I am increasingly astonished by how significant things we could achieve by harnessing the power of people around the world collaborating online.I am increasingly believe the power of social media. Now there's a totally new layer is going to be built on top of the social networking layer, that is, the game layer.
I grew up being told that playing games is a waste of time,that all I need is just study, study, and study. Now, I begin to recognize the power of games in learning, and in many other things, so I begin to play some games sometimes. I am thinking that probably I need my kids to teach me how to play games to survive in the future world after watching these two videos below.
(1)Jesse Schell: When games invade real life
(2) Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Is Étude a Whole Game?
I am reading the David Perkins's book Making Learning Whole today. Chapter 3 of this book focuses on how to work on the hard parts of learning. According to Perkins, the learners definitely need to pick out the hard parts in the whole learning game (Perkins' opinion is that learning shouldn't just learn the elements without knowing their usage, nor should it be only "about" something without really practice it in person, learning should be like playing a whole game, at least a junior version of a whole game.) to practice and practice and practice, but this oftentimes is not fun at all. How to making learning the hard parts fun? Perkins suggests to make exercise into Études. While I agree with this, I also think how to use études also matters a lot.
Recall my experience of learning playing piano, I did play a lot of études from Bayer, Carl Czerny, Hanon,etc, but I didn't feel it was fun or useful at all, nor did I have any concept of the whole game. The way suggested by Perkins is that when the learners playing the whole game, there are some hard parts, and an ideal way to practice the hard parts is to use études, in order to play the whole game better. But when I was learning to play the piano, almost all we did is playing the études, and had no ideas how these études could fit into the whole game. This is a misuse of the études as elements without knowing the whole game. So, the situation turns to that we always play the hard parts: Bayer, then Czerny-1, Czerny-2,Czerny-3...harder and harder... If the learning game is all about the hard parts, then it's too hard for the learners to enjoy.
Another of my thought triggered by this book chapter is that I begin to ask whether I am playing the whole game when I am learning the PHP programming now? It seems I got some small tasks to practice on, so I am definitely playing the junior version of the whole game. However, I feel I do not know the elements, so oftentimes, I feel I don't know how to play the game, I basically have nothing to use when I am playing. I lack of the fundamental knowledge of how computer system works, I don't know the Bash commands, I don't know the DOS commands, I don't even know HTML, how could I learn PHP well? Although I did wrote some codes that have the required functions, but I deeply doubt whether it's efficient or bug free, and I have no ways or no time to deeply examine that, all I want is to finish the game. So my opinion is that before we play the whole game, we at least need some elements and some "about". This is just a half-cooked opinion, I am still not sure about it. Maybe it's just the residual effect of the "element" and "about" education I received. Also maybe it's just because of the age: I am just paranoid by the fact that lots of excellent programmers are much younger than me, and I starts to learn this too late to enjoy it without worrying about anything.
Recall my experience of learning playing piano, I did play a lot of études from Bayer, Carl Czerny, Hanon,etc, but I didn't feel it was fun or useful at all, nor did I have any concept of the whole game. The way suggested by Perkins is that when the learners playing the whole game, there are some hard parts, and an ideal way to practice the hard parts is to use études, in order to play the whole game better. But when I was learning to play the piano, almost all we did is playing the études, and had no ideas how these études could fit into the whole game. This is a misuse of the études as elements without knowing the whole game. So, the situation turns to that we always play the hard parts: Bayer, then Czerny-1, Czerny-2,Czerny-3...harder and harder... If the learning game is all about the hard parts, then it's too hard for the learners to enjoy.
Another of my thought triggered by this book chapter is that I begin to ask whether I am playing the whole game when I am learning the PHP programming now? It seems I got some small tasks to practice on, so I am definitely playing the junior version of the whole game. However, I feel I do not know the elements, so oftentimes, I feel I don't know how to play the game, I basically have nothing to use when I am playing. I lack of the fundamental knowledge of how computer system works, I don't know the Bash commands, I don't know the DOS commands, I don't even know HTML, how could I learn PHP well? Although I did wrote some codes that have the required functions, but I deeply doubt whether it's efficient or bug free, and I have no ways or no time to deeply examine that, all I want is to finish the game. So my opinion is that before we play the whole game, we at least need some elements and some "about". This is just a half-cooked opinion, I am still not sure about it. Maybe it's just the residual effect of the "element" and "about" education I received. Also maybe it's just because of the age: I am just paranoid by the fact that lots of excellent programmers are much younger than me, and I starts to learn this too late to enjoy it without worrying about anything.
