the conversations generated. I've seen this be a problem on the PPIG list before, and I would like to see it publicly called out more, which is why I am calling it out myself. I found some of the responses from Huw unprofessional, unnecessarily rude, to be honest, quite upsetting. I now have an email filter in place. I'm very happy to debate content, and to disagree, but I think it's essential to keep it polite and professional. I don't feel like this has happened. 

I would like to see this list as a place for professional & productive conversations around the psychology of programming, and many people contribute just such conversations. But I think that if we don't call out the kind of behaviour that detracts from those conversations, then we risk losing the value of the group. I recall my visits to PPIG conferences with great pleasure, but this is not the first time I have considered leaving this group due to the behaviour of a handful of individuals.

On 13 September 2017 at 06:16, Linda McIver <linda....@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Paola, that's exactly the kind of experience I, and many others, have had in the classroom, and the reason why we are attempting to provide teachers with better information on which to base their decisions.

On Tue, 12 Sep 2017 at 10:27 pm, Paola Kathuria <pa...@limov.com> wrote:

Linda asked:

the essential first question when considering usability - who and what do you intend it to be usable for?

Huw replied:

Why impute the task (and usability) to the kits?

You impute the task and usability to the kits because the people who designed the kits designed them for a specific purpose, e.g., teach concepts x,y,z

I have a personal anecdote about the BBC micro:bit.

I played with at the Over The Air conference and thought it was very cool. Frank, my husband, bought me the Inventor’s Kit and he  helped me through the first few projects. I’ve been a software developer for decades but had not interest, till the micro:bit, with hardware.

I could not continue with the Kitronik Tutorial Book that comes with the kit and, all the time while trying to use it, wondered how kids managed it.

On the surface, I found the booklet hard to read; the text is small and dark grey. re: findability, there’s no contents page or index.

Content-wise, the tutorials themselves don’t explain a practical problem to solve but things to do with the hardware. E.g., experiment 2: Using an LDR and analog inputs.

I gave up after experiment #3: Dimming an LED using a potentiometer.

Below is the breadboard diagram I was supposed to reproduce. It comes with an accompanying program in Scratch (itself problematic as a first programming language, imo).

Because I had no clue why I was doing what, I had a split second wondering whether the wire colours mattered. I realised they didn’t but I copied the colours anyway, so I could keep track of which I had done. As I was placing pins in the breadboard, Frank was telling me that it didn’t matter that I got the exact pin placement. I felt uncomfortable veering off the exact diagram because I didn’t know what was going on. Asking Frank about it again now, he said that I could have placed the pin anywhere in the column for it still to work. See, that’s useful.

I gave up after this project (#3 of #10) - I was following the instructions but I found it stressful making progress whilst not really learning or understanding. Maybe, in a teaching environment, I’d have done one project in a hour, with someone maybe recasting the experiment into a solution of a practical problem and explaining what was happening, but that presupposes that the teacher has deep knowledge.

I also wondered if they’d tested the instruction booklet in classrooms - I doubted it. Being able to reproduce a circuit and Scratch program doesn’t necessarily show understanding or learning.

Paola

 

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[Huw Lloyd]

Sorry for any upset.

One of the things I like about Paola's description (which requires work to put here and which I regret "cutting off") is the appropriateness of her comment "I didn’t know what was going on."  This (I believe) addresses the point of orientation, of discerning the units of the problem situation, which is what I have been asserting is one of the most valuable things a teacher can consciously work with in a teaching environment.

When I was looking recently at the etoys environment in response to a 6 year old's request to "do some programming", I found it was necessary to traverse a reasonable amount of the interface as preparation in order to know how a range of tasks mapped onto this interface and process model. Variables, for instance, seemed to me to be in an awkward place (accessed via a drop down menu and a list), yet they were a necessary ingredient for counting operations within a particular object's process (a script which iterated), which I considered a necessary component for a problem domain of drawing objects and have them move in predetermined ways around the screen. Once I knew where all these features were however, I was able to facilitate an appropriate orientation towards constructing things within this space.  Although one could say "the interface/usability" could be improved, I think this only goes so far.  There will always be "usability" issues, the important point is how one orients to the problems and recognise that usability is derived from intent.

