Hacking the Classroom | Computers and Composition During the last two years, I have grown increasingly keen on "gitting" the humanities classroom. Git is a version control and source code management system popular among software developers. It allows a group of people to build a single repository of files across numerous machines in a non-linear fashion, while generating a detailed change history of that repository. Individual contributions require neither network access nor a central server. Importantly, all "commits" (i.e., recorded changes) to a repository are saved as components of its change history, even if they are not merged into its main "branch" (i.e., line of file development). In other words, with a Git repository comes many witnesses: a project's current state is always accompanied by the files it was and the files it could have been, with attribution for who committed what when. Code is the new literacy. Taken together, these eight reasons fall under two more general, seemingly ubiquitous claims: "You should learn Git."
Tips for Writing Good Multiple-Choice Questions March 5, 2014 By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog I remember with horror and embarrassment the first multiple-choice exam I wrote. I didn’t think the students were taking my course all that seriously, so I decided to use the first exam to show just how substantive the content really was. Don’t plan to write the entire test at once. After my first multiple-choice test disaster, a colleague helped me with pointers like these. Despite good advice and a commitment to writing good multiple-choice questions, it is still possible to write the occasional bad one. References: I used a Kansas State IDEA paper and the Jacobs and Chase book, Developing and Using Tests Effectively to compile this list. Tags: assessing student learning, designing test questions, multiple choice tests
Paul Ford: What is Code? | Bloomberg A computer is a clock with benefits. They all work the same, doing second-grade math, one step at a time: Tick, take a number and put it in box one. Tick, take another number, put it in box two. Tick, operate (an operation might be addition or subtraction) on those two numbers and put the resulting number in box one. You, using a pen and paper, can do anything a computer can; you just can’t do those things billions of times per second. Apple has always made computers; Microsoft used to make only software (and occasional accessory hardware, such as mice and keyboards), but now it’s in the hardware business, with Xbox game consoles, Surface tablets, and Lumia phones. So many things are computers, or will be. When you “batch” process a thousand images in Photoshop or sum numbers in Excel, you’re programming, at least a little. You can make computers do wonderful things, but you need to understand their limits. 2.1 How Do You Type an “A”? It’s simple now, right? Ballmer chants “Developers!”
Screencasting Explained by Common Craft Sometimes, the easiest way to learn is by watching someone else. If you can look over their shoulder and hear them speak while while they chop an onion, you may be able to learn more quickly. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible when the teacher is a thousand miles away. Thankfully, screencasting can help us use computers to make videos that can be easily shared. Meet Chloe. She’s an expert in graphic design and she lives in a small town. She came to think of it like having a video camera on her shoulder, recording her screen and her voice. With the click of a button, she records herself using the feature and walking through each step in the process. The most popular screencasting programs have tools for editing the video and audio after it is captured. She can also magnify sections of the screen to make them easier to read and even add text. For the narration, chloe can either record her voice as she records what’s on the screen, or she can record the voice-over separately.
Gapminder: Unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world view. Exploding Myths About Learning Through Gaming : NPR Ed "What makes a game fun is not that it's easy," says Greg Toppo, "but that it's hard." Smcgee/Flickr hide caption toggle caption Smcgee/Flickr "What makes a game fun is not that it's easy," says Greg Toppo, "but that it's hard." Part of our series of conversations with leading teachers, writers and activists on education issues. If you had to pick the most promising — and possibly most overhyped — education trends of the last few years, right up there with the online college courses known as MOOCs would almost certainly rank this one: Game-based learning shall deliver us to the Promised Land! But between hype and hating lies the nuanced discoveries of veteran education reporter — and former teacher — Greg Toppo. You argue in your book that what can look like escapist fun in fact offers opportunities for deep concentration and learning. I think the thing we need to understand first is a basic idea: What makes a game fun is not that it's easy but that it's hard. Greg Toppo. Twitter Pinball.
Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Summary Being in a state of flow is when you’re fully immersed in a specific task with a seemingly inexhaustible amount of focus. Five hours may zip by and you hardly even notice. I’ve experienced flow on many occasions, such as when I get “in the zone” and program for 8 hours straight, or when I get consumed reading about a topic I find particularly interesting for a solid day. In an effort to read up more about flow—primarily the pros and cons, and how to achieve states of flow more often—I read Finding Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (apparently it’s pronounced “chicks-send-me-high”), who first proposed the whole idea. What follows in this post are my rough book notes. Chapter 1 – The Structures of Everyday Life Psychic energy: mental awareness/attention/focus; a limited resource. Work, maintenance, and leisure take up most of our psychic energy. Chapter 2 – The Content of Experience All emotions are essentially either positive/attractive or negative/repulsive. Work vs leisure vs maintenance tasks.
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