Teaching kids code not computers, but to other levels as well

" Starting in primary school, children from all backgrounds and every part of the UK should have the opportunity to: learn some of the key ideas of computer science; understand computational thinking; learn to program; and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of excellence in these activities.
We'll get to why this is important and necessary in a moment, but first we need to face up to a painful fact. It is that almost everything we have done over the last two decades in the area of ICT education in British schools has been misguided and largely futile. Instead of educating children about the most revolutionary technology of their young lifetimes, we have focused on training them to use obsolescent software products. And we did this because we fell into what the philosopher Gilbert Ryle would have called a "category mistake" – an error in which things of one kind are presented as if they belonged to another. We made the mistake of thinking that learning about computing is like learning to drive a car, and since a knowledge of internal combustion technology is not essential for becoming a proficient driver, it followed that an understanding of how computers work was not important for our children"
A radical manifesto for teaching computing | Education | The Observer

Overall of course I agree with this, since perhaps the most notable feature of modern technology, is how little specialized skill is needed to use them. Motion sensors, voice recognition and touch screens mean even the input mechanisms are almost "natural" and one barely needs to be able to use even a keyboard and mouse any more. This trend indicates the real need will not be training in tools, since the tools require training less and less,  but education about the tools,  their hidden internal structures,  not only to foster an environment to develop more and better tools, but to maintain an independence from them, since a common downside of ease of use is over reliance and too much trust. The less we have to think about using the tools, the less able we are to handle situations where they go wrong, or , more importantly, even spot when they might.
The only reservation I have is that while incredibly useful, computational, algorithmic thinking can also be restrictive, and am always wary of it being exalted as the paradigm of "intelligence",  and there is a risk that introducing these skills early, without appropriate balance, may have limiting effects on creative development. The point is just as  education should focus on the structures behind the tools, it must also include an analysis of the foundations of those very structures themselves. Education not only go beyond the how to the why, but to the why not as well.

A heathen manifesto

Atheists are too often portrayed as bishop-bashing extremists and any meaningful debate with the religious becomes impossible. How can this be remedied? At the Guardian Open Weekend, Julian Baggini presented his 12 rules for heathens:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/25/atheists-please-read-heathen-manifesto

1 Why we are heathens
2 Heathens are naturalists
3 Our first commitment is to the truth
4 We respect science, not scientism
5 We value reason as precious but fragile
6 We are convinced, not dogmatic
7 We have no illusions about life as a heathen
8 We are secularists
9 Heathens can be religious
10 Religion is often our friend
11 We are critical of religion when necessary
12 This manifesto is less concerned with distinguishing heathens from others than forging links between us and others

"It has long been recognised that the term "atheist" has unhelpful connotations. It has too many dark associations and also defines itself negatively, against what it opposes, not what it stands for. "Humanist" is one alternative, but humanists are a subset of atheists who have a formal organisation and set of beliefs many atheists do not share. Whatever the intentions of those who adopt the labels, "rationalist" and "bright" both suffer from sounding too self-satisfied, too confident, implying that others are irrationalists or dim.
We need a name that shows that we do not think too highly of ourselves. This is no trivial point: atheism faces the human condition with honesty, and that requires acknowledging our absurdity, weakness and stupidity, not just our capacity for creativity, intelligence, love and compassion. "Heathen" fulfils this ambition. We are heathens because we have not been saved by God and because in the absence of divine revelation, we are in so many ways deeply unenlightened. The main difference between us and the religious is that we know this to be true of all of us, but they believe it is not true of them."

Inter generational fairness

Is the granny tax that unfair? | Money | The Guardian
But let's first ask why people in retirement are awarded better income tax breaks than those who are working? There was a fascinating analysis in the Financial Times last weekend of the economically "jinxed generation" – and they're not pensioners. It found that today's adults in their 20s will be the first generation who won't be better off than their parents. What's more, the disposable income of people in their 60s is now higher than people in their 20s, for the first time ever. We've created a society where the non-working retired earn more than working people – and that's before adding up the largely unearned wealth tied up in the houses of those in their 60s.

Questions for Google, no googling

Google interviews: would you get a job with the search giant? | Technology | The Guardian

Text Advertising Blindness: The New Banner Blindness?

