Tag Archives: reference

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Relative vs Absolute

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scratchIn ICT we see the concepts of absolute and relative in a range of situations, including URLs, spreadsheets and programming. Although hard for students to grasp, the distinction is important. With absolute referencing, we always know what we are going to get (e.g. go to coordinates 0, 0). With relative, we will get a different result, depending on our starting position (e.g. take 10 steps forward).

With absolute references we have a sense of certainty, and know we will get the same result every time. Conversely, relative references allows us to use changing circumstances to our advantage. Neither is better than the other, but it is powerful when students see the difference, and can make clear decisions on which approach to use.

In the past I have taught my students about this concept, using examples in Scratch. It has worked, but never that well. Today, for the first time, in teaching Programming 101, I put the image below on screen, and asked students to think about why I had divided the commands into two groups. There were some good guesses, and some students claimed to know but not be able to explain (fair enough, it is tricky ; ). One student observed that the commands linked horizontally, which was very astute. When the image was unpacked, with a role play example based on turn vs point in direction, students seemed to have a much clearer understanding.

Absolute vs Relative

Other Resources

Project Gutenberg

http://www.gutenberg.org/

Project Gutenberg is an online repository of books that are out of copyright, and thus freely available for anyone to use. With over 30,000 books currently available, this site provides a great source for gratis reading material. However, more important than this, it provides a massive amount of text that can be mashed and remixed in any way you or your students can dream up. Free from the constraints of copyright, and available in unfettered digital form, why not try some of the following ideas:

  • Use Wordle to create fantastic word clouds, which can be used to pick out themes or learn vocab.
  • Give students part of a text and ask them to write an extension or introduction to it.
  • Take a famous novel and come up with some crazy alternative endings.
  • Use Flickr Storm (free photos) and Storybird (digital storytelling) to create a picturebook version of a text.
  • Work as a class to produce an audio version of a book, publish it with Creative Commons and give it away on the web.
  • Take a novel and remix it into a song, poem, play or game.

I am sure there are at least a hundred other uses for Project Gutenberg’s texts. Let me know if you can think of any, and I will include them in this list.

Other Resources

Snopes: Urban Legends Reference

www.snopes.com

Snopes is a fantastic website that has gathered together a massive number of urban legends, hoaxes and scams and provides information on their validity and origins. Think of it as Mythbusters for the web.

Whenever a concerned acquaintance forwards me an email telling me that aspartame will kill me, or that Bill Gates will give me money or that I should stop using my microwave, the first thing I do is check for a known hoax on Snopes. I then email the link back to the sender, and ask them to consider checking the validity of emails before forwarding them on.

In terms of schooling, Snopes provides students with an informative and fun tool for learning skills of information literacy and critical thinking. Try gathering together a set of emails and get students to guess which might be hoaxes: then get them to use Snopes to see how they did. Discuss with them the reasons why such legends become ingrained and accepted as true, and how they can protect themselves from them. For older students, get them to consider the validity of Snopes itself: can they find other sources to verify or counter the claims made on the site? Finally, students might be asked to consider the philosophical questions of “Can we be sure of anything?” and “What is truth?”.

I think my favourite Snopes moment of all time was when I learned that, contrary to popular belief, Bobby McFerrin (the composer of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”) had in fact not committed suicide. From that day, I have become much less believing in things I read and hear, especially on the web.

Other Resources

BibMe: Fast & Easy Bibliography Maker

http://www.bibme.org/

Whilst citing references is certainly a vital part of academic research, it is also very tedious. By helping to create and format references according to a given system (e.g. Harvard, APA, etc), BibMe makes this task a lot easier. Simply search for the item you need to cite and select it for addition to your reference list. If the system cannot find the item, just enter the details by hand, letting the system format it for you. Select your desired style and simply copy and paste into your document.

Whilst there are other systems that do more (such as integrating into your word processor), BibMe cannot be beaten in terms of balancing functionality with ease of use.

Other Resources

Google Scholar

http://scholar.google.com.au/

Search the Web for journal articles and books. This site is extremely useful for serious research of the kind that students might be asked to undertake in their final years of high school and throughout university. If you are on a university campus, the site (very kindly) provides links to full articles which students of the university have access to.