Education

Inspired by: I like smart people. — Firuza Pastakia (@firuzap) January 6, 2015

The semester is ending and I am getting lots of emails from my students on how to get the most out of the summer break. So here’s a little list, in no particular order, (which I might keep on expanding later on) outlining some of the things that might make your summer productive. Make a study group: Find some fellow thetas, pick up a tough, interesting book (Knuth anyone?), distribute chapters/topics and teach each other. With the right people, it can not only lead to much geekish fun, but will also help you in the coming semesters (and for the rest of your life) Enroll in an online course: Interested in finding out Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets? Want to learn about developing innovative ideas for startups? Register yourself in one (or more) of those free online courses which are offered at websites such as Udacity and Coursera. Most of the content is awesome and you can most definitely find a course of two no matter what your interests are. Make a game: Yes, a proper computer game. Like those arcade things that you (used to?) play in childhood. Pac-Man, Qix, Ludo, Chess… You can find lots of tutorials and course online (see point 2). Challenge yourself and make a game for your cell phone. You know enough programming to do that. All you need is a platform and a good idea! Finish a reading list: Find a book list (or two) and read all those books! The library is your friend (and so are Galaxy, Variety and Readings bookstores) Write something: Start with a sentence. Do it multiple times. Make a paragraph. Do THAT multiple times. Make it a short story. Blow it up into a novel. People write novels in one month, you have two! Do an Internship: Call that uncle (your daddy’s friend) or the bhai jaan (your brother’s friend) who have their own shops/software houses/ factories. Ask them for an internship. Work for a few weeks and see how the world REALLY functions. It will be one of the best lessons you’ll ever have. (Keep watching the university notice board for opportunities) Make some money online: If you are really good at something, there might be people out there who are willing to pay you to work for them online. Find your niche and earn some gadget money! Catchup on programming: So you barely passed your programming course? Well that is over now and it’s probably time to catch up and really learn something yourself by doing some small projects out there. It just might prepare you well enough for the next semester! Who knows! Take a hike, Literally: Do not, (and I repeat, do NOT) miss out the small excursion trips arranged by the university. Or if you don’t like their destination, arrange one yourself. Nothing freshens up the mind more than going to the mountains for a week or two and walking your worries off. Learn an instrument: Anything you always wanted to learn! Oh and coursera has a guitar class going on these days. Start a sport: You don’t have to be really good to play a sport. So what if you can’t hit a yorker or dribble a basket ball without looking. Start doing it regularly and you’ll get good enough to really start enjoying it. Volunteer: Find a good social cause. Volunteer for it. Or teach a working kid how to read/write. (Sadqa-e-jaaria) Learn a new language: Python? Even a kid can learn it and its fun too! Or you can be non-geeky and find a natural language to learn (German? French?). Learn while you can and you won’t regret it later (like I do). Make Art!: Even if you don’t know how to… Get inspired and start making your own stuff. Play around with Paint if you don’t want to get your hands dirty with acrylics and brushes. (All images in this post were created using MS Paint in 2-3 minutes) By personal experience, I can guarantee that most of the things in this list can be done in parallel and can do wonders for your social life :) ...

For under $1 million, every high school student in Punjab can have access to a computer. Number of high schools = 5600 (source) Price per computer = 16500 PKR (source) Total = 92,400,000 PKR = 976,206 USD Imagine a whole generation growing up on Khan academy lectures and the Gutenberg library. Imagine these kids using Wikipedia to get both sides of an argument and playing around with Wolfram|Alpha. Imagine them falling in love with physics by appreciating the mysteries of light and getting high on chemistry by designing molecules. Imagine them learning how to pronounce the word “measure’ properly and hearing Faiz reciting poetry as it was meant to be recited. ...

Today, I got a copy of the policy guidelines against sexual harassment in institutions of higher learning in my inbox which has been published by the Govt. of Pakistan Higher Education Commission. It contains a “listing of sexual harassment” along with “actual reported cases”. The last item in the list is Forcing students to publish their research work in Supervisors name. While the most obvious implication of this statement is that plagiarism (by the supervisor) is sexual harassment, I think there is a hidden message there as well. ...

 

 A friend of mine is carrying out research in classroom based e-assessment in developing countries such as Pakistan. The aim of the research is to assist primary school teachers with computer software that: · Is aligned with the particular subject curriculum they follow in their schools. · Provides pupils with challenges and interactive short quizzes and tests to take after completing a topic taught by the teacher in the classroom. ...

I made a small 10 min demo to simulate the classic river crossing puzzle for teaching state space search in my AI class. I did exercise my right to be creative by changing the characters a bit. Jerry, Tom and Spike have to cross a river, going from the right side to left, in a boat. While you are in the boat, they behave. But as soon as you leave Tom with Jerry or Tom with Spike on one side WITHOUT the boat, they start fighting. Being a peace loving person, you don’t want that. The goal is to move them across the river with no fights. (as you may have noticed, there is no eating/killing involved in my version) ...

I will be teaching a course in Artificial Intelligence this summer. For some parts of the course, I plan to show implemented demos along with the course material. Looking from the students’ point of view, such tools not only decrease the learning time while in the class room, but also give enough material to play around at home in case you want to repeat what was taught. (I can empathise because I was once, and will be again (hopefully soon), a student). ...

There was a talk today by Dr. Richard Larson at FAST-NU on an initiative by LINC called BLOSSOMS (Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math Studies). It focuses on developing open ware modules for high school students which can be recorded and shared in classrooms. The creative twist is to create a ‘blend’ between the video lectures and an in class teacher. Participants are to be selected from US (MIT), Jordan and Pakistan. ...