Fighting with Frustration of Imperfection
I haven't been writing blogs since this semester. It's a stressful beginning, so I haven't got the time and good quite mood to think and write logically. I've been taking in too much information, and felt the "unbearable heaviness of being", but they are all good and thought-provoking information, and I believe this is the process of growing up and getting to know who I am and what I can do better and better.
I want to talk about my feeling about imperfection. It starts from this controversial book published January this year, Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. This is a book about strict Chinese parenting techniques: raising perfect children. I personally grew up in the similar culture of pursuing perfection. However, the same as most other parents, my parents didn't take things to such an extreme as Amy Chua did. They didn't want to take things to extreme, nor they were able to. My parents are just two of the millions of ordinary Chinese parents, and they are not professors of Yale like Chua is. They were still fighting for the money to get their children good food and good schooling at least by the time of 1990s, and not all of them have enough money to get their children good teachers to teach them playing piano and violin. Amy Chua stands for the middle-class Chinese American elite parents in America, not parents in China.
The case for me, is one that pursuing for perfection but frequently frustrated by imperfection, which is different from the perfection of Amy Chua's children. Although I did learn playing piano, but my skills are not even closer to Chua's children at all. As a result, I grew up looking for perfection, but never get it, or never feel it's enough (if it's enough, it's not perfection). Because I did not get enough pressure from my parents to be good at playing piano, I am not good at it. Also because of the boring teaching methods of my piano teachers, I lost my love for playing piano. Now the results are a piano covered with dust, maybe a little bit of appreciation for music, and what's worse, the frustration that I will never be good at music and the jealousy to children like Chua's who can play piano very well. This frustration of looking for perfection but never get it is not only restricted to playing piano. It also influences other part of my life, such as I feel I am not thin enough, I am not pretty enough, I am not creative and smart enough, because my boring education has "educated me out of creativity", I don't know how to play video games, and I don't know how to dance and sing elegantly, etc. These kind of negative feelings would flood to me every now and then especially when I feel lonely, or I am not satisfied by my unproductive work. This is a result of early parenting and the education I received. Another clue I got from recently read the William Crain's book about human development theories (I love this book, it's very well-written, and easy to read and enjoy, it's also a good parenting book, I think.) is that I was an ambivalent insecure-attached baby according to Anisworth's Infant's Secure-based Behavior Theory.
Learning how to deal with the frustration with imperfection while still have never-ending energy to pursue perfection is a life-long project for me, and I am getting better and better at it while I learn more and more different opinions upon this from different people with different culture backgrounds and get more and more nice, warm-hearted, and supportive people around me. The secret to survive is to (1) work hard, and also (2) assemble myself a group of warm people around, no matter they are family, friends, colleagues, advisers, or roomies, no matter they are far or near, no matter they are virtual or real. Communication is a way to survive, also to gain socially constructed knowledge.
I watched this awesome talk about vulnerability by Brene Brown(Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability | Video on TED.com). According to her research, the people who accept their own imperfection, and vulnerability, the people who are dependent, and believe that they need other people's support will open their heart and embrace the world around them. These people will get the most support from people around and will be the happiest. This is an excellent supporting material to the (2) above. I believe and feel the power of getting more contact with nice people around me. I am increasingly believe using the way of social media to do that. Using the technologies of building a virtual world to get chance to contact people in real.
Now the problem for me is how to balance (1) and (2), sometimes I need to talk with people, but also I need time to concentrate on my work by myself, also I am afraid that if I do (1) too often, people will leave me automatically leave me alone, and I couldn't get chance to do (2), and I would feel lonely and frustrated again. This is the thing I need time to learn how to manage.
