[Microbit-Python] What is the goal of micro:bit? ( Was Re: Flat API )

Wed Sep 23 15:56:01 CEST 2015

By chance, and related - this came by my twitter feed today:

http://edtechnology.co.uk/Article/girls-think-stem-subjects-are-too-hard

Basically says 60% of girls aged 12 (ie in Year 7) think that STEM subjects
are for boys, not for girls, because they perceive that the subjects are
too which makes it a boys subject. That's just one example of the issues
here. (They're wrong, for the statistics that I've seen that are
comparable, girls do on average 5% better, but 5% never won hearts and
minds! Flashing heart logo when your friends are nearby, that's a different
matter :-)

(There's many studies like this, but worth raising as a factor)

Michael.

On 23 September 2015 at 11:24, Nicholas H.Tollervey <ntoll at ntoll.org> wrote:

> +1
>
> N.
>
> (at work so brevity required)
>
> On 23/09/15 10:44, Damien George wrote:
> > Thanks Michael, that's a great read and good to have a "mission
> > statement" to make decisions by.
> >
> > We do need to remember that Touch Develop and Code Kingdoms provide an
> > alternative to (Micro)Python (and MP provides an alternative to them)
> > and having alternatives already increases the adoption and use of the
> > device.  Some students might find the blockly interface more
> > inspiring, while others like Python.  So it's important that we
> > provide something *different* (and I think Python is providing a
> > little more computer-science rigour than the other offerings).
> >
> > We must also remember that we're bound by the Python language itself
> > -- and the Python way of doing things -- so that places some
> > restrictions on API design.
> >
> > I think though that we can slightly modify our API design to fit
> > better with Michael's statement.  I propose:
> >
> > 1. We replace microbit.pins.p[0-20] with top level names microbit.pin0
> > .. microbit.pin20.  This removes a "namespace" level but still keps
> > things clean (pin0.write_digital(1) is pretty obvious).
> >
> > 2. We revert to microbit.button_a and microbit.button_b.
> >
> > 3. On entering the REPL we execute from microbit import * to make all
> > names available.  Then it's very easy for a student to do
> > display.print('hello!'), and other things.  We should ensure that
> > there are no short names in the microbit namespace that could easily
> > clash with other names.
> >
> > 4. We should have from microbit import * written automatically at the
> > start of the script in the editor (currently we have import microbit).
> > That way students have immediate access to the functions/objects, but
> > they can change that line to import microbit if they want.
> >
> > I think other decisions, like whether we use read_digital,
> > digital_read or set_digital_value, are neither here nor there and
> > don't affect the "first impressions" of the device (but still we'll
> > try to choose sensible and consistent names).  For the students that
> > are hard to reach and engage, as long as the teacher can get them a
> > REPL, they can type display.print('hahaha') and get something working,
> > I think that's the best we can offer.
> >
> > Python's learning curve is shallow but long.  And we can make the same
> > thing on the microbit: the first thing kids do (display.print) should
> > be super easy to do.  And from there it should be a gradual learning
> > curve towards more fun and advanced things.  And the learning curve
> > should continue for a long time for those more advanced students.  I
> > think we can do that.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 10:02 AM, Michael <sparks.m at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> [ This email has become a bit longer than I intended but I think it's
> >> important to say, since this was a great question, and deserves a proper
> >> answer. It's passionately it seems, but certainly isn't critiquing
> anyone or
> >> any API! ]
> >>
> >>> What is the goal of micro:bit?
> >>>
> >>> Is it to teach 11 year-olds good programming skills?
> >>>
> >>> Or is it to inspire 11 year-olds with an interest in problem solving,
> STEM
> >>> etc.?
> >>
> >> While I don't think (and I doubt you do either) this is either/or,
> you're
> >> right, there is a trade off.
> >>
> >> The goal of micro:bit is very much the latter. To INSPIRE a generation.
> >> Quite literally.
> >>
> >> Why?
> >>
> >> Over the past 10 years the numbers of children taking computing in the
> UK
> >> dropped dramatically. At A-Level - where they should be able to come
> out of
> >> school with useful skills (I know I did) - esp if they get an A or a B
> - the
> >> numbers dropped below 4000 children nationally taking A-Level. Out of
> those,
> >> less than 200 were young ladies, and out of those less than 50 got
> grade A
> >> or B at A-Level. (ie more women at the Django Girls track at pycon UK
> gained
> >> useful skills than young ladies as recently as 2013 - which is when I
