Is multitasking effective?

There has been something about multitasking that I never felt was right, and it’s been difficult to explain. Multitasking has been seen as the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I’ve had reservations about it. Part of this problem has been because of my background in computers & engineering, where multitasking requires additional processor time to handle organising the multiple tasks. Another part, is that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the creator of the term Flow, describes that to get into the zone of best work efficiency the task undertaken must match closely to the skills that you have. (NB: For some background of Flow, look at his TED talk, Flow, the secret to happiness).

From a computer’s perspective multitasking is less effective than doing one thing well. A computer is able to get away with it because of the speed at which it processes the numbers- although some of its speed is consumed with handling (or remembering) the multiple tasks and switching between them so rapidly that the users does not notice the delay in the computer.

However, people are not computers. Maybe the human brain is better equipped to deal with multiple tasks, however, current neural research supports the idea that multitasking is not everything we want it to be. Dr. Travis B points out in, The Real Harm in Multitasking, that the cost of multitasking is a loss of attention and more error prone work. A Stanford study shows that media multitaskers pay a mental price: it may impair your cognitive control, because according to Professor Clifford Nass, “They’re suckers for irrelevancy,” and “Everything distracts them.”. This potentially leads to greater difficultly in focusing on a single task, which is something Daniel Goleman discusses at length in his book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence.

And the devil is in the detail with multitasking. Cognitive tasks require focus, and time for the mind to adjust to the problem-space (ie to gain an understanding of the problem), before embarking on finding a solution. But mindless tasks, such as unlocking a door, that don’t require conscientious effort, can be multi-tasked. For example; walking and talking on the phone.

Research may support a slight gender bias for females to multi-task, and males to mono-task, but the influences could be more cultural than genetic. Allan & Barbara Pease’s book, Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps: How We’re Different and What to Do About It, does explore the cultural & genetic influences on people’s development, but does not draw any definite conclusions in either direction. These gender biases can only be described as tendencies and more importance must be placed on the skills of the individual.

One of the interesting things is the comments from The Real Harm in Multitasking, of people who demonstrate a preference from a particular style of working, either mono-tasking, or multitasking. And there is more of a case for individuals to have natural predispositions in the way they prefer to work, the type of task undertaken, and the individual habits formed. According to the study Sex differences in the structural connectome of the human brain, the developmental trajectories of males and females separate at a young age, demonstrate wide differences during adolescence and adulthood.

If there is a preference for multi or mono tasking, then it is likely to be formed during the middle years (years 5-8 or ages 9 to 13) regardless of wither it is nature or nurture.

In an education context, a solitary focus on multitasking is a mistake, because the primary goal of education is to develop thinking or to place some thought between emotion and action. This requires the full attention of the brain, and can not be done with a distracted mind. Once the lesson is learned it can be shifted to the automatic neural systems. However, it is worth noting that experts like Olympic athletes, concert musicians and such, keep this neural processing in the conscious part of this mind to further develop their skill. Which points to the deeper question of why are you developing the skill in the first place? This is one of the fundamental questions of student engagement.

Returning to the question of Multitasking, it is a question of the reason behind the activity. Does it aim to improve the cognition around a task (ie learning), to reason out a solution to a complex problem (thinking), or is it completing work where the thinking has been completed (doing).

About Ballistic Publishing

Ballistic Publishing have a good range of art books covering areas like Matte Painting, Concept Art, Character Modelling & Design, Game Art. The really good thing they do is provide an online copy you can flip through to determine how appropriate it is for a school.

The Creative Essence Series which started with The Face provides a good foundation in how to create the human face on computer in 3D. It starts with the reference photography moving through modelling, UV mapping, texturing and finally into rendering. Aimed at mid-to-advanced artists it will need to be supported with a range of activities to reach this goal. I did trial this in year 11 VET Multimedia class to limited success.

Inspiration can be found in each book in the d’Artiste series which covers one of a range of digital art subjects with the aim of being an artist master class, the Exposé Series which is a yearly collection of fine artworks from around the world, and the Exotique Series which focuses on beautiful CG characters.

These books are best suited to senior visual arts students as a way to inspire and to provide ideas & examples

Cool projects with the Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi has bee around for awhile as a kit which places computing in the palm of your hand, and reportedly Raspberry Pi Microcomputer Still Selling Like Hot Cakes. It gives you a low cost computer which can be loaded with a number of basic OS (See their downloads). This machine can be modified with a growing range of projects, and there are a good collection of teaching resources to go with it. There are two new crowd funded projects that will be worth following, Pi-Top and Durio Sound. Both of these show health development in the micro computing area.

