[LCT] Re: Constellations and cosmologies

From: Dan Campbell <dan.campbell.keele@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lct@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2023 14:54:14 +0100

Hi Jodie,

Thank you for contributing to this thread. In terms of constellation maybe
you could consider the vocabulary and underlying knowledge structures in
terms of their complexity to understanding. For example, in the UK primary
schools high-frequency words, medium-frequency words, and low-frequency
words. These in a simple way could form constellations in the same way that
computing words could form constellations. When I think about my vocabulary
with my students I used the words 'decompose' and 'problem' and 'issue'
these could be my constellation of high-frequency words.

Chat soon,

Dan

Kind regards,

Dan Campbell
This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended
solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or
opinions expressed are solely those of the author. If you are not the
intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based
upon its contents nor copy or show it to anyone.

On Thu, 29 Jun 2023 at 20:16, Jodie Martin <jodie.martin.phd@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Not really to add anything of value but just an observation.

I teach an academic english course that supports first year science
students that either take Computer Science or Earth and Ocean Science as an
elective. It makes it really hard to find things to teach that will be of
value to both sets of students because both the language systems and the
knowledge structures are so extremely different. EOS - very taxonomical and
cause and effect. You look at the language: lots of latin and greek
morphemes. But then you take computer science words like above, and on the
one hand the words are relatively intuitive and everyday but used in such a
specialized way that I think it makes it easy to struggle to gauge the SG
and SD. I observed one of my colleagues teach a 50 minute class on 'while
loops' which she did by consolidating what 'while' means in an everyday
sense, moving to specialized, moving to contexts in which you would use a
while loop and then combining with previous lessons on flow charts to
conceptualize the algorithm before you write it.

Alas I haven't had and will not get time to dive more deeply into the
language and knowledge of comp sci. But my main strategy is to emphasize
logical relations in language (conjunctions and so forth) so they get
clearer on the language prompts.

On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 at 13:47, Dan Campbell <dan.campbell.keele@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

In response to your question, "I'd love to hear what others feel about
this". It's been a while, so I had to go back to Karl's Knowledge and
Knowers book to refresh my understanding.

SG: I agree that the *concept* of "functions, variables, and event
handlers" can be used across many applications (context) or act as common
features/ language (code) within computational thinking and thus have a
weak SG. However, as you suggest, their real-life application may be strong
SG as a programme 'function' may be limited to one specific context rather
than reusable across many. I would suggest that this interpretation (gaze)
is influenced by, as you suggest, my knowledge, experience, and teaching
field (Knower codes). The fact that we are saying that "functions,
variables, and event handlers" are associated with a weak SG infers, from
my understanding, that we are indicating that these are a cluster with a
weak association with another cluster which creates the constellation. It
is interesting that you suggest that 'loop or conditions' are strong SD, I
reflected on this, and I am taken back to the gaze. I could argue that the
concept of a 'loop' (the iterative sequence through a collection of data)
and the concept of a 'function' (a container for a block of code
(instructions)) are both weak SD. However, the practical implementation of
a loop is more complex (due to the different types of loops and their
usage/ output) compared to the practical implementation of a function. I
would suggest that this infers an epistemic relation as I am indicating
that there is a difference between concept and application and thus a
student who demonstrates strong SG and strong SD is demonstrating "both
specialized knowledge and the right kind of knower" (elite code). Whereas a
student who demonstrates a working function using a less efficient loop but
gains the correct output ("anything goes") is using a relativist code. From
this, it is clear that the organising principles (cosmology) that the
student is using to translate the concept into practice are important to
understand the student's practice. For example, if using a 'while loop'
gains the students more marks for their work this is likely to be an
indicator of domain legitimacy and thus offers "sex appeal" for the student
and social field (students on the course).

I hope this tired mind dump offers you some insight into your question.

To all readers, please feel free to highlight where I have wrongly
applied these LCT concepts or where you disagree as I am still learning.

Chat soon,

Dan

Kind regards,

Dan Campbell
This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended
solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or
opinions expressed are solely those of the author. If you are not the
intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based
upon its contents nor copy or show it to anyone.

On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 at 07:09, Dorian D. Love <dlove@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Thanks, Dan,

The circles are merely annotations at this stage. I haven't found a
satisfactory way of positioning them on the screen to mean anything 🙂

The translation device I am using is pretty simple. I look at SG first
and the question is whether it is localised to a single context or has
application across contexts (no matter how small). So Functions,
variables and event handlers tend to be considered SG- [I'd love to
hear what others feel about this]

Then I look at SD and at whether there is condensation or not. So a loop
or conditional tends to be SD+

I am not looking at degrees of condensation or de-contextualisation at
this stage. What is abstract or complex for a grade 8 pupil would not be
the same as for a grade 10 pupil. So after some experience a conditional
statement would start to become a singly constellated object and not an
assemblage of concepts, and would tend to be seen as simple and
contextualised.