> last
> >> crunched the stats. (I've got graphs that show this if people are really
> >> interested)
> >>
> >> There are improvements across the board since 2013, and the curriculum
> is
> >> there to teach those good skills.
> >>
> >> The micro:bit is NOT there to replace the curriculum, or teachers. It is
> >> designed very heavily with the start of Key Stage 3 in mind - both in
> >> computing but in design technology, science and textiles as well. (Key
> Stage
> >> three is the first three years of seconday school for those like me who
> >> never has KS3, Y7/9 in their vocabulary. It's the 3 years you learn
> stuff
> >> without the pressure of exams in secondary school, ages 11-14)
> >>
> >> It isn't designed to replace anything else on the market. It is designed
> >> however to help and ENTICE people get the first rung on the ladder
> whereby
> >> they they think the ladder might be worth climing.
> >>
> >> It's aim is to INSPIRE.
> >>
> >> Who is it intended to inspire?
> >>
> >> Geeks? No. They'll get interested anyway. None of us on this list is
> now or
> >> ever has been the target audience.
> >>
> >> Kids with inspired, inspiring, engaged teachers? No. They're awesome,
> this
> >> is intended to help them inspire their kids, but they're not the
> audience.
> >> They'd find *something* however, without this. (this also means any
> teacher
> >> who attended Pycon UK is also NOT the audience, since they're already
> >> engaged.)
> >>
> >> The audience is the child who has yet to be turned off computing (but
> will
> >> be or perhaps has been) because they've had 6/7 years of homework in
> primary
> >> school and for the past 4 of them they've probably been using computers
> to
> >> write up and draw up their homework, and to open their eyes to the idea
> that
> >> they can create something cool.
> >>
> >> The idea is to simply make it as simple, as possible, as accessible as
> >> possible for the child who who when exposed to this stuff becomes
> >> interested. (After all, by the time they reach A-Level, that's 36,000
> >> children who were turned off by the curriculum)
> >>
> >> It's the child who is not just pre-GCSE, but 2 years pre-GCSE. 2 years
> >> pre-GCSE in a school where a teacher teaches the bare minimum of the
> >> simplest curriculum, which they chose because they don't know very much
> at
> >> all.
> >>
> >> It's the child who's teacher thinks "I won't teach that that yet,
> because
> >> there'll be nothing for next year".
> >>
> >> It's the child who's teacher was until last year a Business Studies
> teacher
> >> and thinks that the move to teach coding is a stupid and annoying one,
> and
> >> that there's no point teaching year 7 or 8 anything now because by the
> time
> >> they reach year 9, the curriculum will change back again after a failed
> >> experiment.
> >>
> >> It's for the child who can't get access to a library because they live
> in
> >> the highlands of scotland, or orkneys, or Falklands.
> >>
> >> It's for the child who thinks "I can't spell, I can't do anything" - but
> >> they CAN do this, and suddenly they have a world of opportunity before
> them,
> >> and it turns out 4 years later they're undiagnosed dyslexic.
> >>
> >> It's for the child who's teacher only goes over any idea once, and
> generally
> >> only covers what's on the BBC Bytesize website, because they know the
> BBC
> >> puts a lot of effort into making that cover the curriculum (whether it
> >> achieves that is another matter), and they believe rightly or wrongly
> that's
> >> enough, and the child is ill that one day and it's never repeated.
> >>
> >> (I can think of specific representative teachers for each of these)
> >>
> >> In short, the target audience is for a child, just out of primary
> school,
> >> who's parents don't care, who's teaching support doesn't care, and
> doesn't
> >> think they can do things, and to inspire THEM that they can.
> >>
> >> It's for children who have never touched code, and are only doing so
> because
> >> their teacher is telling them to, and think they're the wrong sort of
> person
> >> (a common view amongst girls), and given half a chance they'd be doing
> >> something else.
> >>
> >> It's a device aimed at supporting EVERY child, including the "weakest"
> >> child, they child who believes they *can't* either because they really
> can't
> >> (there is a bell curve for everything), or simply because they've never
> been
> >> told they can (and needs to hear it). It's a device aimed not at you,
> or me,
> >> or our younger selves, but at everyone. It's aimed at the person you
> see in
> >> the shop who now is a checkout person, and was once 11. It's aimed the
> >> street cleaner you see, but when they were 11. It's aimed at the office
> >> worker who is bored with their work, and solves problems every day, but
> was
> >> once 11.
> >>
> >> This was the reason that the prototype had a flat API, since you only