Since I personally think I don't just ignore, but hardly even register (at least consciously) ads in google and facebook etc., then interesting to read about a paper which suggests this is a real psychological phenomenon (abstract here, full paper here)
This is not just relevant to advertisers, since a corrolary to this 'advertising blindness' is that real information might also be ignored if it is easily confused with being advertising, e.g. on the right hand side of the page where ads are often placed.
Some points from the study are :

• Users demonstrate text advertisement ?blindness? when viewing web pages. This means that information displayed in areas of the page dedicated to text ads (e.g., top of the page, right side) is generally ignored or viewed last.
• Users are less likely to find information on a web page if it is located on the right side of the page than on the top of the page if both areas resemble text ads. This is especially true when they are searching for specific information.
• When conducting an informational, or semantic, search, users have equal amount of difficulty finding information that is embedded in an ad either at the top or on the right side of the page.
• The perception of whether a region is perceived as advertising affects how web pages are searched. When a region is seen as advertisements, users will scan the area if it necessitates completing their task and will likely do so only after scanning other content areas. However, if the region is perceived as content, users will integrate the area into their search strategy, possibly as an expected location for their search goal or a location covered by a heuristic.
• Users typically associate the right side of a web page with text ads and consequently view this area of the page last or not at all. As a result, both designers and advertisers should use caution when placing content information on the right side of the page

Jonathan Haidt on 5 moral foundations, and political differences

Another fascinating TED lecture : Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives.

Have encountered quite a few articles on this theme (e.g. those mentioned in previous blog post here) but Haidt presents not only some light liberal/conservative trait differences, but a concept for the underlying innate foundation of morality which these stand on.

So, in stark contrast to a 'blank slate' at birth, Hadit proposes we have a 'first draft' of morality, which he explains with a quote from the brain scientist Gary Marcus. "The initial organization of the brain does not depend that much on experience. Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises. Built-in doesn't mean unmalleable; it means organized in advance of experience."
Haidt wanted to determine what such a first draft would be, and since it would need to be universal, studied the literature on anthropology, culture variation in morality etc. i.e. as he says "What are the sorts of things that people talk about across disciplines? That you find across cultures and even across species?"
As a result of this they identified 5 best matches, which they call the 5 foundations of morality, to quote (with some omissions) from the TED lecture:

1. harm/care. We're all mammals here, we all have a lot of neural and hormonal programming that makes us really bond with others, care for others, feel compassion for others, especially the weak and vulnerable. It gives us very strong feelings about those who cause harm. This moral foundation underlies about 70 percent of the moral statements I've heard here at TED.
2.  fairness/reciprocity. e.g. "The Golden Rule," and we heard about this from Karen Armstrong, of course, as the foundation of so many religions. That second foundation underlies the other 30 percent of the moral statements I've heard here at TED.
3. in-group/loyalty. And this tribal psychology is so deeply pleasurable that even when we don't have tribes, we go ahead and make them, because it's fun. (Laughter) Sports is to war as pornography is to sex. We get to exercise some ancient, ancient drives.
4. authority/respect. But authority in humans is not so closely based on power and brutality, as it is in other primates. It's based on more voluntary deference, and even elements of love, at times.
5. purity/sanctity. This painting is called "The Allegory Of Chastity," but purity's not just about suppressing female sexuality. It's about any kind of ideology, any kind of idea that tells you that you can attain virtue by controlling what you do with your body, by controlling what you put into your body. And while the political right may moralize sex much more, the political left is really doing a lot of it with food. Food is becoming extremely moralized nowadays, and a lot of it is ideas about purity, about what you're willing to touch, or put into your body.

Surveys of how people prioritized these values, showed reliable differences between liberals and conservatives, even in different countries. While all were agreed that harm/care and fairness were important, they were slightly more important to liberals than conservatives. Where there was much more difference however, was with respect to the other 3 foundations : in group loyalty, authority and purity. These were ranked significantly less than harm/care and fairness by liberals, but the more conservative the subject, the more important these pillars of morality became : 

                                       

The point being made is that all 5 elements are important to morality as resulting from our nature, so none can be dismissed, but people of different political stripe differ in their emphasis. This is not to be relativistic, since in certain times and certain societies some values maybe should take priority over others. Of course while it might be easy for liberals to point out how over adherence to in-group loyalty and authority might lead to things such as authoritarianism and xenophobia, it could also be argued that extreme fairness could be seen as the basis for forced communism, with disregard for individual rights. So these insights do not provide easy answers, but do suggest how we can work towards answers : namely to appreciate that all these strands are fundamental to our societies, and that we need to step back from our own personal convictions to see the whole picture, and properly evaluate the priorities of others. They may not be right, but then again we might not be either. 

