Comp Sci finding its way to English Lit
November 14th 2006 14:18
As a computer science student in games tech, I hold a somewhat odd position at my campus. I’m the, shall we say, envied guy. They think games dev is all about fun’n’games, when it is anything but. It requires thinking, problem solving, and above all an acceptance of your imperfections, since the computer is never ever wrong.
Ironically I have always envied those doing the English related degrees for instance. I mean, you can say ‘your English essay sucks’, but that is coming from another person, it is all opinionated.
The problem is in work areas you don’t know what people want from you unless you look at it objectively. You don’t learn this valuable skill from university for instance since the people who teach you at university are people too, they have specific tastes. So how does the poor old English student get by on looking at things from an objective perspective when they graduate and go to work? There is no course on objectivity is there? It can’t even be taught like that can it?
To that end at the University of Florida Professor Gregory Ulmer has found a novel way to equip English students with the skill of looking at things objectively. He has blended easy does it coding in the way of HTML into the course. Well I know a bunch of guys back on campus who’ll be laughing right now ‘HTML?’ well for the hapless English student, yes, that is a good place to start… I guess.
“Problems in real life are not so neatly broken down,” says Professor Ulmer, “They are all entangled. We want to get students and teachers thinking in a holistic way in regard to learning.” Bang on good professor (sorry, just had to get the obligatory ‘good professor’ in there somewhere).
What this does is give students an objective view of tasks at hand, this view will help them better come to grips with whatever goal they are trying to achieve, and solve them.
I like this idea, it should be implemented in universities throughout the world, give that silly obnoxious English student a cold hard machine to reason with and lets see how long they can preserve their sanity.
*original source: Hard-To-Master-Language requires critical thinking
Woohoo, English lit
The problem is in work areas you don’t know what people want from you unless you look at it objectively. You don’t learn this valuable skill from university for instance since the people who teach you at university are people too, they have specific tastes. So how does the poor old English student get by on looking at things from an objective perspective when they graduate and go to work? There is no course on objectivity is there? It can’t even be taught like that can it?
Professor Gregory Ulmer is on to something big with his little idea
“Problems in real life are not so neatly broken down,” says Professor Ulmer, “They are all entangled. We want to get students and teachers thinking in a holistic way in regard to learning.” Bang on good professor (sorry, just had to get the obligatory ‘good professor’ in there somewhere).
What this does is give students an objective view of tasks at hand, this view will help them better come to grips with whatever goal they are trying to achieve, and solve them.
I like this idea, it should be implemented in universities throughout the world, give that silly obnoxious English student a cold hard machine to reason with and lets see how long they can preserve their sanity.
*original source: Hard-To-Master-Language requires critical thinking
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Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
I was wondering what HTML meant, was afraid to show my ignorance, feel much better now!
I understand what you're saying and you did broadly cover other areas, but why pick on the poor English student, or is this simply a reflection of the good Professor's start point.
Must read the article sometime.
Well done as usual, you are certainly coming to grips with complexity very early in life unless you're, in fact, not so young.
But, wisdom knows no age barriers, even a young child can speak such words from time to time.
I just needed to throw in a little Philosophy, not dressed up, of course, so barely passing the grade.
Keep up the good work,
katyzzz!
Comment by Ahmed
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The good professor happens to work in the english department, so I decided to focus on that aspect of it.
Philosophy is about thinking, so there is no good or bad, or high or low, I think the only reason people attribute it to complex wording is becase the greeks and romans had a way with words different to our own. Kind of ridiculous for us to judge them as superior in langauge, for instance I dunno why ye oldé english is regarded as complex, back in the ye oldé times thats the language people spoke actually spoke! Bring someone from the 1800's and they'll be like 'wow, thy comblex way of thy tounge befouls me!' (or something like that).
Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
I just thought it meant Hard to Master English Language, or was that just a play on words.
katyzzz!
Comment by Ahmed
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Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Comment by Adrienne
Comment by Ahmed
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Comment by Eric
Mal Gadget
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
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The code is quite simple, but you'll have to embed the html within the thing (check blogger tips to find out how).
The html code is as follows:
<span style="float:right;padding:10px">
<script> digg_url = '<
<script src="http://digg.com/api/diggthis.js"></script></span>