[SIGCIS-Members] history, technology and education of theoretical math/cs concepts

Thu Nov 19 08:46:41 PST 2020

I just wanted to make explicit one earlier contribution to the already
recommended nice ones: one article by Sherry Turkle and Seymour Papert in
1990, based on which One of articles Bo An referred to (Lachney & Foster
2020) were written, as its title revealed.

Turkle, Sherry, and Seymour Papert. "Epistemological pluralism: Styles and
voices within the computer culture." *Signs: Journal of women in culture
and society *16, no. 1 (1990): 128-157. https://doi.org/10.1086/494648

Best regards,
Yoehan

On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 4:07 PM Eric Gade <eric.gade at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Paul,
>
> In addition to the excellent links others have provided, I would also
> recommend the following two:
>
> 1. Alan Kay's "Doing with Images Makes Symbols
> <https://youtu.be/p2LZLYcu_JY?t=4031>" talk (the link is at a timestamp
> in the talk that addresses what you are thinking about, but the whole thing
> is worth watching)
> 2. Andrea diSessa's book "Changing Minds: Computers, Learning, and
> Literacy <https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/changing-minds>"
>
> Though not directly related, I'll also recommend Walter Ong's "Orality
> and Literacy: the Technologizing of the Word
> <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/164515.Orality_and_Literacy>". While
> this doesn't deal with computing directly, it *does* grapple with the
> earlier and perhaps more general idea of a medium enabling new kinds of
> thought that would have been previously "unthinkable" (or at the very least
> extremely difficult) without it. In this case the medium/technology is
> reading and writing. But, as perhaps Papert, Kay, and diSessa might have
> argued, this same principle could extend into computing, particularly when
> it comes to internalizing difficult concepts we associate with math.
>
> On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 3:51 PM Bo An <bo.an at yale.edu> wrote:
>
>> Hi Paul,
>>
>> I second Morgan Ames's book and articles. For pre-GUI, here are some
>> historical and cultural studies about figures like Andrey Ershov (second
>> literacy) and Seymour Papert (LOGO) that might be helpful:
>>
>> Afinogenov, Gregory. “Andrei Ershov and the Soviet Information Age.” *Kritika:
>> Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History* 14 (June 1, 2013): 561–84.
>> https://doi.org/10.1353/kri.2013.0046.
>>
>> Agalianos, Angelos S. “A Cultural Studies Analysis of Logo in
>> Education.,” 1997.
>> http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10018887/7/Agalianos%2C%20Angelos%20S.pdf.
>>
>> Lachney, Michael, and Ellen K. Foster. “Historicizing Making and Doing:
>> Seymour Papert, Sherry Turkle, and Epistemological Foundations of the Maker
>> Movement.” *History and Technology* 36, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 54–82.
>> https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1759302.
>>
>> Margarita Boenig-Liptsin. “Making Citizens of the Information Age: A
>> Comparative Study of the First Computer Literacy Programs for Children in
>> the United States, France, and the Soviet Union, 1970-1990.” Accessed
>> August 14, 2020.
>> https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/23845438/BOENIG-LIPTSIN-DISSERTATION-2015.pdf?sequence=8
>> .
>>
>> Tatarchenko, Ksenia. “Thinking AlgorithmicallyFrom Cold War Computer
>> Science to the Socialist Information Culture.” *Historical Studies in
>> the Natural Sciences* 49, no. 2 (April 1, 2019): 194–225.
>> https://doi.org/10.1525/hsns.2019.49.2.194.
>>
>> Best,
>> Bo An
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 9:08 PM Fred Turner <fturner at stanford.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Paul,
>>>
>>> One starting place might be Morgan Ames’ book The Charisma Machine: The
>>> Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop Per Child. Lots in there about how
>>> folks learn to compute post-GUIs.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Fred Turner
>>>
>>> On Oct 8, 2020, at 11:56 AM, Paul Fishwick <metaphorz at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> There is a topic that has interested me, but I have been unable to make
>>> much headway in
>>> past years since I am not sure where to look.
>>>
>>> Consider that Kathy, an 8th grade student, knows more about how to use
>>> a computer than
>>> her parents, who may know more than her grandparents. When learning to
>>> use digital
>>> technology artifacts such as “menu”, education is imparted on Kathy. She
>>> learns something
>>> about tree structures, and possibly finite state machines (FSMs). This
>>> is done invisibly because
>>> she did not have to learn discrete mathematics and automata theory to
>>> use the computer.
>>>
>>> One hypothesis that all technology is this way. We use technology and
>>> technology
>>> uses us (by invisibly transferring new mental models). The introduction
>>> of
>>> the mechanical clock changed how we conceptualize time. Fast forwarding
>>> to digital
>>> technology, Kathy must have conceptualized trees and FSMs as mental
>>> models even
>>> though this theory was not made explicit.
>>>
>>> My searches have taken me to psychology (where the dominant discourse is
>>> about
>>> dysfunction where technology is concerned), history of technology as
>>> well as the history
>>> of science. This relates to math and computer science education
>>> too—teaching FSMs to
>>> people through implicit means. Learning something without knowing that
>>> your learning
>>> it.
>>>
>>> If anyone on this list has a good place for me to dive, let me know.
>>>
>>> -paul
>>>
>>> Paul Fishwick, PhD
>>> Distinguished University Chair of Arts, Technology, and Emerging
>>> Communication
>>> Professor of Computer Science
>>> Director, Creative Automata Laboratory
>>> The University of Texas at Dallas
>>> Arts & Technology
>>> 800 West Campbell Road, AT10
>>> Richardson, TX 75080-3021
>>> Home: utdallas.edu/atec/fishwick
>>> Media: medium.com/@metaphorz
>>> Modeling: digest.sigsim.org
>>> Twitter: @PaulFishwick
>>> ONLINE: Webex,Collaborate, TEAMS, Zoom, Skype, Hangout
>>>
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>>
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>
>
> --
> Eric
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
Yoehan Oh
Ph.D. Student
Department of Science and Technology Studies
Rensselaer Polytechnic institute
110 8th Street
Troy, NY 12180  USA
https://info.rpi.edu/people/yoehan-oh
e-mail: ohy at rpi.edu ; yoehan.oh at gmail.com
phone: (518) 368-1257
pronoun: he/him
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