On this episode of Spark: Programmers, Hybrids, and Cyborgs – oh my! Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:32 — 50.1MB)
You can also listen to individual stories below.
The Eyeborg Project
Rob Spence is a documentary filmmaker. He’s also a self-described cyborg. Yup, he’s replaced his eye with a wireless video camera and made a documentary about it, Deus Ex: The Eyeborg Documentary which was launched in conjunction with a video game called Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In it, Rob looks at the current state of cybernetics, and asks how far off a Deus Ex-like future might be and about the line between treatment and augmentation. (Runs 8:03)
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Living in the Hybrid Age
Ayesha Khanna is the director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, and she says we’re starting to enter a new age – the “Hybrid Age” – which is characterized by pervasive computing, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and “the emergence of technologies as a social actor.” That is, a time defined by our social interactions with the machines around us. (Runs 7:53)
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The Kids Are Alright
We’re about to hear a story about young people and the lack of interest in computer science as a field of study. Spark contributor Corey Takahashi shows us all is not lost, at least when it comes to a group of teens in Silicon Valley. They’ve developed and launched several successful apps that help parents, students and administrators to communicate key school information via smart phones. (Runs 5:13)
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Computer Class Canceled
There’s been a sharp decline in the number of young people studying Computer Science. Mark Allemang is a professor at Sault College in Sault Ste Marie Ontario who has seen this decline first hand, as more and more courses are canceled in community college. But why do so-called digital natives lack interest in pursuing careers in tech fields? David Ticoll is the executive director of the Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow’s ICT Skills, and he thinks the key is in not limiting education in computers to a hard category of ‘computer science’, but in thinking of educating young people in hybrid skills. (Runs 10:00)
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Program or be Programmed
Douglas Rushkoff’s book Program or be Programmed argues kids should learn to code, not for their careers, but so they can understand the bias of digital technology. In fact, Douglas thinks we all could benefit from a little programming knowledge because at this point it is basic literacy. (Runs 13:21)
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Additional Links
- CBC’s McLuhan Contest (will be live on Monday, October 24th)
- Main page photo by Gamaliel Espinoza Macedo
- APM music used in this episode
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Yet another episode my “Cyberspace Sociology” students might enjoy, if they don’t think of it as extra work.
Which relates to the point about enrolment in formal ICT programmes. Two points which may be worth considering…
The first one is that formal computing education may not always be perceived as the best way to get into ICT. Within geek culture, there’s a strong strength for autodidactic learning, and we’ve all heard from kids who code at home and are bored to death in school. Computer Science (CS) programmes at the university level can be very stimulating to those who already know how to code, and some of the trickier aspects of computer programming (including UX/UI, “user experience and user interaction”) may even require the type of academic work done in universities. But secondary and primary education may not be the best place to get started as a programmer.
The other point is about the “despecialization” of programming skills and the connection with other sets of skills. Some of the most interesting people in the tech sphere were trained in fields very far from CS. While engineers continue to dominate most tech fields, much innovation occurs when people trained outside of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) get involved in technology. English majors who learn to code can create all sorts of useful things which typical STEM people haven’t been thinking about.
This second point does relate to the CCICT’s approach to integrated programmes, though with a major difference, coming from my first point: those people who get ICT skills after getting trained in another field may do it outside of formal education.
Much of this has to do with flexibility. We keep telling students that they’re mostly learning how to learn, that they’ll be crafting their own jobs, that some of the most interesting “careers of the future” don’t exist yet, that “transversal skills” are often more important than specific ones… Then we want people to restrain themselves to the type of ICT career which was designed by school boards?
Not really trying to be provocative but some of this does sound anachronistic. In fact, there are CS professors such as Daniel Lemire from TÉLUQ who are talking about the declining relevance of IT departments in business. Do we really need more ICT specialists? Isn’t society moving toward a broader approach to technological literacy?
(Yes, I know that some answers to these come in other parts of the show.)
Great show this week, Nora and crew. From cyborgs to code literacy — love it!