> look
> >> in one place. It was based on watching real users and seeing the
> problems
> >> they have (the events prototype that came earlier). It's based on
> experience
> >> of working with children of all abilities - the ones with dyslexia,
> >> dyspraxia, ADD, or just plain average, or below average intelligence.
> >>
> >> Every other possible audience involved benefits from those decisions.
> >>
> >> Now, I'm not going to bikeshed the API - until I get to review what's
> been
> >> proposed - since that's really unfair and disrespectful to those who
> >> graciously gave up their time on monday, for which I'm very thankful.
> >>
> >> Given the choice, in this project I choose inspiration, not correctness,
> >> every time. You could say people often say "Make it work, make it work
> >> right, make it fast", but before that there has to be the decision "to
> >> make".
> >>
> >> On that basis, I didn't even require this line:
> >>
> >>     from microbit import *
> >>
> >> Or this:
> >>
> >>     import microbit
> >>
> >> The functions were just considerded builtins to the device. I can see
> why
> >> every other python programmer balks at this, but this is precisely the
> >> approach that pygame zero takes (I'd not seen that before pycon uk, so
> my
> >> impression could be wrong there).
> >>
> >> That said, to put this into perspective, if we inspire just 3% of
> children
> >> to change their minds and start climbing the ladder, then we haven't
> just
> >> done good, but we will actually have reversed 15-17 years of decline in
> this
> >> field, and that will hit in 2020. (rather than 2028 - which is when the
> >> first set of primary kids starting the new curriculum will leave school)
> >>
> >> Hmm. That was longer than I expected. Sorry about that.
> >>
> >>
> >> But I do know the answer to this question - the goal of the micro:bit is
> >> very simply INSPIRATION, and that should be the trade off here. (But
> yes,
> >> correctness matters)
> >>
> >> As I said though, this isn't posted to critique or support any
> particular
> >> API. It's just intended to explain the thinking behind the device, and
> the
> >> impact on my thinking when building the prototype and designing its
> API. I
> >> also think that the decision won't be mine and shouldn't be mine
> either, and
> >> I'll support whatever decision IS made, proudly and loudly.
> >>
> >> While getting resources and materials done ASAP does matter, sacrificing
> >> that for spending a day or two discussing whether an API is the right
> one -
> >> especially with regard to the tensions between ease of use and
> "correctness"
> >> is good.
> >>
> >> Pythonic-ness good. Micro-bitty-ness, better :-)
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Michael.
> >>
> >> (and once again, sorry about the length of this, but I feel pretty
> >> passionately about this :-)
> >>
> >>
> >> On 23 September 2015 at 00:25, Alan <alainjackson at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Sometimes when agreement doesn't come easily it can be because the goal
> >>> isn't clear to everyone.... which made think that perhaps the goal
> isn't
> >>> clear to me.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> If it's the first, then there's a strong case to make our designs
> >>> "proper", even at the expense of making things a bit more difficult
> for the
> >>> novice initially.
> >>>
> >>> If it's the second then the emphasis changes and it's more weighted
> >>> towards accessibility, I think.
> >>>
> >>> I realise I've been assuming the goal is the second and I'm happy to be
> >>> corrected if it's not.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> In my mind the micro:bit is it's own fun little problem solving
> universe.
> >>> It doesn't have a web browser or built in games (yay!) - it's only
> going to
> >>> do what you make it do. It's amazing that you can program it in
> python. Even
> >>> if it happened to use some non-standard variant of python or its API
> wasn't
> >>> completely "proper" it wouldn't really bother me... iff we're aiming
> for the
> >>> second goal. If we're aiming for the first, it would bother me.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> When I suggested a flat version of the API I wasn't just thinking
> about 11
> >>> year-olds and their typing or spelling ski11z, I was thinking about
> teachers
> >>> and myself. I'm wondering if, in the classroom (which is only one
> situation
> >>> of its use), it's going to feel more like "live coding". It really did
> for
> >>> me when we were all round the table at pycon and Nick was saying
> "You've got
> >>> 20 minutes to make something interesting", and I was coding on the
> REPL,
> >>> continuously recreating my program with the up arrow and finding out
> the
> >>> command history is only 10 lines.
> >>>
> >>> If these thoughts aren't useful or are bike-shedding, please ignore
> them.
