Sunday 6 November 2016

How to be an Unplugged Artist


A recently released book Teaching Computing Unplugged in Primary Schools  edited by Helen Caldwell (University of Northampton) and Neil Smith (Open University) has a number of interesting chapters by authors who are passionate about how computing is taught in schools. The central theme is unplugged activities, without using computers, but still teach the fundamental of computational thinking.

Ok, confession time. I co-wrote, along with Katharine Childs (Code Club), Chapter 3 Artists so I am biased here, but I believe in the central theme of Unplugged Computing. Computing, and Computational Thinking in general,  is not just about programming and using a computer (though using computers and  programming are vitally important to Computing) but it is also about many other things including problem-solving, being creative and working collaboratively.

Chapter 3 is about linking these computational thinking ideas to produce visual art, by applying computing principles including  repetition, following and refining algorithms, and abstraction. The chapter also looks, how these links have already being made, with examples such Sol Le Witt where not all the work that was produced by the artist himself, but some by others following his written instructions - in other words an algorithm. There is even a game Thomas's Tangles

The other chapters make links with areas such as Robots, Musicians, Explorers, Magicians, Gamers, Cooks and Scientists.

References

Barr, D., Harrion, J., and Conery, L. (2011) Computational Thinking: A Digital Age Skill for Everyone Leading and Learning with Technology, ISTE, March/April 2011 [accessed via http://www.csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/CurrFiles/LLCTArticle.pdf on 26/12/2015]
 
Barr, V. and Stephenson, C. (2011) Bringing Computational Thinking to K-12, ACM Inroads, Vol 2. No 1, pp 48 - 54 [accessed via http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/CurrFiles/BarrStephensonInroadsArticle.pdf on 26/12/2015]
https://doi.org/10.1145/1929887.1929905
 
Computing at School (2013) Computing in the National Curriculum: A guide for primary teachers [accessed via http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/data/uploads/CASPrimaryComputing.pdf on 13/3/2016]
 
Denning, Peter J. (2009) Beyond Computational Thinking, Communications of the ACM Vol 52, Issue 6, pp 28 - 30 [accessed via http://sgd.cs.colorado.edu/wiki/images/7/71/Denning.pdf on 26/12/2015]
 
DfE: Department for Education (2013) National Curriculum in England: computing programmes of study
 
Freedman, J. (2015) Cycloid Drawing Machine [online] URL: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1765367532/cycloid-drawing-machine accessed on 3/3/2016.
 
Google. 2016 Project Jacquard [online] URL: https://www.google.com/atap/project-jacquard/ accesed on:1/3/2016.
 
Knuth, D. 1968. Preface, The Art of Programming vol 1., Boston: Addison-Wesley.
 
Knuth, D. 1996. Foreword. In: Petkovsek, M., Wilf, H., Zeilberger, D. A=B.. Natick: A K Peters/CRC Press, vii.
 
Koetsier, T., 2001. On the prehistory of programmable machines: Musical automata, looms, calculators. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 36(5), 589-603.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0094-114X(01)00005-2
 
Menegus, B (2016) CDMS: Built with Processing [online] URL: http://wheelof.com/sketch/ accessed on 4/3/2016
 
MoMA. 2012. MoMA| Video Games [online] URL: http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the-collection-for-starters/ accessed on: 1/3/2016.
 
Papert, S (1993) The children's machine: Rethinking schools in the age of the computer. New York: Basic books
 
Pearson M (2011) Generative Art: A practical guide using Processing, New York: Manning, 3-12
 
Selby, C. and Woollard, J. (2013) Computational thinking: the developing definition University of Southampton [accessed via http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/356481/7/Selby_Woollard_bg_soton_eprints.pdf on 26/12/2015]
 
The Art Story (2016) Sol LeWitt [online] http://www.theartstory.org/artist-lewitt-sol.htm accessed on: 6/3/2016
 
Wing, J. (2006) Computational Thinking Communications of the ACM Vol 49 pp 33 - 35 [accessed via https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15110-s13/Wing06-ct.pdf on 26/12/2015]
https://doi.org/10.1145/1118178.1118215
 
Wing, J. (2011) Computational Thinking - What and Why The Link - News from the School of Computer Science, Issue 6.0, Spring 2011 [accessed via http://www.cs.cmu.edu/sites/default/files/11-399_The_Link_Newsletter-3.pdf on 26/12/2015]
 
Liukas L (2015) Activity 7 The Robots Hello Ruby - Adventures in Coding, New York: Feiwel and Friends, 94-97.
 
Schofield, S (2016) Generative Artworks [online] URL: http://www.simonschofield.net
 
Turner S (2016) 3 'Art' Scratch Projects [online] URL: http://compuationalthinking.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/3-of-my-scratch-projects-for-week.html accessed on: 12/3/2016.






All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruonAll views are those of the author and should not be seen as the views of any organisation the author is associated with.

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