IEP: Learning Python to Solve Ed Tech Problems

Problem: Text-Based Transcripts

The transcripts we currently use at my high school are text documents. The documents are visually cluttered, and difficult for anyone who is not an administrator to examine and interpret accurately. Since our school is too small to have a guidance counselor, the job of helping students read their transcripts falls to teachers. This is not a trivial job, either. If a student's transcript is not read properly, they can end up missing required credits and potentially not graduate on time. Poring over transcripts consumes a significant amount of time for students and staff, and takes up a considerable amount of time during conferences as well. The problem is exacerbated at our school by the fact that we have a highly transient student population, which means we look at transcripts for new students throughout the year, not just once or twice a year.

For example, look at the following (anonymized) transcript section and try to determine if the student has fulfilled their Social Studies requirements (1 credit US History, 1 credit Government, 0.5 credits Global Issues and 0.5 credits Alaska Studies):


Partial Solution: Student-Created Visual Transcripts

Our staff came up with a slight improvement over the text-based transcripts this year. Students are given their text transcript and an empty transcript grid. They go through each course on their text transcript, and place it into a box according to the subject area and how much credit they earned. When they are finished, they can see how close they are to graduating, and which courses they have to take in order to make appropriate progress towards graduating.

This is an improvement, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. If students make a mistake in transferring their courses to the visual document, they still run the risk of missing a required class. The end result is that teachers spend just as much time showing students how to transfer their transcripts to the grid, and verifying the accuracy of the student-generated transcript grids. A portion of the grid is shown below:

Proposed Solution: Transcript Illustrator, a Python program

Transcript Illustrator is a program that takes the grunt work and potential for errors out of the visual transcripts. The program reads in a text file of student transcripts, and produces a complete set of visual transcripts. Students, staff, and parents are free to focus on planning their course of study rather than trying to figure out whether they have interpreted their transcript correctly.


Steps: Learn Python, Create Program, and Evaluate

Learn Python
I began this step over winter break. I read through most of Learning Python by Mark Lutz, and read the GUI-focused parts of Programming Python as well. I have also found several effective online resources including the core python documentation, a site called effbot.org, and a dedicated python forum.

Create Program
I have been working on the program since early February, and I have made significant progress. The program currently reads in the transcript text file and stores the data. A simple interface displays the current student and allows simple navigation to any other student.

No piece of software is ever "finished". To be useful for staff and students, the program must be accurate and must be able to print. The steps I aim to finish during this project are to complete the processing of the transcript, verify it processes all transcripts accurately, and implement printing functionality.

Classroom Application and Evaluation
For the classroom application part of this project I would like to give students and staff two sets of documents, the traditional text transcript and the visual transcript. I will gather feedback to gain some understanding of how meaningful the visual transcripts are. A possible question for students is, "Which transcript gives you a clearer understanding of where you are at in your high school career?" A possible question for staff is, "How might this affect your conversations with students and parents?"

Beyond
If the program is as useful as I believe it will be, I would like to release it under the GNU General Public License (GPL). I want to wait until there is enough functionality and quality control implemented to make it useful for other schools before releasing it. My reflection on this project will elaborate further on this.

Article Assessment #2: Teens and Technology

(full article here)

Overview

This article describes the increasing number of hours that young people spend using electronic media every day, and the role that parents can play in their children's technology habits. Young people (8-18 years of age) use electronic media an average of 7.5 hours a day. This includes television, mp3 players, video games, and computer use. The variety and interconnectedness of these devices makes it particularly challenging for parents and guardians to fully understand what their children are doing with their electronic devices (EDs). Only three in ten teenagers report having any rules regarding their use of EDs. Teens who do have limits set by parents spend about three hours less per day using EDs than other teens.

Reference Points

• Young people ages 8-18 spend about 7.5 hours a day using electronic media.
• Teens spend about 25 minutes a day reading books, and 3 minutes a day reading newspapers.
• About 50% of "heavy media users" earn fair to poor grades; about 25% of "light users" earn fair to poor grades.
• Only 3 in 10 teens report having rules at home about their use of electronic devices.
• When parents set limits on the use of electronic devices, young people use them about 3 fewer hours each day.
• Lack of familiarity with electronic devices does not excuse parents from setting limits on their use.

