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PBS Bets $3 Million That Monkeys Are Better CS Preschool Teachers Than Rabbits (edsurge.com)
theodp writes: EdSurge reports that a new PBS show will teach preschoolers how to think like computers. Marisa Wolsky, an executive producer at WGBH Boston, believes television can be a way to teach Computational Thinking. She is in the first stages of creating an animated television show called Monkeying Around [$3,000,000 NSF award] that uses four monkeys to teach the subject. Why monkeys? EdSurge explains, "Initially, Wolsky said her team wanted to use rabbits to teach the kids, but after realizing the animal would need to use its hands, they decided to go with monkeys [Rabbits historically enjoyed success teaching the 3 R's]." In a press release announcing the new pre-K show, WGBH cited "a great deal of national interest in computer science and coding," adding that "it is never too early to start." WGBH is not the only PBS station that's bullish on CS. According to an NSF Award Abstract, "Twin Cities PBS (TPT), the National Girls Collaborative (NGC) and [tech-bankrolled] Code.org will lead Code: SciGirls! Media to Engage Girls in Computing Pathways, a three-year [$2.63 million] project designed to engage 8-13 year-old girls in coding through transmedia programming which inspires and prepares them for future computer science studies and career paths [...] Drawing on narrative transportation theory and character identification theory, TPT will commission two exploratory knowledge-building studies to investigate: To what extent and how do the narrative formats of the Code: SciGirls! online media affect girls' interest, beliefs, and behavioral intent towards coding and code-related careers?" And Code Trip, a PBS series touted by Microsoft that aired in 2016 [$200,000 NSF award], explored computer science opportunities for young people by, as Microsoft explained, following "three students traveling around the country to speak with leaders including Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, and Hadi Partovi, entrepreneur and cofounder of Code.org."
That should put them on the autism spectrum, which is basically a requirement for being a good software developer, right?
They tried a show called SciBoys!, but they found out later that it was the name of a gay porn site.
Code Monkeys? (Sorry, couldn't let that pass.)
You can't be against racism etc. and think "coding for girls" is moral. Let's stop excluding groups of human beings m'kay?
The monkeys are already ahead of the rabbits when it comes to composing Shakespeare.
Let's continue the sexist movement that only wants to engage women in computer science because, presumably, we have enough automatic engagement from men!
PBS Bets $3 Million That Monkeys Are Better CS Preschool Teachers Than Rabbits
Rabbits and monkeys have shit all to do with the actual story here. Which monkey did you pay to approve that headline?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It's other people's money.
Elizabeth Holmes? Just like Gates and Jobs are role models for computer people; namely, skip the code and follow the money.
And here I would have thought humans would make the best CS preschool teachers. Ah, well. No doubt they're saving a fortune on salaries. Before you know it, they'll be taking our software development jobs too.
The story and summary I don't find very interesting, what I do find really interesting is the massive leap from a $200k educational show to a $3M educational show that seems like it will be seen my few people and help even fewer. I know they are kind of unrelated but even so that seems like a lot of money for a few episodes teaching kids to code, you'd be far better off shipping iPads loaded with Playgrounds to underprivileged females across the country and giving them four months of free online face to face tutelage.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Their so-called "coding" games for teen girls are incredibly demeaning and probably chase away a lot more girls than they attract. It would be much more appropriate for pre-schoolers.
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It was reported recently that Colorado school districts are short somewhat more than 3,000 teachers for next school year. Would rabbits or monkeys fill the void? Assuming the requirements are reduced for getting a teaching license in Colorado, this may be a solution. As a side note, whenever the legislature seems to have a problem balancing the next year's budget the first thing that comes out of the governor's and legislators' mouths it to cut funding for education. No wonder there's a shortage of teachers.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Every individual German household is forced by "law" (Germans love laws) to cough up 17.50€ a month for crap public content like this, even if they do not subscribe to, have access or own a TV capable of reviving it. Had this monkey-rabbt nonsense been produced in Germany, then the animals would likely have alread had the opportunity to fly to the Moon and back, and anyone unwilling to pay for it would have their bank accounts confiscated or spend at least 61 days in jail for not paying their "TV License" - Happy 4th of July from the GEZ Slaves in Germany!
If they are going to teach a "language" at this level is should be French, German, Chinese, Spanish etc etc .
These are the years where natural language processing develops as well as fine motor skills. Its where the brain learns about distance, and the physics of the world, i.e. throwing a ball to hit a target, jumping over things, etc etc etc
From natural language comes social integration, developing the understanding of acceptable behaviour , team work, sharing, play, friends, etc etc.
