All Simulations are Educational????

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I’ve had more than one educator tell me that they thought all simulations were educational. If you are looking at simulations designed to be educational, then, sure – it’s a tautology. But coming from CS and having some experience with computer simulations, I see a much bigger landscape when I hear the word ‘simulation’ than I suspect most educators see (Wikipedia has a passable description of computer simulation). Simulation was actually one of the main motivations for the development of the computer in the first place (ballistics, code breaking and the like).

Not all learning is education, nor are all things that are informative also educational. I think you would get an argument about all sims being educational from the computer simulation community. I took a number of simulation courses as an undergrad and grad student when I was in CS, and educational simulations weren’t mentioned. Certainly, all simulations are intended to be informative (i.e. answer some question or set of questions), but I would go so far as to say most simulations that are implemented have little if anything to do with education.

Simulation is a huge field and one most people only experience indirectly. Manufacturing plants are simulated before they are built, as are buildings, bridges, and so on. There are simulations to study the effects of different drug dosages, heart valve designs, queuing systems (like airport check-ins, and bank tellers), traffic flow, population studies, computer memory systems, databases, ….. These may seem unrelated, but the software that drives these is the same as the software that drives digital educational simulations and is the same as the software that drives games – ALL digital games. Underneath, they are the same. Simulations

Part of the problem (for me at least) is that the term ‘educational simulation’ already has a specific meaning, namely those in-class exercises done live, often without a computer at all. That leaves a terminological void: what to call a computer simulation designed to be educational in order to distinguish it from the non-digital kind? Simply using ‘simulation’ is problematic, especially since that word already has a specific meaning to a very large population which includes groups like computer science, the manufacturing sector, economics, the health industry and the military. To them  ‘simulation’ either has a general meaning relating the re-creating of some other thing (i.e. simulated flavour), or the more specific meaning of computer simulations. And of the latter, only a tiny portion are educational.

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A Programming Language does NOT count as a second language

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Although I still think learning several is good for you.

Hello Worlds (why humanities students should learn to program) « Matthew G. Kirschenbaum. (May 23, 2010)

While I do agree with some of what he says, his misconceptions convince me that there is more to learning about Informatics (I don’t think Computer Science is the right term anymore. CS as a discipline is dying anyways.) than teaching yourself to code. THIS:

“in my own case, almost a decade ago, I was granted permission to use the computer language Perl in lieu of proficiency in the second of two languages that my department required for the Ph.D.”

is something for which the institution should feel both shame and regret. It highlights the fact that they really have no idea.

For years I have thought that all people should know how to program, but this literacy goes much deeper than that – it is not the language that is important, it is the understanding of logic and abstraction that it affords. I know probably 20 different programming languages – NONE of them are adequate substitutes for a second natural language, individually or collectively. Passing off Perl as a second language reveals a profound misunderstanding of linguistics, languages, and cognition. If Perl is accepted as a second language, then calculus should be too. It is far more complex.

I know many people who know how to program, but who still do not know much about logic nor do they understand how the machine actually works. I also know many people who teach programming who do not really understand how machines and programming works.

It is possible to learn how to drive a car without ever knowing how it works.

And by the way, the traditional “Hello World” program is not an especially good first program. It might have been 25 years ago, but not now. Still, if you are interested, here is a site that shows you that program in hundreds of different programming, scripting, markup, and other languages.

Enjoy.

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Knowing ‘X’ does not imply knowing ‘Y’

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Earlier this spring, I had a lovely conversation with a fellow game researcher and enthusiast (Jostein Hassel) about how digital games are related to non-digital games. I learned a lot from this conversation (more on that in an upcoming post).

One of the things that came out of that conversation was a crystallization of an idea that has been rattling around in my head for years (see title above).

“I know about THAT because I know about THIS and there are some similarities.”

Just because I have played solitaire does not mean I understand games.

I am an expert on computer games. That does NOT make me an expert on RPGs, LARPs, board games, ….

Note: and this is really crucial: The reverse is also true.

So knowing something about in-class role-play games does not qualify you to make claims about digital games. This is an assumption I have often heard from Education academics.

Here is a fairly typical response on the subject of digital games being distinct from other forms of games:

It matters not. if some appeal and others don't -
I have no skill in computer games so use them little -
but they are the 'same'!

