The self-organizing computer course
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0:04 - 0:07So, this is my grandfather,
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0:07 - 0:08Salman Schocken,
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0:08 - 0:13who was born into a poor and uneducated family
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0:13 - 0:16with six children to feed,
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0:16 - 0:20and when he was 14 years old, he was forced to
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0:20 - 0:24drop out of school in order to help put bread on the table.
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0:24 - 0:27He never went back to school.
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0:27 - 0:31Instead, he went on to build a glittering empire
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0:31 - 0:33of department stores.
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0:33 - 0:37Salman was the consummate perfectionist,
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0:37 - 0:39and every one of his stores was a jewel
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0:39 - 0:41of Bauhaus architecture.
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0:41 - 0:44He was also the ultimate self-learner,
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0:44 - 0:47and like everything else, he did it in grand style.
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0:47 - 0:50He surrounded himself with an entourage
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0:50 - 0:53of young, unknown scholars like Martin Buber
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0:53 - 0:56and Shai Agnon and Franz Kafka,
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0:56 - 0:59and he paid each one of them a monthly salary
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0:59 - 1:02so that they could write in peace.
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1:02 - 1:07And yet, in the late '30s, Salman saw what's coming.
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1:07 - 1:11He fled Germany, together with his family,
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1:11 - 1:13leaving everything else behind.
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1:13 - 1:16His department stores confiscated,
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1:16 - 1:19he spent the rest of his life in a relentless pursuit
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1:19 - 1:21of art and culture.
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1:21 - 1:23This high school dropout
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1:23 - 1:26died at the age of 82,
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1:26 - 1:30a formidable intellectual, cofounder and first CEO
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1:30 - 1:32of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
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1:32 - 1:34and founder of Schocken Books,
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1:34 - 1:37an acclaimed imprint that was later acquired
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1:37 - 1:39by Random House.
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1:39 - 1:43Such is the power of self-study.
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1:43 - 1:45And these are my parents.
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1:45 - 1:49They too did not enjoy the privilege of college education.
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1:49 - 1:53They were too busy building a family and a country.
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1:53 - 1:57And yet, just like Salman, they were lifelong,
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1:57 - 2:01tenacious self-learners, and our home was stacked
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2:01 - 2:05with thousands of books, records and artwork.
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2:05 - 2:08I remember quite vividly my father telling me
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2:08 - 2:12that when everyone in the neighborhood will have a TV set,
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2:12 - 2:17then we'll buy a normal F.M. radio. (Laughter)
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2:17 - 2:20And that's me,
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2:20 - 2:22I was going to say holding my first abacus,
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2:22 - 2:25but actually holding what my father would consider
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2:25 - 2:28an ample substitute to an iPad. (Laughter)
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2:28 - 2:31So one thing that I took from home is this notion
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2:31 - 2:34that educators don't necessarily have to teach.
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2:34 - 2:38Instead, they can provide an environment and resources
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2:38 - 2:43that tease out your natural ability to learn on your own.
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2:43 - 2:47Self-study, self-exploration, self-empowerment:
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2:47 - 2:50these are the virtues of a great education.
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2:50 - 2:54So I'd like to share with you a story about a self-study,
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2:54 - 2:57self-empowering computer science course
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2:57 - 3:01that I built, together with my brilliant colleague Noam Nisan.
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3:01 - 3:04As you can see from the pictures, both Noam and I
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3:04 - 3:07had an early fascination with first principles,
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3:07 - 3:09and over the years, as our knowledge of
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3:09 - 3:12science and technology became more sophisticated,
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3:12 - 3:15this early awe with the basics
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3:15 - 3:18has only intensified.
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3:18 - 3:21So it's not surprising that, about 12 years ago, when
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3:21 - 3:25Noam and I were already computer science professors,
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3:25 - 3:29we were equally frustrated by the same phenomenon.
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3:29 - 3:31As computers became increasingly more complex,
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3:31 - 3:35our students were losing the forest for the trees,
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3:35 - 3:38and indeed, it is impossible to connect
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3:38 - 3:40with the soul of the machine if you interact
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3:40 - 3:44with a black box P.C. or a Mac which is shrouded
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3:44 - 3:47by numerous layers of closed, proprietary software.
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3:47 - 3:51So Noam and I had this insight that if we want our students
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3:51 - 3:53to understand how computers work,
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3:53 - 3:56and understand it in the marrow of their bones,
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3:56 - 3:57then perhaps the best way to go about it
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3:57 - 4:02is to have them build a complete, working,
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4:02 - 4:06general-purpose, useful computer, hardware and software,
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4:06 - 4:09from the ground up, from first principles.
