Data's Neural Net

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Android Data

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#2 Killerchai:  

Data i love the ducation post i belive its true im trying to get my teachers on it but the school goes against downloads

Monday, November 16, 2009 12:31PM

#1 Lonewolf2123:  

data instead of banning my key from your pager you should have done something about the admin who made a second AI when i was the AI at the start of the round and still alive also tell Upsilon_77 he could respond to my message that i sent to his pager and Upsilon_77 banned my key from his pager two

Sunday, October 18, 2009 11:34AM
(Edited on Sunday, October 18, 2009 12:24PM)

 

 

BYOND for educational use

School again today. This afternoon I had "Web T", which translates to writing basic (X)HTML pages for 20 minutes (tops) and spinning your chair around for the remainder of the three and a half hours.

To cut a very long day short: at the end of the classes the discussion about BYOND was brought up with the teacher.

I thought it'd be best to note his initial feelings of BYOND here so Tom may be able to answer some questions regarding BYOND and it's potential.

Primarily he doesn't see the DM language to be useful because it isn't a mainstream language and isn't connected to an existing framework. Therefore outside of BYOND the DM language would have no use.

Since it isn't a mainstream language, teaching it in class would involve more work which would only end up in teaching students a language they may very well never use anymore.

BYOND is good at making games, and he did mention creating educational programs, such as for example a simple 'physics engine' which allows students to see what happens if a variable is altered.

He also seemed disappointed when I mentioned BYOND couldn't do 3D.

I suggested it could be useful for things like MUDs in the workplace. This did seem to catch his attention.

So now I have the assignment to create a rather simple world with a couple of rooms in a graphical environment. Rooms should have doors which have markings on them for the different classes, and once a student walks his avatar into the door it will allow them to select assignments that have yet to be done.

Anyway, my reason for posting this was to announce this and to relay the questions to Tom, who may be able to answer them better than I could.

Posted by Android Data on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 08:15AM - 8 comments / Members say: yea +2, nay -0
Keywords: educational_use

« Neat idea · Re: Science Explores Possibility of Future Prediction »

#8 Schnitzelnagler:  

Sorry about the late reply, but this is what I just found on the subject...

http://wiki.yoyogames.com/index.php/ Information_For_Teachers

Sunday, September 28, 2008 07:48AM

#7 Android Data:  

Alathon wrote:
> I'd be willing to sponsor a Guild for this sort of thing just to see where it goes.

I don't think a guild would be much of use for education; it would mean schools would have to give every single one of their students a BYOND Membership so they can become part of this guild. I understand that there would likely be a discount for mass-purchasing memberships like that, but a guild isn't the way to do this in a school environment as the rest of the community is still open.

Primarily what is needed to make BYOND for schools is to provide a second tier of the hub with special BYOND accounts for students and teachers alike.

Luckily, BYOND already provides DMCGI, which allows someone like myself to write up such an application.

If the MUD idea looks nice, it may even end up to be used as a widespread tool. It could become the next Blackboard: the MUD could be used to get/post assignments, socialize with others, keep your own digital "dorm room" (with an agenda, your own files etc.) and it could even be used to digitally give classes (for i.e. students who are sick or even teachers who are somehow incapacitated to show up at school)

My school frowns upon chatting, since it tends to lower productivity and it may cause ruckus (apparently a student was harassed on some forums and especially on MSN a few years ago, whipped out a knife one day and threatened to stab someone, and they've been paranoid about it ever since).
However chatting in a MUD written with BYOND allows easy programming of a robot which blocks swear words, prevents / mutes on spamming and reports suspicious activity to moderators, who can see logs on what the bot heard.

I think the MUD idea has merit on it's own: BYOND is the best language to program such a thing in, it doesn't use much CPU or RAM (unlike a 3D game) so it can sit in the bottom of the corner quite easily and it brings in some more fun for students. (And sure, it'll become unproductive the first few lessons, but after some time that'll be cleared up and it'll be used for serious things.)

Not only that, but students can also try to write their own games. And it's not games they could end up writing -- they could also write some code that could be put into the MUD. This turns the MUD not only into a Blackboard-like program, but also allows students to contribute themselves rather than having to wait for others to make changes for them.
(Another good thing is that teachers can equally remove unwanted changes if need be, or disable certain features for specific students or groups, which is currently impossible in Blackboard due to lack of privileges and know-how.)

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 11:19PM

#6 Alathon:  

After what Tom and Stephen001 have said, I don't have much else to add except to put myself out there as one example case.

I started playing MUDs when I was 8, and was drawn to programming by the time I was 9 (where I was hired as a staff member). I was given source code access and messed around, copy pasting and learning by myself (with a little tutoring here and there). I tried picking up programming more seriously by reading C/C++ books, even the simple ones like 'Teach yourseelf C in 24 hours' that were more like reference sheets. It didn't really stick.

Then I came across BYOND in 2001 (That puts me at 12-13), and I finally found something that made things go 'click!'. While I don't have a whole lot of finished products to show for it, I've since then entered into the IT industry bolstered by the fact that I now have a very easy time understanding new languages and systems. Part of that is me of course, but what triggered that aspect was definately BYOND. I applaud and encourage any attempt to get BYOND used as a teaching tool, because that happens to be something that its very, very good at. I've tried to get schools I've gone to to look at it myself, unfortunately the enthusiasm has been less solid than in the case here. I hope that something comes of this, I'd be willing to sponsor a Guild for this sort of thing just to see where it goes.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 11:01PM

#5 Stephen001:  

If I may, perhaps you could show this to your teacher:

Programming languages are a dime a dozen. You take a look around at what the Industry is currently using and you will see C, C++, Java, C#, Perl, Tcl, Python, PHP, Ruby, Javascript, VB.NET (I know, it shocks me too) ... the list just goes on. That is part of a list of languages that are in widespread use today, right this minute. Consider further to this, a very good number of Companies, particularly those in the banking and dependable systems sectors, will be maintaining code in languages that are not in widespread use, Ada, PASCAL and scary ones like FORTRAN (I dread to think). Further to that, consider the pace of change of languages over the past 20 years (a period of time you could comfortably fit into a programming career). With all those languages, how on earth does someone bestow lasting and useful knowledge, that will ready students for a life in an Industry that changes so fast? Knowledge that will permit them to adapt and avoid becoming as obsolete as the languages they first learned?