When kids hit 10 or so they should have enough of a grasp of language, mathematics, 3d space, geometry, numbers, size , abstract ideas and hopefully the start of critical thinking of being able to analyse a situation and make some sense of it.
THIS is when CS should start, when their brains are able to actually deal with the concepts in a meaningful way.
ANYTHING a preschooler learns about computers will be irrelevant by the time they are adults, however the social skills and natural language skills they develop are there for life.
Peoples abilities develop in a certain order (for the majority) and if we want to optimise their learning experience and understanding we MUST work in with Nature.
This "teach CS at preschool" has nothing to do with learning, its all about money, those that make the curriculum and the resources will make a lot of money until the ideology looses out to reality. They know in advance the idea is stupid and will be a failure, but who cares the money is whats important.
Turtles!
But they don't have hands. Really! It's an animated show FFS. Draw them some hands.
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior
--Socrates
You can't be against racism etc. and think "coding for girls" is moral. Let's stop excluding groups of human beings m'kay?
Sure you can, you can even be against misogyny and think that "math for non-Asians" is "moral."
What's more you can be against racism, notice that a particular racial group is under-represented in a particular field and think, "hey let's try to achieve a little bit more of an equal outcome here guys." And that's just limiting it to what can be thought without throwing reason to the wind.
Of course, it's simple madness for men to allow girls equal access to education, much less this kind of specialized training aimed at accelerating their catching up ... The Saudis have the right idea.
Which grant are you talking about. There are two grants presented here. One is targeted at early childhood development, the other is targeted at pre-teen girls.
Both will develop some kind of video content. But that is not the only thing that they will do, there are other components that need to be developed. The prior $200k grant you talk about is essentially to make a documentary, this is quite cheap to do. The two grants here develop new material from scratch, which is harder than follow people around with a camera crew.
Also, you don't just develop something, you need to evaluate effectiveness and develop theory of why things work or don't work. So you need a behavioral scientist, a psychologist, and experts in the subject matter.
It was shown that just distributing hardware does not work. (See the cases of Californian cities pulling their ipad programs.) What you need is to better engage, to have age appropriate material, and to educate the educators.
As someone who has both competed for NSF funding (on both CS technical and education programs) and reviewed NSF proposals in the past, I am glad they are funding this. NSF does not just hand out $3M awards, you can bet there is solid evidence that this could work.
If you can only change the life of 10 people from being a low skilled worker to be a trained computer scientist, the economic impact will be WAY more than $3M. Think of how many people say things like "I watched XYZ show when I was a kid, and that inspired me to become an XYZ". You'll get 10 people inspired probably.
1. Teach math. Test for math skills.
2. Teach science. Test for science skills.
3. Have computers in the school that work and can be used to do programming with.
4. Have a computer at home so the students can keep learning.
5. Use the test results to really support the students who can study to program computers.
6. Offer computer classes of more interest to the other students at their own pace. Arts, music, sport education, photography, easy to understand business maths. Working with apps and the internet classes.
Support the very gifted and smart students with more math and computer programming. Teach the other students skills they can use at university and in some later vocational training.
If only some nation had done that with all their skilled, bright, average and other students over a decade? The results could be copied all over the USA?
Give every student a computer class at school, access to a working computer and a computer at home.
Lessons that work on both computers and the entire nation will be computer ready in a generation?
With the next generation following with upgraded hardware and software. Then all new teachers will be totally computer literate decades later.
Sounds like nation building and a low cost pathway to becoming a computer super power. Given that the best students will then set up local computer factories, employ locals and produce computer parts, code software, export hardware and code new national OS every year?
Super computer factories all over the nation in a generation exporting to the world with full employment?
The UK tried that with the BBC micro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Schools full of new computers. Network computers. Educational computer software was used. Maths and science for all schools.
The result a generation later? A bit like the results of all that new science spending in the 1950s in the USA.
The UK started importing Microsoft OS, Microsoft OS ready games, MS applications and other nations fun console hardware. A few game companies with some staff got rich.
The next generation would be ready to write code for UK computers and start a UK computer industry that would export to the world?
More Microsoft games, consoles and surfing the internet to US sites. Later US apps on a US OS using hardware from production lines outside the UK.
But everyone in the UK got to see and use a computer over the decades? The generations of skills workers should have been ready to design their own apps and sell to the world years later?
Placing lots of new computer in average schools does not create a nation of super computer experts.
People still want to become lawyers, veterinarians, doctors, pilots, plumbers, to do something with arts or sports, design or build or just take care of things in a home if they are allowed to select their own education.
