model 3.0 - predicting the polarization and demotivation of classroom attitudes towards technology

Latest model - predicting the unpredictableness of technology reforms in education

Rule Set For Education Technology Researcher:
To Initialize
set flash color at random technological attitude value of red (pro-technology reform) or blue (anti-technology reform) or green (middle-ground 'ecosystem' approach to technology reform)
set color intensity to 1
set timer at random value between 0 and 10

At Each Clock-Tick
move randomly to adjacent square
decrement countdown timer by 1
if timer is 0 then flash red if red, blue if blue, or green if green (i.e. publish research study on the positive effects of technology (if red) or the negative effects of technology (if blue), or on the complexity of technology in the educational ecosystem (if green))
If timer is 0 increase research value by 1, and reset countdowntimer to inital number.
If adjacent to other researcher of same flash color intensify own flash color by the amount of researcher's research value.

Rule Set for School Superintendent:

To Initialize
set flash color at random color or red (pro-technology reform) or blue (anti-technology reform)
set color intensity to 1

At Each Clock-Tick
randomly move to adjacent square
if adjacent to student, ignore
if adjacent to teacher, ignore
if adjacent to researcher with different color flashing, ignore.
if adjacent to researcher with same color flashing (red if red, blue if blue), intensify color by that researcher's research value.
if color intensity reaches 5 stop flashing and remain in permanent color state (red if red, blue if blue)
if standardize test scores drop below 50 out of 100, re-initialize

Rule Set for Classroom Screen:

At each clock-tick
if superintendent's color intensity reaches 5, set screen to superintendent's color (red if red, blue if blue).
if screen is red (pro-technology reform) powerpoint appears behind teacher, laptops appear at students desks
if screen is blue (anti-technology reform) powerpoint disappears, laptops vanish

Rule Set for Teachers:

To Initialize
Set flash color at random value of red, blue, or green.
Set timer at random value of 0 to 10
Set permanent color value to 10 (gold for motivated)

At each clock-tick
Stay at podium
if flash color matches majority of students' flash color, intensify color (red if red, blue if blue, green if green)
if screen color does not match your flash color, fade your color to grey (burn out)
decrement countdown timer by 1,
when timer is at 0, flash and restart timer

Rule Set for Students:

To Initialize
set flash color at random value of red, blue, or green
set permanent color to random value between 0 and 10 (10 is golden for motivation)
set countdown timer to random value of 0 to 10

At each clock-tick
Stay in seat
if flash color matches teacher's flash color intensify your color by 1
if flash color does not match teacher's flash color, fade your motivation color to grey by 1 (burn out)
if screen color does not match your flash color, fade your motivation color to grey by 1
if teacher's motivation color value is below 5 (more grey than gold) fade your color to grey by 1
decrement countdowntimer by 1
when timer reaches 0, flash color and reset timer

Rule Set for Standardized Test Scores

To Initialize
begin at point value 70 out of 100

At each clock-tick
decrement point value by 1 for each student whose motivation is less than 5 (more grey color than gold)
increment point value up by 1 for each student whose motivation is 5 or more (more gold color, than grey)
if point value is below 50, re-initialize superintendent's starting condition (see above).


Brief Explanation - well fellow blog readers, i am testing out new mediums for my technology model. My last medium was a bit too scholarly, a bit too long and wordy. Even though my model only had 10 or so words, I picked out one of those words, metaphors, and wrote 5 posts unpacking its meaning....and surely I cannot do that for each of the words in my model without driving my readers insane. Secondly, I felt a bit naive dishing out advice for how to live well with technology when whose to say I know what I'm talking about. It felt a bit didantic, which might be even more painful than being too wordy. Thus rather than being long, wordy, and didactic, i decided to be playful. I went for a tongue-and-cheek presentation of the aggregate dynamics at play in influencing technological attitudes, polarization, technology implementation in the classroom, and motivation, which I loosely based off of Uri Wilensky's fascinating account of how a student wrote a similar programming language to study the aggregate affects of synchronized firefly flashing. I wanted to go for synchronizing of attitudes and beliefs about technology reform, only i wanted less synchronizing and more polarizing and intensifying, and i wanted there to be a sense of the cyclical nature of these waves and fads of different technological reforms, and i wanted a tragic note where the odds are unavoidably skewed against those who hold the most reasonable and least polarized views that technology is part of an ecosystem where caring teachers come first, etc, etc, as well as the resultant tragedy of a loss of motivation for learning in the first place. Mostly, I thought it would be funny to try out a model that does not try to replicate reality, but rather could be used as a tool to test and develop ideas of how polarization of technological attitudes plays out in the classroom, as well as predicting its affects on teacher and students' motivation and test scores. Above all, i am excited to have written my first joke as told through the medium of a loose modelling of the netlogo programming language.