Re: After Genoa - tangibles on eco-modelling
"Ken Kahn" <[email protected]> Thu, 12 May 2005 08:33:08 +0100
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------=_NextPart_000_017A_01C556CD.39B254C0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi all. I think Ylva and Jakob's work on tangibles has led to an innovative and int= eresting input device. Furthermore they showed how the device can change th= e way children build models, especially how they collaborate. I think this = is good work and I'll leave it to others to make this work fit into the pro= ject final report. Where I disagree with Joao Filipe is about the word "eco" and to lesser ext= ent "complex systems". A very quick Google search and I found "Complex Syst= ems is a journal devoted to the science, mathematics, and engineering of sy= stems with simple components but complex overall behavior." My problem with= making a connection to complex systems is I don't see what we or the kids = have to say about "the complex overall behaviour". If we want to say they w= ere doing complex systems then they should be trying to understand the over= all behaviour -- I don't recall hearing that the kids were trying to do thi= s. I have a few problems using "eco" to describe what the kids were doing. Fir= st, this year the kids have drifted even further from modelling ecologies -= - I admit that vampires and skeletons could be part of an imaginary ecology= but I think the kids were not approaching things that way. Previous years = were more focussed on ecologies. Yes, one small part of understanding ecolo= gies is that some creatures eat other creatures. But it seems hard to make = a case that kids need to build computer models to understand that more deep= ly. Ecological questions are about balance, disturbances, sustainability, e= tc. At the minimum there needs to be reproduction since without it everyone= starves. Ideally there should sources and sinks for energy and other resou= rces. Compare the WebLabs eco-literacy efforts with those in StageCast Crea= tor -- http://www.stagecast.com/cgi-bin/templator.cgi?PAGE=3DSchool/worlds/= simhost/POPULATIONGROWTH/ -- I bet the StageCast version is at least as tra= nsparent as the eco-modelling TM and is so much richer. Best, -ken ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Joao Filipe Matos=20 To: [email protected]=20 Cc: [email protected] ; Joao Filipe Matos=20 Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 4:29 PM Subject: [weblabs-general] After Genoa - tangibles on eco-modelling Dear Weblabs' First of all thanks to our Italian colleagues for the hospitality during = the meeting. When returning to Lisbon (two flights connection and 9 hours travelling) = I guess I realized how impressed I was of the reaction of several people in= the meeting after the short presentation of Ylva on Eco-modelling tangible= s, and how unconfortable I felt for not having reacted (as I think I should= ). Certainly that we need to make a (collective) effort to provide evidence= of the relevance of what we are all doing in the project and to convince o= ur audience(s) that our claims are educationaly soundfull. As this is a res= earch project, and as open-minded researchers, I think that our positioning= as researchers must go in the line of interrogate what evidence are we pro= viding for the claims we are doing and discuss this openly (and this criter= ia must certainly be equally applied to all knowledge domains) and we must = support all efforts to explore new ways of representing knowledge and devel= op powerful ideas and learning (at the end, this is what WebLabs is about). As far as I could interprete, Ylva presented a first exploration of a kin= d of tangibles that allow children to both embody and be in the millieu of = a phenomenon which clearly is in the domain of complex systems and ecology.= Being the basis to children activities a "computational world", this goes = in parallel with the work of Abelson and DiSessa when they were exploring v= irtual worlds with Logo back in the 1980's (although in different time and = distance of the technology resources available by that time) . The added va= lue of the line Ylva is following now, is that it brings together new ways = of looking at learning and cognition (see for example the way Francisco Var= ela discusses this in his book Principles of Biological Autonomy bringing i= n the concept of "autopoiesis"; the way Humberto Maturana and Francisco Var= ela go in Ch. 5 the natural drift of living beings in The Tree of Knowledge= ; the forms the discussion of Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores assume in = Ch.3 and 4 into cognition as biological phenomena on Understanding Computer= s and Cognition-new frontiers for design; the way Boohan suggest creating w= orlds from objects and events in Ogborn et al. Learning with Articial World= s-Computer bases Modelling; etc). Flying from Genoa to Paris I got from the French newspaper Liberation of = 10 May an article on how scientists are trying to fight Homalodisca Coagula= ta (a small fly that is terrible for several kinds of fruit) with another f= ly, La microguepe. This is a rather important problem in the field of ecolo= gy as the scientists are not sure if there is some further implication of t= he action they are taking to combat the bad fly although the probablity is = low acoording to the report (see how natural is puting together randomness = and eco-modelling). A decision was taken to make a controled experiment in = Polinesia and then to decide if the problem can be addressed in the same wa= y in the US. It is a simple real and important problem that children can mo= del when being exposed to the story of what is happening in those countries= , and in doing so, deal with relevant issues in ecoliteracy, science and ma= thematics. But this has to make sense in the particular context of the Swed= ish school (or any other country) in order to be fully appreciated by teach= ers and children. Certainly one needs to ask relevant and powerful research questions when = looking at the experiments Ylva is doing with the tangibles. Let me offer a= few suggestions: - how do children decide what behaviours to assign to each character and = why? what is their alignment (i.e. what do they aim for, what is the expec= ted outcome of the model built)? - what steps can we identify in children's discussion and dialogue (e.g. = reflecting + identifying variables and behaviours -- assigning behaviours -= - defining quantities of characters -- putting the model in action -- obser= ving the global behaviour of the population of characters -- telling storie= s (i.e. constructing narratives to make sense of the phenomena) -- refining= the model (i.e. changing the behaviours -- etc). - how do children relate the local to the global (i.e. the local definiti= on of each character to the global population)? how is locality addressed b= y children? how do they formulate (in their repertoire) those relationships= ? how do they deal with this dimention of complexity? - how do children "project" themselves in the field of the characters the= y build? what is specific of their location in that field (of characters) -= - as "part of the system" in the sense of Varela or within the system -- th= at becomes visible in the way they collaborate in the production of the glo= bal system? - what is the nature of the ressonance of this activity of children in th= e way they address problems such as the example I got from Liberation? - in the methodological dimension, would it be helpful to make a collecti= ve interview of the group following guidelines that allow the researcher to= have detailed evidence of the ways they appropriate powerful ideas in eco-= modelling? I hope this is helpful. It is the way I found to support Ylva here. All the best, Joao Filipe http://www.educ.fc.ul.pt/docentes/jfmatos =20=20=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------= --- Yahoo! Groups Links a.. To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/weblabs-general/ =20=20=20=20=20=20 b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] =20=20=20=20=20=20 c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service= .=20 ------=_NextPart_000_017A_01C556CD.39B254C0 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2627" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2>Hi all.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2>I think Ylva and Jakob's work on tangibles has led to an innovative and interesting input device. Furthermore they showed how the device can change the way children build models, especially how they collaborate. I think this is good work and I'll leave it to others to make this work fit into the project final report.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2>Where I disagree with Joao Filipe is about the word "eco" and to lesser extent "complex systems". A very quick Google search and I found "<FONT face="Times New Roman"><EM>Complex Systems</EM> is a journal devoted to the science, mathematics, and engineering of systems with simple components but complex overall behavior." </FONT><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">My problem with making a connection to complex systems is I don't see what we or the kids have to say about "the complex overall behaviour". If we want to say they were doing complex systems then they should be trying to understand the overall behaviour -- I don't recall hearing that the kids were trying to do this.</FONT></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2>I have a few problems using "eco" to describe what the kids were doing. First, this year the kids have drifted even further from modelling ecologies -- I admit that vampires and skeletons could be part of an imaginary ecology but I think the kids were not approaching things that way. Previous years were more focussed on ecologies. Yes, one small part of understanding ecologies is that some creatures eat other creatures. But it seems hard to make a case that kids need to build computer models to understand that more deeply. Ecological questions are about balance, disturbances, sustainability, etc. At the minimum there needs to be reproduction since without it everyone starves. Ideally there should sources and sinks for energy and other resources. Compare the WebLabs eco-literacy efforts with those in StageCast Creator -- <A href="http://www.stagecast.com/cgi-bin/templator.cgi?PAGE=School/worlds/simhost/POPULATIONGROWTH/">http://www.stagecast.com/cgi-bin/templator.cgi?PAGE=School/worlds/simhost/POPULATIONGROWTH/</A> -- I bet the StageCast version is at least as transparent as the eco-modelling TM and is so much richer.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2>Best,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2>-ken</FONT></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A [email protected] href="mailto:[email protected]">Joao Filipe Matos</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A [email protected] href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A [email protected] href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</A> ; <A [email protected] href="mailto:[email protected]">Joao Filipe Matos</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, May 11, 2005 4:29 PM</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [weblabs-general] After Genoa - tangibles on eco-modelling</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>Dear Weblabs'</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>First of all thanks to our Italian colleagues for the hospitality during the meeting.