Poet Ponders the Digital

If you want to learn Objective-C, it helps to know C. Learning C — or reviewing it — is a good way to become familiar with Apple's development tools, too. Learning to program is a cause of mine. I advocate teaching programming to all students, not merely a handful of geeks, hackers, or nerds. When we teach everyone about coding, it demystifies how computers work and it introduces students from a wider variety of backgrounds to what could be an excellent career path. Years ago, educators would use LOGO or BASIC in elementary school classrooms. Then, along came HyperCard. There are still introductory programming tools based on LOGO, BASIC, and HyperTalk languages. You can learn to program using AppleScript or by writing Microsoft Word macros in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Personally, I'm for using whatever tools a teacher might enjoy at the earlier ages (K-6). In high school, though, I am biased towards plain, simple, C as a foundation for future coding skills. ...

Can software accurately analyze the writing style of an author to determine if he or she wrote a specific work? Maybe… Open source app can detect text's authors http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/22/author_detection_uni_adelaide/ A group of Adelaide researchers has released an open-source tool that helps identify document authorship by comparing texts. While their own test cases – and therefore the headlines – concentrated on identifying the authors of historical documents, it seems to The Register that any number of modern uses of such a tool might arise. The two test cases the researchers drew on in developing their software, on Github here, were a series of US essays called The Federalist Papers, and the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament. The Federalist Paper essays were written in the lead-up to the drafting of the US Constitution, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. Of the 85 essays, the authorship of 12 is disputed and one has generally been at...

Computers have changed writing education, but many writing teachers wonder if technology is now turning into a threat. Too many politicians, administrators, and non-profit foundations are rushing to embrace technologies such as MOOCs and adaptive tutoring without skepticism. What is the balance between too little and too much faith in technology? The question of what computing technology can and cannot do for writing students is something we need to consider — as well as whether or not some of these tasks should be done (by a computer or a human). 1) Formatting. I cannot remember the intricacies of APA or MLA, so I use Bookends with my writing tools. Even Word has improved its basic bibliography formatter to the point I catch few minor errors when I triple check the entries. Yes, I do tell my students to double and triple check citations and bibliographies, but I also demonstrate Bookends, EndNote, RefWords, and Word's built-in tools. The time saved lets a writer focus on c...

As readers of this blog know, the more I delve into programming, the more convinced I am that it should be a standard school subject — not merely an elective sought after by a few enthusiastic students. Programming skills reinforce the value of breaking problems into simpler pieces. In the end, a computer must reduce problems to simple tasks. Good writers, historians, chemists… we all break problems into little, digestible, solvable tasks. And just as a musician must practice scales, the basics of programming need to be practiced and sometimes revived. It is no secret that my C skills have atrophied, so I am starting from the beginning. My journey towards Cocoa Goodness begins with two books: Clair, Robert. Learning Objective-C 2.0: A Hands-on Guide to Objective-C for Mac and iOS Developers (2nd Edition) ., 2013. 9780321832085 / 0321832086 Perry, Greg M. Absolute Beginner's Guide to C. 2nd ed., Indianapolis, Ind.: Sams Pub., 1994. 0672305100 In the early pages of Clair...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley April 8, 2013 Deadline May 2013 Issue Tech Etiquette: Why Manners Still Matter As my wife and I watched the actors on stage, the woman sitting beside me raised her iPad and started to record the performance. She waved the iPad, aiming around and above the people sitting in the row below us. I dodged her elbows and tried to ignore this breach of etiquette as best I could. When you attend a live event, unless it is your child’s play or recital, do not try to record the performance with a phone or tablet. The devices are not inconspicuous. A handheld video camera might be small and (slightly) less annoying to other audience members, and I’d still prefer that nobody have one in the audience. Community and college theater companies often record their performances. If you ask, many schools and community groups will make copies of their recordings. Yet, I counted at least a dozen people trying to capture video on phones and tablets during the night. I’...

As readers of my blogs know, I'm never opposed to using technology when it is an effective tool. I am opposed to the blind embrace of the latest trends without critical examination of the potential side effects. Computer-assisted grading, I can endorse to some extent because I use software to help me analyze student papers — and my own writings. But, I cannot and will not endorse any system that gives weight to the computer-based scoring. If you're a teacher, consider this petition: http://humanreaders.org/petition/index.php Now, I also want to add a critical comment on human graders. If the graders of standardized tests are using rigid scoring rubrics, they are little better than software algorithms. Bad grading is bad grading. Inflexible = bad. Again, I am not opposed to using a computer for fact checking, some plagiarism verification, and as formatting aids. Computers can and do help many of us write more effectively. But, I don't use computers to grade pape...

I have been contemplating if online learning differs by discipline, especially after reading a few studies on the topic. One of the studies (Xu & Jaggars, 2013), found: The subject areas in which the negative coefficients for online learning were weaker than average in terms of both course persistence and course grades (indicating that students were relatively better able to adapt to online learning in these subjects) were computer science, the applied professions, and natural science. Are the STEM fields that different, in terms of pedagogy and goals, from the humanities? Of course, we could certainly argue that the sciences are often taught divorced from ethics and humanistic concerns, but the teaching methods, objects, and outcomes assessments are my primary concern when reading such studies. Do Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) work better in the STEM fields than in the humanities? The coding course I'm currently working through is offered by a Russian institution...

This article is one of the better examinations of the MOOC trend… MOOCs: Will Online Education Ruin the University Experience? | New Republic

Are computer languages inherently "artificial" and "pure" — either like Esperanto or a dead language, such as Latin? Or, are computer languages as much "living" as spoken languages? Understand, I am not considering low-level assemblers or "dead" computer languages that exist in virtual museums (and yes, there are tech archives to explore). I mean the languages that are in wide enough use that programmers develop attachments to them and vocally argue about their futures. In spoken languages, some people are purists. These experts like to "prescribe" grammars and the meanings of words, insisting on a rigid approach to a language. By comparison, some scholars of language as "descriptive" researchers, trying to document a language's evolution. Most scholars, however, are a bit of both — we try to prescribe dominant rules, while accepting change will happen. The French try desperately to maintain an official "Frenc...