9 while 9

Literature, advanced technology, composition education in metro Maryland. In no order: social and economic justice; equity; digital humanities; education technology; Victorian literature; American literature after WWII, humanities computing; critical pedagogy; photography; open access; open source; F/LOSS; free school; critical theory; new media; GNU/Linux; TurnKey Linux; Debian and Ubuntu (both); continental philosophy...

[blerchin]

Culture isn’t dissimilar from software. We improve our code by reverse engineering how someone else’s works. We read books and articles about best practices. We read through issues that teach us more than we could have contributed to solving, but that’s okay. We know that this is how software is made - through making mistakes, learning, correcting, and providing that environment for people who aren’t yet to the same level we are. Culture is the same way - it’s an accumulation of effort, education, adjusting, and showing others how to be better by being better ourselves. The role of critique is essential in this process, providing needed feedback and pushing us harder than we’d push ourselves.

Model View Culture (via blerchin)

[9while9]

STEM, ICT, Raspberry Pi, and Mohawk Guy: What our kids respond to.

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Give the middle division students' game a try: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/14703359. Consider leaving a comment?

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The Open Source Scholarship from WV University’s Computer Science Dept believes involvement in open source communities will be an important part of the education of any student who is interested in a career in software and technology; this scholarship to help grow and foster a student’s interest in open source and free software.

[9while9]

We must finally acknowledge that our digital cultures will demand that students do more than consume digital culture - our most successful students will be able to participate in the production of our digital worlds.

Scratch, a visual programming language developed at MIT, has emerged as a very powerful tool to get kids as young as 6 years old coding meaningfully and purposefully.

While working to better understand how software and hardware interact, Chelsea School's middle-division technologists collaborated to create and publish their first puzzle/game. After learning about Scratch, students approached the traditional maze puzzle and re-imagined it for digital culture. Students generated mazes using an online maze generator and processed the maze graphics in an image editor. They hacked together code that recognizes when players touch the lines, and programmed an appropriate resultant action. With the maze puzzle algorithm in place, students could develop game play influenced by successful board game. For example, if players bump into a red spot (the antagonists), the script silently works out “combat” using a random number generator that emulates a die roll. Conditionals than determine whether to reward the player.

High School students at Chelsea School have the opportunity to work with coding concepts such as variables, loops, conditionals, and algorithms through courses like Information Systems Management and Web Design and Development (both completer pathways to graduation).

With this project, middle school students at Chelsea School now share with them an understanding of how actively shape our designed world.

Give our students’ game a try: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/14703359. Please consider leaving a comment.

[acadaimon-blog]

A ‘desiring machine’ opposes the notion of unity or oneness: the elements or discontinuities that compose it do not belong to either an original totality that has been lost or one which finalizes or completes it, a telos … Desire does not create permanent multiplicities; it experiments, producing ever-new alignments, linkages, and connections, making things. It is fundamentally nomadic not teleological, meandering, creative, nonrepetitive, proliferative, unpredictable.

Elizabeth Grosz (1994). Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; p. 168. (via acadaimon)

[brucesterling]

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This Beautiful Textbook Is Designed to Make You Feel Dyslexic | Wired Design | Wired.com

Sam Barclay's goal is to simulate what it's like for someone with a learning disability while explaining the underlying psychology.

[notational]

The publication has 70 contributors ‐ primarily from contemporary art and academia ‐ and its 352 pages are bound in ten pocket-sized zine-like volumes. The project takes the topic of DIY culture literally by printing an edition of 300 copies on a hacked photocopier with booklets that were manually folded, stapled and cut. Academic publishing is at a point in history where it deserves to be questioned, and this project proposes that a small-scale run on a photocopier by one person can have more impact than an academic monograph from a major university press.

Critical Making - Hertz (via notational)

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Teaching Computing to Middle Division Students

So I'm split. I believe computing should be taught to US middle division students as UK's Computing at School would have it. I've made a curriculum for proposal to the State; interested folk can see it here (always looking for collaborators, btw). In the meantime, I'm bound by the state curriculum, which suggests this be an Computer Applications class.

Until I'm over this split, I'm doing it both ways. We're programming this to satisfy my compulsion to make this a foundation for innovative new thinkers:

To satisfy the State, I'm teaching the image manipulation required by the code, word processing required by documentation, and web literacy through social media. What do you think?

(To use, click on the green start button, then use cursor keys to manoeuvre the red dot through the maze until it reaches the yellowish dot marking the end.)

The code is in Scratch, and inspired by a glance at the book Scratch Programming in Easy Steps. It relies on a maze generated here.

[9while9]

Use a Built-In Windows Utility to Create Self-Extracting Archives

Most any savvy computer user is probably pretty handy with a free compression and archiving tool (like, say, 7-Zip), but not everyone they send files to will be. The Confessions of a Freeware Junkie blog points out that IExpress.exe, a built-in utility you simply type into the "Run" menu in Windows XP or "Start Search" in Vista, can create self-extracting archives to be emailed to anyone using Windows. Just choose "Extract files only" while clicking through the wizard interface, choose the files to be zipped up, and the end user only has to double-click to get them. IExpress also works as an easy way to convert batch files into executables. Need more info on IExpress? Check out Microsoft's help page on the tool.

[9while9]

10 Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 13.10

Ubuntu 13.10 is out, you've upgraded, and you're wondering what to do now. Don't fret - here are 10 things to do after installing Ubuntu 13.10.

For those of us with open source computing labs...here's a task list for students to accomplish.

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Hope this finds the right people looking to serve a great population in a new facility, just outside DC.

I encourage you to signal boost; it's a good opportunity that shouldn't be missed.

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Ada Lovelace

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An Ada Lovelace Day Appreciation Post

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Ada Lovelace Day Posts in the Twittersphere

#adalovelaceday