I want to talk about my feeling about imperfection. It starts from this controversial book published January this year, Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. This is a book about strict Chinese parenting techniques: raising perfect children. I personally grew up in the similar culture of pursuing perfection. However, the same as most other parents, my parents didn't take things to such an extreme as Amy Chua did. They didn't want to take things to extreme, nor they were able to. My parents are just two of the millions of ordinary Chinese parents, and they are not professors of Yale like Chua is. They were still fighting for the money to get their children good food and good schooling at least by the time of 1990s, and not all of them have enough money to get their children good teachers to teach them playing piano and violin. Amy Chua stands for the middle-class Chinese American elite parents in America, not parents in China.
The case for me, is one that pursuing for perfection but frequently frustrated by imperfection, which is different from the perfection of Amy Chua's children. Although I did learn playing piano, but my skills are not even closer to Chua's children at all. As a result, I grew up looking for perfection, but never get it, or never feel it's enough (if it's enough, it's not perfection). Because I did not get enough pressure from my parents to be good at playing piano, I am not good at it. Also because of the boring teaching methods of my piano teachers, I lost my love for playing piano. Now the results are a piano covered with dust, maybe a little bit of appreciation for music, and what's worse, the frustration that I will never be good at music and the jealousy to children like Chua's who can play piano very well. This frustration of looking for perfection but never get it is not only restricted to playing piano. It also influences other part of my life, such as I feel I am not thin enough, I am not pretty enough, I am not creative and smart enough, because my boring education has "educated me out of creativity", I don't know how to play video games, and I don't know how to dance and sing elegantly, etc. These kind of negative feelings would flood to me every now and then especially when I feel lonely, or I am not satisfied by my unproductive work. This is a result of early parenting and the education I received. Another clue I got from recently read the William Crain's book about human development theories (I love this book, it's very well-written, and easy to read and enjoy, it's also a good parenting book, I think.) is that I was an ambivalent insecure-attached baby according to Anisworth's Infant's Secure-based Behavior Theory.
Learning how to deal with the frustration with imperfection while still have never-ending energy to pursue perfection is a life-long project for me, and I am getting better and better at it while I learn more and more different opinions upon this from different people with different culture backgrounds and get more and more nice, warm-hearted, and supportive people around me. The secret to survive is to (1) work hard, and also (2) assemble myself a group of warm people around, no matter they are family, friends, colleagues, advisers, or roomies, no matter they are far or near, no matter they are virtual or real. Communication is a way to survive, also to gain socially constructed knowledge.
I watched this awesome talk about vulnerability by Brene Brown(Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability | Video on TED.com). According to her research, the people who accept their own imperfection, and vulnerability, the people who are dependent, and believe that they need other people's support will open their heart and embrace the world around them. These people will get the most support from people around and will be the happiest. This is an excellent supporting material to the (2) above. I believe and feel the power of getting more contact with nice people around me. I am increasingly believe using the way of social media to do that. Using the technologies of building a virtual world to get chance to contact people in real.
Now the problem for me is how to balance (1) and (2), sometimes I need to talk with people, but also I need time to concentrate on my work by myself, also I am afraid that if I do (1) too often, people will leave me automatically leave me alone, and I couldn't get chance to do (2), and I would feel lonely and frustrated again. This is the thing I need time to learn how to manage.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
In Memory of the Birth of My Javascript Scientific Calculator V1.0
After 10 days sleep (over 12 hours everyday) during the firs half of this winter break, I finally feel that I've totally re-gained my energy, so I began to work on my Javascript programming this week and had my HTML-CSS-Javascript Scientific Calculator V1.0 done last night. The first half of this week has been fairly productive:)
I was "hopelessly and desperately" sleepy those days, and was still thinking that I had lots of work to do, and was afraid that I cannot finish them, because I don't know how to do them. I somehow recognize that I begin to fear many things. I am afraid of many things that is unknown and uncontrollable. However, at the same time,if life is going too smoothly, I would complain that everything is so boring, and nothing excited, nothing unexpected has happened.I used to be very brave, and was afraid of nothing, and believed I could do everything if I wanted to, and I believe that's the thing that has driven me here in America, in this PhD program. Now, I sometimes feel unsafe, un-protected, and inconfident.Even when I got very good grades last semester, I somehow doubt whether that's an over-estimation of my ability.