Someone who does not play or use computer games feels qualified to judge them? To claim they are the same as board games and in-class simulations?

That would be like making a pronouncement on Shakespeare’s works without ever having read a single one. We would think that’s preposterous (or should). Why are we supposed to take this dreck from educators? Harlan Ellison made the point very well:

When I reviewed television, people said “If you hate television so much, how come you’ve got a television set in your house?”. Stephen King even said “You know, Harlan’s got a big TV.”. Yes, that’s right. I try to  be courant. I try to know what it is I’m talking about. I am not like many people who give you an opinion based on some sort of idiot hearsay or some kind of gut feeling you cannot validate. When I give an opinion, I do my best to make sure it is based on information.

You don’t have to be a hard-core gamer to be able to talk about games. BUT….

If you want to offer an opinion about digital games,  you MUST play some. If you don’t play games you have no scholarly authority to talk about them.

And here’s the kicker for a lot of Educationists: if you don’t play digital games, you have NO business making educational ones.

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Ed Tech is an Interdisciplinary Field

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So why is it possible to get an Ed Tech degree by taking ONLY Education courses? It shouldn’t be.

IT  (Information Technology), Education, Management, … are all APPLIED disciplines – if all you know is the one of these, you only have half the picture. Managers need to know how to manage SOMETHING, not hypothetical widgets. IT professionals need to know how to use their skills in some area AND they need to know about that area. Educators need to know how to teach SOMETHING. That is really quite different from just knowing how to teach.

But often, all one learns when taking a degree in one of these disciplines is that discipline. That’s not enough.


If you are an academic in the Academy, it’s even worse than that.

Each discipline has a tendency to disrespect other disciplines, but there are a few fields where this seems to be pathological. An architect friend of mine used to complain to me that everyone seemed to think they knew as much about architecture as she did – after all, everyone lives in a house, no? But living in a house does not make one an architect.

The disrespect that ‘outside’ faculty have for Education is well known within Education, but the same people who complain about how their own discipline doesn’t get the respect it deserves do the exact same thing to Informatics by disrespecting the professionals in that field and by depreciating the body of knowledge that underlies the technology they use.

Using a computer application does not make one an Informatician. There are many faculty teaching in higher ed who really should learn something about education and instructional design – it would certainly make them better teachers and I’m sure their students would benefit. However, that same principle applies to the design of educational simulations, games, websites, and many other computer based educational applications. There are many (many!) Ed Techs who really should learn something about informatics. Knowing how to use dreamweaver or imovie (or, come to think of it, i-anything) does not even begin to cover it.

As I see it, Ed Tech IS a cross-disciplinary field, and a big part of the problem are the beliefs that Ed Techs only need Education courses, and that it can all be taught by people only trained in Education. As long as Ed Techs believe they can simply “hire it done” without actually understanding the tech they are using, they will not be able to get a handle on how to use interactive media for education. You need Ed and Tech (and I am also quite sure that most CS departments aren’t equipped to handle the tech part.) And as long as Ed Techs continue to design and develop computer-based applications with no real understanding of the medium, a great deal of the stuff out there will suck. It may be pretty, but it will still suck.

Just so you don’t think I am painting all Ed Techs with the same brush, I do know some Ed Techs who actually do know tech… but none of them learned it as part of their Ed Tech degree. Most of them have not stayed in the Academy either.

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Designing Things You Don’t Understand

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Just because you use some application or piece of software does not mean you know it.

There is a reason why race car drivers often start out as (professional or amateur) mechanics: In order to get the best performance out of your vehicle, you need to really understand it. In order to do that, you need to know how it works.

This is also true of ‘technology’. There are FAR far too many people out there designing computer-based educational applications who know very little about how the computer actually works.

Now I’m not going to tell you that you need to have a degree in IT or CS (I have two) but I AM going to tell you that you need to know more about tech than most EdTech programs will give you.

There are a lot of educational applications out there that are visually appealing. That’s not the problem. A lot of EdTech designers seem to understand what I call the “Decorative Media Principle”. It involves creating a visually pleasing background and other decorations for a worksheet, website, game, etc. that is sometimes thematically connected with the instruction (sometimes it’s just cute, cool, or pretty). For example, in the work I have done with the “Ducks in the Classroom” project, vocabulary and word games are created on a pleasing background – possibly a nest, words enclosed in images of eggs, duck footprints, etc. The principle, although unproven is that the decoration helps to increase interest and may also increase the conceptual coherence of the learning object (see also Here and Here).