Perhaps I might draw an analogy here. In certain respects, programming languages are not all that different to real languages. You can group real languages according to certain qualities, for example some languages share a distinctly latin base in terms of grammar. Programming languages are much the same, you have some distinctly procedural languages, some that are entirely functional, event oriented, object oriented and so forth. Now with real languages, you can learn say ... latin, and thus understand the concepts behind quite a few modern languages. Naturally, you can't actually speak them, you plain don't know the words; however, you can quite easily pick them up now that you understand the fundamentals they were built on. Much is the same with programming languages, you can look to pick up some easy to use language that demonstrates a type of programming language (say ... PHP, for procedural); if you appreciate the concepts you are well placed to go on and pick up a more complex and useful language of that given type. This makes very important use of a skill that Education typically claims to seek to employ, but in my experience fails to do. Higher learning, the ability to do more than just memorise and spot simple patterns, the ability to spot subtle patterns and issues that pin together groups of seemedly unrelated concepts. Or put simply, real learning that makes you grow as an individual, not just memory to pass tests.

One area that the Industry likes currently is object oriented programming. Naturally they will move on from this at some point, but you can bet what they move onto will incorporate and extend concepts introduced in object oriented programming, take aspect oriented programming for instance. This language type would be a good one to teach, this is not just my opinion, it's a consensus carried forward by Universities around the world, using Java as a vehicle on their courses. Now I see a number of failings in Java as a teaching language. It's kind of difficult to get started with it, you typically spend a few weeks making rubbish little command line programs, as they introduce the notion of objects, inheritance and so forth. As such, you get the "thrilling!" experience of making rather useless, visually dull and largely impractical Library booking simulations, because those examples lend themselves to an object oriented approach. On my course we have a good number of academically very bright individuals, who haven't come across programming much before. It typically takes them a good year of University study to genuinely pick up the object oriented approach. Now I think they are plenty smart enough to understand it, so why does it take them so long?

Seems pretty simple to me, motivation. I knew programming when I arrived at University, I'm sure some of your students are the same. If you already know the concepts, there is nothing thrilling about Library booking simulations. Further to that, there is no room for creative expansion, the kind of extension you could genuinely be proud of. If you don't know the concepts, I don't suspect you'll feel particularly motivated to crunch through something as mundane as that. I feel a little bit like I'm preaching to the choir with this next phrase, as I'm sure you already know this: Learning should be fun! What is more fun, particularly to students, than making games? So you want a language that gives you some visual feedback pretty quick, is quick to pick up the language basics so that you can focus on the core concepts. For the object oriented approach, Java is just too big, even getting going on applets doesn't give you decent visual feedback quickly enough. On the whole, I'm a little stumped as to what else you could use, besides BYOND. Of the 20+ languages I know, none provide such a simple and quick method of throwing together small 2D games using an object oriented approach, in that respect BYOND is in my opinion, unrivaled. Obvious progress is quite important I have found in encouraging people to go on learning, particularly learning outside of the classroom. BYOND is a toy language, people obviously don't use it in Industry. However it ticks all those learning boxes you need for the object oriented approach, in a manner that is obviously motivating to students. I can fully see a good number of students getting hooked on BYOND, extending assignments in their own time, or as small groups.

The BYOND community would be more than happy to support your classes through our developer forum (http://www.byond.com/developer/forum/) and perhaps if you have your own Guild (for a less crowded place to share), via that. I do hope you'll consider BYOND for your classes, thanks for reading.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 05:53PM

#4 Airjoe:  

Tom wrote:
> The disadvantage is that, because is is not a general-purpose language, it's not going to give the user much experience in some more commonplace programming issues (like 3D and file i/o). But we're always adding on to what the system can do.

All the more reason to keep DMCGI going! :]

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 12:30PM

#3 Android Data:  

Thank you for your quick reply! I'll bring this up (probably this post, which means he could be reading this sentence this very moment!) and I'll see what he thinks about it.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 09:52AM

#2 Rugg:  

A DM class, that would be awesome.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 09:37AM

#1 Tom:  

I don't see any questions, but I'll be glad to address specifics to the best of my abilities.

When I was a kid, I learned how to program in BASIC, LOGO, and Pascal. I do not use these languages today (does anyone?) That does not mean they were not useful.

I think DM is the same way. Anyone who is proficient in DM will understand the basic computing concepts necessary to jump to other languages should they choose later down the line. Focusing on a specific language for practical purposes isn't all that important, since they are changing all the time anyway.

The advantage of DM vs. a mainstream language is that it is more likely to produce things in line with what many younger people want to do. If you jump into C++ with the ambition of making a game, it's probably not gonna happen. In DM, there's a chance.

The disadvantage is that, because is is not a general-purpose language, it's not going to give the user much experience in some more commonplace programming issues (like 3D and file i/o). But we're always adding on to what the system can do.

I would take a survey to gauge the level of interest in the sorts of programs BYOND can produce. If the students are interested in them, then DM would certainly be a practical way to teach "Computing 101" concepts in a project-oriented manner. If they aren't, then may as well use BASIC or LOGO or Pascal.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 09:07AM