They use a computer to do things but the OS, apps, software might be written by a select few experts.
The hardware and networks are even more complex and need even better experts.
Who created that skill level? Nations who teach math and science and who still test and grade on merit. Put funding back into university level educations after years of testing. Talk to employers. Do they want people who can use a computer?
How many staff really need to know who to program a computer, create an OS given a very bespoke imported closed source application controls the hardware and software and always has to due to legal or really complex hardware issues?
Rick a just in time production line or harvest or expensive raw materials? That kind of work needs expert design, not an entire workforce that could program an educational computer a decade ago.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
How many people do you think can become computer programmers, as in, how many of those jobs do you think the national economy can produce? I am being totally serious here. Computer programming is not going to be the salvation of the American worker. By shoving -everyone- down that path, at most you will create a glut and drive down salaries for those who do get that job.
Teach kids the liberal arts, science, logic, experimentation. Let them pick a trade on their own. We have no idea what trades will be in demand when they become young adults.
You must complete the programming assignment in the allotted time to unlock the classroom door. After that time has expired, the tiger cage will automatically unlock.
For extra credit, identify the faulty NTP server that the cage lock is using.
Have gnu, will travel.
By the time today's pre-K kids enter the workforce, traditional programming could be a niche activity relegated to kernel and device driver developers. It's not unlikely that the majority of application development will instead be focused on directing various machine learning activities, which could require skills closer to those of a manager of human employees than math and logic.
Thankfully, I'll probably be retired by then.
Oh theodp, still worried kids are going to take your jerb?
The prior $200k grant you talk about is essentially to make a documentary, this is quite cheap to do.
It takes nearly as much effort as developing a handful of episodes to teach what they are trying to teach, although I grant the idea they have is novel... A documentary would in fact be harder to make, and involve a lot more on-location shooting which is more expensive and involves a lot of travel expense.
I would give that the analytical one might need a bit more money for animating monkeys, but come on, $2.8M more???
Also, you don't just develop something, you need to evaluate effectiveness and develop theory of why things work or don't work.
You say they need that but where is is said they are doing that? They have a "team", yes, but it's probably more creative than scientific. The article does not really say.
It was shown that just distributing hardware does not work.
JUST distributing hardware does not work, hence the whole other part of my post where I mentioned the person to person tutelage involved as part of the program. Hardware is an essential ingredient though, you have to have SOMETHING to program on, and the more you can iterate and explore the better. Playgrounds are really great for that. The monkey show idea is theoretically good as I do think lots of people seem to lack the decompositional skills they talk about, but it seems to me just watching video would be very ineffective compared to something more interactive.
NSF does not just hand out $3M awards...,
you can bet there is solid evidence that this could work.
Well a nice investigation by a real journalist would clear that right up then. After reading the article I am not so much inclined to believe this is fraud, but that is a LOT of money.
The bigger question is, who is even watching to be sure? Or any NSF grant for that matter? No-one. That's what makes me think some third party should really be investigating how wisely and fraud-free the NSF grants are working.
If you can only change the life of 10 people from being a low skilled worker to be a trained computer scientist
I agree with what you say here but read the description of what the videos do. They do not really help in that regard. i am a CS major and nothing in there was really like what this show is trying to do, though someone watching this show would have a leg up in actually completing a CS degree from the practical side.
When I grew up I had to earn enough money to buy my first computer to program on, that's why I question the value of any video tutorial, no matter how good.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It takes nearly as much effort as developing a handful of episodes to teach what they are trying to teach, although I grant the idea they have is novel... A documentary would in fact be harder to make, and involve a lot more on-location shooting which is more expensive and involves a lot of travel expense.
No, a documentary is way cheaper.
They were filming trips and interviews. There is little planning, there is little design in this. You identify people to interview, you send the interviewers there followed by a camera crew. Later you mount and you are about done. You are probably done shooting within two/three weeks, with probably an other two/three weeks of editing.
This require little no post hoc analysis. Essentially, in 2 month you are done.
Compare that to educational material. You need professional actor, make-up artist, animators. You need to design the material. You need to produce it.
Run it on a few test groups. You need to ensure the test groups are diverse geographically, ethnically, socio economically, and big enough to have statistical significance. Once you run the entire process, you need to analyze data, extract trends. That's a 3/4 month job for a team of educator, probably a 3/4 month job for your production group. And you need a lead that synchronize everything.
From that knowledge, you are certainly able to see what works and what doesn't. So on year 2, you start over.