Personally I find the whole area of moral psychology one of the most fascinating and challenging, since it cuts to the core of many of the most important issues, both at a personal and a cultural level - how we should live our lives and run our societies. As the ancient greek aphorism suggests, to know what to do, first know thyself, and these studies show science can help us in this, even in such seemingly unlikely and intangible fields as morality.

note : Haidt has an online website where you can complete a survey to determine one's own settings of these 5 moral channels : http://www.yourmorals.org/  

Screen vs. Paper, some information and thoughts

I had assumed the 'retina' (eye can't detect individual pixels at the normal usage distance) display on the latest ipad was really about more impressive graphics, i.e. for games and video playback, but was very interested to see the comment that such displays would make a difference to simple reading.

It seems that the low quality of electronic displays has been postulated to result in significantly slower reading speeds with respect to paper, and the idea is that such vastly improved screens will overcome this. The article linked above says that reading is about half as fast on a standard resolution kindle versus paper, but also that there has not been a lot of recent research on the topic, and one of the most important references is a paper from as far back as 2001 (which suggested 10-30% speed differences).

This is a fascinating area which I think is of increasing importance as screen input becomes more and more the default mechanism, not just for offices, but for schools, colleges and even hobby reading at home.

The 'google scholar' service is an excellent resource for the layman (like myself) to search for related papers, for example those on screen and paper reading differences . What follows are the results from a brief investigation of the topic; however this is something I must return to again, and deal with in more detail.

What the studies say 
One (more) recent (2008) paper  ("Computer- vs. paper-based tasks: Are they equivalent?" provides a nice overview of the state of the literature at that time. According to this paper, pre-1991 many studies indeed resulted in some indication that paper reading was better in terms of reading speed, accuracy and comprehension, but there were also in all areas studies which found no significant differences. One major issue with these old studies is the display technology involved at the time, which for a fact resulted in more tiredness for the eyes, which obviously would have been an influencing factor. Similary the level of competence and experience of subjects in those days, when computer use was much less prevalent, is also something which needs to be considered. In my own view, changes in technology and usage question to some extent, but not completely, the relevance of these old studies.

Of the 10 studies listed :

• 5 found reading slower on screen as compared to paper, 3 found no differences
• 2 found comprehension worse when using a screen, 4 found no differences

The paper goes on to say though that since 1992 studies have been more aware of the need to preserve equivalence between the screen and paper versions of the testing task, and thus less reliance on partial performance indicators such as reading speed. However although now considered of less interest, differences in reading speed have been suggested even in studies using modern technology.

Modern studies pay more attention to other areas. For example there is the theory that using a computer involves more 'cognitive load' than reading from paper, with one study reporting "Although they found no significant difference in the comprehension scores or the overall workload scores for the two media, significantly more workload was reported on the effort dimension for the computer-based task. This finding is interesting, since it suggests that individuals need to put more effort into the computer task:"

Of the 20 post-1992 studies listed, if considered in light of a general 'which is better screen or paper' (speed, comprehnsion, accuracy etc.) half reported no difference, while 4 suggested benefits to the electronic method, and the same number , 4, suggested the opposite, that paper was more advantageous.

Beyond the effect on the individuals behaviour in pursuit of their own private or professional goals, one very important issue mentioned in this paper is the equivalence of paper based tests versus an electronic version. Given the amount of such electronic testing that is now performed, in all kinds of areas, and while many studies have found no differences, some have, and this means equivalence probably cannot always be simply assumed, but needs to be established. The paper concludes " total equivalence
is not possible to achieve, although developments in computer technology, more
sophisticated comparative measures and more positive user attitudes have resulted in a
continuing move towards achieving this goal."