I have written a few draft papers on this, although they are not as clear as I would like them to be at present.  If anyone would like elaboration on the issues I have been raising, I would happy to oblige (hopefully with brevity). 

Best,

Huw

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[Paola Kathuria]

I agree with Linda that the tone of some messages have been unprofessional. As the list administrator, I regret not stepping in earlier. I thank Linda for calling it out because we otherwise normalise inappropriate behaviour.

Since this is the second incident in a year, I’ve set the whole list to moderated. (Previously, I set the unprofessional individual as moderated.)

This means that when you post to this list, your message will be held until an administrator reviews it and either lets it through or rejects it, with a reason sent back to the sender. We’ll remove moderation for individual members based on their track record.

This list has been going for 20 years (!) and there’s nearly 400 people on it. I know that it still has value and hope that you will continue to use it.

Paola

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[Linda McIver]

Thank you Paola for your fast and effective response! I value this list very much (20 years! Wow! I probably don't want to count how many of those years I've been a member for! :), and am glad I can stay and feel confident that discussions will be in a professional and constructive tone from now on. Thank you!

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Computational Science Education: http://computeitsimple.wordpress.com/                

Dr Linda McIver
Teacher & Freelance Writer
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Buy Fair Trade - Change the world one coffee at a time

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Exploring Life, Parenting and Social Justice: http://lindamciver.wordpress.com/      

Computational Science Education: http://computeitsimple.wordpress.com/                

Dr Linda McIver
Teacher & Freelance Writer
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Buy Fair Trade - Change the world one coffee at a time

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[Thomas Green]

We're glad you're staying too.

Thomas

**  from 22 Jan 2016 until further notice **

80 Heworth Road

York YO31 0AD

01904 411903  

[Enda Dunican]

Hear, hear

Dr. Enda Dunican
Lecturer in Computing,
Dept. of Computing and Networking,
Institute of Technology Carlow,
Kilkenny Road,
Carlow,
Ireland.
Tel: 353-(0)59-9175525
Email: enda.d...@itcarlow.ie

________________________________________
From: ppig-d...@googlegroups.com [ppig-d...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Thomas Green [thos...@gmail.com]
Sent: 13 September 2017 21:40
To: Linda McIver
Cc: Paola Kathuria; PPIG Discuss

Subject: Re: [ppig-discuss] Research on Classroom hardware kits

We're glad you're staying too.

Thomas

On 13 September 2017 at 21:25, Linda McIver <linda....@gmail.com<mailto:linda....@gmail.com>> wrote:
Thank you Paola for your fast and effective response! I value this list very much (20 years! Wow! I probably don't want to count how many of those years I've been a member for! :), and am glad I can stay and feel confident that discussions will be in a professional and constructive tone from now on. Thank you!

On 13 September 2017 at 23:11, Paola Kathuria <pa...@limov.com<mailto:pa...@limov.com>> wrote:
I agree with Linda that the tone of some messages have been unprofessional. As the list administrator, I regret not stepping in earlier. I thank Linda for calling it out because we otherwise normalise inappropriate behaviour.

Since this is the second incident in a year, I’ve set the whole list to moderated. (Previously, I set the unprofessional individual as moderated.)

This means that when you post to this list, your message will be held until an administrator reviews it and either lets it through or rejects it, with a reason sent back to the sender. We’ll remove moderation for individual members based on their track record.

This list has been going for 20 years (!) and there’s nearly 400 people on it. I know that it still has value and hope that you will continue to use it.