Also you need to track the impact of the production on your groups in the long term, that's 3 years down the road.
This is not a small job that you can do half drunk in your garage.
You say they need that but where is is said they are doing that? They have a "team", yes, but it's probably more creative than scientific. The article does not really say.
In the public abstract of the grants. Here is the relevant sentence from the second one. The first one has similar language in there.
The project includes five new PBS SciGirls episodes featuring girls and female coding professionals using coding to solve real problems; a new interactive PBSKids.org game that allows children to develop coding skills; nationwide outreach programming, including professional development for informal educators and female coding professionals to facilitate activities for girls and families in diverse STEM learning environments; a research study that will advance understanding of how the transmedia components build girls' motivation to pursue additional coding experiences; and a third-party summative evaluation.
Well a nice investigation by a real journalist would clear that right up then. After reading the article I am not so much inclined to believe this is fraud, but that is a LOT of money.
The bigger question is, who is even watching to be sure? Or any NSF grant for that matter? No-one. That's what makes me think some third party should really be investigating how wisely and fraud-free the NSF grants are working.
Well, I am glad you asked. A lot of people are looped in on these things.
For a project like this to be funded it has to go through a panel. That means that you ask the opinion of a dozen experts (that means university professors most of the times ) on a group of about 40 proposals. There are a lot of rules to prevent conflicts of interest. When there are too many huge proposals, it can actually be a problem to find people that are not in conflict and sometimes foreign experts are brought in the process to make sure there are no conflicts
Not all 12 experts will read all the proposals. But funded proposals will be extensively discussed. And proposals to be funded at a million dollars level will be read by the 12 experts. I have seen a single unconvinced expert in the room kill a proposal. The panel of expert does not have to recommend a single proposal in the group. If the panel chose not to recommend a proposal for funding, it will not be funded. Where is the acco
Where's the nursing for boys show, Mr. Equality of Outcome?
Since the proportion of male/female nursing students already outweighs say the male/female law student ratio, perhaps that's already taken care of. But maybe there's something to your suggestion for shows to encourage boys into the lower paid jobs traditionally the province of female workers: soon that's all boys will be able to get. Already something like 60% of professional jobs are occupied by women, in a decade or two it will approach 80%. Maybe a show for boys to "foster engagement" with cleaning other people's houses? 'boi-maid' we could call it. ;)
As I wrote "it's simple madness for men to allow girls equal access to education" and programs aimed at actually accelerating the decline of men, are at least as dangerous as the "threat" of pr0n or gaming psychologists are whining on about. (But just in case they are onto someting, maybe some shows encouraging girls to become pr0n-addicted gamers? ... OTHO we already have a proven male-domination saving device in sharia law.)
And why are you calling me Mr Equality of Outcome? I simply pointed out, contra OP, that it involves no contradiction to advocate against racism, while at the same time advocating for equal employment levels on the basis of sex. That correction of OP's mistake of thinking is clearly neutral as to the desirability of that outcome, yes?
Humans, huh? ... Highly illogical.
When I was three, I was taught FORTRAN, a bit later COBOL. The young'uns learnt TECO.
Waaah! I'm stuck with FORTRAN!
(Now seriously: what idiot wants to teach preschools to "think like a computer"? Like a 2917 computer, at that?)
Reading, Reproducing and Reproducing?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This show could get interesting... Holmes in every passing year has gotten more bug-eyed and crazy. Maybe she'll crap in her hand and fling it at the kids.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
Show Will Teach Preschoolers How To Think Like Computers...
Well, we can't figure out how to get computers to think like humans, so let's see if we can train humans to think like computers... what could go wrong?
Whoever came up with that is as confused as an economist about how science works.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
I present to you the wonderful animated series "Cat Sh*t One". Admittedly the rabbits are lovable Special Operations trained killers (and the evil camels are their foe) .. but they do a great job of handling weapons, binoculars, hand grenades and the like.
https://www.facebook.com/CatSh...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And from an earlier war:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
How many people do you think can become computer programmers, as in, how many of those jobs do you think the national economy can produce?
Literally millions, because as the supply increases the demand would actually grow - not shrink.
That sounds counter-intuitive but if a lot more people were programmers, there would be a lot more devices that would be user-programmable.
We are in no danger however of even coming close to the number of programmers needed, much less an over-supply. My own goal in the matter of creating more programmers is to help save the people like myself who start poor but can lift themselves up to a better and much more interesting life because they are inclined to be good at programming - learning some programming still helps the general populace who do not become programmers to deal with an increasing technologically complex world.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley