Teaching is very hard……bet you never thought you’d hear me say that.
Yesterday afternoon a yummy mummy arrived for a long weekend. She likes watching what Blender can do or in my case can’t do. She is not only gorgeous but interesting, she is the silver lining the clouds are her children. One of them is doing computer science at school but is struggling with binary numbers. I said not to worry but if she felt inclined to provide a glass of wine I’d give the wee mite the benefit of my ignorance. It’s not easy teaching when the pupil is being distracted by two Westies. He couldn’t convert decimal numbers to binary. He said he had to find the highest place number 2n would go into. I didn’t even understand the question. I got out my interactive white board and started doodling away.
The Interactive White Board.
I showed him this method. Dead simple and he did five different numbers correctly after thirty minutes or so. I could do with a blackboard rubber. I do make a mess. He was thrilled to bits and I hope his teacher accepts this method but it matters little, as I said to him nobody has to write code in binary. There are translators that will convert any script you write; writing the script is the difficult bit and breaking the instructions down into their component parts is a skill all on it’s own. Learning a programming language is the hard bit, knowing what Codecs to use for what is important. Remembering to pop the < > signs in the right place is good for ones temper. He also knows that obelus is not a rude word. He loved the sound of that one. Teaching is hard. I was exhausted after an hour and had to have the rest of the evening off. If it rains while he is here I’ll get him to programme the Arduino to flash or toot for him. If he can do that in a normal working day I’ll show him the Python script in Blender to make a ball bounce.
I was out this morning, it’s not too bad today.
Solitary Bee’s Bum.
Water Droplets.
St Mark’s Fly.
I love these little flies I find them comical with their peculiar flying technique and their furry heads and eyes. Great they are.
You are a good teacher, even I could understand your method. It is hard work though! Love the photos. You get all the detail!
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend!
Marie, I suspect it would be easier without the wine.
DeleteThat is the lens, I'm going to try higher magnification tomorrow.
I'm glad OTHER people write code. Many years ago I wrote a little program in basic that would tell me how many parents, grandparents, great grandparents--etc, ad nauseum I had. I stopped after about 700 years worth because that was more people than would have been on the planet. Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I think your bugs and flowers are exceptional.
ReplyDeleteBill, I just copy and paste code.
DeleteI like the 100mm Canon macro lens. I tend to use an MP-E 65mm but I have to get my eye in first.
Thank heavens none of my children studied computer science. Mind you, don't think they had been invented back then. Good to see the bees and flies back again!
ReplyDeletePauline, this is only a bit of computer science. He has spent ages learning to stay safe on line and not to post pictures of his willy.
DeleteThe insects are few and far between but it looks as if we are in for a heat wave.
I did computer programming as part of my post-grad back in the late 60s or early 70s. Fortran and Cobol if I remember correctly. Learning binary was hell for me. Odd, I suppose, as I was good at maths at school and logic later. One of the reasones I gave up accountancy was my difficulty with double-entry bookkeeping (a pretty basic requirement I learned much later in life). In fact this post added to all your skills with image manipulation has depressed me! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI should add that there must have been a basic gene there somewhere because one of our sons, Andrew, became a computer programmer and was just completing his doctorate when he died.
DeleteGraham, I have never been taught computers. I was taught heat engine diagrams for steam engines. They were obsolete even then.
DeleteAll but two of my teachers were so boring that watching chalk dust settle was more interesting. The two competent ones taught maths and physics. They must have spoken to each other as the lessons seemed to follow on from one another. I remember having endless fun with maths using all sorts of different base systems. The Arabs and Greeks didn't use base 10, they used ......Can't remember. I'll look it up.
I agree that we are all different. I can't write proper but some of the time some of the folk understand.
That's all over my head and really I do not want to know now at my age but I love the close ups Adrian.
ReplyDeleteMargaret, as long as you are happy that's all that matters.
DeleteGiven that occasionally I do teach bits of computer science to people I think you got it spot on with this comment "the difficult bit and breaking the instructions down into their component parts is a skill all on it’s own". Once people have learnt how to break a problem down into small pieces everything else becomes easy.
ReplyDeleteSeems I might be able to teach but my cut-and-paste skills are shockingly bad this morning. I meant to copy the whole phrase "writing the script is the difficult bit and breaking the instructions down into their component parts is a skill all on it’s own"
DeleteMark, I have you to thank for what little confidence I have. I remember you giving me a bit of HTML to make my images show full size. It was a major thing full of angst to go into the BODY and drop the code in. I now get tips from Blender forums and have just started pasting stuff in. The next step will be a step too far but maybe this winter I'll try writing some Python. I find getting the Arduino to do something really exciting. I ought to get out more.
DeleteFew people have skills these days they have bits of paper with an exam result on instead.
Well done Sir. It's supposed to be an apple, not a glass of vino. Binary is easy when you know how, just tedious.
ReplyDeleteWell done also with the tiny fly. You are getting good at these.
John, were it a full time job, I'd need a glass every half hour. I'm glad I didn't go to teacher training college if all you get is an apple.
DeletePoor soul didn't really understand that life would be easier if he could add, subtract, multiply and divide in this head. he also struggles with the concept that 23 1/2 = 23.5 = 23 remainder 1. I can see the odd one slipping through the net if you have forty or so in a class but surely by thirteen he should be much more at home with the job.
The number of tiny flies I have snapped I should be perfect by now.
Me, i happy not knowing all that stuff, but hats off to you for that lad. But i do know that you have taken some great macro shots.
ReplyDeletepeter
Peter he is enthusiastic, I just worry that the school use a different method for a reason. It will be fine if his teacher knows there are usually several ways of skinning the cat. Today he also learnt that when you prove a theorem or mathematical problem you can write QED in big letters It's English for Quite Enough Done or Latin for Quod Erat Demonstrandum, ( which is what had to be proven)
DeleteThe camper van could be a travelling school room. You could stop outside any school gates and invite children inside for hour long sessions with you. I am sure that the parents would be very grateful. If the children are reluctant to step inside use Molly and Alf as decoys or offer pear drops from a paper bag.
ReplyDeleteYP, I suspect a camper parked outside a school would give all the wrong messages and I would confuse more than clarify.
DeleteI am only helping the child because I fancy the mother and looking outside school gates fanciable mothers are few and far between.
What an excellent teacher you are! I would have said light bulbs instead of transistors, but no matter. I can do binary, octal, and hexadecimal maths, but I heard long ago that Soviet computers used bi-quinary, the workings of which I do not understand at all, probably something like an abacus. In order to teach us how to write FORTRAN programs, the military sent us off-site to a 12-week IBM class where we coded using JOVIAL (Jules' (Schwartz) Own Version of the International Algorithmic Language (ALGOL)) after first learning the meta-language TRIVIAL (Trusty, Reliable, and Ingenious Bersion of the International Algorithmic Language (ALGOL)). I am not kidding. Later I became an Assembler Language programmer where 0 (zero) was expressed as *-* (asterisk minus asterisk) so I suppose you could say my career was somewhat star-crossed. In U.S. schools these days the children do Common Core maths and parents can't understand how subtraction works and no old-fashioned methods are permitted. I'm afraid you would need lots and lots of wine.
ReplyDeleteBob, there is so much software about now that it is mainly a matter of picking a bit and then fine tuning it.
DeleteIt's handy to be able to read it but half isn't available to look at unless the software is open source like GIMP or Blender.
I've never had to do any programming so I only know what I've had to learn to make Blogger templates work as I want them to and not as Google foist upon me. I can read and write a bit of Python but only enough to speed repetitive jobs in 3D animation creation. When I get in a mess I just ask someone who knows. If they don't know then they usually know someone who does. I find the internet community very kind towards dumb nuts like me.