www.aritzhaupt.com

I have had a fairly successful year with my research publications. The following articles are in press this year:

Ritzhaupt, A. D., Stewart, S., Smith, P., & Barron, A. E. (In press). An investigation of distance education in North American research literature using Co-word analysis. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning.

Ritzhaupt, A. D., Higgins, H., & Allred, S. B. (In press). Teacher experiences on the integration of modern educational games in the middle school mathematics classroom. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

Ritzhaupt, A. D., Ndoye, A., & Parker, M. (In press). Validation of the Electronic Portfolio Student Perspective Instrument (EPSPI): Conditions under a different integration initiative. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education.

Kealy, W. A. & Ritzhaupt, A. D. (In press). Assessment certitude as a feedback strategy for learners’ constructed responses. Journal of Educational Computing Research.

Ritzhaupt, A. D., Higgins, H., & Allred, S. B. (In press). Effects of modern educational game play on attitudes towards mathematics, mathematics self-efficacy, and mathematics achievement. Journal of Interactive Learning Research.

Hohlfeld, T. N., Ritzhaupt, A. D., & Barron, A. E. (In press). Development and validation of the Student Tool for Technology Literacy (ST²L). Journal of Research on Technology in Education.

Smith, G. G., Ritzhaupt, A. D., & Tjoe, E. (In press). Strategies in visuospatial working memory for learning virtual shapes. Applied Cognitive Psychology.

I suspect most of them will be published by the end of the year, depending on the journal’s backlogs. Let’s hope for some impact next year!

I put together some random thoughts that I shared with my colleagues at UNCW. I put them into a PowerPoint presentation to make it easily accessible. I hope that I did not violate any copyright laws. I wonder if anyone can make any meaning of my presentation. It has a lot of meaning to me as it pertains to education at all levels. Enjoy. RandomThoughts.ppt

Hello All:

I recently had my site hacked. It was largely my fault for not using a stronger password, but I think the individual that did it could certainly benefit from spending his/her time doing other things. Perhaps it won’t happen again. My gmail account, my facebook account, and this account were all hacked simultaneously. What poor values, ethics, and morals one must have to deliberately want to hack a person’s website.
Cheers,

Albert

I have been teaching computer programming in higher education since I started my teaching career in 2003. I have taught a wide-variety of computer programming courses ranging from introductory object-oriented programming to advanced Internet programming. I have a passion for teaching programming courses because they are among the few courses where we can truly stretch an individual’s ability to “think” both abstractly and systematically. I have come to the conclusion (yes, probably erroneous), that a computer programming course should be a general education course for all undergraduate majors. By general education, I mean it just be just like a required math, social science, natural or physical science, or English course.

Here are my ten reasons why computer programming courses should be a general education requirement:

1. I have found that most students truly do not understand what a language is in terms of syntax and semantics. Though I teach programming languages, they are built with similar rules (grammars) as a natural language or the language of mathematics. If students are put in an environment where they have to learn to speak a rudimentary language (programming language), it better informs their understanding of what language is and isn’t.

2. A computer programming course allows me to teach applications of mathematics (especially some interesting Integer and modulus mathematics). The problem I see with traditional math courses is that they are taught in a very abstract form in which the emphasis is placed on the mechanics of, for example, simplifying equations.  A computer programming course allows us to explore very useful applications of even the most simple forms of mathematics. The primary difference being students are grounded in a real-world application of the mathematics.

3. Computer programming courses require us to cover the fundamentals of logic. I get to introduce students to concepts like propositions, logical operations, Boolean algebra, truth tables, structured flowcharts, logical equivalency, and relational operations. What’s more, students are able to see applied examples of how one would use these conceptual tools to solve moderately complex problems.

4. A computer programming course forces students to be detail-oriented and think incrementally. Any student finishing a computer programming course knows that in order to successfully write a computer program, you have to be detail-oriented and pay careful attention to every statement in a program. Students learn to “slow-down” their quick minds to think about things incrementally to solve even the simplest problems.

5. While a computer programming course is detail-oriented, it also forces students to think holistically and systematically. When students are faced with a moderately complex computing problem, they must learn to break-down that problem into smaller problems. They must, for lack of a better term, learn to decompose a problem space. After they have broken down the problem into smaller pieces, they must learn to reconstruct the pieces of their solution into a functional program. This top-down and bottom-up thinking is helpful to solve any type of problem.

6. There is no question that information and communication technology (ICT) is pervasive and has influenced all disciplines, even forming new disciplines and careers for the 21st century.  However, only a handful of people, in my experience, truly have enough insight into what ICT is and isn’t. These people understand the fundamentals of computing and can see that ICT is simply layers of abstraction. A compiled computer program is really just binary. An assembly language is a layer on top of binary created to abstract the binary. A 3rd generation programming language is a layer above assembly language and abstracts assembly language. ICT is just one layer of abstraction on the next.

