A word about complex systems

Just wanted to blog about this citation made by John D. Sterman (Business Dynamics, 2000, p. 8):

When you are confronted by any complex social system, such as an urban center or a hamster, with things about it that you’re dissatisfied with and anxious to fix, you cannot just step in and set about fixing with much hope of helping. This realization is one of the sore discouragements of our century . . . You cannot meddle with one part of a complex system from the outside without the almost certain risk of setting off disastrous events that you hadn’t counted on in other, remote parts. If you want to fix something you are first obliged to understand. . . the whole system. . . Intervening is a way of causing trouble. (L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, 1974, p. 90)

No further comments as for now. My reading was caused by the bringing of System Dynamics into the Systems Modeling classes at EGC/UFSC. Doctorate candidate Maurício Uriona is the guy behind it. By the way, we're approaching systems modeling with Mario Bunge's CESM model (composition-environment-structure-mechanism) and system dynamics came to help in the study of mechanisms.

Natural gestures, wearable sixth sense - now that's knowledge media[Gestos e 6o sentido para vestir - isso é que é mídia do conhecimento]

[Post com versão em PT, mais abaixo]

"Ideas worth spreading" is the motto of TED Talks. Well, instead of talking about it, I better direct you to "Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense" (8:45, see embedded video below). Just like "Rebecca Saxe: How we read each other's minds" (16:54, about MRI-ing moral judgements), it is a new technology received with both awe and apocalyptical remarks (because we advance in technology keeping the same moral challenges and dilemmas from Plato's time and before - look's like there is room for new "moral technology"). Some inspiration for us at EGC/UFSC (Graduate Program in Knowledge Engineering and Management), in which "knowledge media" is one of the research areas.

O lema de TED Talks é "Idéias que valem espalhar". Melhor do que me delongar em comentários é apontar para "Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense" (8:45, vídeo clicável abaixo - se preferir, clique em "View subtitles" e assista com legendas em português). De forma semelhante ao que vemos em "Rebecca Saxe: How we read each other's minds" (16:54, sobre analisar julgamentos morais usando ressonância magnética), é uma nova tecnologia recebida com tanto fascínio quanto horror apocalíptico (porque o fato é que avançamos na tecnologia, mas os desafios e dilemas morais são os mesmos de tempos imemoriais, sem grandes avanços na "tecnologia moral"). Uma inspiração e tanto para nós do EGC/UFSC, que tem a Mídia do Conhecimento como uma das áreas de concentração.

Funny witty story that made me think about this persisting educational trend toward exalting mediocrity

"Professor" and "inspiration" are kin words (or at least they should be). Every word tells in this funny, inspiring speech by professor Yale Patt (Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin; see old photo from his homepage), at the IEEE 60^th anniversary celebration in San Juan (Puerto Rico, 2006). It is called "The future of Computer * (Are we in serious trouble?)", the "*" meaning Science, Engineering, Architecture... you pick it.

It is very well worth its 44 min (plus 16 of question answering), but don't take my word for it: even if you're not into computer architecture or if you think you can't afford to watch the whole video, try this short story inbetween 39:24 and 42:16, in which professor Patt describes his old man's reaction to his winning a medal for losing.

I don't want to spoil the story, but if we had more people speaking out like this maybe we could get back on track in education, helping students to "get it" instead of helping them "feeling good about themselves" (or trying to, since it doesn't work). "You get a medal when you win; you don't get a medal when you lose". Professor Patt also talks about computer architectures, Moore's Law (on doubling chips' capacity), education in Computing, ..., quantum computing, NP-completeness, ..., marriage, cellphones, "football" (the one played with the hands), etc. in a very enthusiastic way.

A week at the World Conference on Computers in Education (ppts & preprints available)

WCCE dates approaching, swine flu notwithstanding. I hope the flu doesn't prevent anyone from coming to Bento Gonçalves-RS (Brazil) next week (July 27-31, 2009). Let me tweet about the papers I will be presenting:

• Kern VM, Possamai O, Selig PM, Pacheco RCS, Souza GC, Rautenberg S, Lemos RTS: Growing a Peer Review Culture among Graduate Students (preprint here, slides below).
  Thursday 30th, 15:30-17:00, Aud. 3, 2nd paper of 3 (30-min presentation).
  Session NET 3.3, Network and Collaboration 3.3


• Kern VM, Saraiva LM, Braz ERC: Emergo: Academic Performance Assessment and Planning with a Data Mart (preprint here, slides below).
  Monday 27th, 11:45-12:45, Aud. 2, 2nd paper of 4 (15-min presentation).
  Session INNO 1.1, Innovation and creativity in schools 1.1

Hopefully there will be intense feedback in the sessions I'll present or attend to. Excellent opportunity. Slides of my presentations were uploaded to SlideShare, so here they are:

Emergo: Academic Performance Assessment and Planning with a Data Mart (WCCE 2009)

View more presentations from vmkern.

Growing a Peer Review Culture among Graduate Students (WCCE 2009)

View more presentations from vmkern.

Off-topic update: It was very nice to visit the Guarani indians (from Viamão, near Porto Alegre-RS) booth at the conference site. They have a project and a blog (Jaikuaa - means "to pay attention", "to listen") coordinated by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in which Guarani youngsters work with camera obscura and production of pinhole photography.

