"The Los Angeles Board of Education votes to require grades of D or better in college-prep classes starting with incoming ninth-graders in the fall, raising requirements to a C for the Class of 2017." That is the subtitle for the following article:

Blume, Howard (5/9/2012).  All L.A. Unified students must pass college-prep courses. Los Angles Times. Retrieved 5/13/2012 from http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0509-lausd-20120509,0,245781.story.

The underlying idea is that all students should be required to get a good education, where “good” means be prepared to enter the California State University System. Students not achieving this "good" education will not be allowed to graduate from high school. In my opinion, the definition of “good” is “bad.”

Last week I attended a lecture on Computational Behavioral Sciences. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but the word “Computational” caught my attention. I know a little about Computational Thinking, especially as it has been applied in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines. I looked forward to learning about related ideas in the humanities.

The talk was held in the building at the University of Oregon that houses the Computer and Information Science Department. I got there a few minutes early and struck up a conversation with a person seated next to me. He indicted he was a faculty member in the CIS Department specializing in machine learning.

By luck, the previous day I had read an article on the use of machine learning in developing a short and easy to administer written test for Autism. So I brought up this topic and we had a pleasant conversation.

Recent reports indicate that the rate of autism incidence has risen to 1 in 88 children in the United States. The following article provides information about a short and reliable Web-based creening test.

DuBoff, Katie (4/10/2012). Web-based tool produces fast, accurate autism diagnosis. Harvard Medical School. Retrieved 4/22/2012 from http://hms.harvard.edu/content/web-based-tool-produces-fast-accurate-autism-diagnosis.

Background

Quoting from the article:

Many “students of all ages” are interested in and regularly play computer games. Often these games are quite challenging and require a lot of effort to learn. Educators are trying to figure out how to make effective use of this game-playing motivation in education.

The following article provides a good analysis on research and thinking about use  of electronic games in education.

Gadi Alexander, Isabelle Eaton & Kieran Egan (2010).  Cracking the code of electronic games: Some lessons for educators. Teachers College Record. Retrieved 4/15/2012 from http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=15917.

We all accept the importance of children learning to read. By the end of the third grade we expect children to read well enough so that reading can be an important aid to learning. By about the seventh grade, we expect children to read enough so that reading can be a major aid to learning across the curriculum.

I was somewhat surprised to encounter the following two articles about the math as an important component of early childhood education. The articles indicate that a preschool student’s understanding of math is a very good predictor of success in school.

Stipek, Deborah; Schoenfeld, Alan; and Gomby, Deanna 3/28/2012). Math matters, even for little kids. Education Week. Retrieved 4/15/2012 from http://www.schoolleadership20.com/profiles/blogs/math-matters-even-for-little-kids.

Several states now require and/or working toward requiring all students to take at least one online course as part of their high school graduation requirements. I have supported this endeavor for a number of years.

I find it interesting to read the “justifications” or expected outcomes that are stated for this requirement. Recently I read the following article:

Brown, Emma (4/6/2012). Virginia’s new high school graduation requirement: One online course. The Washington Post.  Retrieved 4/9/2012 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/virginia-schools-insider/post/virginias-new-high-school-graduation-requirement-one-online-course/2012/04/06/gIQAaz7E0S_blog.html.

The idea of requiring all students at the precollege level to learn something about computers (to gain in computer literacy) has been around for a great many years. In 1982 Art Luehrmann wrote an article, “Should the computer teach the student, or vice-versa? The article discusses computing literacy. Quoting form the article:

Mass computing literacy is not an agreed-upon educational goal. Today very few courses at any educational level show students how to use computing as an intellectual tool with applications to the subject matter being taught. Oh, there are a few isolated, subject-matter-free courses in computer programming; but their market is largely restricted to vocational-education students, at one end of the spectrum, and future computer professionals at the other. It is true that most schools consider it prestigious to have a large and powerful computer facility; but the fact of the matter is that such computers are usually the captives of research and administrative interests and operate on a pay-as-you-go basis. Ironically, it is in the most prestigious universities that students are least likely to be permitted to use those prestigious computers. It is a rare secondary school, college, or university that budgets and operates its computer facility in the same way that it budgets and operates its library. … In the main, literacy in computing simply is not an educational goal at many schools. Most educators seem to find bizarre the suggestion that accreditation agencies examine schools for the quality of their educational computing facilities, just as they now do with libraries. (Learn more about Art Luehrmann at http://iae-pedia.org/Arthur_Luehrmann.)

The 1983 report, “A Nation at Risk” (http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/index.html) includes the statement:

As I read, large numbers tend to capture my attention. Recently I browsed the article:

Jackson, Jaob (4/2/2012). IBM to develop telescope data analysis system. Computerworld. Retrieved 4/4/2012 from http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225739/IBM_to_develop_telescope_data_analysis_system.

The article talks about the challenge of storing and processing an exabyte of data per day. I am a numbers person, but a picture or other image of an exabyte does not immediately pop into my head. Here is how I handled the situation.

The following 81-page book is available free in both PDF and Microsoft Word formats:

Moursund, David (March, 2012). Good math lesson planning and implementation. Eugene, OR: Information Age Education. Download the PDF file from http://i-a-e.org/downloads/doc_download/230-good-math-lesson-plans.html and the Microsoft Word file from http://i-a-e.org/downloads/doc_download/229-good-math-lesson-plans.html.

The book draws heavily on the IAE-pedia document Good Math Lesson Plans available at http://iae-pedia.org/Good_Math_Lesson_Plans. That page is by far the most popular of the content pages in the IAE-pedia. It had had over 73,500 visits as of 3/26/2012, the date when the book first became available.

Ever since I was a young child, I have enjoyed playing games.  As a child, I enjoyed playing board games, card games, and a variety of sports. As an adult I continued my interest in board and card games. Eventually computer-based games came along, and they have consumed many hundreds of hours (would I admit to thousands of hours?) of my leisure time. I have even managed to tie some of what I learned by game playing into my professional work. See the References section of this IAE Blog entry.

There is a steadily growing research literature on use of games in education. The following article is about James Gee, one of the researchers.

Larmer, John (3/21/2012). James Gee: What do video games have to do with Project-Based learning? edutopia. Retrieved 4/2/2012 from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/james-gee-video-game-project-based-learning.