Pi-Top is a Laptop developed from the Raspberry Pi, and although it’s not one of the $100 laptops or part of the one laptop per child thing that was happening a few years back. It is something you can construct yourself and will help develop you understanding of computer hardware.
The second project is Durio Sound, another Raspberry Pi that adds a 24-bit 192kHz ultimate sound quality with the lowest possible distortion to your Raspberry Pi.

Also see;

Creating Interactive Stories

Interactive Stories in their simplest form are Text Adventures, but how can you easily enable students to create these adventures for themselves?

Creating interactive stories from J Le Rossignol

A simple sample task for use in the classroom, with the handouts for Keynote or PowerPoint.

Choose your own adventure story (Task) from J Le Rossignol

Retro-gaming strikes back!

It’s interesting to see graphically simple challenging games like Flappy Bird, Geometry Dash, and Phases. All of which have game play that challenges the player, and it is a point of renown for those that achieve the highest scores.
This trend seamed to start with Flappy Bird, which has a simple touch control that controls the bouncing motion of the bird. The challenge for the player is in timing the motion to find the games through the pillars. The graphics hearken back to Mario, so much so that comments about a law suit appeared on the Internet. The game topped the Apple iStore, spawned many clones, and the creator pulled it down for a little while.
Piano Keys has simple black and white squares that the players much touch in rapid succession and keep up with the cascade of tiles that flow down the screen. The challenge lies in the number of piano tile that you can touch within a time limit, the speed the tiles move, or the how long you can last.
Geometry Dash is another game that exemplifies simple game play with stylised graphics. The player needs to move a cube through a series of side scrolling platform environments (levels) with various spikes, walls, and pits by jumping the cube over or under these. Alternative parts of each level have the cube transform into a spaceship that flies through a similar level. The spaceship naturally falls, and touches cause it to fly up at a sharp angle.
Phases has simple graphics, with the player controlling the left and right movement of a ball and it bounces through an dangerous spiky environment.

All these games share similar traits from the arcade games of the ’80s, in that they have simple stylised graphics that just get the idea across, and the focus on challenging game play with the aim of making the game superior.

Head in the Clouds

Cloud Services are a big thing with major companies, like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and now Oracle in a price war over cloud computing. Although this does mean a reduction for users of these services. Like many people I use cloud services like Dropbox, copy.com, and Google Drive.

So one of the things I’ve wanted to do is setup a cloud based file sharing for my personal projects to gain control of the storage and for the experience. Students asked me about best way to share their files. I found ownCloud  a open source project to enable cloud based file sharing.

Overall it’s easy to install, and to use. However, you do need to have SSL certificate (used with https) to avoid creating security problems. I’ve found references to scaling problems around the use of SQLite (which is part of the default install), but this can be fixed by moving to MySQL.

Should Teachers be Software Engineers?

A recent article on TechCrunch, Why We Should Treat Teachers Like Software Engineers, highlighted some of the problems in the US education system (and indeed the UK & Australian systems) when compared to the Japanese & Korean education systems. Pointing out that better pay will get better teachers, and only briefly talking about working conditions (teaching time vs preparation), resourcing of schools, and respect for the profession. For me the very interesting part was the comments and discussion that followed on from the article.

Some of the comments pointed out that the working conditions of software engineers a dramatically different with non-performing engineers let go, which varies from educators. That Engineers produce products for consumption, while teachers educate people for the future. Unlike engineering, where most things can be quantified, measured and analysed. The enabling of a mind for thinking is a qualitative process with many and varied possibilities. It required consideration of the individual’s predispositions and the surrounding culture’s dominating influences. To layer analysis over the top of so many variables would require an astronomical level of computing power and individual monitoring as to make it impossible at this time.

The useful thing I did get from this TechCrunch discussion was a book, Finnish Lessons, which looks at the history of the Finnish education system and will hopefully provide some ideas on how they have achieved on of the highest education rankings in the world.

Mindfulness in Education, a talk by Nimrod Sheinman

Nimrod Sheinman, BSc, ND has being working on a Mindfulness in Education program in Tel-Avi, Israel for the last 15 years. His program is aimed helping students meet themselves to discover their own internal emotional state, and then from that awareness to learn how to develop self-control. This was achieved through an integrated (or holistic) medicine approach by combining yoga-based movements with breathing & relaxation techniques.