I am in the early stages of testing this translation device against data
to see if it gives any insights or not.

When you add electronic components it also adds questions such as
writing a digital signal to a pin needs to be understood as sending a
signal down a wire to turn on a light bulb or whatever and this adds
complexity and abstraction even where the coding block itself is a simple
and contextualized statement.

Best regards
Dorian

<https://www.roedeanschool.co.za/>

*Dorian Love*

*ICTs, Coding & Robotics, Thinking Skills Teacher | **Engage Systems
Administrator*

*T**:* +27 11 647 3200 | *M*: +27 82 596 3570 | *Email:*
dlove@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <shanson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Princess of Wales Terrace, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193

*www.roedeanschool.co.za* <http://www.roedeanschool.co.za/>

<https://www.facebook.com/RoedeanSchoolSA/>  [image: A picture
containing text, clipart, vector graphics Description automatically
generated] <https://za.linkedin.com/company/roedeanschool-sa>  [image:
Icon Description automatically generated]
<https://twitter.com/RoedeanSchoolSA?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor>
  [image: Icon Description automatically generated]
<https://www.instagram.com/roedeanschoolsa/?hl=en>

------------------------------
*From:* lct-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <lct-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf
of Karl Maton <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Monday, June 5, 2023 3:18 PM
*To:* lct@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <lct@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [LCT] Re: Constellations and cosmologies

Discussion is what this forum is for, as well as events and news, so
please jump in.

And if anyone has a question about anything in LCT, why not ask it here?
The forum is a resource.

Sent from a mobile device while afield

On 5 Jun 2023, at 23:12, Dan Campbell <dan.campbell.keele@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Sorry to jump into your conversation but I found your images an
interesting way of looking at programming coding. Please allow me to ask a
couple of questions so that I can understand your interpretation of the
code and thus the positions of your circles. I am assuming that you have
event handler as an 'abstraction' (?) and that you have vertically aligned
numbers 8 and 11 purposely, if so why is number 8 and 11 not aligned under
number 5 (?), they seem about the same level of complexity to me or is that
number 8 is situated within number 5?

<image.png>

Chat soon,

Dan

Kind regards,

Dan Campbell
This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are
intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any
views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author. If you are not
the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action
based upon its contents nor copy or show it to anyone.

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 at 13:41, Dorian D. Love <dlove@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Hi Karl,

I am using it to try and understand how concepts in computing education
are built over time. My assumption is that students need to learn how to
add both complexity and abstraction to their initially largely everyday
understandings. So it seems to me that semantic tours are a useful way of
thinking about how computing concepts are being constellated.

Here is an example:

The code is for a burglar alarm using a magnet on a doorframe. The main
tour this student is making is between prosaic and worldly codes.

<image.png>

Student B used a variable for the magnetic strength threshold, which
added a tour into the rhizomatic code when the variable was used within the
IF statement. She also added a repeat loop to create a pulsing burglar
alarm adding levels of condensation.

<image.png>

To my mind students are constellating their code slightly differently
and semantic tours are a useful way of visualising what is going on and for
identifying possible scaffolding interventions.

I hope this makes sense? Of course what it loses is what order the
coding was done in, which would give more information.

All the best
Dorian

<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/2p_tCGv0oyCBE1mYOUKYiYC?domain=roedeanschool.co.za/>
<Outlook-xrwwj043.png>

*Dorian Love*

*ICTs, Coding & Robotics, Thinking Skills Teacher | **Engage Systems
Administrator*

*T**:* +27 11 647 3200 | *M*: +27 82 596 3570 | *Email:*
dlove@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <shanson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Princess of Wales Terrace, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193

*www.roedeanschool.co.za*
<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/rikECJyBrGfBlqRrAUGG5TN?domain=roedeanschool.co.za/>

<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/iPz-CK1DvKTDP2lEMi30Nxt?domain=facebook.com/>
<Outlook-lz5nxky4.png>

<Outlook-A picture .png>
<https://za.linkedin.com/company/roedeanschool-sa>
<Outlook-Icon>

<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/VSXoCL7EwMfkVRAjwfml8WJ?domain=twitter.com>

<Outlook-Icon>

<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/4myKCMwGxOt2DqgOktQuoH_?domain=instagram.com>

<Outlook-ua3wljaw.png>

------------------------------
*From:* lct-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <lct-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf
of Karl Maton <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Monday, June 5, 2023 3:27 AM
*To:* lct@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <lct@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [LCT] Constellations and cosmologies

Thank you to those who sent papers using ‘constellations’.

If you’re using these concepts and haven’t yet published, email me
directly. I’m interested in how you are using them or thinking of using
them.

To be open: I am currently drafting a chapter on constellations and how
they may be useful.

K

[LCT] Re: Constellations and cosmologies

Other related posts: