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EIGHT

Teaching the Philosophy of Computing Using the Raspberry Pi

MARY ANGELEC COOKSEY

Indiana University East

According to ResourceEd, “32% of educators are using technology to bring experts or experiences into the classroom virtually.”¹

CENTRAL TO THE CHALLENGE OF all forms of university teaching is bringing student learning to life. In the past, the tools provided to instructors with which to confront this challenge were limited. The blackboard, the whiteboard, the PowerPoint presentation—these were the staples that made up the tool kit, and this was especially true for disciplines like the humanities, and within the humanities, for subjects like philosophy. Of late, however, the tool kit of the philosophy teacher has become enlarged by more expansive and impactful teaching technologies. One such example is the creation of the Raspberry Pi kit, a low-priced set of components with which to build a computer, the act of which may hold great power to positively impact the teaching of courses like the Philosophy of Computing and the Ethics of Information and Privacy.

The hypothesis is that, in the end, much will be gleaned about the Philosophy of Computing from the student having the hands-on experience of building her own computer. Put another way, learning how the resistors and capacitors electronically create the virtual platform that makes the human communication of information—or disinformation—possible, greatly informs learning about the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical ideas that drive ideation and behavior online . . . all made possible by the Raspberry Pi and using it as a teaching tool within the pedagogy of backward design.

One of the best characterizations of backward design is that put forth by Ruth Mitchell and Marilyn Willis in their work, Learning in Overdrive: Designing Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment from Standards, originally published in 1995. In the introduction to a section of the book titled “Step Six: Mapping Backward from the Culminating Task to the Learning Sections,” the authors invite the reader to imagine Christmas “in a little shack way out West—the kids snuggled together in the cold, crisp evening, dreaming of a sugarplum morning.” They continue by pointing out that stories about these children and these holidays always include an orange or a tangerine being found in Christmas stockings the next day. The authors then pose the question: Can you imagine how complicated it was to move an orange tree all the way to Kansas in 1869? With that inquiry, the heart and soul of backward design is exposed . . . and the structure of its architecture made accessible to be fully understood.²

First appearing in educational literature in the mid-twentieth century as the “mapping backward” strategy referenced in the paragraph above, backward design as a curricular design model is most generally attributed to the duo of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. In their landmark publication Understanding by Design, originally published in 1998, Wiggins and McTighe define backward design as an approach to curricular design as “purposeful task analysis.” They continue by noting that the logic of backward design “suggests a planning sequence for curriculum which has three stages: identification of desired results, the determination of acceptable evidence, and the planning of learning experiences and instruction.”³ Filtered through the lens and language of curriculum design, these steps have come to mean that quality course design begins with the determination of learning outcomes, settling on assessment strategies that will most effectively measure the attainment of those outcomes, and then making decisions about course content, learning activities, and signature assignments that will be most effective in connecting the dots for students.⁴

This process of beginning course design by “imagining when a course is over . . . then asking: what is it I hope that students will have learned, that will still be there and have value several years after the course is over?” is a design model that may seem counterintuitive, but which has, in the end, proven to be highly effective in producing the desired results of increased student learning.⁵ In fact, for Fink and many others, backward design is the backbone of creating the most significant learning experiences for students.

In the case of the digital humanities, backward design is especially significant as its application can lead to a transparency in teaching that can strongly support the most desirable of end goals—student attainment. In the case of the Philosophy of Computing, backward design becomes initiated by beginning with the premise of the utility of having students gain knowledge of hardware and software operation through interacting with all of the components and processes of the Raspberry Pi.

The Raspberry Pi, created by Eben Upton, is a credit card–sized computer originally designed for education, inspired by the 1981 BBC Micro. Upton’s goal was to create a low-cost device that would improve programming skills and hardware understanding at the preuniversity level.⁶

The story of the Raspberry Pi actually began in 2006 when Upton and other faculty members at the University of Cambridge in Britain found that their incoming computer science students were ill-prepared for a high-tech education. While many students in the previous decade were experienced electronics hobbyists by the time they got to college, these freshmen were little more than skilled Web designers. A part of the reason for this was that easy to use, modern PCs hid most of the nuts and bolts behind a pleasing interface. So students were skillful navigators of applications but needed more experience with the architectural dimensions of what made those applications work.⁷

The Raspberry Pi—about 3 inches by 2 inches and less than an inch high—was intended to replace the expensive computers in school science labs. For less than the price of a new keyboard, a teacher could plug in the Pi and connect it to older peripherals that might be lying around. But because Pi initially ran only Linux, a free operating system popular with programmers and hobbyists, students would have a learning curve. Now, however, the Raspberry Pi foundation is pushing out a second version of the Pi that hopefully will be more accessible.⁸ (See fig. 8.1.)

In part, what makes this tool so accessible to so many grade levels and disciplines is its “basic nature.” The simplicity of the Raspberry Pi makes it easy to get started, helping students use basic digital, analog, and electromechanical components and instilling an awareness of simple programming concepts. The Raspberry Pi strips computing back to its basic elements. This “stripping down” is perfect from a pedagogical standpoint as well. In a course like the Philosophy of Computing, teachers want students to see what is going on with computing at its most basic level. When it comes to the educational benefits of the Raspberry Pi, it is not always just about the code.

By its very construction, the Raspberry Pi helps instill computational thinking and skills such as decomposition, pattern recognition, logical thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving. These are the very skills most employed by those who unethically infiltrate systems and commit cybercrimes. By learning more about these skills and how they combine with the hardware and software that make computers work, philosophy students will become far better equipped to understand the nature of these crimes, as well as the skill sets and work of those who perpetrate them.⁹

Figure 8.1. Raspberry Pi 4 model b—side. Photo credit: Michael Henzler, accessed September 13, 2018, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raspberry_Pi_4_Model_B_-_Side.jpg(CC BY-SA 4.0).

In order for the experience building their own computer using the Raspberry Pi kit to be as rich as possible, students need the freedom to experiment, hack, and collaborate. An instructor might explore a pedagogy like group work to support this freedom to create and to collaborate. Classroom layout is also important, and groups should be encouraged to work in spaces designed to promote collaborative learning and the sharing of ideas. Instructors might create collaborative teams that are well matched in skill level so that no student is left out. Rotating roles could also be given to students on a project-by-project basis (e.g., coder, builder, project manager, quality assurance, and others).¹⁰

In previous semesters of teaching the Philosophy of Computing, hands-on experiences have taken the form of assigning students “web quests,” wherein they would be given sets of conditions to locate on websites in illustration of certain virtual attributes of good and bad moral representation or ethical positioning. Other times, these hands-on experiences took the form of asking for students’ responses to case studies wherein real-life conditions would be described as variables for consideration in applying traditional or classic moral decision-making models to embedded, ethical problems. Simulation was as close as we could get to immersing students in the virtual world of cybercrime, hacking, and negative social influence. With the introduction of the Raspberry Pi within the pedagogy of backward design, the hope is that the richness of the immersion in “business” of the Philosophy of Computing will be to amplify learning and, in turn, enlarge and positively impact the student experience.

NOTES

1. “How Teachers Are Already Using Raspberry Pi in the Classroom,” The State of Technology in Education: 2016, accessed September 13, 2018, https://resourced.prometheanworld.com/education-technology-report-2016.

2. R. Mitchell and M. Willis, Learning in Overdrive: Designing Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment from Standards: A Manual for Teachers (Golden, CO: North American, 2003), 66.

3. G. P. Wiggins and J. McTighe, Understanding by Design (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2003), 16–17.

4. L. D. Fink, Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 63.

5. Ibid., 64.

6. John Biggs, “Personal Tech Toolkit: A Tiny Computer Attracts a Million Tinkerers,” last modified September 30, 2013, accessed September 13, 2018.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. “How Teachers Are Already Using Raspberry Pi in the Classroom.”

10. Ibid.