Programming talks different language to me.

Saturday I attended the workshop about computerized textiles. I was amazed by people’s creativity to use special tread and paint to computerize textiles and paper. Seeing Leah’s and her students’ projects made me feel so WOW to them. For my personal project, it was very interesting to use the special thread (which is a wire but looks and touches like a thread) to make a light on the fabric. I made a Christmas tree with the light on the top. However, my light was dim because I used long thread for sawing the pattern of the tree, and this caused just little power could transmit to my light. So far, I felt satisfied except the dim light.

After that, we started working on Lilypad, which surprised but also frustrated me. I worked with my partner, Julie, and we did have a great time in tinkering with Mac system and Arduino, the program we gave codes to the Lilypad. When we uploaded our codes to our Lilypad, and it did respond to us, we had a great achievement. We did it! However, when we were required to do some creativity in giving commands, we were lost! We did not speak the same language with Arduino. I think some basic rules or knowledge about programming was missing such as “int”, “digitalWrite”, etc. Therefore, I did not have clues what I should write and why I should write in that way. I am illiterate in this programming language. Most of the steps, I just copied what my neighbor wrote on her screen. At the end, the motivation was not as high as before. Even though copying what others wrote brought success, I did not learn much in this programming. I think if there are some basic instructions or formats of those command provided, maybe I can have some basic ideas and play with. With some tinkerability, I learned the function of “{ }” and some possible formula. Hannah, one of Leah’s student, helped our group a lot in explaining why our programming did not work out. Through the whole process with Lilypad, I still did not program well and did not know how to apply it much creatively. But I did have some sense about what was going on and possibly what I could play with. This reminds me the notion, “literacy is a set of social practices.” With different literacy events and social interaction with Hannah and my partner, Julie, I started becoming very little understanding about Arduino. Still need more efforts in it if I would like to be literate in that discouse.

Being literate.

What is literacy? I think this question I have been asked thousands of times in my doctoral study. However, I still try hard to figure it out what literacy is. Like most of people, I hold a narrow definition of literacy, which is, the ability of reading and writing. With this operational perspective, literacy means using language system to decode and encode texts and contexts. However, with the ability of decoding and encoding, can we call the person is literate? Many English learners have difficulties of understanding the content of written and spoken English because of the lack of culture background and life experience even each word can be decoded. How about “illiterate”? How can we call a person is illiterate? One of my grandmothers cannot read and write, but she can speak and understand the language and deal with everything in life. If being literate is being able to communicate, then my grandmother is not illiterate. From a cultural perspective, literacy means receiving and making meaning and developing an understanding of content and context. From this broader perspective, literacy is not only decoding the context, but taking and making meaning of the context. Further, critical literacy also emerges to propose a key feature of being literate, which is critiquing and recognizing socially constructed knowledge. Considering these dimensions of literacy, how can we determine a person is literate or not?

From The New London Group (1996), they specifically looked at literacy as a social practice and focus on domains of practice. We make meaning with understanding discourses, life experience, and personal meaningfulness. The language learning and being literacy is through social practice and interaction within Discourses. Cultural and linguistic diversity are resource for speakers and listeners to build their understanding. I think the ideas proposed by the new literacy are related to Constructivism. Even we know and understand the meaning of each word, the meaning and the knowledge differs from person and person. All meaning and knowledge is constructed from personal social interaction and personal experience. And through reflection and critical thinking, knowledge and meaning will become personally and socially constructed.

When talking about literacy and technology, how can we call a person is literate in computers or technology? I think a person knows how to operate the hardwares of technology is not enough for being literate. It is like decoding and encoding languages. Rather, the abilities in critically judging the credibility of online resource, social networking, and receiving and constructing knowledge are important features of being literate in this digital age.

Tinkerability and the role of mistakes

Before this summer, my mom only used Skype and emails to contact and see me. What she did was recalling which “right” bottoms my brother told her to click. She did not click any other things on the screen, and shut down the computer when she was done. She explored limited functions and only tried to click the correct bottom to reach her goal. The main reason my mom did not want to try is the fear of making mistakes which may mess up the machine and cannot be fixed by herself. This makes me think how learning occurs and the role of mistakes. When we make mistakes, we reflect on what we did and learn what should be done or think how to solve problems in order to avoid mistakes again. When facing with unfamiliar situations or new stuffs, I tend to try and error, and I think by analyzing the failure and making changes push my learning. Mistakes or failure indeed plays a key role in learning, but the ability of analyze and solve problems is much more essential.

Recently my mom has played hard in surfing the Internet. She is happy that she found a different world which provides so much information and fun in that 22” LCD box. With her tinkerability, she figured out that the big blue “e” can make computer much interesting for her. In addition, she learned that when the arrow becomes a small hand, it means she can click and get information (it’s a nice try but almost kills the computer by clicking every link). My mom plays around with the links and makes guesses based on the experience she has. Contrasting with previous use of the computer, my mom becomes more creative and uses the tool more meaningful. The transmission with explanation and instruction from others indeed helps her, but this tinkerability helps construction of her knowledge and understanding, which stimulates learning.

Back to my own learning experience in Scratch, tinkerability and mistakes play essential role in learning to use Scratch. I think Scratch is interesting because it is new to me, and I can create anime I like. I am highly motivated, but I also get frustrated. Scratch and I seem to talk with different languages. It just does not follow what I expect. However, I play with it by using skills and understanding I learned from previous experience, try to solve problems with different solutions. For now, I still struggle giving command and setting some actions of my character (Why doesn't it listen to me?!). I will try to figure out by my tinkerability.