Back to Coder Dojo

Coder Dojo Limerick returned last Saturday 21st January but unfortunately we couldn’t make it so we went back yesterday.  I had followed the tweets from @CoderDojoLim and various mentors last week so I knew that the numbers were up, with 54 attending last week.  I was curious to see if that was just a one off or if the interest would continue this week.  I got to the Downtown Centre for about half 11 and and from 20 to 12 they just kept coming.  We ended up with 61 kids in total and lots of parents too.  It was great to see the parents staying and helping out as needed, and learning themselves along the way.

We had 3 rooms yesterday – two Scratch rooms and a Robocode room.  The new recruits were taken through the basics of Scratch and those returning worked through their own ideas for projects.   It was great to see that many of those who were working on Scratch before Christmas, have now progressed into the senior room coding in Java for Robocode (http://robocode.sourceforge.net/).  Using Scratch as a stepping stone seems to work, particularly for the younger kids, as it gets them comfortable  with programming concepts in a very graphical way which gives them the confidence to progress to programming languages such as Java.  The atmosphere at Coder Dojo is very relaxed and it was great to see all 3 rooms totally engrossed in what they were doing and having fun in the process.  We’re back to Coder Dojo next week and we’re all looking forward to it already.

Coder Dojo’s are springing up in lots of  locations both in Ireland and further afield, so if you’re interested in Coder Dojo, either to attend or to help out check out http://coderdojo.com/.

Mam, I’m starting to think mathematically

When I collected my 12 year old today, he told me that that he thought that he was starting to think mathematically.  I was intrigued as to what brought about this statement so I asked him why he thought this.  He said that in school today, he was throwing a ball to his friend at the back of the class, and started to think about the angle at which he would have to throw the ball to connect with his friend.  I was so excited at the unexpected enthusiasm about Maths from him that I didn’t really get into the discussion about whether or not he should have been throwing balls in class!!  That conversation will happen tomorrow.  Anyway back to angles, he talked about how he went through various angles that would or wouldn’t work before throwing the ball.  For me this is a breakthrough – despite the positive attitude towards Maths in our house and the passion that I have for the subject, I have always been very aware that this passion and enthusiasm is not shared by us all.  I have always been very conscious of not forcing Maths on my children and in some ways may have pulled back too much because of this.  I have often had discussions with both my son and daughter about where they use Maths in what they do, but I suppose my son particularly would have struggled with seeing it in what he does.  He takes a lot of it for granted, for example money etc. and so would not see a direct link between the Maths he studies and how he uses it in what he does.  Playing American football with some of his friends after school, prior to my collecting him, again got him thinking about the angle at which he should throw the ball.  Now that he has made a connection between the Maths that he is studying in school and the automatic calculations we all make when throwing something, I’m hoping that it is just the start of the conversations about Maths instigated by him and not me.

To be honest I’m not sure what has brought about this change in attitude but I’m just going with the enthusiasm.  In the car we had a chat about trajectories and quadratic equations, not in any formal way, but just to introduce the ideas, so that when they both come to cover these topics in Maths over the next few years, they’ll have a reference point.  Over the past few weeks we have discussed how the different birds in Angry Birds have different trajectories and how you need to change the angle at which you launch the various types of birds.  We’ve also been looking at some of Vi Hart’s doodling on Youtube (see my previous post here).  This has led to us looking for Fibonacci spirals in lots of different places.  Maybe this has given him a different view of Maths.  Whatever has brought about the change I’m just grateful of the chance to talk to my own children in a fun way about Maths

Connecting students with Maths

As Maths teachers we are constantly telling students that Maths is all around us but do we really show them? Yesterday I read a blog post by Ira Socol titled ‘Changing Gears 2012: maths are creative, maths are not arithmetic‘. This blog post gets at the crux of the problem and has given me plenty to think about as a Maths lecturer first and a Mathematician secondly. For me this order is really crucial – I have come across some amazing mathematicians in my years in the Maths sphere. Many were Maths geniuses but sometimes these people were so comfortable in the Maths zone that they found it difficult to pass on these often complex concepts to others. I will always be a Mathematician by trade but over the years I have become a Maths lecturer first and foremost. I am very aware that it’s not enough for me to understand the concepts, for my students it’s all about whether or not I can help them to understand topics which they will need as Computer Scientists.  I am very conscious that concepts that I just get leave others completely baffled.