7. Systems thinking, which has shaped and formed new disciplines in past 50-years (e.g., information systems, instructional systems, project management), is truly the basis for modeling things in a structured programming paradigm. A computer programming course allows us to explore systems thinking at its best. We are able to describe computer programs as a function of a system: input, processes, and output. Students are able to see how systems thinking can be applied to any discipline or problem space.

8. Computer programming courses allow students to have an intimate understanding of how a computer actually works and the possibilities and limitations of computer applications. Students get a good understanding about computer memory and its limitations. Students understand why some applications might freeze or why hard drives, computer chips, and processors are all described as base 2 systems. Students get a much better understanding of computers in general. This is really related to the abstraction concept.

9.  Aside from the problem-solving skills that are inherent in a computer programming course, students also develop other desirable skills: trouble-shooting skills and time-management skills. Students are forced to learn how to trouble-shoot and “debug” their programs to identify compiler, run-time, and logical errors. Students develop these skills from their first programming assignment to their last. Students also learn that it is difficult to estimate how long it will take them to complete a task, and thus, forcing them to develop better time-management skills. Trouble-shooting and time-management skills are skills that everybody needs so that they can learn to solve their own problems and learn to plan their time.

10. My tenth and perhaps most important reason for why a computer programming course should be required as a general education requirement is that these courses are not easy (note 1 - 9) and develop students’ resilience. Too many of our students think life is easy and that they will not have to use their minds to solve problems. Guess what: life is not always easy, so deal with it and get with the program! In programming courses, students realize that they must put in a tremendous amount of time and effort even to solve the simplest problems. Sometimes, they make mistakes and fail at something. What do you do in this case? You get back on your feet and try again! A computer programming course shapes a students sense of resilience. I personally have learned much more from the mistakes I have made in life than when I do something correct (see certitude model in education).

So, this is my reasoning for why a computer programming course should be required of all students earning a degree. My disclaimer is that this has not been researched, tested, or theorized by me at all. This is just what I believe. I know I am completely bias, but if you are an educator outside of a technology-related (one that might teach computer programming) discipline, think about these points carefully and your interactions with your students. Are these characteristics that you would want students to exhibit?

I just finished NECC 2009. This was the 30-year anniversary of the conference. I have decided that NECC is my favorite conference to attend in the world of Ed Tech. I have been attending NECC since 2006. The reasons I like NECC the most are the following: 1) they always bring in the big name keynote speakers (this year we had Malcolm Gladwell first and Erin Gruwell last), 2) the sessions are mixed and not only focused on research, 3) the people that attend are all focused on the mission of meaningfully integrating technology in education, 4) the best exhibitors always attend, and 5) they always select great cities. If you have not attended NECC before, be sure to attend in Denver in 2010.

Since I finally had a little time to read something I wanted to, I decided to finish the third Eragon book. The book itself was a good read. It was well-written, had a good plot, and further explained the details of the epic battle. However, I am a little disappointed. It was my understanding (naive) that there were only going to be three books in the series. The third book did not even bring closure to one of the “bad guys” in the story, which means that another three books will likely be published before the story concludes. While I enjoy reading this story, I am upset that I will now have to wait several years before this story comes to an end. Waiting this long is just like waiting for the Harry Potter stories. Not happy!

I found out today that I lost a friend and colleague. Dr. Shauna Schullo was my supervisor at the Center for 21st Century Teaching Excellence (C21TE), a mentor early in my doctoral experience, and an overall great person. After a two year battle with cancer, her life was taken on May 7, 2009. Dr. Schullo spoke to one of my classes earlier this year. All of my students said that she was an excellent speaker and wanted to learn more about her. Shauna, you were such a positive influence on all of us. Thank you for being such a wonderful person. We will greatly miss you.

So this post is rather late, but it came to my attention that one of my papers was in the list of the most viewed articles in EdITLib  for January 2009. Here is a link to the news release by AACE: http://blogs.aace.org/editlib/2009/01/27/editlibs-top-10-viewed-abstracts-articles-january-2009/. This is the conference proceeding that won the outstanding paper award at the 2008 SITE conference. My colleagues Kara Dawson and Cathy Cavanaugh were the primary authors. Here is the paper citation and link:

Cavanaugh, C., Dawson, K. & Ritzhaupt, A. (2008). Conditions, Processes and Consequences of 1:1 Computing in K-12 Classrooms: The Impact on Teaching Practices and Student Achievement. In K. McFerrin et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2008 (pp. 1956-1963). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Last week, I had the privilege to visit one of the schools (Cape Fear Middle School) involved with the gaming research I am conducting here at UNCW. We were able to get the local media to visit the school as well. They put together a news story about the game intervention and the research program. Here is a link to the news article and video: http://www.wect.com/global/story.asp?s=10091886. This is exciting because it is drawing some attention to the product, DimensionM, and is also raising awareness about gaming in education.

Recently, we hosted a teacher cadets program at UNCW. This program brings high school students interested in becoming teachers to campus to learn about the field. I was asked to do a short workshop on games in education and was interviewed by the local news channel. Here is the link to the article and video clip: http://news14.com/Default.aspx?ArID=605339. The product that was demonstrated was DimensionM which they did not mention in the video.