Listening to Ticoll and Rushkoff, I was thinking they're both half right — computing as a stand alone discipline isn't getting us the skills we need (Ticoll) + coding really needs to become a universal literacy if we want to fix this (Rushkoff).
But they're all wrong when it comes to the path forward: they propose tweaks to universities (CS + MBA. yuck!) and public schools (2 hours of coding in grad 4, really?). As Cathy Davidson might say, these are institutions *designed* to mint monks and factory workers. Just not going to work.
When I look around, I see alot more learning about computers and networks (important!) happening on YouTube, StackOverflow and Minecraft than in most classrooms. If we'd rather program than be programmed, those are the first places we should be looking for solutions.
PS. Exception, many of Canada's community colleges. Also a good place to look.
Hey Mark appreciate being at least half right IYO! And good to hear you think at least our colleges have something to offer. I know your organization Mozilla is working with some so you have first hand knowledge. BTW doesn't Mozilla get funding from Google which I'd think uses at least a few tech savvy MBAs to help generate ad dollars? In any case I certainly agree there are many paths to a productive and inspired tech career. See careermash.ca for lots of exaales!
Nora, thank you for doing this. These are important issues.
Half right is is pretty good coming out of the gate!
CareerMash starts in exactly the right place. Great work. But I still think the real meat is not in talking about careers or school or jobs at all. Kids (and all of us) learn skills fastest when the learning is embedded in what they most care about (Minecraft, anyone?).
Sparkers: a good person to get on the show at some point is Mimi Ito from UC Irvine. She's great on this stuff. http://www.itofisher.com/mito
I listen to Spark on a regular basis so I thought I'd rate the show as requested, but I have been unable to find any where to actually rate it. So here it is I'd give most shows an 8/10.
The numbers of students may be dropping in comp-sci in high schools (my own school had to combine college and university streams into one class just to make a single section of computer science). When I was taking Computer Science in the late '80s in high school, we had two teachers doing 12 sections of comp-sci a year… twenty three years later we can barely scrape a single section together. Fortunately computers aren't nearly as important and widespread now as they were in the '80s.
The strangest part is that I just got back from three days of ECOO's 2011 Conference http://www.ecoo.org/ … and that conference is seeing a huge surge in popularity… 490 or so registered attendees last year, almost 800 this year. Why are teachers flocking to digital literacy while students aren't? And in a field that is actually in a jobs in demand place in an otherwise challenging economy. Computers have become commonplace, perhaps students don't see it as learning discipline any more… they think anyone can do it, so it's not worth doing?
Only one of my comp-sci students from grade 12 last year went into university comp-sci this year.
Why aren't Canadian kids going into computer science? I can think of many reasons:
1. Inadequate salaries to attract the best and brightest (simple capitalism, right?)
2. Job insecurity
3. Ageism
4. Lack of pensions
5. Outsourcing: Competition with a few hundred thousand graduates in India and China
6. Nortel
After spending my career in the industry, I'd strongly recommend that someone considering a computer science related field get a job in the civil service instead.. After all, you can always program for fun in your spare time! (and unlike high tech, you might actually have some spare time!)
Nora,
High Tech Survivor is absolutely right. I've been in the industry since the early 80s and have lived through the highs and lows. This is not the time to be racing into the high tech sector. Many, many of my peers have been forced out of the industry in favor of the outsourced environment or pushed in lower salaried positions. They are not happy. These were professionals, highly motivated, but have been slapped in the face. And adding embarrassment to injury, most have lost their pensions. Their kids, have seen this, seen how their parents have been treated and realize that this industry is not what it professes to be…rather its a dead end. In short, the young, even older motivated people, will run into the IT industry so long as they see there is a future. Today there is no future in IT.
Great show!
I really enjoyed the discussion about how everyone should learn to code, though I profoundly disagree with it. I don't think code is the way (or, the only way, or even the most efficient way) to develop a functional literacy about how the internet or technology works. People need to understand that, definitely, in order to be decision-makers and innovators of web tech, but they don't actually need to learn to code. I think that's taking it a step too far.