This is not a bad thing, but when it comes to interactive media it is not enough and people should not mistake simple aesthetics for effective use.

The bottom line: if you want to be able to design good computer-based instruction, you need to understand your tools. Simply “hiring it done”  is not enough.

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Why Interdisciplinary Teams Often Don’t Work (though they could….)

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I came across this the other day (thanks! to Bonnie Bracey Sutton)

Building an Interdisciplinary Identity in a (Mostly) Non-Interdisciplinary Academic World – ProfHacker – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

There are a few things in here that really struck a cord:

You are admitted to a department (or perhaps a program), and in that department, you are educated in the arcane arts and secret handshakes of that discipline.  In the vast majority of your graduate classes, you only mingle with initiates of your own secret academic society.  You becomes familiar with a specific set of journals and a specific set of conferences.  The end result are graduate students (who turn into professional scholars of one kind or another) who are firmly rooted in one particular discipline.

It’s actually worse that that in a lot of places.

Once they become Academics, many routinely ignore literature and happenings outside their own field. These people only see a part of the picture, yet they feel justified in making parochial pronouncements about some topic or other that end up being accepted without question by their peers. This is what happened in the case of computer simulations and computer games in Education (more on that in another post).

A came across this time and time again when I was doing my EdTech thesis – any explanation or claim that came from a researcher with Education credentials was accepted over any other explanation, regardless of experience, and especially over any explanation that came from anyone outside of the Academy.

Academics really are a xenophobic lot, aren’t we? The more I get into multidisciplinary work, the more I see how protectionist and territorial the different disciplines are. This even happens withIN disciplines. One sub-branch will elevate its own significance, and since so much of the Academy is really about competition rather than collaboration, it helps to conclude that the “other” branches of their own discipline must be less worthy.

Most academics really aren’t free at all to speak in ways contrary to the doctrine of their field – at least, not if you want to get anywhere as an academic.

I am SO tired of people who act as though THEIRS is the only discipline (or profession) who knows anything. Ever talked to a mathematician? There are exceptions, but most of the ones I’ve talked to behave as though I am somehow less human because I am not one of them. The same is true of engineers, physicians, computer scientists, and, yes, even educators. To be fair, when it comes to educators, it seems to be worst with educator-academics. Teachers seem to be much less prone to this. Come to think of it, academics are THE worst. It’s almost as if, when they graduate with their PhDs (or EdDs in some cases, which often turns out to be a PhD Lite), someone shuts off their humility setting, and takes out the bone that allows them to say, “I don’t know.”

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On the Concept of Scientific Research

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“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.”  (Feynman, Richard, “Cargo Cult Science”, Adapted from a Caltech Commencement address given in 1974 )

This entire monologue is prefaced with the caveat that the following discussion attempts to address and define ‘good’ science. The world abounds with ‘bad’ science and many, if not most people can’t tell the difference.

What is ‘good’ science? Consider the following description. I have a colleague who dismisses as ‘bad’ science any conclusions that do not directly support his own opinions.  Presumably, for him, ‘good’ science is that which agrees with him. He has earned a PhD in a scientific discipline, and this credential implies a certain credibility. This man is seen as a scientist both by his own community, and by society at large. I would argue that he is not a scientist at all, merely a person working in a scientific discipline.

Good science takes uncompromising honesty. Good science takes patience, and humility. Good science requires us to be willing to accept the possibility that we may not find the answers we seek – or perhaps worse, that the answer turns out to be ‘No’. Scientists have an obligation to reveal all of the available information on an issue – including counter-evidence – in order to provide others with the tools to make an informed judgment of their contribution. (Feynman, R., 1974) The alternative is simply advertising, or worse: propaganda.

Science Is

Science provides us with a basis for making assumptions about the world and the things in it. It implies that there are universal, knowable, unchanging ‘laws’. Science has shown us the existence of atoms, and that we are not the centre of the universe. It also tells us that we can’t observe something without changing it (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle), which complicates matters.