A simple example is that I have been dealing with functions with my students over the past few days. I have discovered over a number of years that students often just don’t get functions – they can take a function definition such as f(x) = -4x + 9 and calculate f(3) and f(-2) etc. but when asked to deal with a real application many struggle. Because of the success of my Java coding in Maths class last term I have decided to teach functions through coding this term. We dealt with the above example by writing the Java code to implement it using x and y as variables, reading in x as the input and calculating the output y = -4 * x + 9 and printing out the y values. We then used the test data (f(3) and f(-2)) to make sure that our program worked as it should. We then worked through some basic pay calculations such as ‘A person gets paid €8.50 an hour. They get paid time and a half for any hours worked over 40 hours and double time for any hours over 60. Calculate their pay.’. If we ignore the complication of overtime this is a basic function y = 8.5x. Adding in the overtime complexity is often where students struggle. Seeing the different ways that students see this problem and work through their way of performing the calculation is fascinating. I’m not sure that us Maths teachers do enough of this allowing students to find their own way – there isn’t only one way of doing things and the discussions that follow when exploring these different ways often throw up issues with the approach taken or performance issues associated with a certain approach.

In Ira’s blog post he mentioned Fibonnacci and coincidentally I came across a Youtube clip by Vi Hart about Maths doodling which also referenced Fibonnacci.

I love this clip and it has provided me with an opportunity to talk to my own children about Maths in a way that they can connect with.  We’re going out to buy cauliflower and pineapple at the weekend to count the Fibonnacci spirals contained therein I came across another great clip by Vi Hart called infinity elephants which I’ll be using when I’m teaching infinite sequences in future.

I feel that as a Maths  lecturer I do a good job.  I’ve helped many students to overcome the  genuine terror that they feel towards Maths.  But can I honestly say that I do enough to connect my students with Maths?  I’m not sure that I do but that can change!

I was never good at Maths

I have loved Maths all my life and this led me to undertake an undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics and subsequently a Masters in Financial Mathematics.  What has always amazed me is the reaction of people when I mention that Maths is what I have studied and/or lectured.  Generally the reaction is either “I loved Maths at school” or more normally “I was never good at Maths”.  Maybe it’s the same for other subjects but I don’t think so.  It’s almost like it’s a badge of honour for people which I find very disheartening.  There are a lot of people who struggle with English but I don’t think it’s the first thing that they lead with in a conversation.  I know that I am biased, in that Maths is where I’m at, so I’m keenly aware of others perceptions of it, but what I find most difficult is the social acceptability that people are ‘not good’ at Maths.

Maths is a subject that is studied by students in Ireland from preschool right up through school.  You would imagine, that a subject that forms a very strong basis of the school curriculum, would be something that people would be very proficient in by the time they leave school.  I am often shocked as a lecturer by the lack of understanding of what really are the basics of Maths topics.   Manipulations of basic algebraic formulae such as solving for x in 2(x+3) = -4x – 5 and performing calculations with fractions seem to cause students huge difficulties.  Even students who don’t have issues with these types of operations often struggle with being able to apply the concepts in straightforward applications.  And the ‘get out of jail’ card for many of these students is ‘I was never good at Maths’.

Of course then there are the students who are absolutely petrified of Maths.  In my ten years lecturing Maths, I have had more than a few students who are like rabbits in the headlights in Maths class.  The first few weeks are always touch and go as to whether they will stay or bolt. In discussions with many of these students over the years, I have been shocked to discover that Maths is one of the subjects that they most fear in their Computer Science courses.  This never makes sense to me, as for many of these students, Maths is one of the few subjects that they will have seen before.  This should be the subject that gives them comfort as they struggle with topics such as programming, networking etc.  What gives me a great sense of personal satisfaction is when these same students tell me that they will miss Maths.

There has been a lot of discussion about the issues with Maths education in Ireland over the past few years.  The new Project Maths syllabus has been introduced which is being rolled out on a phased basis. I’m really looking forward to the rollout of Project Maths over the next few years – before I looked into the changes which are proposed in the new Maths syllabus I was concerned about what was being removed from the syllabus.  Since then, I have had a look at the changes and while some topics are being removed and others are being pared back I think that the emphasis on applications is a very positive step forward.  It is absolutely crucial that students can place Maths in context.  Hearing students say that they will never use Maths, as they use Maths concepts without even thinking about it, shows how disconnected Maths as a subject has become from everyday life.  Anything that reverses this must be good.

While I welcome the change in emphasis in the Maths curriculum in second level, I personally don’t think it should happen in isolation.  I think we need to address the elephant in the room, which is the social acceptability of the lack of ease with Maths.  This often manifests itself in the home.  Parents who themselves are not confident in their Maths ability often pass on these insecurities about Maths to their children without even being aware of it.  Many parents, whose children are in primary school, often feel ill equipped to help their children with their Maths homework as they move up the classes.  If the child feels insecure in their own ability in Maths by the time they leave primary school, then ‘not being good’ at Maths becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as they tackle more abstract Maths concepts.  I would love to see a real engagement with parents over the coming years. Supporting parents to conquer their own Maths demons, will surely only help to overcome the Maths demons of the upcoming generation before they manifest themselves.