I get asked a lot by new librarians if they should learn to code in order to be hired as tech librarians (like me); I always say no, though I sense that everyone thinks the answer is yes. Better, I think, is to experiment with everything, figure out how it works and why it works, have projects online to see how things work technically and how internet communities function, read and participate in higher-level discussions about the future of HTML, understand the difference between CSS and HTML (that's a big one), understand how a database-driven website works, the impact of Ajax on internet technology…all without necessarily being able to crank out code on your own. As a decision maker, you don't need to reproduce something by hand. It's like that classic division between the people who think the boss needs to know how to do all the jobs, and the people who think everyone on a team brings specialist expertise, and everyone should bring that expertise to the whole.
The example from the show, about asking a question but not knowing which is the right answer based on a lack of technical knowledge? I understand what he's getting at, but I find that if I reach a point where my technical knowledge begins to falter because of the details of how, I ask a programmer. I don't think there's any shame in asking someone else with expertise. It doesn't mean I don't understand how things work or am incapable of making a decision. If I want to verify my facts, I go to someone for whom those facts are their job. It doesn't make me a less effective innovator. In fact, programmers tend to see all problems as fixable by writing a new bit of code; I have been in the (frankly hilarious) situation of being the one with the best possible technical solution to a problem while in a room full of programmers. Being an innovator, a decision-maker and a leader is about far more than code.
Now, if "learn to code" actually means "learn how things actually work" in order to know what you're asking for or expecting out of software and hardware, I'm behind that. But I think focusing on the code in particular, and writing it, is going too far. (Steve Jobs, after all, was not a programmer.) There is another segment of knowledge there that isn't as specific as learning where the semi-colon goes in a line of code but still brings you enough understanding to effectively lead innovation.
It was great to hear about another school having their own school app but there was no need to go to the US to find one, we have one right here in Canada!
It was great to hear about another school having their own school app but there was no need to go to the US to find one, we have one right here in Canada!
Here at Mother Teresa Catholic High School in Ottawa (www.mths.ca) we were the first high school in Canada to have a school app and we could not even fathom going back to not having one. We created ours last year in a response to our school installing wireless and encouraging our students to bring their mobile devices to class and using them. If they were going to bring them, we better have information in the form they will be using. We have had over a 1,000 downloads and the students, parents and staff love it. The only complaint we have is when will the Android and Blackberry version be coming! Push notifications has become a standard method for communicating with our community.
Not only do we have our own school app, the grade 10 programming class makes apps for the grade 3 class just down the road as well. This has also become a great hit.
Visit apps.mths.ca
Not only do we have our own school app, the grade 10 programming class makes apps for the grade 3 class just down the road as well.
Thanks for the info about the high school app in Ottawa. Sounds like a huge success.
I think the difference with the app that was featured in Spark ("The Kids Are Alright" story) is that the project I covered in California was initiated by students, and it serves a whole school district, beyond the individual school the student-developers attend. They use the app as students, but these young coders also did their own programming and promotions for it. As the high school principal says in the story, the California app would not even exist if the students hadn't come up with the plans.
-Corey
Thanks for the tip about your school app, Patrick! We didn't specifically seek out an American example over a Canadian one – Corey brought us the story and we thought it was a great example of teen-led programming, proof that some kids are still interested in learning and creating through code, and that was the story we wanted to tell. Location was irrelevant in that sense, but I will check out your link for sure!
Your clip on "Computer Class Cancelled" was a welcome pronouncement on the forecast of the future shortage in ICT workers in Canada. As an instructor of Computer Information Technology at Lethbridge College, this is an issue that is causing a great deal of worry within the entire ICT industry,
There are however two separate yet related issues in this problem. The first is the issue you addressed: low applications to ICT courses in Canada. The second is the low retention rates among students entering an ICT program. This second question was the focus of my Master's work and some of the empirical research currently being undertaken at Lethbridge College. When academic performance was with correlated with learning styles, personality traits, time management and logical thinking skills, only the latter showed any significant relationship.
