Please note there is another new post below this one, with some Science Olympiad information. I'm posting twice today because I've been saving up, and I don't want anyone to miss the Science Olympiad post.
Career Talk
I recently had the opportunity to talk about programming as a career
with K's second grade class. I wanted to find a way to get the kids thinking about computers they use in every day life, and understand that computers are everywhere.
I brought in a box of toys and other items from around the house.
These included an iPod touch, electronic keyboard, a magazine,
Nintendo DS, a stuffed toy that talks when you squeeze it, a pen, a BlackBerry phone, a calculator, and a toy car.
When I held up each item, I asked the students if it had a
computer in it. If they said yes, I asked them what the computer
did. A few items, like the electronic keyboard, confused them - most
thought it did not have a computer in it. They understood that the
BlackBerry and iPod had a computer, and they were not sure about the
stuffed toy that talked. The toy car didn’t have a computer in it,
but we talked about a real car, which has numerous computers in it – I
asked them what kind of computers were in a car, and they knew some of
them -radio, GPS system, etc. I also said there were other computers
as well that kept the car running, such as fuel injection control. I
think it was important that I brought in things that did not have a
computer in them to create a contrast.
Input, Instructions, and Output
At that point I told them a little about input and output from a
program. A program, simply put, has three parts: input, instructions, and output.
A program acts on the input by following some instructions, then
outputs something to the user as a result.
We talked about a calculator – input is when you press the number and plus/minus/multiply/divide buttons, and when the equal sign is pressed, instructions execute. The output (result) is shown on the screen. With this in mind, I brought out the items from the box again, and we talked about the input to each of
them, what instructions they might execute inside, and what the output
is.
We listed our inputs:
* Mouse click
* Keyboard typing
* Touch screen
* Voice
* A signal from a cell phone tower that tells the phone it’s receiving
a call
* A motion that causes an accelerometer to act on the current display
(such as turning an iPod touch on its side)
* A camera that tracks the eye motion of a physically handicapped
user, and moves the mouse pointer in response.
* A computer that acts when a timer goes off, such as an alarm clock.
In this case, the input to one program is controlled by another
program.
* Etc.
Then we listed the outputs we could think of:
* Screen changes
* Sounds
* Program changes (a menu selection changes what the program is doing,
or closed the program, etc.)
* Sometimes no output means we did something right (we didn’t get an
error message)
* A mouse pointer may change to an hourglass to tell us something is
happening.
* A signal out of a phone, telling the cell phone network that it is
making a call.
* Etc.
I had a lot of fun, and I think this time the kids had fun too. I
could tell that some of the kids never thought of these toys and
devices containing computers, they just think of a Mac or a PC as a
computer. Now they see these things differently, and I hope they will
start to think of inputs and outputs when they use one.
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Sportsmanship
There are so many inspiring stories about athletes who, individually or as a team, show outstanding sportsmanship by allowing the win/loss statistics to come in second to basic human decency. For example, we occasionally hear about a high school team who allows a mentally handicapped student assistant to take a handoff and run the ball during a real game. One event I heard about had the players from both teams form two parallel lines running from the line of scrimmage to the end zone, and they applauded the student as he ran between them for a touchdown.
This story, about a top-notch high school softball team, is pretty amazing. What they did is the kind of thing I hope that my kids will do someday for someone else when they have an opportunity, either in sports, or in some other part of their lives.
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A Few Fun Links
Semicolon usage
The same newspaper prop is used over and over in films and TV.
Please buy this Les Paul guitar before someone else does. Gorgeous.
2 comments:
The semicolon stuff was correct AND fun. (And people thing grammar is boring....) Gud riting ain't so tuff.
And I wouldn't have believed the newspaper prop if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes (on the internet, where everything is true).
The guitar is awfully plain for $27,500 - no carving or engraving, bo inlays on the fretboard. I'll go to $350 because the wood's OK. Needs painted, though.
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