Image Problems

The Association of Computing Machinery's (ACM) flagship journal Communications of the ACM gets a new look in July and has a couple of interesting articles related to technology education. (If you don't have an ACM membership, you can get the magazine online through the Sno-Isle library's ProQuest service. Go to http://www.sno-isle.org, select the research menu and follow the links to magazine and journal articles.)

On page 33, Rick Rashid, Microsoft's Sr. Vice President for Research, weighs in on the lack of students in computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, et al. You should read the article, but let me summarize the problem:

1. Not enough students are going into this area of study in spite of evidence that the job opportunity remains high
2. The situation is worse than it seems because significant numbers of students, particularly at the post-graduate level, are foreign-born and may not want to or be able to stay and contribute to our economy
3. This lowers are ability to innovate and remain competitive in the global marketplace

Rashid goes on to say that computer science and engineering has an image problem. All too often it is the stereotypical view of the lone programmer (male), sitting for hours coding and debugging, that turns students off. Students with a view of computer science as a means to solve important problems are more likely to enter and finish computer science programs.

As I read the article, however, I begin to think less about the image problem and more about what an incredible opportunity is available to interested students by having one of Microsoft Research's sites located right here in the Puget Sound area. Not everyone is going to be interested in this type of work, but for those that are, they can do cutting-edge, world-class research right here.

I am reminded of the incredible work done at other research labs like the legendary Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) or the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) by the likes of Alan Kay and Douglas Englebart. I will digitally dope slap anyone who says "who are Alan Kay and Doug Englebart". If you use a mouse, a laptop, a graphical user interface, hypertext or program in an object oriented programming you can, in large part, thank these two gentlemen. Just for fun, check out this video of the famous 1968 mother of all demos in which Engelbart demonstrates how to use a mouse to cut and paste text while on a video conference (contrast it with this 2007 TED Talks presentation by Kay on using computers to help children learn through modeling concepts).

Browse over to the site for the Redmond research campus and take a look at what they are working on. Sure there is work on compilers and operating systems, but there are also projects in speech technology, visualization and social computing. And while I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from going into Computer Science, you will note that not everyone needs a Ph.D. in Computer Science to work at Microsoft Research. Mary Czerwinski, for instance, is a Research Area Manager of the Visualization and Interaction (VIBE) Research Group and has her PH.D. in Cognitive Psychology. Marc Smith does research in computer mediated social interaction and his degrees are in, you guessed it, Sociology.

Rashid closes out his article by calling on professionals to reach out to students and to the people who influence students - teachers, parents, counselors. The message is that programming isn't an end in itself, but a means to an end. The programming and design skills and knowledge gained will help your students to tame information overload, help the disabled to communicate through voice commands, or just build a cool new cell phone interface. Who knows, maybe you've got a Turing Award winner in your class right now.

Okay, you've officially been reached out to (ouch, nice grammar). Now I'm going to re-watch the Engelbart video. How did they do that in 1968?

Tags: ACM, Sno-Isle Library, Microsoft Research, Rick Rashid, Xerox PARC, Alan Kay, SRI, Douglas Engelbart, Mary Czerwinski, Marc Smith

It all adds up

I spent most of last Friday afternoon performing feats of statistical wonder: median, mode, mean, min, max and standard deviation calculations. The mayor wants to make the building permit process more predictable (consistent) so the process improvement team needs data on how much variation there is in the various steps of the process. Fortunately we have the data. Most of it I could do with the built in aggregating functions in SQL, but I had to break out the VBA code to call Excel's median function from Access.

Since this blog is intended to, on occasions, provide advice about how educational programs can better prepare students for the exciting world of corporate information systems (I.S.), I thought I toss out a couple of thoughts regarding math and corporate I.S.

Personally, I didn't hate or love math in school. Generally I was indifferent to math. I knew I had to be decent at math because in college I was going to be studying Biology, Chemistry, Forestry, Economics, Business in preparation for a career in Epidemiology, Land Management, HR, Marketing, Computer Programming (how'd that happen?). Fortunately I have those math skills because as programmer I have been asked to do rigorous computational mathematics like calculating pi, calculating rocket trajectory, modeling weather patterns, rounding a 401(k) deduction to two decimal places.

Like so many other students my issue with math was relevancy - am I ever going to use this stuff. Earlier this year I was reading a book called Made to Stick, about how some ideas are memorable and other not, and came across this quote from a teacher who had grown weary of such questions:

My grade 9 students have difficulty appreciating the usefulness of the Standard Form of the equation of a line, prompting them to ask, "When are we ever going to need this?"

This question used to really bother me, and I would look, as a result, for justification for everything I taught. Now I say, "Never. You will never use this."

I then go on to remind them that people don't lift weights so that they will be prepared should, one day, [someone] knock them over on the street and lay a barbell across their chests. You lift weights so that you can knock over a defensive lineman, or carry your groceries or lift your grandchildren without being sore the next day. You do math exercises so that you can improve your ability to think logically, so that you can be a better lawyer, doctor, architect, prison warden or parent.

