Mind the CS gap between the train and the platform
Lessons of computational thinking inspired by the public transit system in Paris
Parents! Educators! Your attention please!
How would you feel if you could use the public transportation environment as a stimulus for developing and enacting computational thinking concepts to your child during your everyday journeys? It seems a bit bizarre, does not it? Well, after field observations, I came up with different ideas on how public transportation environment and several semiotics used in the design of public transportation information & signalling system can be interplayed with the art of computer science, taking up the form of “unplugged” activities.
Adapting a “computational thinker” mindset is basically one in need of a lot of training. However, in our communications & decision making situations, even for the simplest things on a daily basis, we are doing half of the work without noticing it. As for the children, Wing (2008) stated that learning take up many forms outside the classroom: children teach each other; learn from parents and family; learn at home, in museums and in libraries; and learn through hobbies, surfing the Web and life experiences. This is why the teaching of complicated notions can be played around & strengthened not only in formal but also in informal learning settings. To my mind, the propositions presented below on how public space & transportation can be used as a hub for fostering creativity, innovation & informal learning insights on computational concepts necessitate a collaborative effort between parents and children (working in binomes).
Terms & Activities
1.Two (or more) exits: Abstraction
Abstraction is the process of excluding unnecessary information and focus on the details that matter. With the example of the metro map below: users should disregard info on the buses around the area and a) find the street from the list on the right , b) identify the closest exit (exit’s number) of their destination.
2.Which line should I take? : Decomposition
Decomposition is the process of breaking down something in smaller parts. In some metro lines, there are bi-directional destinations: users should study the metro signs, and define in which train destination they should step.
3.Train approaching platform: Pattern Matching
Blinking-light patterns on the metro station panels indicate that the train is approaching the platform. Even if the users are far away and they can not exactly identify the remain time on the panel, the light blink shows that the train is almost there.
4.One route : Sequence
The Parisian railway map is quite confusing as most of big cities’ public transportation maps. What users need to do for optimizing the way that they should take, from an A to a B point, is to identify a series of steps for reaching their goal destination (first take the ligne #, stop at the metro station x, take the ligne #).
My idea is that the aforementioned can be used as an inspiration for creating interactive activities which combine the multimodality theory (communication via aural, visual, textual resources that can be found in the public transportation) with other subjects such as the interdisciplinary computational thinking concepts. It is an attempt to draw attention to the fact that learning can take place in public settings and it can be actually really efficient! In order to maximize the benefits of urban outdoor learning, the educational initiatives should provoke curiosity, interaction & reflective thinking.
To conclude, I have created some small exercises inspired by the Parisian environment & its public transportation system and you can find it here: https://goo.gl/xdFodb
Bibliographical inspiration:
“Computational Thinking.” Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything.
“Computational Thinking in Primary Schools — An Open Mind.” An Open Mind
Lockwood, J., Mooney, A., (2017) Computational Thinking in Education: Where does it fit? A systematic literary review
Voogt, J., Fisser, P., Good, J., Mishra, P., & Yadav, A. (2015). Computational thinking in compulsory education: towards an agenda for research and practice. Education and Information Technologies, 1–14
Vee, A. (2013) Understanding computer programming as a literacy. Literacy in Composition Studies, 1(2):42–64
Nishida, T., Kanemune, S., Idosaka, Y., Namiki, M., Bell, T., Kuno, Y. (2009) A CS Unplugged design pattern. In: Proceedings of the 40th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2009, Chattanooga, TN, USA, pp. 231–235. ACM, New York
Wing, J.M. (2008) Computational thinking and thinking about computing. Philosophical transactions of the royal society of London A: mathematical, physical and engineering sciences, 366(1881), pp.3717–3725
If you try any of the ideas cited above , I am looking forward to receiving your feedback!
* Special thanks to my friend: Elli Sarrou