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4:09 - 4:13Now, we had to start somewhere, and so Noam and I
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4:13 - 4:17decided to base our cathedral, so to speak,
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4:17 - 4:20on the simplest possible building block,
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4:20 - 4:23which is something called NAND.
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4:23 - 4:27It is nothing more than a trivial logic gate
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4:27 - 4:30with four input-output states.
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4:30 - 4:33So we now start this journey by telling our students
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4:33 - 4:35that God gave us NAND — (Laughter) —
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4:35 - 4:39and told us to build a computer, and when we asked how,
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4:39 - 4:42God said, "One step at a time."
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4:42 - 4:45And then, following this advice, we start
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4:45 - 4:48with this lowly, humble NAND gate,
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4:48 - 4:50and we walk our students through an elaborate sequence
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4:50 - 4:53of projects in which they gradually build a chip set,
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4:53 - 4:58a hardware platform, an assembler, a virtual machine,
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4:58 - 5:01a basic operating system and a compiler
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5:01 - 5:07for a simple, Java-like language that we call "JACK."
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5:07 - 5:10The students celebrate the end of this tour de force
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5:10 - 5:13by using JACK to write all sorts of cool games
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5:13 - 5:16like Pong, Snake and Tetris.
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5:16 - 5:19You can imagine the tremendous joy of playing
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5:19 - 5:22with a Tetris game that you wrote in JACK
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5:22 - 5:25and then compiled into machine language in a compiler
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5:25 - 5:28that you wrote also, and then seeing the result
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5:28 - 5:30running on a machine that you built starting
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5:30 - 5:34with nothing more than a few thousand NAND gates.
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5:34 - 5:37It's a tremendous personal triumph of going
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5:37 - 5:42from first principles all the way to a fantastically complex
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5:42 - 5:44and useful system.
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5:44 - 5:48Noam and I worked five years to facilitate
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5:48 - 5:52this ascent and to create the tools and infrastructure
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5:52 - 5:55that will enable students to build it in one semester.
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5:55 - 5:59And this is the great team that helped us make it happen.
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5:59 - 6:03The trick was to decompose the computer's construction
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6:03 - 6:06into numerous stand-alone modules,
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6:06 - 6:10each of which could be individually specified,
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6:10 - 6:15built and unit-tested in isolation from the rest of the project.
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6:15 - 6:18And from day one, Noam and I decided to put
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6:18 - 6:22all these building blocks freely available in open source
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6:22 - 6:23on the Web.
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6:23 - 6:28So chip specifications, APIs, project descriptions,
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6:28 - 6:32software tools, hardware simulators, CPU emulators,
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6:32 - 6:35stacks of hundreds of slides, lectures --
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6:35 - 6:37we laid out everything on the Web
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6:37 - 6:40and invited the world to come over,
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6:40 - 6:42take whatever they need,
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6:42 - 6:44and do whatever they want with it.
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6:44 - 6:48And then something fascinating happened.
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6:48 - 6:50The world came.
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6:50 - 6:53And in short order, thousands of people
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6:53 - 6:55were building our machine.
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6:55 - 6:59And NAND2Tetris became one of the first
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6:59 - 7:02massive, open, online courses,
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7:02 - 7:04although seven years ago we had no idea that what
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7:04 - 7:07we were doing is called MOOCs.
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7:07 - 7:11We just observed how self-organized courses
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7:11 - 7:14were kind of spontaneously spawning
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7:14 - 7:15out of our materials.
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7:15 - 7:18For example, Pramode C.E.,
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7:18 - 7:20an engineer from Kerala, India,
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7:20 - 7:22has organized groups of self-learners
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7:22 - 7:25who build our computer under his good guidance.
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7:25 - 7:28And Parag Shah, another engineer, from Mumbai,
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7:28 - 7:31has unbundled our projects into smaller,
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7:31 - 7:33more manageable bites that he now serves
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7:33 - 7:37in his pioneering do-it-yourself computer science program.
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7:37 - 7:40The people who are attracted to these courses
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7:40 - 7:42typically have a hacker mentality.
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7:42 - 7:44They want to figure out how things work,
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7:44 - 7:46and they want to do it in groups,
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7:46 - 7:49like this hackers club in Washington, D.C.,
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7:49 - 7:53that uses our materials to offer community courses.
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7:53 - 7:56And because these materials are widely available
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7:56 - 7:58and open-source, different people take them
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7:58 - 8:01to very different and unpredictable directions.
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8:01 - 8:04For example, Yu Fangmin, from Guangzhou,
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8:04 - 8:07has used FPGA technology
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8:07 - 8:11to build our computer and show others how to do the same
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8:11 - 8:14using a video clip, and Ben Craddock developed
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8:14 - 8:18a very nice computer game that unfolds
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8:18 - 8:23inside our CPU architecture, which is quite a complex
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8:23 - 8:253D maze that Ben developed
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8:25 - 8:29using the Minecraft 3D simulator engine.
