What I learned this week in Turtle Academy was a better understanding of angles and being able to change established codes to create something a bit different regarding color, size, and speed. Really, the most important thing was the understanding about angles. Seeing the angles drawn out after giving a command created a connection between formal knowledge and a personal activity.
However, at this point, I have Scratch, beginnings of HTML, some commands in Java for my Creating in Code for the Lily pad and Turtle Academy. It’s too much at the same time. Every one of these tutorials uses a different format and doing three to four of these programming languages simultaneously creates terrible confusion. While the concepts are the same, the commands seem very different.
So far, Turtle was the best fit for me so far and the most fun. I can see what I am doing and love the Turtle. Papert in his book Mindstorms (p.57) speaks about identification with the Turtle. I even made the same mistakes as the child (on p. 61) with drawing a house and the triangle was inside. This syntonic learning resonates very powerfully because I can see what it is that I am doing. For me, the most difficult part has always been a lack of spacial perception. Once I grasped the principle of how to do a triangle creating the square became easier. I then started looking in Turtle Academy for similar scripts to see if I could spot them. I could. Then I moved on to look Octagon scripts again, it all started to make sense. Manipulating the code showed me instantly what would happen.
The biggest Aha moment came when I read in Papert (p.67) that Euclid defined the characteristic of a circle the constant distance between the point on the circle and a point, the center, that is not itself a part of the circle. I got that immediately!
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Author: drcowinj
Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today,” determined Malcolm X at the O.A.A.U.’s [Organization of Afro-American Unity] founding forum at the Audubon Ballroom. (June 28, 1964). (X, n.d.)
Dr. Jasmin Bey Cowin a Fulbright Scholar, SIT Graduate, completed the Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP™) at Columbia University, Teachers College. Dr. Cowin served as the President of the Rotary Club of New York and Assistant Governor for New York State; long-term Chair of the Rotary United Nations International Breakfast meetings; and works as an Assistant Professor at Touro College, Graduate School of Education. Dr. Cowin has over twenty-five years of experience as an educator, tech innovator, entrepreneur, and institutional leader with a focus on equity and access to digital literacy and education in the Sub-Saharan Africa region. Her extensive background in education, administration, not-for-profit leadership, entrepreneurial spirit, and technology innovation provide her with unique skills and vertical networks locally and globally.
Dr. Cowin participates fully in the larger world of TESOL academic discipline as elected Vice President and Chair-Elect for the New York State, NYS TESOL organization, for the 2021 conference.
Ongoing research, expressed in scholarly contributions to the advancement of knowledge is demonstrated through publications, presentations, and participation in academic conferences, blogging, and other scholarly activities, including public performances and exhibitions at conferences and workshops. Of particular interest to her are The Blockchain of Things and its implications for Higher Education; Current Global Trends in TESOL; Developing Materials and Resources in Teaching English; E-learning; Micro and Macro-Methodologies in TESOL; E-Resources Discovery and Analysis; and Language Acquisition and the Oculus Rift in VR.
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