They also play with regular (digital) photo and video cameras. The blog is in Portuguese, with some text in Guarani and in English. And there I am, visiting:

Wesch "The machine is us/ing us" strikes again: World Simulation

Anthropologist Michael Wesch (from Kansas State University, author of "The machine is us/ing us") gives away another awesome lesson: a YouTube report on the World Simulation conducted with his students, with the help of Twitter (ok, I tweet) and Jott (don't know) through the cellphone.

They've created a fake world with lands and peoples and developed a whole history, with commerce, wars, domination from colonization to core-periphery dynamic etc. The fake world evolution described in the video is interspersed with real-world facts, for instance, about diamonds in Africa, the wars around it, the (little little) money made by extractors and cutters (25 cents per diamond cut; many sharp-eyed cutters are children in India)... Makes you wonder how can there be any glamour around diamonds.

It looks like that War (board) game but much enlarged and enriched. It is, indeed, a "radical experiment in education" that I praise and recommend watching (4:40 - be ready to stop the presentation as the captions flash in unreadable intervals). It is an inspiration for me as a professor (I've been trying things of this sort with peer review in education and concurrency control learning games) and for anyone pursuing real educational systems.

Dr. Wesch ends by quoting the cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978): "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." This prompted a Text Comment from kdcruz75: "never doubt that a small group of thoughtless, powerful committed hidden elite can control the human populace. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has". Well... the discussion catches on as the view count soars. See the video:

ACM women's newsletter on the old, 'intriguing' lack of women in Computing

The last issue of acm-w [1(4), Spring 2009] is out. Since I always sensed (in my experience as CS professor) women presence in class as very beneficial, here are some notes:

• Most articles approach the decreasing number of women in Computing.
• In an interview, 25-year career professor Gloria Childress Townsend says the decline is unnatural, due to "artificial and unfair 'requirements' (or the perception of the requirements)".
• David Klappholz criticizes the "programming-first approach to computing education" that "turns off far more scientifically- and mathematically-talented middle/high school girls and college age young women than it turns on". He reports on a study that reveals that women prefer "organic" careers (med, vet, biology, psychology...) that emphasize the very same skills that are lacking in the real Computing business (to which women didn't come), which is not so much about programming, but mainly about requirements. He then describes a project aimed at recruiting women for Computing based on the real Computing business, not the oligophrenic programming-only Computing (my adjective).
• Former president of SBC (Brazilian Computing Society) Claudia Bauzer Medeiros reports on "Women at the Brazil National Database Conference" (SBBD). Good news that girls are getting together. Funny that the pictures show as many women being portrayed as men taking pictures.
• "Ada Lovelace Day" column gives some background information on Ada's life. Good things to learn.

I´ve said it before but never in writing, so here it goes: to me, the whole problem with Computing begun right after the Eniac project was over. Eniac had a female-only programming team. Then men came and it is a long story for a blog entry... My summary is: the world was taken by hordes of irrationalists-intuitionists who are enemies of thinking, but can hammer a keyboard (until some time, some day the compilation will "pass"). The rest is our daily experience with "software" (the thing that you swear at) and "hardware" (the thing that you kick).

Two papers accepted at the World Conference on Computers in Education (preprints available)

These two papers were recently accepted for presentation/publication at the IFIP World Conference on Computers in Education, in Bento Gonçalves-RS, Brazil, July 27-31, 2009:

• Kern VM, Possamai O, Selig PM, Pacheco RCS, Souza GC, Rautenberg S, Lemos RTS. Growing a Peer Review Culture among Graduate Students. Full paper (10 p.)
  Abstract: Usual processes for pursuing education excellence in a graduate program are candidate selection, coursework, research, and thesis defense. In this paper, we present a complementary approach: the growing of a peer review culture among graduate students. We instruct first-year masters’ and doctoral students on principles for preparing a thesis proposal. Students present their proposals in collective discussion sessions with feedback from professors. The students then submit their proposals through a web interface and are instructed on the role they will play next – of anonymous referees of their peers’ proposals. The referee reports and general statistics are made available to all participating students and advisors. Updated proposals are submitted to an annual workshop open to all participating students and advisors. About 60 students take part in this annual series of seminars with peer review and workshop, generating 60 theses proposals and about 180 referee reports, 3 for each proposal. Students and their advisors receive detailed feedback on individual participation as author and referee. The main strength of the experience is the opportunity to assimilate the techniques of objective criticism and to reflect about the quality of own and others’ work. The paper also outlines research and development issues related to our effort to enhance the peer review culture among graduate students.
  
• Kern VM, Saraiva LM, Braz ERC. Emergo: Academic Performance Assessment and Planning with a Data Mart. Short paper (5 p.)
  Abstract: National-level, objective assessment in higher education has been a practice in Brazil since 1996, surviving political shifts that frequently dismantle public policies. This paper presents the Emergo Project – the assessment of Psychology students using a data mart with multiple-choice questions from national exams and students’ answers. We run two annual examinations, giving individual feedback and discussing aggregate results with faculty and students. We identified patterns for the evolution of correct answers across semester enrolled – Growing, Decreasing, Peak, Constant, and Other. Actual results in the national exam suggest that the feedback and discussions might have helped achieving superior performance standards.

The first one discusses our approach of first-year masters and doctorate students peer review of thesis proposals at EGC/UFSC. The second is an account of a project conducted at Univali (Biguaçu-SC), in which Psychology students were assessed using questions from national exams, with a strong participation of students and professors in discussions about aggregate results.

Both versions are preprints - the final version will probably contain edits (and might be copyrighted).