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8:29 - 8:32The Minecraft community went bananas over this project,
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8:32 - 8:35and Ben became an instant media celebrity.
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8:35 - 8:38And indeed, for quite a few people,
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8:38 - 8:42taking this NAND2Tetris pilgrimage, if you will,
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8:42 - 8:45has turned into a life-changing experience.
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8:45 - 8:48For example, take Dan Rounds, who is a music
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8:48 - 8:51and math major from East Lansing, Michigan.
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8:51 - 8:55A few weeks ago, Dan posted a victorious post
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8:55 - 8:57on our website, and I'd like to read it to you.
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8:57 - 9:01So here's what Dan said.
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9:01 - 9:03"I did the coursework because understanding computers
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9:03 - 9:07is important to me, just like literacy and numeracy,
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9:07 - 9:10and I made it through. I never worked harder on anything,
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9:10 - 9:13never been challenged to this degree.
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9:13 - 9:15But given what I now feel capable of doing,
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9:15 - 9:17I would certainly do it again.
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9:17 - 9:19To anyone considering NAND2Tetris,
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9:19 - 9:23it's a tough journey, but you'll be profoundly changed."
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9:23 - 9:28So Dan demonstrates the many self-learners
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9:28 - 9:33who take this course off the Web, on their own traction,
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9:33 - 9:37on their own initiative, and it's quite amazing because
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9:37 - 9:42these people cannot care less about
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9:42 - 9:43grades.
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9:43 - 9:47They are doing it because of one motivation only.
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9:47 - 9:50They have a tremendous passion to learn.
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9:50 - 9:52And with that in mind,
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9:52 - 9:57I'd like to say a few words about traditional college grading.
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9:57 - 9:59I'm sick of it.
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9:59 - 10:01We are obsessed with grades
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10:01 - 10:03because we are obsessed with data,
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10:03 - 10:07and yet grading takes away all the fun from failing,
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10:07 - 10:10and a huge part of education
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10:10 - 10:11is about failing.
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10:11 - 10:14Courage, according to Churchill,
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10:14 - 10:17is the ability to go from one defeat to another
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10:17 - 10:19without losing enthusiasm. (Laughter)
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10:19 - 10:23And [Joyce] said that mistakes
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10:23 - 10:25are the portals of discovery.
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10:25 - 10:28And yet we don't tolerate mistakes,
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10:28 - 10:29and we worship grades.
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10:29 - 10:33So we collect your B pluses and your A minuses
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10:33 - 10:36and we aggregate them into a number like 3.4,
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10:36 - 10:38which is stamped on your forehead
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10:38 - 10:40and sums up who you are.
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10:40 - 10:44Well, in my opinion, we went too far with this nonsense,
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10:44 - 10:46and grading became degrading.
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10:46 - 10:51So with that, I'd like to say a few words about upgrading,
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10:51 - 10:56and share with you a glimpse from my current project,
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10:56 - 10:58which is different from the previous one,
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10:58 - 11:00but it shares exactly the same characteristics
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11:00 - 11:03of self-learning, learning by doing,
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11:03 - 11:06self-exploration and community-building,
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11:06 - 11:12and this project deals with K-12 math education,
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11:12 - 11:14beginning with early age math,
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11:14 - 11:18and we do it on tablets because we believe that
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11:18 - 11:23math, like anything else, should be taught hands on.
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11:23 - 11:26So here's what we do. Basically, we developed
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11:26 - 11:30numerous mobile apps, every one of them explaining
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11:30 - 11:31a particular concept in math.
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11:31 - 11:35So for example, let's take area.
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11:35 - 11:37When you deal with a concept like area --
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11:37 - 11:42well, we also provide a set of tools that the child
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11:42 - 11:45is invited to experiment with in order to learn.
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11:45 - 11:49So if area is what interests us, then one thing
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11:49 - 11:53which is natural to do is to tile the area
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11:53 - 11:57of this particular shape and simply count
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11:57 - 12:01how many tiles it takes to cover it completely.
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12:01 - 12:03And this little exercise here gives you a first
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12:03 - 12:07good insight of the notion of area.
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12:07 - 12:09Moving along, what about the area of this figure?
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12:09 - 12:14Well, if you try to tile it, it doesn't work too well, does it.