As always thoughts etc. gratefully accepted.

New Year’s resolutions revisited

2011 was a year where I have really begun to integrate technology into how I do what I do. As someone with a background in technology I didn’t, and don’t, have a fear of technology but I don’t think I really ever used it as I should. Like all of my colleagues in LIT Tipperary I’ve used Moodle etc. over a number of years and as a Maths lecturer I’ve always been aware of the potential for using technology in my class, but I’m not sure that I’ve leveraged the potential of technology as much as I could, or should have. Due to a number of seemingly insignificant changes during 2011, I really feel like I’m now beginning to exploit the real potential of technology.

I didn’t sign up for Twitter in 2011 but really started using it in anger in 2011. Now that I’ve connected with so many people on Twitter, and am learning so much in the process, I’m really looking forward to where 2012 takes us all Through my interactions with educators on Twitter, I’ve become involved in initiatives like #edchatie, #coderdojo and #ccGlobal. These initiatives have pushed me out of my own comfort zone but have enriched my interactions with students in many ways. I’ve also used Twitter to source presenters for the ICT in Education conference,  http://www.lit.ie/Tipperary/Schools/default.aspx, which I believe has really strengthened the breadth of sharing that happens in Thurles in May every year.

2011 was also the year where Google+ came on stream. I couldn’t wait to sign up during the summer, frantically trying to get an invitation and waiting for the window of opportunity to use the invitation. I must admit however that I haven’t been bowled over by G+. I find I’m overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information that is to be found there. I think this is partly my own fault, because I haven’t really organised my connections into coherent circles, but for me twitter reigns supreme. I know that there is a huge volume of information etc. also to be found on Twitter, but I seem to have found a way of working with Twitter that works well for me. I suppose the beauty of Twitter for me is that, the brevity of the message focusses my own and other peoples thoughts. What I do love G+ for are the hangouts, which allow you to connect via webcam with others on G+. I have used hangouts to connect with others to discuss various #ccGlobal projects and to connect my daughters class with Michael Thornton’s (@mthornton78) class in Virginia USA.

2011 was also the year when I started this blog – I was shocked to be both nominated and shortlisted for the Edublog Awards in the best new blog category. What has really surprised me though is how much I enjoy writing the blog posts. I suppose what finally persuaded me to start the blog in 2011 is the fact that I’m hoping to start a PhD in 2012. The write up holds a particular terror for me, not to mention the rest!, so I decided to start blogging to get me into the writing habit. Hopefully I’ll be writing about the start of my PhD journey during 2012 .

My first blog post was my academic New Year resolutions http://pamobriensblog.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/new-years-resolutions/. The resolution I made, was to do what I do differently, and, as a way of focussing my mind I made a list of three ways I was going to do this – start the blog, use a wiki with my class and create podcasts to supplement my notes for my students. Unfortunately I’ve really only stuck to one of these, this blog which I’ve kept reasonably well updated. The other two haven’t worked out as I’d hoped thy would. To be honest, I think it’s more a discussion forum than a wiki that I wanted to use with my students. The aim of the discussion forum, is to encourage a greater understanding of the importance of Maths concepts in various areas of Computer Science, so this is where I’m going to focus my attention as I start a new academic term. Regarding the podcasts, it didn’t really happen for various reasons last term, but I will right that wrong in the forthcoming term. The equipment I was using, a Logitech webcam, really wasn’t fit for purpose so I acquired a Livescribe pen during last term. Once I complete the end of term corrections during the coming week, I will focus my attention on producing pen casts which will include audio with my notes. I hope these will be of benefit for my students. While I didn’t produce my own podcasts during the last term, I did source podcasts on YouTube for various topics, which seemed to benefit the students. The other use of technology I used in class, which worked very well last term, was Java programming. The feedback from the students was very positive, so I will continue to reinforce the very strong connections between Maths and programming by including more programming in my tutorials.

My final resolution is to submit a proposal to present at the CESI conference (http://www.cesi.ie/conference-2012) which is to be held in Portlaoise on the 24th and 25th February. As an organiser of the ICT in Education conference I’m quick to ask others to present but have always shied away from presenting myself. 2012 is the year where I push myself out of my comfort zone and share what I find useful from a technology perspective. I’m very aware that a lot of teachers can find technology very intimidating simply because of the sheer volume of tools and different technologies out there. I’m thinking of proposing a workshop on Twitter and Google+ hangouts, not as an expert but as an ordinary user of these technologies. As always, any thoughts etc. gratefully accepted.