Overall it seems the evidence is inconclusive, with a slight balance in favour of paper versus screen in certain simple areas, such as speed. However, balanced against this are many advantages of electronic formats, for example ease of retrieval and search mechanisms. So while the reading of one particular document might be better done from hard copy, the overall exploration of a volume of information is greatly facillitated by it being in electronic format.


More than just reading
Another important point I think is that studies cannot just focus on limited screen vs. paper tasks performed in isolation, but must consider as well our overall behaviour when it comes to the different media. This is raised in this interesting blog post  which references the point that 'materiality matters' made by an Anne Mangen, who agured in a journal article : "The reading experience includes manual activities and haptic perceptions (what the skin and muscles and joints register), and so as activities and perceptions of that kind are changed from one kind of reading experience to another because of the object, the reading experience, too, will change."

The point, which I consider a very valid one, is that reading on a screen means more than just considering it as electronic paper; the screen is part of a particular world in which we have certain general behaviours.

For example, I personally think that reading documents online is at risk of being contaminated by other online reading habits we have, habits which are adapted to dealing with a torrent of often un/semi-interesting or relevant information. We are so used to scanning webpages, search results, chain emails that I think we have developed mechanisms to skip through them, our hands contsantly on the mouse, scrolling incessantly. This approach is so different to the way we handle paper information, devoting our mind and body completely to it, with relatively little opportunity for distraction, and even physically reading in a different way - moving our eyes across it, and only turning the page occasionally, as opposed to our eyes staying fixed while we scroll the text past them.  Of course we can skim hard copies as well, but I think the brute physical stability of it results in a difference to how we handle webpages, and electronic documents. The point is not that electronic reading is necessarily of lower quality than of hard copy, but that we need to handle different types of information in different ways, and bad habits from one area might infect another. We use computers for many things, and so performing a task with them in reality is going to involve the general habits, attitudes and dispositions we have in dealing with electronic media, and this is something which might not be considered when testing individual tasks in isolation in a laboratory. If someone is used to skimming a newspaper every morning online, then this might affect how they read an important document later in the day when sitting at the same computer in the same environment. In contrast, reading a document as part of a study would be to do so in a completely different psychological setting, and might well be done differently.

Relevant to this is the result in the 'Computer- vs. paper-based tasks' paper above that people reported a higher workload for performing a task on a computer than on paper. Simply the fact of using a computer for the test had a psychological effect on the subjects, and this has to do with how we use computers in general, and not the particular task being tested. Hence only if such background behavioural information is also studied and understood, can it be effectively compensated for in any particular task test.

Beyond the medium being the message, the medium shapes us, and hence pinpointing the differences between media, is never going to be a simple task.

Atheism - it's not because it's funny, it's because it's true.

Julian Baggini on Atheism : 

"Atheists have seemed rather keen in recent years to stress their jolly side.... Stressing the jolly side of atheism not only glosses over its harsher truths, it also disguises its unique selling point. The reason to be an atheist is not that it makes us feel better or gives us a more rewarding life. The reason to be an atheist is simply that there is no God and we would prefer to live in full recognition of that, accepting the consequences, even if it makes us less happy.""
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/09/life-without-god-bleak-atheism
Guess it goes back to the old Woody Allen question as to whether would rather be happy or right. The problem is of course those who just by their nature cannot see the universe otherwise don't really have this choice. But that doesn't mean we can't be happy and right. And since many people can obviously be miserable and wrong, at least we've got a head start, since (I'm sure!) are already halfway there...

belief and politics : making God in man's image

Always interesting to see cognitive dissonance at work, in this case in how both sides of the political divide interpret Jesus in line with their own biases. Of course like all scriptures the Bible is remarkably accomodating on that front, since between the slaughter-your-son-just-to-honour-me savagery of the old testament and the turn-the-other-cheek humility of the new, something for every stripe of philosophy.

"A study led by Lee Ross of Stanford University in California has found that the Jesus of liberal Christians is very different from the one envisaged by conservatives. 
The researchers discovered that conservatives believe Jesus would have prioritised the moral issues close to their own hearts, and that disparities in wealth or the treatment of illegal immigrants wouldn't have been high on his agenda. Liberals believed the opposite."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/mar/04/jesus-liberals-conservatives
However, overall the conclusion is quite depressing, given the role religion plays in US politics, then one might at least have hoped it might have provided some common ground for debates, but as this shows, belief is personal, and personally biased.