OU - M366 Intelligence

One of the courses that I like the idea of doing (perhaps next year) is M366 (Natural and Artificial Intelligence). It is currently part way through its first presentation and yesterday I exchanged a couple of emails with some who is presently a student on that course. I wanted to know from them what the course was like, what it covered, did it live up to expectations etc.

The answer is that...its quite hard, many people have dropped out because of the programming, but that it is interesting. The programming environment is NetLogo - a new name to me - which is a modelling/simulation environment that can be programmed in what looks like a version of Logo (in much the same way that Scheme is a descendant of Lisp, I guess). This environment allows you to simulate all sorts of dynamic systems - from groups of people interacting at a party and their levels of group happiness, to biological systems, physical systems (moelecules interacting) etc.

Really sounds like a lot of fun and very interesting.

OU - T224 -

The Student website for T224 opened yesterday and this is a great relief - at last I have some idea of the flavour of the course. According to my Student Homepage, the printed materials for the course have still not yet been sent.

But, from what I can see, we kick off gently with an introduction to number base systems, what a processor is (and not just the PC on your desk, but the 100 processors in a BMW 7-Series - and I don't know many academics who have been anywhere near a 7-Series!, processors in kitchen scales (not the old type!), washing machines, and so on), what IO-Systems are (and, of course, some are just I, and some are just O, and some are both).

A quick run around binary and hexadecimal (an old favourite of mine) and why/how it is easy to convert from one to the other (and yes, it is easy). Years ago I used to play darts in our local with a few colleagues. Just for the fun of it we would play 501 but do the scoring in hex instead of decimal - and somewhere I know that I have a photo from those days to prove it. How mad is that?

Lectures

Simon McClive has a posting on his blog about iTunesU (or uTunes as I keep thinking of it). If you want to download and listen to some lectures on all kinds of academic subjects (Computer Science, Psychology, Art, and many more) then visit Simon's blog and follow his links. Its a wonderful resource - and its free.

OU - MT262 - Progress so far

It might seem odd to be posting a progress report before a course has even started, but I find that I have just finished Unit 3 of Block 1. Unit 4 claims to be 6 hours work, which if its anything like the previous 3 units means that I will complete it in about 90 minutes. No kidding.

Why started already and why so quickly? Two questions, two answers. First off, I want to get as much done before I start on T224 (materials haven't arrived yet anyway), and the reason that I am making good headway is that it appears to assume no previous programming experience so spends some time telling us what an Integer is; what a String is; this is how you repeat blocks of code, etc. etc.

So all I have to do is to note down the terminology that they use (because I'll be expected to use it in TMA answers) and then do the practical work which, so far, requires very little thought.

Still, the more I get ahead the more time I will have when it gets challenging!

Smart Toys?

On BBC1 this morning there was an interview with some trade exhibitors at the Consumer (don't you just detest that word?) Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Every electronic gadget you can think of, and some you would never have thought of, are 'on show' - which really means that the hyped-up sales-people are full of hype and convinced that they can persuade you that their's is best.

But what really caught my attention was a throw-away comment by one of the traders spokespeople. Talking about toys, they claimed, and probably rightly so, that toys are getting smarter. I'm sure they are (although its probably a loose definition of 'smart' - I'm not sure that there is much intelligence involved, not yet anyway). But is that a good thing?

My kids have had all sorts of toys, some of the 'smart' kind, and some not. But what I have noticed, with the obvious exception of games consoles, is that they generally prefer the non-smart toys. It seems to me that the smart toys may have instant appeal and grab the attention of the kids (who are as much susceptible to instant-gratification as the rest of us) but after the novelty factor has worn off there is very little left to hold their interest. But give the kids a simple toy (and by that I mean anything that requires a bit of imagination and input) and they happily play for hours.

Now, it might be that I'm just too old and curmudgeonly, or that a grew up in a rural Kentish area where our toys where the fields, trees, and streams, an old bicycle, and our mates down the lane. I don't know. But I have seen the benefits of technology and used them for years so its not that I am technophobic (otherwise I would be blogless amongst other things!).

My daughter is 11 years old. Give her a book of blank paper and some pencils and she is happy for hours, drawing, writing, whatever. But give her something that will do the drawing for her - initial amazement then not interested.

But I'm not sure that this is a modern phenomena. I remember being given a spirograph one Christmas. Brilliant, I could make shapes and patterns. And then boredom - very quickly. It was a clever idea (and pretty low-tech to boot), but pointless. There was very little imagination required.

So, 'smart toys': as toys, I'm not convinced. As ways exploring and advancing technology then yes, this is probably their place.

OU - Blog Readers!

I have received a few emails recently from other OU students who have stumbled (or googled, if I can turn a noun into a verb - a process called 'verbing' I understand , which is pleasantly self-referential!) upon this blog.

I must say that it is always a thrill to receive these emails, firstly it proves to me that this is not just a 'write only' blog (cathartic though that may be) but is a 'read/write' blog. Secondly, its great to hear from people studying the same, or similar, courses and being able to share experiences etc.

I had one email from someone working and studying in Malta - no chance of tutorials and very little chance even meeting up with other students. I think that this must take great motivation and dedication, so I doff my hat to all students studying in such circumstances. To cap it all, the course fees are much higher for overseas students.

I might even start to create a map showing the spread of readers (whoa, getting a bit ahead of myself there!) - more of a personal challenge really but I have a GoogleMaps API key, so might incorporate that into a Rails app at some point.

That reminds me of the time when, as kids, we set off gas-filled balloons at the village fete. The balloons had a label attached and there was a prize for who ever had the balloon that went furthest and was returned. Some of my friends had balloons that travelled to continental Europe, my brother once had a balloon that ended up in Germany. His prize was an orange (okay, it was a small village with no money!). My balloons generally ended up in the nearest tree although one did make it as far as Tonbridge (a distance of some 7 miles) before being dashed to the ground. I consoled myself with the thought that I didn't have to have an orange!

OU - MT262

Subtitled "Putting computers to work" this course covers the art of writing computer software in C++. I have been looking forwards to this course for some while. Not because I want to find out how to make computers do some work (I've been doing that for more years than I care to think about) but because I love writing software and want to get to grips with C++.

The official start date of the course is late January, but I thought I would make a head start and am currently up to Unit 3 of Block 1. So far, it has to be said, its been a stroll in the park - just covering some basic syntax and clearly aimed at people who have very little programming experience. I am assured that as the course progresses it does become more challenging. Well, lets hope so!

I have another course running in parallel with this and am still waiting for the course material to turn up. I only registered on 1st January and the start date is not until February 2nd, so plenty of time to get further ahead with MT262.