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Department of Computer Science

Resources for the CAS workshop

smallconstruitlogo.png ... Making construals as a new digital skill for creating interactive open educational resources 

This workshop introduces the idea of 'making construals' with reference to a specific theme: making sense of shopping experiences.

A shopping construal is depicted in the screenshot below:

Figure 2

There are many educational resources based on a shopping theme. They are typically programs that have been developed for an explicit teaching purpose. They have a specific intended use; this may not suit the teacher’s needs, but the teacher is not intended to adapt or extend it.

Three key ideas behind making construals are that:

  • the same construal can be adapted to derive a wide variety of educational resources
  • understanding, adapting and making construals is an activity that is accessible to the non-specialist
  • making construals is an alternative approach to programming based on a broader view of computing.

1. As a simple example of a basic shopping game ("Have you enough money?'):

Play around with this game. Reflect on how it could be used - and adapted if necessary - for teaching, whether you would be able to develop it for yourself, how you might wish to adapt it, and whether you would be able to adapt it.

2. To load the basic Shopping construal depicted above:

  • Click on the 'Shopping tutorial' in the Project List window.

To follow a basic introductory presentation about the Shopping construal, aimed at secondary school pupils without specialist computing skills:

  • Copy-and-paste (or type) the following line into the JS-EDEN Input Window and then press Submit:
include("models/wmb/newintro.js-e");

This presentation introduces the three primary constituents of construals: observables, dependencies and agents. It also highlights the idea that 'making construals' is using the computer as an instrument for making connections.

3. (A homework exercise) To follow a 'guided walk' which transforms the Shopping construal into the Have you enough money? game:

  • Copy-and-paste (or type) the following line into the JS-EDEN Input Window and then press Submit:
include("models/wmb/makingmoneymathITAG.js-e");
  • Copy-and-paste (or type) the following line into the JS-EDEN Input Window and then press Submit:
include("models/wmb/newshoppinggamelayout.js-e");

This presentation spells out all the steps involved in transforming the Shopping construal into the Have you enough money? game. It can be seen as making it plausible that a teacher could carry out this transformation without specialist knowledge and just some basic skills in manipulating observable definitions.

The shopping construal is used as an illustrative example in a tutorial paper in which the above screenshot appears as Figure 2. The above exercises are a small selection from online resources relating to a shopping theme being developed to introduce making construals. Other examples of construals developed for ediucational applications include the Hex Colouring, Light Box and Nim construals that can be accessed from the Project List in the JS-EDEN environment.

More background on the CONSTRUIT! project and the broader view of computing it promotes can be found on the following webpages:

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