{"id":732,"date":"2011-10-04T08:11:01","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T15:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glencora.org\/?p=732"},"modified":"2012-01-28T00:11:06","modified_gmt":"2012-01-28T00:11:06","slug":"note-to-self-turn-off-cell-phone-data-connection-during-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/2011\/10\/04\/note-to-self-turn-off-cell-phone-data-connection-during-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Note to self: turn off cell-phone data connection during class"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my large intro class I used Robozzle<\/a> to talk about program control and introduce recursion. Robozzle does use a true call stack and to solve some puzzles (for example,\u00a0learning stack<\/a>,\u00a0recursed<\/a>,\u00a0learning stack 2<\/a>,\u00a0limit your stack<\/a>,\u00a0counting – green<\/a>) you really need to understand both recursion and how the to use the call stack. \u00a0This is week one of computer science, so \u00a0I didn’t get into a huge amount of detail, but it did seem to get the “newbies” engaged and make the “hackers” realize that they do have something to learn. \u00a0Only a tiny handful of students could solve the aforementioned puzzle before being taught how the call stack can be used. \u00a0Overall, it was a success (I think), and I recommend it as a learning tool.<\/p>\n

A colleague once mentioned “boy, this would be difficult to debug” and reminded me that the iPhone version of the game shows\u00a0the call stack – or a version thereof – in the “step-through” mode. \u00a0I decided it would be a good idea to use the document camera to show this live (rather than hand-drawing the call-stack on the board). \u00a0It never even occurred to me that while my phone was exposed under the document camera, I could receive a call from <embarrassing pet name> or a text of <face-reddening material>. \u00a0And then “BING”.<\/p>\n

Cue my nightmare.<\/p>\n

Thankfully the text message was some automated one from AT&T. \u00a0However, in my “deer in headlights” teaching state, it didn’t occur to me to then turn off my phone’s data connection. \u00a0Nervously, I made it through the next 10 or so minutes of class without incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my large intro class I used Robozzle to talk about program control and introduce recursion. Robozzle does use a true call stack and to solve some puzzles (for example,\u00a0learning stack,\u00a0recursed,\u00a0learning stack 2,\u00a0limit your stack,\u00a0counting – green) you really need to understand both recursion and how the to use the call stack. \u00a0This is week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3747,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106163,1000,3514],"class_list":["post-732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-game","tag-teaching","tag-undergraduate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3747"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions\/877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}