Reflection

This report says little that I have not heard before, and the numbers may be misleading. The difference between using an mp3 player to listen to music is significantly different than using a cell phone to text. Many of my students work better on certain tasks if allowed to listen to music on headphones; none work better if allowed to text while trying to concentrate on a specific task. For most of the last century young people have been listening to significant amounts of music, so including listening to mp3 players in these statistics seems questionable. However, the statistic about seven in ten teens having no limits set on their use of electronic devices is alarming. Young people need guidance in learning how to interpret the online world, and that guidance has to start with limits. Parents need education about how to set limits on the use of devices they don't fully understand, as much as young people need limits on their use of EDs.

Internet Resources

The ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) Database

The ERIC database, an index of articles related to education, is an important resource for educators to know about. Two parts of the site are particularly important to be aware of: the Thesaurus and the Advanced Search page. Every article in the database is tagged with words called "descriptors". These descriptors come from a closed set; indexers can not just make up their own descriptors for each new article entered into the database. This means the user does not have to guess whether articles are tagged with "mathematics" or "math". Looking up "math" in the thesaurus tells us that the word "math" is never used as a descriptor; looking up "mathematics" in the thesaurus brings up a list of about 30 specific descriptors, including the general term "mathematics", that are used to index articles relating to mathematics. More specific descriptors include "mathematics anxiety", "mathematics avoidance", and "mathematics materials". An understanding of the descriptor indexing system, and experience using the Thesaurus, is particularly important in conducting a thorough literature search. The Advanced Search page allows us to choose any number of descriptors to include or exclude, a date range, education levels, and more. Of particular interest is the "Full Text Only" option. This returns only articles which are freely downloadable, without a subscription to the journal they are published in. A quick search of the ERIC database can make a significant difference in staff discussions around many common school issues.


PEN (Public Education Network) Weekly Newsblast

Many of the education-related forums I have seen are unsatisfying. Many education forums are either inactive, or they resemble a bad teacher's lounge: a lot of complaining, with little constructive conversation. I once asked a professor to recommend a good source of education news and articles, and she recommended the PEN Weekly Newsblast. I have read the newsblast for the last year, and it is one of the most consistent sources of high-quality education news and articles I have seen. Each week there is a summary of recent education news and recently published articles, a section of shorter news briefs, and a section of grant and funding opportunities. Each brief is a link to the full article. I read the full newsblast each week, and I usually skim several of the full articles as well. I print out and share full articles with colleagues every couple weeks, so the newsblast ends up influencing our school's professional practice. As I continue to grow as an educator, I will use the grant funding referrals as well. I highly recommend that educators subscribe to the newsblast; it comes in on Friday mornings, a perfect time to be re-inspired as an educator.


Coding Horror and Joel on Software

As I have gotten back into programming, I have started to read a few blogs about bad programming. The blogs at first seem to be simply making light of bad programming examples, but there is a much deeper significance to them. By raising awareness of bad programming, they focus on good programming practice. The people who write these blogs are highly skilled programmers, frustrated at the bad reputation their profession gets by the work of mediocre and bad programmers. The best of these blogs is Coding Horror, written by Jeff Atwood. Coding Horror articles provide guidance on developing high-quality software, and inspire us to do excellent work, whatever our profession.

Jeff Atwood collaborates with Joel Spolsky, who built a unique software company called Fog Creek Software, founded on the principles of high-quality software design. The company puts programmers first, with management clearly in the role of supporting the programmers. They aimed to build the "ideal programming workspace", and did it all without outside funding, so they would be free from the obligations that dependence on venture capital brings. The Fog Creek culture raises the question: "What if schools were structured in a similar way, where administrators were set up to serve teachers, and students were given the best work space money could buy?" It's an exemplar worth reflecting on. Joel Spolsky writes another of the best software development blogs, Joel on Software.