Preliminary findings suggest a strong relationship between students' success in ICT courses and their ability to demonstrate problem solving abilities by thinking through problems involving conditionality and iteration–what has sometimes been called disjunctive logic.
Question yet to be answered include whether these skills have been lost or undervalued over the years and thus become atrophied, whether primary and secondary school systems or home life no longer teach these skills, or whether our modern society has removed the need or emphasis for such skills from the basic repertoire of life-skills.
I would not get into a CS job. I work in this industry and it changes very quickly. The skills you learn today in this industry are irrelevant tomorrow. I would find a job in something that has a longer shelf life than programming or tech support. Your sanity will be preserved and you'll eventually have weekends off to enjoy life.
I found the discussion on cyborgs to be the most interesting segment. It is both fascinating, from a rehabilitative health standpoint, and horrifying, from a human evolutionary standpoint. These technologies certainly help those with physical impediments through birth, disease or accident, and, no doubt, the performance capacities of these prostheses will one day surpass the real human capability—but only in one or a few areas. The runner with synthetic legs might run faster and entirely without tiring his legs, but how sensitive will those legs be to touch? I see these area as nothing more than an electronic gadget fad. At what point would a person stop, here? If the legs were cut off to be replaced with machine legs, then what about the torso? Would it not then be inadequate? If the eye is mechanical, then the nerve to the brain could be viewed as not having sufficient capacity to transmit the signal optimally, so perhaps the nerve would be replaced. Well, how about the brain? It can go on and on until there would be no human parts left. I suggest we just pull the plug. They have to face their mortality sometime.
As these machine appendages are being invented, there is another movement in rehabilitative medicine to create biological replacements, such as allowing tissues to grow on biocompatible substrates, so that new organs and eventually appendages may be regrown. This is far superior. These will be nearly genuine and real replacements for lost or damaged organs and appendages. They might be better in some ways from the original, in that they will likely not have defects or susceptibilities, yet they will be real parts of the person, grown right onto the body and of the person's own tissues, hence without risk of rejection. This technology would likely still have some limitations with respect to ageing, but a genuine biological being cannot live forever.
It is foreseeable that we could see a two class system of cyborg beings who are only part human, and an elite class of genuine biohumans, until these technologies are finally perfected. Which one would be preferable is not hard to guess.
I agree with High Tech Survivor, Crushed by IT, and Jo Programmer. My kids will be advised not to study CS for its job prospects, though they need to be CS literate to support other studies.
I think that one of the main points that my guest was making was, as you suggest, that we need to think beyond just thinking that we're going to teach people computer science. The hope is that you can give people with an interest in programming "hybrid skills" that rely on an understanding of programming, but also draw on other skills. I'm convinced, for instance, that the most innovative journalists will be those who know how to code. Our jobs will become more dependent on being able to design things like data visualizations, or little apps and tools, or 'newsgames' (video games that teach news stories). My sense of it was that he's suggesting that this 'hybrid' direction is where CS education needs to go.
When I was in high school I was lucky enough to be introduced to (and discover I thoroughly enjoyed) computer programming (not through school, of course, but through a friend). I decided to study CS and chose a university. The university I chose had a CS program, required a 72% average to get in, and an enrollment of 100 students. Up until that time that university was also graduating almost 100% of the CS students in their program.
In the summer before I started university Maclean's Magazine published their special "university" edition with a special emphasis on CS. Prominent articles described a number of people with CS degrees who were now millionaires. Implied in all those articles were:
1) anyone can get a CS degree
2) anyone with a CS degree is an instant millionaire
Thousands of parents across the country read the articles and convinced their children (most of whom, understandably, aren't quite sure what they want to study in university) to take CS.
Enrollment at the university I had chosen swelled to (and had to be capped at) 400 and the requirements to get in rose to 84%. Guess how many graduated from my year? If you said "roughly 80" you'd be correct. To me that implies Maclean's is responsible for shutting out 20 people that year from getting a degree in CS who would have otherwise.
But even of those who did graduate, many of those with whom I kept in touch who did get first jobs in CS very quickly exited the field after only a year or two.