Paola

On 13 Sep 2017, at 01:55, Linda McIver <linda....@gmail.com<mailto:linda....@gmail.com>> wrote:

I have had many productive conversations on this topic, for which I thank you all, but it saddens me that many of them have been off-list, often to avoid the tone and nature of some of the conversations generated. I've seen this be a problem on the PPIG list before, and I would like to see it publicly called out more, which is why I am calling it out myself. I found some of the responses from Huw unprofessional, unnecessarily rude, to be honest, quite upsetting. I now have an email filter in place. I'm very happy to debate content, and to disagree, but I think it's essential to keep it polite and professional. I don't feel like this has happened.

I would like to see this list as a place for professional & productive conversations around the psychology of programming, and many people contribute just such conversations. But I think that if we don't call out the kind of behaviour that detracts from those conversations, then we risk losing the value of the group. I recall my visits to PPIG conferences with great pleasure, but this is not the first time I have considered leaving this group due to the behaviour of a handful of individuals.

On 13 September 2017 at 06:16, Linda McIver <linda....@gmail.com<mailto:linda....@gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks Paola, that's exactly the kind of experience I, and many others, have had in the classroom, and the reason why we are attempting to provide teachers with better information on which to base their decisions.

On Tue, 12 Sep 2017 at 10:27 pm, Paola Kathuria <pa...@limov.com<mailto:pa...@limov.com>> wrote:
Linda asked:

the essential first question when considering usability - who and what do you intend it to be usable for?

Huw replied:
Why impute the task (and usability) to the kits?

You impute the task and usability to the kits because the people who designed the kits designed them for a specific purpose, e.g., teach concepts x,y,z

I have a personal anecdote about the BBC micro:bit.

I played with at the Over The Air conference and thought it was very cool. Frank, my husband, bought me the Inventor’s Kit and he helped me through the first few projects. I’ve been a software developer for decades but had not interest, till the micro:bit, with hardware.

[X]

I could not continue with the Kitronik Tutorial Book that comes with the kit and, all the time while trying to use it, wondered how kids managed it.

On the surface, I found the booklet hard to read; the text is small and dark grey. re: findability, there’s no contents page or index.

Content-wise, the tutorials themselves don’t explain a practical problem to solve but things to do with the hardware. E.g., experiment 2: Using an LDR and analog inputs.

I gave up after experiment #3: Dimming an LED using a potentiometer.

Below is the breadboard diagram I was supposed to reproduce. It comes with an accompanying program in Scratch (itself problematic as a first programming language, imo).

[X]

Because I had no clue why I was doing what, I had a split second wondering whether the wire colours mattered. I realised they didn’t but I copied the colours anyway, so I could keep track of which I had done. As I was placing pins in the breadboard, Frank was telling me that it didn’t matter that I got the exact pin placement. I felt uncomfortable veering off the exact diagram because I didn’t know what was going on. Asking Frank about it again now, he said that I could have placed the pin anywhere in the column for it still to work. See, that’s useful.

I gave up after this project (#3 of #10) - I was following the instructions but I found it stressful making progress whilst not really learning or understanding. Maybe, in a teaching environment, I’d have done one project in a hour, with someone maybe recasting the experiment into a solution of a practical problem and explaining what was happening, but that presupposes that the teacher has deep knowledge.

I also wondered if they’d tested the instruction booklet in classrooms - I doubted it. Being able to reproduce a circuit and Scratch program doesn’t necessarily show understanding or learning.


Paola

[X]

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Exploring Life, Parenting and Social Justice: http://lindamciver.wordpress.com/
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Dr Linda McIver
Teacher & Freelance Writer
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Buy Fair Trade - Change the world one coffee at a time



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Exploring Life, Parenting and Social Justice: http://lindamciver.wordpress.com/
Computational Science Education: http://computeitsimple.wordpress.com/

Dr Linda McIver
Teacher & Freelance Writer
--
Buy Fair Trade - Change the world one coffee at a time

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Exploring Life, Parenting and Social Justice: http://lindamciver.wordpress.com/
Computational Science Education: http://computeitsimple.wordpress.com/

Dr Linda McIver
Teacher & Freelance Writer
--
Buy Fair Trade - Change the world one coffee at a time

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