For an example of how Coding Horror articles can inspire non-programmers to do excellent work, take a look at a post about execution, the difference between simply having a good idea and carrying that idea out fully.

PHSgeek Digital Story: Story Core and Story Map

Central Challenge

• Do we ignore technological waste and inefficiency, or do something about it?
• If we do something about it, do we just address our own needs, or the needs of the larger community?
• Note: "We" is the Pacific High School community - staff and students.

Challenges and Character Transformation

• How will we deal with unknowns as they come up?
• Will anyone donate computers? Will people donate too many computers? What about donations that are too old or nonfunctional to work?
• Will students want to do the work required to make the computers reusable?
• Will the district continue to support us as the project grows?
• Will we ostracize businesses that sell new computers?
• Will we have enough school time to carry out the project
• Will students learn enough academics through the project?
  

Resolution

Current benefits of the program:

• Refurbished computers that work better than existing school computers;
• Students who can refurbish computers on their own;
• Students who are using refurbished computers in their homes;
• Students who want refurbished computers;
• Members of the public who want refurbished computers and are being referred to our school;
• An improved reputation for our school in the larger community;
• Continued donations.

Ambitions as the project continues:

• Continuous donations accepted, rather than donation windows;
• Distribution of refurbished computers to students and the public;
• Sale of computers, appropriate uses of funds from sales, fund ongoing electronics recycling for the community;
• Best donated computers stay in the school, so school's technology infrastructure is steadily improving;
• Publicize our work with the goal of replicating the project in other communities.

Story Map

Article Assessment #1: Ohler, Digital Storytelling in the Classroom, Chapters 5 & 6

Overview

Chapters 5 and 6 of Digital Storytelling in the Classroom by Jason Ohler describes an approach to digital storytelling that helps storytellers create compelling stories. The goal is to create digital stories that demonstrate growth in characters, and avoid episodic stories that are simply a series of loosely-related events. These chapters discuss the story core, story maps, and briefly mention story boards. Story cores describe the central challenge that poses a problem for the main character, the tension and transformation that the challenge brings about, and a resolution to the challenge. The story map ensures that the story has emotional significance by mapping out the rising tension, struggle, and resolution that the main character goes through. The storyboard lays out the events and scenes in the story, along with technical notes to carry out the media work effectively.

Reference Points

• There are no formulas or rules in effective storytelling, only guidelines.
• Without a meaningful, significant problem or challenge to overcome, a story can rarely be compelling.
• The story core must be compelling before students begin doing media work; before they begin recording, compiling clips, and editing.
• Thinking in story core terms can help make school board and community presentations significantly more compelling. "What transformation do they [the school board, members of the community] need to undergo?"
• Many digital story rubrics make the mistake of being entirely technical. Thinking in story core terms, and basing rubrics on story map concepts, can avoid this problem.
• Requiring only a storyboard can produce technically proficient, but emotionally empty digital stories.
• The strongest stories bring about lasting changes in the audience as well as in the central characters of the story.

Reflection

While reading these chapters, it was easy to recognize how I and my students will create more compelling digital stories through the use of story maps. I have seen many projects in school that have little significance because they are episodic and lack tension or a central challenge. This even explains why some science and math writeups lack impact. If students focus clearly on the problem to which they are applying science and math concepts, we develop interest in their work. When there is no compelling problem to solve or challenge to resolve, we just see a bunch of operations or a bunch of facts or investigative steps. I look forward to applying the concepts of the story map to different kinds of content-focused work, and to a variety formats such as lab writeups and math investigations, as well as digital stories.

I also particularly like the emphasis on the universal application of story maps. Ohler makes the point that many school board and community presentations would be significantly stronger if the presentation were mapped out to include a strong challenge, period of tension, and resolution. I have been intending to make a presentation to our school board about our computer refurbishing project. If I had done that presentation before this reading, I would have made an interesting but fairly dry presentation about what we are doing. This reading makes me realize I need to focus as much on showing why we are doing the project, not just telling the board why we are doing it and assuming the significance of the problem is understood by everyone. I believe my final digital story, which will be presented at the April school board meeting, will do this well.