> >>> I don't want to waste your valuable time and distract you from the cool
> >>> stuff you're doing.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>>
> >>> Alan
> >>>
> >>> ________________________________
> >>> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 23:13:17 +0100
> >>> From: david at thinkingbinaries.com
> >>> To: microbit at python.org
> >>> Subject: Re: [Microbit-Python] Flat API
> >>>
> >>> I'm sure both GCSE and AQA specifications talk about abstraction and
> >>> decomposition - how can you do that without functions??
> >>>
> >>> All our 11 year olds use functions in the schools I work with. We
> >>> introduce functions in Adventures in Minecraft (aimed at 11-15 year
> olds and
> >>> mostly syncronised to the GCSE curriculum) in chapter 3 and use them
> >>> extensively through to chapter 10 as a way to build up and test
> programs in
> >>> small incremental steps.
> >>>
> >>> I personally think OCR are wrong on this.
> >>>
> >>> D
> >>>
> >>> ___________________________________________________________
> >>> David Whale, B.Sc (Hons), MIET
> >>> Software Engineer and IET Schools Liaison Officer, Essex
> >>>
> >>> email:  dwhale at theiet.org
> >>> twitter: @whaleygeek
> >>> blog:  blog.whaleygeek.co.uk
> >>>
> >>> Co-author of the new book "Adventures in Minecraft" - lets get kids
> >>> coding!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 22 September 2015 at 16:09, Michael <sparks.m at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Cool. I was more worried I'd offended you. Glad I haven't :-)
> >>>
> >>> (it's very difficult to tell over email, so try to err on the side of
> >>> caution!)
> >>>
> >>> To explain where I'm coming from perhaps better,  I've been hanging
> out on
> >>> the computing at school forum now for 2-3 years (or more), and randomly
> >>> reply to python queries on there, and been rather surprised to see this
> >>> response sort of response from time to time - either to my replies or
> to
> >>> other people's:
> >>>
> >>>  ...  thanks for taking the time to write it. Although the fact that
> you
> >>> recommend using functions also reminded me that we are not in the right
> >>> territory: Functions are outside the scope of OCR GCSE programming,
> believe
> >>> it or not (they are present in the AQA specifications though, so maybe
> I
> >>> should switch…)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> (this was in a response to a simple question about validating input
> data,
> >>> and simply suggested simple "isint" and "isfloat" functions to avoid
> >>> repeating the same logic over and over...)
> >>>
> >>> That's a little scary to me, and it's always at the back of my mind -
> >>> because it's a far more common perspective. That comment incidentally
> is
> >>> from a teacher who is teaching 14-16 year olds rather than 11-12 year
> olds.
> >>> (and yes, there were plenty of other replies from other teachers
> saying that
> >>> was the wrong approach)
> >>>
> >>> It's interesting actually, if this was an API for CodeClubs (even for
> the
> >>> same age range), I wouldn't even have worried at all.
> >>>
> >>> Anyway, I'll wait to see the bike now before I start suggesting
> training
> >>> wheels or a different colour shed :-)
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Michael.
> >>>
> >>> On 22 September 2015 at 15:49, Larry Hastings <larry at hastings.org>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 09/22/2015 02:05 PM, Michael wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Sorry if I've offended you (it looks like I might've done).
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Naah, no worries.  And I didn't realize you weren't there yesterday--I
> >>> didn't get everybody's names.
> >>>
> >>> This is private, but I can post this to the list if you like,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> /arry
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Microbit mailing list
> >>> Microbit at python.org
> >>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/microbit
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Microbit mailing list
> >>> Microbit at python.org
> >>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/microbit
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________ Microbit mailing list
> >>> Microbit at python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/microbit
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Microbit mailing list
> >>> Microbit at python.org
> >>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/microbit
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Microbit mailing list
> >> Microbit at python.org
> >> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/microbit
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Microbit mailing list
> > Microbit at python.org
> > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/microbit
> >
>
>
>
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