It has taught us to wash our hands often. It reminds us not to take a shower during a thunderstorm. It has permitted us to not only survive, but indeed to thrive in some of the most inhospitable environments on earth. Science has enabled us to enjoy fresh tomatoes in Calgary, in January. Science has played a role in enabling Calgarians to have edible Japanese oranges. Consider what must happen for this to be possible. The oranges must travel about 10,000 miles and I’ll bet they don’t fly by themselves. Did you know that they are dyed and injected with sweeteners before shipping? You didn’t think they waited until they ripened and then hoped they would arrive at their destination before going all squishy, did you?

Many of today’s medicines originally came from plants: their medicinal properties were often discovered through science.

Science typically seeks to answer a question, which involves a plan for how to go about addressing this question, moves to testing or observation in a manner that can be measured, often with some control group to use as a baseline, and closes with some conclusions that are drawn from the evidence (current and past). If we recite the standard outline of a typical scientific experiment, we end up with the essentials of ‘the scientific method’. We will look at each element in turn.

Hypothesis

It all begins with a question or hypothesis. In most cases we will already have an answer we wish to verify or theory we wish to prove. This is perhaps where one of the chief difficulties lies. Right from the start, scientists intertwine their own egos with the science they are conducting. A passion for one’s work is a laudable attribute, however it raises the stakes should we discover we are wrong. People sometimes get so attached to their theories that they leave the realm of science and enter into religion – how often have you heard the word ‘believe’ in connection with an individual’s position regarding a theory?

Posing some question or suggesting a hypothesis does not distinguish science from other ways of knowing. Philosophy and religion, to name just two also pose questions and suggest hypothesis. What distinguishes science from most other epistemologies is in part the requirement that in order to be science, our question or hypothesis must be testable in a measurable, observable, and verifiable manner. This pretty much restricts science to asking questions about natural and physical phenomena. This does not imply that science must be restricted to the acquisition of facts.

Science abounds with theories – hypothesis that we have no direct means of testing or verifying. Take for example, the age of the Earth. Until we perfect time travel, we will remain unable to verify any hypotheses that relates to the age of the earth, or how it came to be in the first place. Unlike religion, science can not and indeed must not rely on faith. In this instance, science attempts to collect supportive evidence, but regardless of how many individuals accept the theory as plausible, it must remain a theory. As scientists, we acknowledge that new evidence may alter our theory (i.e. it is a theory rather than a truth).

Perhaps one of the essential features of science, and one that is apparently most easily forgotten, is that based upon and builds on a known body of knowledge. The Cargo Cult of pre-WWII Melanesia was scientific, at least initially, and certainly from the perspective of the Melanesians.

Experimental Design & Implementation

Once the question has been asked, the next step is usually to design a means of testing or verifying this question. The design, once properly conceived must be implemented, by attempting to account for other variables. Ideally we want to control for all variables except the one we are studying.  Next to an utter commitment to integrity, this one aspect is perhaps the key feature of true science. It is also the one aspect that is most often ignored or at least flawed. It is through sometimes painstaking experimentation that scientists are able to determine exactly what conditions are necessary to control influences other than the ones they are trying to observe or discover. Experimental design involves not only the design of the experiment to test the stated hypothesis, but often demands the design, execution, and analysis of a multitude of other experiments whose purpose is to verify the validity, defensibility, and ‘purity’ of the proposed design.

Measurement

In order to be science, a hypothesis, theory, or answer to some question must be supported by observed or measured evidence. The instruments used to measure this evidence must be verifiably accurate. The measurements themselves must be repeatable. In fact, the entire process must be replicable. This in no way implies that valuable knowledge can only come from science. Even though the impact of science on our lives is immense, science forms but one of a collection of ways we can come to understand the world and our place in it. It does however insist that in order to be science, it must include these essential elements.
The ultimate goal of the entire process is to enable scientists to draw some conclusions based on the evidence. This is where cause and effect play a role. Beware of connecting cause and effect. I could for example, prove that there is a statistically significant correlation between numbers of students on campus and the mean daily temperature. In fact I could verify that higher student numbers correlate with lower mean daily temperatures. This ‘experiment’ has at least some of the properties of ‘good’ science: it is repeatable; the measurements are verifiable; it is honest. I suspect it would be premature to conclude from this evidence that students are the cause of Ice Ages.