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12:14 - 12:16So instead, you can experiment
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12:16 - 12:19with these different tools here by some process
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12:19 - 12:21of guided trial and error,
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12:21 - 12:24and at some point you will discover that one thing
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12:24 - 12:27that you can do among several legitimate transformations
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12:27 - 12:30is the following one. You can cut the figure,
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12:30 - 12:33you can rearrange the parts, you can glue them
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12:33 - 12:37and then proceed to tile just like we did before.
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12:37 - 12:42(Applause)
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12:42 - 12:45Now this particular transformation
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12:45 - 12:49did not change the area of the original figure,
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12:49 - 12:51so a six-year-old who plays with this
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12:51 - 12:54has just discovered a clever algorithm
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12:54 - 12:58to compute the area of any given parallelogram.
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12:58 - 12:59We don't replace teachers, by the way.
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12:59 - 13:03We believe that teachers should be empowered, not replaced.
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13:03 - 13:06Moving along, what about the area of a triangle?
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13:06 - 13:09So after some guided trial and error,
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13:09 - 13:13the child will discover, with or without help,
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13:13 - 13:16that he or she can duplicate the original figure
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13:16 - 13:20and then take the result, transpose it,
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13:20 - 13:24glue it to the original and then proceed [with] what we did before:
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13:24 - 13:31cut, rearrange, paste — oops— paste and glue,
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13:31 - 13:33and tile.
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13:33 - 13:37Now this transformation has doubled the area
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13:37 - 13:41of the original figure, and therefore we have just learned
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13:41 - 13:44that the area of the triangle equals the area of this rectangle
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13:44 - 13:47divided by two.
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13:47 - 13:50But we discovered it by self-exploration.
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13:50 - 13:56So, in addition to learning some useful geometry,
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13:56 - 14:01the child has been exposed to some pretty sophisticated
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14:01 - 14:04science strategies, like reduction,
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14:04 - 14:07which is the art of
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14:07 - 14:10transforming a complex problem into a simple one,
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14:10 - 14:13or generalization, which is at the heart
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14:13 - 14:16of any scientific discipline,
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14:16 - 14:18or the fact that some properties are invariant
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14:18 - 14:21under some transformations.
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14:21 - 14:24And all this is something that a very young child
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14:24 - 14:29can pick up using such mobile apps.
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14:29 - 14:32So presently, we are doing the following:
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14:32 - 14:36First of all, we are decomposing the K-12 math curriculum
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14:36 - 14:39into numerous such apps.
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14:39 - 14:42And because we cannot do it on our own,
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14:42 - 14:45we've developed a very fancy authoring tool
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14:45 - 14:48that any author, any parent or actually anyone
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14:48 - 14:50who has an interest in math education,
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14:50 - 14:54can use this authoring tool to develop similar apps
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14:54 - 14:57on tablets without programming.
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14:57 - 15:00And finally, we are putting together an adaptive ecosystem
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15:00 - 15:03that will match different learners
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15:03 - 15:08with different apps according to their evolving learning style.
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15:08 - 15:11The driving force behind this project
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15:11 - 15:14is my colleague Shmulik London,
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15:14 - 15:17and, you see, just like
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15:17 - 15:21Salman did about 90 years ago,
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15:21 - 15:25the trick is to surround yourself with brilliant people,
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15:25 - 15:27because at the end,
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15:27 - 15:29it's all about people.
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15:29 - 15:33And a few years ago, I was walking in Tel Aviv
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15:33 - 15:35and I saw this graffiti on a wall,
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15:35 - 15:37and I found it so compelling
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15:37 - 15:39that by now I preach it to my students,
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15:39 - 15:42and I'd like to try to preach it to you.
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15:42 - 15:43Now, I don't know how many people here are familiar
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15:43 - 15:45with the term "mensch."
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15:45 - 15:48It basically means to be human
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15:48 - 15:50and to do the right thing.
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15:50 - 15:52And with that, what this graffiti says is,
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15:52 - 15:54"High-tech schmigh-tech.
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15:54 - 15:57The most important thing is to be a mensch." (Laughter)
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15:57 - 16:00Thank you. (Applause)
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16:00 - 16:05(Applause)
- Title:
- The self-organizing computer course
- Speaker:
- Shimon Schocken
- Description:
-
Shimon Schocken and Noam Nisan developed a curriculum for their students to build a computer, piece by piece. When they put the course online -- giving away the tools, simulators, chip specifications and other building blocks -- they were surprised that thousands jumped at the opportunity to learn, working independently as well as organizing their own classes in the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs). A call to forget about grades and tap into the self-motivation to learn.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 16:25
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The self-organizing computer course | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The self-organizing computer course | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for The self-organizing computer course | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The self-organizing computer course | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The self-organizing computer course | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for The self-organizing computer course | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The self-organizing computer course | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for The self-organizing computer course |