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>When returning to Lisbon (two flights connection and 9 hours travelling) I guess I realized how impressed I was of the reaction of several people in the meeting after the short presentation of Ylva on Eco-modelling tangibles, and how unconfortable I felt for not having reacted (as I think I should). Certainly that we need to make a (collective) effort to provide evidence of the relevance of what we are all doing in the project and to convince our audience(s) that our claims are educationaly soundfull. As this is a research project, and as open-minded researchers, I think that our positioning as researchers must go in the line of interrogate what evidence are we providing for the claims we are doing and discuss this openly (and this criteria must certainly be equally applied to all knowledge domains) and we must support all efforts to explore new ways of representing knowledge and develop powerful ideas and learning (at the end, this is what WebLabs is about).</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>As far as I could interprete, Ylva presented a first exploration of a kind of tangibles that allow children to both embody and be in the millieu of a phenomenon which clearly is in the domain of complex systems and ecology. Being the basis to children activities a "computational world", this goes in parallel with the work of Abelson and DiSessa when they were exploring virtual worlds with Logo back in the 1980's (although in different time and distance of the technology resources available by that time) . The added value of the line Ylva is following now, is that it brings together new ways of looking at learning and cognition (see for example the way Francisco Varela discusses this in his book Principles of Biological Autonomy bringing in the concept of "autopoiesis"; the way Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela go in Ch. 5 the natural drift of living beings in The Tree of Knowledge; the forms the discussion of Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores assume in Ch.3 and 4 into cognition as biological phenomena on Understanding Computers and Cognition-new frontiers for design; the way Boohan suggest creating worlds from objects and events in Ogborn et al. Learning with Articial Worlds-Computer bases Modelling; etc).</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>Flying from Genoa to Paris I got from the French newspaper Liberation of 10 May an article on how scientists are trying to fight Homalodisca Coagulata (a small fly that is terrible for several kinds of fruit) with another fly, La microguepe. This is a rather important problem in the field of ecology as the scientists are not sure if there is some further implication of the action they are taking to combat the bad fly although the probablity is low acoording to the report (see how natural is puting together randomness and eco-modelling). A decision was taken to make a controled experiment in Polinesia and then to decide if the problem can be addressed in the same way in the US. It is a simple real and important problem that children can model when being exposed to the story of what is happening in those countries, and in doing so, deal with relevant issues in ecoliteracy, science and mathematics. But this has to make sense in the particular context of the Swedish school (or any other country) in order to be fully appreciated by teachers and children.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>Certainly one needs to ask relevant and powerful research questions when looking at the experiments Ylva is doing with the tangibles. Let me offer a few suggestions:</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>- how do children decide what behaviours to assign to each character and why? what is their alignment (i.e. what do they aim for, what is the expected outcome of the model built)?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>- what steps can we identify in children's discussion and dialogue (e.g. reflecting + identifying variables and behaviours -- assigning behaviours -- defining quantities of characters -- putting the model in action -- observing the global behaviour of the population of characters -- telling stories (i.e. constructing narratives to make sense of the phenomena) -- refining the model (i.e. changing the behaviours -- etc).</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>- how do children relate the local to the global (i.e. the local definition of each character to the global population)? how is locality addressed by children? how do they formulate (in their repertoire) those relationships? how do they deal with this dimention of complexity?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>- how do children "project" themselves in the field of the characters they build? what is specific of their location in that field (of characters) -- as "part of the system" in the sense of Varela or within the system -- that becomes visible in the way they collaborate in the production of the global system?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>- what is the nature of the ressonance of this activity of children in the way they address problems such as the example I got from Liberation?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>- in the methodological dimension, would it be helpful to make a collective interview of the group following guidelines that allow the researcher to have detailed evidence of the ways they appropriate powerful ideas in eco-modelling?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>I hope this is helpful. It is the way I found to support Ylva here.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>All the best,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>Joao Filipe</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2><A href="http://www.educ.fc.ul.pt/docentes/jfmatos">http://www.educ.fc.ul.pt/docentes/jfmatos</A></FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2><BR></FONT> </DIV> </BODY></HTML> ------=_NextPart_000_017A_01C556CD.39B254C0--