Embracing the idea of working with teachers to support coding across the curricula (Wilensky, 2016) and framed in terms of a Paulo Freire's critique of deficit-driven, rote, controlling approaches to literacy, this workshop will begin with an "Introbuttons" activity for learning to code in NetLogo that centers on using "beauty" as a plausible instance of what Freire meant by a "generative word" (palavra geradora). Then, as a continuation of Freire's expressive sense of literacy embodying "an attitude of creation and re-creation, a self-transformation producing a stance of intervention in one's context," the workshop will draw on the capabilities developed through working with the Introbuttons activity to code and re-code models of segregation. A new, easy-for-educators-to-access, NSF-funded, NetLogo Web-based, "gallery"-mode prototype architecture for implementing interactive, group-situated learning and sharing will be used for the workshop.

• Critical Systems Literacy Slides

• IntroButtons Activity :: Scaffolding activity using a generative approach to learning to code/express with NetLogo.

• Connection to Middle School Math Curriculum :: Compound Probality and the Logic of OR & AND

7.SP.C.8.C Design and use a simulation to generate frequencies for compound events. For example, use random digits as a simulation tool to approximate the answer to the question: If 40% of donors have type A blood, what is the probability that it will take at least 4 donors to find one with type A blood? 

>Copy and paste into a procedure<

OR 

("this donor OR this donor OR this donor OR this donor" with type A)

ca

ask patches [set pcolor white]

crt 100 [set shape "arrow" set heading 0 set size size * 2 set color blue set xcor (random 30 - 15) set ycor (random 30 - 15)]

ask turtles [ ifelse (random 100 < 40) or (random 100 < 40) or (random 100 < 40) or (random 100 < 40) [set color red][set color blue set heading 180]]

print count turtles with [color = red]

AND 

("this donor not having it AND this donor not having it AND this donor not having it AND his donor not having it)

ca

ask patches [set pcolor white]

crt 100 [set shape "arrow" set heading 0 set size size * 2 set color red set xcor (random 30 - 15) set ycor (random 30 - 15)]

ask turtles [ if (random 100 < 60) and (random 100 < 60) and (random 100 < 60) and (random 100 < 60) [set color blue set heading 180]]

print count turtles with [color = red]

Extensions :: Explore false positives or false negatives for tests (e.g., of blood type) or the effectiveness of vaccines. 

• Segregation Activity :: An Exploration of a form of seggregation as an emergent ("bottom-up") phenomena and the role valuing diversity can have.

Some additional commands:

; semi-colon makes it a comment

; does setup and then repeats go 100 time

setup repeat 100 [go]

; has 50 of the green turtles turn red … now more reds

repeat 50 [ask one-of turtles with [color = green] [set color red]]

; has 50 of the green turtles turn violet … another color

repeat 50 [ask one-of turtles with [color = green] [set color violet]]

; can set a switch to true (on) or false (off)

set diversity? true

; can set slider to a value

set density 80

• A Recording of a version of this workshop

This talk explores how participatory simulations support group-based, socially mediated learning together. Participatory simulations extend the first-person (turtle) perspective of LOGO, where learners now “think like” agents within a dynamic system. 

Participatory Simulations Slides

Current NSF Project - Teaching for the Anthropocene: Teacher Learning and Practice for Critical Systems Thinking

Disease Participatory Simulation

Group-based Cloud Computing (GbCC)  for STEM Education (NSF) Models