You can't push anyone into CS, they have to choose it.
Not everybody can program a computer, in fact very few can do it well.
Not everybody has the qualities to enjoy programming, in fact very few do.
I agree Abc’s points of view as below:
Coding programming is a kind of complicated job, and it needs very strong logical inference skills and ability. Even not a few are stuck at entry-level, most of them are still stopped after passing entry-level, and this is why many programmers cannot do their job well. As a result, people who are enjoying program coding and having good quality in it are really limited.
Here I would like to emphasize that: love is the best teacher in the world. If someone likes and desires doing something, their motivated and effects are unbelievable, extreme productive. We all know that a wrong strategy just wastes their adolescent period.
Anyway, Author’s book has a good avocation that leaning program coding starts from kid age. However, it’s not every kid is good at computer programming, so making decision should depend on different situation the kids have. So Abc’s comment is more subjective and easy acceptable, I agree with him/her completely.
Computer-literate societies suffer from the misguided assumption that writing software is easy and within reach of the average individual. These false conclusions are perpetuated by gross ignorance, sloppily using/defining terms, and various easy-to-program products.
Unfortunately it seems to me that your segment on dropping admissions to CS programs is yet another of those things which perpetuate the "everyone can/should program" myth. Maybe it was just me, but what I heard was: "people are _using_ computers more and more, therefore more and more people should be _programming_ computers".
E.g. after completing a week-long course on learning how to "program" macros in Excel my sister (at our next family function) turns to me and sarcastically mentions: "Gee, I guess it doesn't take tens-of-thousands of dollars and 4 years [of university] to learn how to program a computer". To which I added: "Well, who do you think wrote Excel in the first place?" which blew her mind. To this day she can't understand that someone actually had to write things like Windows and Excel because "…when you turn on the computer, they're already installed". She actually thinks her one week "Intro to Excel Macros" course is comparable to a 4-year university CS degree.
Writing _good_ software is _extremely_ difficult. In my many years of experience I have noticed that only a very tiny group of people are equipped with (or develop) the challenging qualities required for its practice. Qualities such as brutal honesty and an insane attention to detail (which requires, as a consequence, enormous patience).
You can't force anyone into these traits; all attempts to do so will simply fail. The best you can do is to cast a wide net to make sure that those people with these traits are at least aware of CS as a career option.
The myth that anyone can program a computer is a large part of the reason why careers in CS aren't very enjoyable.
Scenario 1:
"I don't understand, all you have to do is add this one tiny feature. How is that so complicated? Why is it going to take 4 weeks? You must be ignorant, or trying to cheat me. In any case I'm going to fire you and hire anyone who tells me they can add it in an afternoon. I would do it myself if I didn't have all this other 'real' work to do".
Scenario 2:
"I need you to write the program for me. Here, sit down and I'll tell you how you're going to write it." Really? you're a [doctor | economist | university drop-out], how is it you know so much about programming? Oh right, because anyone who has used a computer now thinks they're a gifted programmer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_matter_of_prog…
One consequence of a career in CS (which I never realized when I choose this field and which I've never heard mentioned by anyone else) is that it really ties you to major, large cities. In all honesty, in Canada there are only a small handful of large cities where someone with a CS degree could hope to find lifelong employment. Oh sure you can find a one-off job in some smaller centre, but when that company goes under or if you ever want to do something new, you'll have to move back to Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal or maybe Calgary or Ottawa.
Another great podcast. Thanks Nora!
I can tell you one of the HUGE reasons why lots of people don't go into computer science. CALCULUS!
I began my university career in engineering at Dal/Kings, but became disenchanted with it and switched to computer science. This was way back in the early-mid 1990s. If I had stuck it out, I would probably had fantastic job opportunities. However, to get my degree in CS I needed to take lots of calculus courses. Why? Because the CS department was attached to the mathematics department. Now, we very rarely used any advanced math in any of our coding assignments, and had web/application design existed in the minds of my profs at the time (it was 1995), the math need for that would also have been pretty basic.