MATH IS MENTAL WEIGHT TRAINING. It is a means to an end (for most people), not an end in itself.

Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. Made to Stick. New York: Random House, 2007 (page 194).

If you're like me, and you should be thankful you're not, you are immediately struck by the creativity in comparing math exercises with weight training for football. It's certainly true that the mental weight training my math teachers had me doing in the 1960's and 1970's sure paid off last Friday. As I pondered this post, however, it occurred to me that the analogy works in the other direction too. People who never get to play the game eventually stop lifting weights. Yes it's a means to an end, but if the end is 31 years away your going to lose a lot of folks.

Mathematically I got "into the game" in high school biology class. My project was to see if there was a statistically significant relationship between annual rainfall and the amount of growth in trees. The key was that I wasn't merely required to do the math, I had to figure out what math to do. I spent more time researching correlation than cutting up the tree (we had to go out into the forested countryside, which is now known as Mill Creek). Do you know how truly valuable it is to know that correlation and causality aren't the same things?

Okay, fast forward to today and we are thinking that another math requirement in high school is going to help raise standards. Might I suggest a class that isn't mathematical weightlifting, but instead encourages students to put math into practice. With apologies to those of you who love advanced mathematics, here is my quick list of useful math for corporate I.S. types:

• interest rates, compound interest, rates of return, percentages, present value
  
• marginal rates, rates of change
  
• central tendency (mean, mode, median, standard deviation)
• variable replacement, constants
  
• date/time arithmetic
  
• data types, numbering systems (binary, hex)
  
• set theory, predicate logic, relational algebra (the basis for relational databases)
  
• logic, story problem (can't solve a problem if you can't describe the problem)
  
• relational operators (equal, greater than, less than or equal to, etc)
  

I can make a case for hiring an entry level programmer or analyst candidate who can demonstrate the use of these math concepts. It's certainly nice to have the advance math, and essential for many types of programming, but I have never been asked to determine the area of a paycheck.

Tags: Made to Stick, Chip Heath, Dan Heath, Mathematics, Education, WASL

High School Confidential

In a recent post I noted that this area has a number of high-skilled, well-paid jobs that only require a high school diploma. Lumping the machinists and plumbers in with Chairman of the Board at Microsoft is fun and hopefully surprising enough to create an idea that's made to stick.

Over the past couple of months I've notice a number of articles, commentaries and radio pieces around the skilled trades. Many of them point out that there is a looming employment shortfall due to the high number of retirements and the low number of people entering the trades. School come in for some blame for over-emphasizing college for everyone.

Without further adieu, here are your links:

1. Snohomish grad Brian Harbeck is skipping college and heading off to a precision machining apprenticeship program. The Herald article describes how his father maybe following in his footsteps.
   
2. Arlington manufacturing businesses partnered with the school district to develop a career center for machinist and skilled trades.
3. Rosemary Brester from Hobart Machined Products wrote a guest commentary on the need for stronger math skills for all students, not just those going on to college.
   
4. Still another Herald article on the concern over passing the WASL discouraging students from attending vocational programs such as at Sno-Isle tech skills center.
5. KUOW ran a two-part piece (part 1, part 2) on skilled trades, worker shortages and the role of high schools.

Tags: Everett Herald, Sno-Isle Tech Skills Center , Rosemary Brester, KUOW, Brian Harbeck

Crisis, What Crisis

[cross-posted at the No Sno U]

I was catching up on my blog reading (and writing) and came across an interesting post on the Bamboo Project Blog from Michele Martin. Michele writes a great blog on career development, training and professional development, but in her Left Behind post she talks about the crisis in secondary education. Her concern is not merely the huge high school drop out rate, but the seeming acceptance of this lower standard. While I completely agree with the sentiment (not necessarily where she places blame), whenever I hear someone speak of a crisis I am reminded of Rhonda's Revelations.

Technology author, consultant and professor Jerry Weinberg is known for a number of great books, but my favorite is the Secrets of Consulting. His rules for giving and getting advise are weaved into stories making it an enjoyable, light-hearted read. It is in the chapter on making change safely that we are introduced to Rhonda's three revelations on resistance to change:

1. It may look like a crisis, but it's only the end of an illusion.
2. When change is inevitable, we struggle most to keep what we value most.
3. When you create an illusion, to prevent or soften change, the change becomes more likely - and harder to take.
   

Weinberg, Gerald. Secrets of Consulting. New York: Dorset House, 1985. pages 149-151

Consider the stereotypical male mid-life "crisis". The hair stops growing on your head and, for some unknown reason, starts to emerge from your ears. And so Samson, do you accept it and move on? Heck no, your hair defines you (it's most important), so it's comb-over time (the illusion). When it is all said and done, however, you're still going bald. Deal with it.