To be valid, conclusions must be replicable. It’s not science of no-one can repeat what’s been done. In most circumstances, the conclusions must also apply to more than one individual. They must also account for other influences – or at least be able to justify their exclusion.

The Problem of Negative Results

Negative results seem to be the skeleton in the closet of science. Negative results are an essential ingredient in the scientific process, yet one will rarely see negative results published in any scientific journal. This fact reveals one of universal struggles all scientists of integrity face. We often learn best through our mistakes, yet for a scientist, access to reports of failed experiments and inconclusive results are difficult at best.

Finally

Science may be largely responsible for our continued survival on this planet. But in the same way that air is essential to our survival, we could not make it if that was all we had. There is more to the world and our understanding of it than science.  Based on the preceding definition of science, it can’t even be said that all of Science is science. There are aspects of biology, computer ‘science’ (a label for a discipline that is still debated to this day), even physics that are not, strictly speaking, science.  This should not diminish their value, but it should affect how we approach them.

Perhaps we require new terminology to distinguish the disciplines in science from the practice of science.  A study, experiment, or quest can be valuable and enrich our knowledge and understanding of the world, yet it is not science. On the other hand, perhaps it explains why even scientists earn Doctor of Philosophy degrees. The social world does not, as a rule, conform to the principles of science – with the possible exception of the Heisenberg Principle.

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Garbage & the Duck Pail

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This morning I woke up to the sounds of the dogs barking and the magpies squawking. When I looked out the window I saw that something had torn open a garbage bag and scattered the contents all over the place where we park our cars.

This is not a common occurrence and it took a little while to figure out what happened. It highlights one of the many ways in which rural life differs from urban life.

We’ve lived where we do for nearly 20 years and for most of that time we had NO garbage pick-up. That meant that EVERYTHING we threw out had to be taken to its final resting place by us – usually via a special trip (to the dump or to recycling). One time recently we even hired one of those ‘take your junk away for you’ companies. They brought out a 5-ton truck, which we filled in a matter of an hour or so. It cost us $600.00. For garbage.

Several years ago we came across an enterprising man who bought a garbage truck and then offered to come around to acreages like ours and pick up our garbage for a fee. He comes every two weeks. You’d be amazed how much that seems like a luxury. I am so grateful to this man, I give him semi-regular bonuses (made out to him personally of course) to let him know it is a big deal to us. I know he’s not getting rich doing this but I hope he continues to be willing to do it.

We have a container where we can place our garbage bags (which is ~4X4X6), but sometimes we end up with more garbage than will fit and end up leaving some sitting beside the bin rather than in it. Normally, this is not an issue and I am fairly careful to make sure I put the bags containing unhatched eggs, cooked bones, and so-on INSIDE the bin. This is mostly so that my own dogs don’t get into it.

The bag we left outside last night was from our Canada Day party. I treated it as I would any other bag that came from the kitchen, but it was different. Now, this is not meant in any way as a criticism of any of our guests – they were all very conscientious about putting their garbage in the bags.

So what was different about the garbage THIS time? Urban people and rural people seem to have a different view on what constitutes garbage.

People who live in the city routinely put edible things in the garbage and, as it turns out, we routinely don’t. All the food, melon rinds, etc. that were left on people’s plates got put in the garbage. Naturally.

Well, it’s actually not so natural. What WE do with all that left over stuff is FEED IT TO SOMEONE ELSE. All of our ‘food-garbage’ (with the exception of  cooked bones) goes in a pail (known around here as the Duck Pail). The contents of the Duck Pail (veggie cuttings, peels, bread crusts, plate scrapings, moldy bread, you name it) get taken out to the ‘yard’ every few days and simply emptied on the ground. Then the birds and the dogs take what they want. Much of it ends up getting recycled as meat & eggs. We typically don’t feed meat to the birds (feeding leftover chicken soup to the chickens is just WRONG if you ask me) so that often goes out to the dogs right away, leaving mostly non-meat stuff in the Duck Pail.

The thought that went through my head when I looked out on the driveway and saw all those melon rinds was MAN! Look at all that wasted food! The next thought was to make a mental note to tell our guests about the Duck Pail next time.

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