Unfortunately, I sucked at calculus. I could memorize formulae, but I didn't like not fully understanding what I was doing. Given the wall of calculus which stood between me and a CS degree, and not foreseeing how freak'n relevant it would be in 15 or so years, I switched into philosophy and contemporary studies.
So, my point is, if you want people in the programs, get rid of the largely irrelevant mathematics which come as part of the baggage of having CS attached to traditional university departments like math. You don't need advanced calc. in order to do programming.
Do you agree with the author's statement: understanding programming changes how you perceive the world?
On one hand I believe that in today’s world it could be beneficiary to know programming at some level. This is because we live in an environment that is increasingly dominated by computers. However, I do not entirely agree with Douglas Rushkoff that understanding programming will influence my perception of the world. I do not think that all computer users should know computer programming. Not everyone should understand what makes the car running when we drive it. We just know what is necessary to make our car start and how to drive it. Would we be better drivers if we understand how the engine works or how the accelerator operates? Probably not… It would definitely help us in case our car stops running properly, but then we have experts, so called “car programmers” who can fix the problem for us. Therefore, if I am only a user of a program, who does not understand the roots of its operation, it does not make me illiterate. In my opinion understanding programming does not necessarily change the way I perceive the world.
2. Do you also agree with author's argument that in the future programming should be considered "basic literacy?"
I do agree that as we live and progress into increasingly digital reality, with time we will learn not only how to use the programs but also how to build them. However, in my opinion it mostly involves younger generation’s education, especially children.
Programming could be one of the basic skills children gain with other subject they learn in school. The same as children learn languages, writing, reading, and math they could learn programming from a young age. As a result programming would become a basic literacy in the future.
It's the same as I mentioned this morning, I can only agree part of Douglas Rushkoff idea or point,what I mean is to use computer and computer application in our life, industry and society are more important than we try to create them using our limtied time. Such this kind of job can be done through experts, even though "we live in an environment that is increasingly dominated by computer." Rimma Mordel 's opinion of view provide us very good example with vehicles or cars,usually we only need to know how to drive our car properly and safely. such as repair,design and make are belong expertise people.
As a conclusion, I agree with Rimma Mordel entirely which is "understanding programming does not necessarily change the way I perceive the world. " what we should do is use computer and its related well and effectively,we still follow up the rule of occupations regularly.
I agree with Rimma Mordel. People should know the basics of how to start a car. I dont think learning how the engine works and so on would change how we drive. Based on the podcast i think that learning more about how we use something can help us but we need to consider is it going to change how we use that program in any way.
Under the condition of foreseeable future, I agree with Rimma's point. Programming will not be as common as driving. However in let us say 50 years( I doubt whether it would take this long though), with the development of technology, there could be two possibilities. On one hand, with advanced tools and languages, software programming could be highly efficient and the number of programmers will decrease. On the other hand, with the advanced tools and language, programming might become so easy that we can always customize our software. Those real experts would be working on the development of hardware programming or new language. If the car become cheaper, more people will choose buying a car instead of waiting for bus. To me, programming is more like driving than knowing how engine works. In fact I do not think there is no need of bus if most people have cars. They can both be true.
Understanding programming may have some effect on how we perceive the world, but not too much. For example maybe we think more mathematically. But the effect is insignificant compare to the effect of the products of programming.
I agree with Douglas Rushkoff's statement to some extent because we are living in a society that is heading towards a technical world. I can see why it is important to have an understanding of programming because if you are using the technology you should at least know how it works and why you are using it. I agree that once you understand the concept of programming you will look at life in another way. However i dont believe that it is necessary for everyone to understand programming because in todays society we have professionals that will take care of those problems. So in my opinion people should know the basics of how to use their program but it is asking to much for them to also learn and understand the concept as a whole.
I agree with the authors argument that in the future programming will be considered basic literacy because technology is only going to get more advanced so programming will be critical for society in the future. As society gets more technical so does the occupations. I believe that in the future there will be more job opportunities for people as we learn more about technology.