I don't mean to trivialize a 20% to 30% high school drop-out rate by comparing it to male pattern baldness, but I do believe that we are trapped by the illusions we have created about education (primary, secondary, post-secondary). We aren't going to fix the drop-out rate, the rising cost of college or any other educational issue until we acknowledge our illusions and move on. Otherwise, we are just making the whole situation worse. Let me start with a couple of examples:

• Bad teachers and/or union. Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the reason number one reason students give for dropping out isn't poor pedagogy (no, it's not a foot doctor). While there are poor teachers who should be shown the door, the number simply can't be large enough to explain away all our problems. It would be like saying that the AMC Pacer was a really great car that was assembled by some bad UAW workers. This is not to say that teachers, administrators, deans and professors don't harbor their own illusions that hinder change.
  
• Education is under-funded. The only way we are spending too little on education is if you can make the case that we are doing the right thing, but we just can't do enough because of the lack of money. You're always spending too much if you are doing the wrong thing. That's my beef with the University of Washington branch campus - not that we shouldn't invest in education, but that this is not the best way to invest.
  
• College degree is a ticket to the good life. Clearly the days of any degree guaranteeing you a job for life are over (they probably never really existed, but that an illusion for you). As a financial investment, studies have shown that there are good degrees and there are bad degrees. In addition, people don't tend to factor the cost of borrowing into their cost/benefit analysis (analysis tends to ruin illusions). The question is can we kill the "everyone needs a bachelor's degree in the first four years after high school" illusion without killing the "everyone is going to need on-going professional education" reality?
  

Change is made even more difficult as we tend to value the label for the thing we value most as much as the thing itself (Rhonda's second revelation). For instance, a bachelors degree has become synonymous with the the American Dream so many people see the lack of a four-year university in Snohomish county as their child's first step toward living in a trailer park. Never mind that your average art history major can't compete salary-wise with any of a number of high-skilled, well-paid jobs held by those with only a high school diploma - jobs such as Plumber, Machinist and Chairman of the Board of Microsoft.

So to really address the "crisis" in education we must give up our illusions and create a vision for education that helps us live the American Dream circa 2050, not 1950. In his book The Pentagon's New Map, Thomas Barnett describes the reordering of his family life when his 2-year old daughter Emily was diagnosed with cancer. He says:

To me, Emily's cancer was an amazing gift -- as twisted and cruel as that sounds. It taught us many valuable lessons and reordered our lives for the better. It showed us what it means to want a future so badly that you will do whatever is necessary to achieve it, even as that effort kills many past dreams of a life well led. Most important, it gave us a confidence to make difficult decisions regarding which connections in our lives must be maintained at all costs, and which could be severed with acceptable loss.

Barnett, Thomas P.M.. The Pentagon New Map. New York: Berkley Books, 2004. page 249.

Dr. Barnett describes how difficult it is to reorder a life out of balance, whether his family post-cancer or the Pentagon post-9/11. Perhaps we can also use it as an example of how we can reorder the educational system post-millennium.

Unfortunately don't have a vision of an educational future that we want badly. We aren't willing to give up our illusions/delusions of the life well led. Worse, our civic leaders are willing to indulge us our delusion. We still value the good life in the past more than a good, but different, life in the future.

Tags: Michele Martin, Bamboo Project Blog, Jerry Weinberg, Secrets of Consulting, Thomas Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map, UW North Sound

Drum (blog)roll please .....

and the winners are Andy, Liz and Tom.

The blogroll over on the right-hand column is a listing of my favorite blogs built dynamically from my feedreader account, Bloglines. Actually, the list is of my top tier blogs, the ones I'm actively reading on a regular basis. I also have a category for blogs that I am reviewing and considering for top tier status, which I hid from the blogroll. This is my minor leagues and there is a good chance you won't notice when one gets called up to the big leagues. Over the last couple of weeks I've added three blogs that I would like to highlight:

1. Andy's Teaching and Learning Blog comes to us from an accounting instructor at Edmonds CC. Andy posts links and resources with little additional commentary, unlike many bloggers. As you approach the end of the school year I would highly recommend you review his recommended links on grading exams from last December.
   
2. The Power of Educational Technology comes to us from Liz Davis an instructional technology specialist in Wellesley, MA. In addition to her blogging she has produced a number of useful screencasts that show you how to use tools like Flock and Google Reader which she has posted at her YouTube channel. You can also follow her on Twitter here.
3. Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog comes to us from, yeah you guessed it, Thomas P.M. Barnett (that wasn't hard to figure out was it). This is not an educational blog, but it maybe an interesting resource for current events, political science, world events and other such courses of study. His book, The Pentagon's New Map, lays out a different different direction for the US and the Pentagon in the post-Cold War, post-9/11 world. If you have 25 minutes you might want to start with his TEDtalks presentation from February 2005.

Enjoy.

Tags: Andy's Teaching and Learning Blog, Liz Davis, Thomas P.M. Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map, Edmonds Community College