Then, when I finished my first version of Javascript Scientific Calculator in just the past three days based on my previous almost zero background of any webpage programming language. I realize how smart I am :) I say this just to find some of my lost confidence. I think I still need to believe that if I believe something, I could do it! I need to be really patient and calm down. There's no need to be panic and fear, things will work out the way it is.I don't know whether I could (I believe I could, if I want to), I will become an expert in webpage programming in the near future, though now I just made one small step from zero.
I was "hopelessly and desperately" sleepy those days, and was still thinking that I had lots of work to do, and was afraid that I cannot finish them, because I don't know how to do them. I somehow recognize that I begin to fear many things. I am afraid of many things that is unknown and uncontrollable. However, at the same time,if life is going too smoothly, I would complain that everything is so boring, and nothing excited, nothing unexpected has happened.I used to be very brave, and was afraid of nothing, and believed I could do everything if I wanted to, and I believe that's the thing that has driven me here in America, in this PhD program. Now, I sometimes feel unsafe, un-protected, and inconfident.Even when I got very good grades last semester, I somehow doubt whether that's an over-estimation of my ability.
Then, when I finished my first version of Javascript Scientific Calculator in just the past three days based on my previous almost zero background of any webpage programming language. I realize how smart I am :) I say this just to find some of my lost confidence. I think I still need to believe that if I believe something, I could do it! I need to be really patient and calm down. There's no need to be panic and fear, things will work out the way it is.I don't know whether I could (I believe I could, if I want to), I will become an expert in webpage programming in the near future, though now I just made one small step from zero.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Life Needs Beliefs and Dreams
I am watching the movie Eat, Pray, and Love now. An Italian guy is making fun of American people: "You feel guilty [about only eating but not working] because you are American. You don't know how to enjoy yourself. Americans know entertainment, but don't know pleasure. Americans, you work too hard. You get burned out. Then you come home, and spend the whole weekend in your pajamas in front of the TV. " I feel I am much much much worse in knowing what is pleasure, and always feel guilty about not working. However, my body is getting lazier and lazier and refuses to work.Actually, learning how to enjoy myself is also a kind of work to me, and I feel it's a difficult work and don't want to do. So the result is that I am doing nothing, neither play nor work, and only feel guilty about myself.
Sometimes, I feel I am too real, I am too aware of and also afraid of reality. I do everything on purpose. I try to be nice with every person around, but I hide myself, and I don't know how to enjoy myself, and I lost passion towards many things very soon. Last night, I spent Christmas Eve in my adviser's house. A friend expressed great passion about elder people by translating alive a speech on YouTube given by a French Granny. Although I cannot understand French, I was really moved, not by the French Granny, but by the friend's passion towards that speech. I am moved that there are still people really care about peace, animals, senior citizens, environment, and there are still people really believe the world could be a better place. I am not saying that I used to not believe, it's just I felt those are out of my control, so I don't dare to believe, because my belief couldn't change anything. Now I feel, actually I belief maybe could change something, at least myself.
Life needs beliefs and dreams. Not all dreams need to come true; not all dreams need a plan to be implemented, to be realized. Some dreams, they will never come true, and you just hold them deep in you heart, and sleep with them with smiles.
Sometimes, I feel I am too real, I am too aware of and also afraid of reality. I do everything on purpose. I try to be nice with every person around, but I hide myself, and I don't know how to enjoy myself, and I lost passion towards many things very soon. Last night, I spent Christmas Eve in my adviser's house. A friend expressed great passion about elder people by translating alive a speech on YouTube given by a French Granny. Although I cannot understand French, I was really moved, not by the French Granny, but by the friend's passion towards that speech. I am moved that there are still people really care about peace, animals, senior citizens, environment, and there are still people really believe the world could be a better place. I am not saying that I used to not believe, it's just I felt those are out of my control, so I don't dare to believe, because my belief couldn't change anything. Now I feel, actually I belief maybe could change something, at least myself.
Life needs beliefs and dreams. Not all dreams need to come true; not all dreams need a plan to be implemented, to be realized. Some dreams, they will never come true, and you just hold them deep in you heart, and sleep with them with smiles.
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