The goals was to enhance self awareness, improve self-efficacy, resilience, sense of coherence, prevent risky behaviours, develop social-emotional skills, support mind-body health and improve learning. Which is to say that they were aiming to reduce attention & concentration deficits, difficult emotions & behaviour issues, risky behaviours, eating problems, etc.

Additionally the program draw on the research of others (see Looking Further, below) to create a positive school environment where the child could develop resilience and well-being. Interestingly the themes of child development (ie the urge for Experience, Mastery, Wellness, Social Interaction, and the inner world of Imagination) can be linked to a RSAnimate talk About what really motivates us (ie Autonomy, Mastery, & Purpose).

To achieve this they drew on external experts to help deliver the weekly program within schools for an entire year. As part of the evaluation process the researchers asked the students various questions including;

  • What is this class about?
  • What experiences did you have?
  • What did you understand?
  • What did you gain?
  • How was it helpful or useful?

Across primary school, where the majority of this program is run, students were becoming more aware of themselves, and their responses to the questions demonstrate a meeting of the program’s goals. Beyond this the school showed marked improvements in English & Science, and in children’s behaviour.

Personally I found strong links between this and Daniel Goleman’s work on Emotional Intelligence. This program provides a practical example of enabling students to achieve emotional self awareness, self regulation, internal motivation, empathy, and social skills (See Daniel Goleman’s five components of emotional intelligence, or by the books). All of these attributes will assist in improving individual students emotional outcomes, which should improve the quality of social interactions between students, and finally it should improve the entire school environment.

This style of program, that combines movement with breathing techniques to promote relaxation could work with Tai Chi, Qigong, Pilates, and possible the Alexander Technique. The final choice would be on the skill of the practitioner or teacher and the culturial school environment.

All around the World

This is not just local to Israel, but can be seen across the globe as more western countries.

Looking further

A copy of PowerPoint from Nimrod Sheinman talk at the University of Leeds’ Conference 2014 (all conference papers), International Conference: Mindfulness, Education and Transformation – 2014, talk [pdf], and related videos on mindfulness.

Possible points for additional background exploration;

Start your (Game) Engines

I attended the DLTV conference which had too much funky stuff. AIE‘s session about the Unreal game engine and how it could be used in ICT teaching, was excellent giving me a good background and some cool ideas to try out.
Knowing little or nothing about all these different game engines, I thought it was worth some background research. Ralph Barbagallo’s Blog has a good overview of the various game engines, with some insightful comments. Digital Tutors provides a similar overview and Arges Systems gives an in depth comparison. For a fuller discussion I reads through some of the Unity Forums.
Edit: Unreal is now free for student!

Overall

  • Unity3D is more expensive with per seat / per platform licencing, but provides a greater library of assets to quickly add make games. It does have a free version with a 30 day trail of the Pro.
  • Unreal 4 is very cheap, $19/mo with no lock-in. The engine has been modified to enable easier scripting and C++ programming for the coders. Its asset library is relevantly new. This gets better for Academic Use, because the license covers all the institution’s computers.
  • Crytek is cheaper again, $9.95/mo, and has high quality graphics, but the engine appears to be difficult to work with.

Adobe CS2 for free

I’ve just found out via FB that Adobe have made the entire collection of CS2 software for free. The Creative Suite includes Premiere Pro and After Effects for video editing, InDesign for magazines & books, Illustrator for graphics & line art, and of course Photoshop for image & photo editing. It does not include Dreamweaver, which become part of CS3. Of the package the biggest score is Photoshop, which has dominated the photography industry.

However, this grab bag of software does have some caveats, addendums, and cautions. As old software, it is no longer supported, so the current operating systems will be less capable of running is as the hardware improves, and the software will be more vulnerable to malware. So use at your own risk.

Adobe has disabled the activation server for CS2 products, including Acrobat 7, because of a technical issue. These products were released more than seven years ago, do not run on many modern operating systems, and are no longer supported.

Adobe strongly advises against running unsupported and outdated software. The serial numbers provided as a part of the download may only be used by customers who legitimately purchased CS2 or Acrobat 7 and need to maintain their current use of these products.

The specs, mean that is should run on anything from this century, or at least the last decade.

  • Mac OS X v.10.2.8–v.10.3.8. PowerPC® G4 or G5 processor
  • Microsoft® Windows® 2000/Windows XP. Intel® Pentium® III or 4 processor

 

Download: Adobe Creative Suite 2