EdTech Adventures: Computational Thinking with Kiki Prottsman
[00:00:00] Charlotte Cheng: Welcome to EdTech Adventures. Join us as we
explore the role of technology, STEM and creative play in education. With
expert guests, we'll discover how learning is always an adventure. From baking
to computer science, computational thinking skills are needed across a wide
variety of careers. Our guest, Kiki Prottsman, will share her vast knowledge of
how computational thinking can be fostered in students from ages five to 105.
[00:00:30] Kiki is currently the Director of Education for Microsoft MakeCode
and is also known for creating code.org's wildly popular K through eight
computer science fundamentals curriculum. Beyond that, she's written coding
books that target everyone from pre-readers to senior educators with even
more exciting projects on the horizon. Kiki, thanks so much for joining our
podcast.
[00:00:52] Kiki Prottsman: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:54] Charlotte Cheng: [laughs] I'd like to start the podcast off with the
request that you describe a memorable education experience that you've had
as a student.
[00:01:03] Kiki Prottsman: Ooh. I love these kind of questions because they
really make you think back to what touched your soul. You know? What made
you love education? Mine actually happened in math because I didn't take
computer science as a young kid. They didn't have it back then. And my
teacher was and still is a comedian. So my math teacher was very funny and he
used humor is his classes all the time and he taught us about things like bridges
and why bridges stand and how we can mathematically make great structures.
You know? And just- just thinking back on the way he taught and the way he
made sure that we were connected not just through the subject material but
through the tone that he set in the classroom, that's something I think about
all the time and I really think that holding on to that idea of tone is so
important.
[00:02:01] Charlotte Cheng: How did his comedian background shine through
his teaching skills?
[00:02:07] Kiki Prottsman: He- he had a very expressive face and he made it
okay to be ridiculous, really. And I think when you're learning something new,
that is vital. To be okay with feeling like you're doing something that other
people might think is silly, it gives you a lot of power. I don't think people
understand how much power it gives you to be okay being wrong or worse,
being ridiculous. I still keep in touch with him today. So...
[00:02:38] Charlotte Cheng: I do the same with my favorite teachers too.
[00:02:41] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah.
[00:02:42] Charlotte Cheng: Hi, Mr. Mackins. [laughs] Anyways. How did you
become interested in teaching kids how to code?
[00:02:48] Kiki Prottsman: I became interested in teaching them how to code
because I wasn't having the experiences I wanted to have learning to code so I
went into computer science in college and I intended to go into animation and
be able to make the impossible happen in movies and someone was like, "Oh,
that's computer science. You have to learn how to code." And what I was
seeing, I was like, [laughs] um, this is nothing like what I wanted to do."
[laughs] But somehow, I stuck in there even though I was one of only two girls
and then I went on to get my master's degree and, still, hadn't had any of
these experiences that I was looking for.
[00:03:32] At some point, I decided, okay. I'm not gonna be able to get through
a path to making amazing special effects in movies because my school just
doesn't offer that kind of stuff so I'm gonna make utilities. I'm gonna do
products that help people. You know? Software that people can download for
free that- that will make their taxes easier or- or whatever. I don't know what I
was thinking. But during my- my master's program, I'm realizing, again, I'm one
of only three women in a program of 100, 250 people. One class, there were
literally 99 guys and me and you walk into the classroom and everybody looks
at you and you just... You feel it. You know?
[00:04:16] And I remember thinking, why don't people realize how expressive
computer science is? How coding is like, poetry. How when you're looking at
someone else's code, you can tell who they are as a person by the way they
comment, by the structures that they use. You know? It's so individual. Andand people just don't get that. So I started thinking, what do I need to do to
help other people understand that this is fun and it's creative and it's
expressive? And I did a lot of research and found that at the time, everything
was leaning towards mentorship. Mentorship is what you need. But I dug
deeper and was finding that it's not just having a mentor in computer science,
it is really having exposure to it when you're young.
[00:05:08] So certainly, if you have a parent or someone who does it, you've
got exposure when you're young. But also, if you just know it is something you
can be doing when you're very young, then it's something that stays in your
mind as something you might do when you grow up. And there was no
curriculum for that. There were no classes for that at that very young age back
then so I wrote some. And I decided that if we were gonna get kids to do
computer science when they were young, we first had to prove that kids could
do computer science while they were young. So I took some stuff I was
learning in my master's program, like finite state automaton and, you know,
that type of stuff, and translated it down to a world that kids are already living
in and then asked them to navigate that world. And you know what? They did
it every bit as well as any of my college friends could have and that turned into
a whole set of curriculum and that turned into what became code.org's CSF
curriculum for K8, uh, or then down to K5.
[00:06:13] So that's what it... It was all... The world was my Petri dish, really.
[00:06:16] Charlotte Cheng: It sounds like it. I mean, your curriculum sounded
groundbreaking at that point and it's interesting that you said- how you proved
to them that these kids could understand. Did you get pushback in the
beginning when you were positing that, hey, this is gonna be an important
thing to pursue to make proper impact in- in younger kids lives?
[00:06:36] Kiki Prottsman: I got so much pushback and- and from places I
wouldn't have expected really. I went to a conference that was meant for K12
computer science but at that time, when they said K12, they really meant high
school. And middle school was playing with Scratch and they had CS Unplugged
already. But really, nobody was even thinking about elementary school and I- I
remember going around and introducing who we are and what our focus was
and I was like, "And I wanna bring computer science to elementary school."
And there was a chuckle from the audience. Like, oh. She hasn't been here
long. She doesn't realize that that's just gonna be impossible.
[00:07:15] And then the person who went after me was like, "And I wanna
introduce computer science in utero." And just completely made fun of this
and that kinda stuff, I got to the point where it- it could kinda roll off my back
but I remember a president of a very prestigious college came to the
university, U of O, where I- I had gone on to start teaching, and I was also in
the- the beginning stages of developing Thinkersmith, which was my
computational nonprofit. And I got the chance to talk to her. She sat right by
me at lunch and I said, "Hey, here's what I'm doing and we're gonna bring
computer science to kids and it's gonna be so great." And she said, "No
offense, honey, but don't you think that it might be better to join the people
who are trying to get computer science into high schools because they're
starting to make progress and it's something that you could actually make your
mark in?"
[00:08:13] And I said, "Well, no offense, but [laughs] you- I think you guys got
this. I mean, computer science is coming to high schools. You guys are good
with this. Wouldn't it be nice if somebody wanted to take it when they got
there?" And she just... The same thing. Just kinda nodded her head like, you
don't understand how slow schools move and this is never actually gonna
happen but, uh, I guess kinda code.org was a blessing in that respect. They
came in with lots of money and lots of gumption and made some changes
pretty quickly. So I was, in my lifetime, able to see computer science come to
elementary school.
[00:08:52] Charlotte Cheng: And I have to say, I just appreciate so much what
y'all have done and we've seen it in our work were Code Combat, we teach
text based coding and before, it was, oh, probably recommended for high
school kids and it's constantly being pushed back earlier and earlier. Middle
school kids. And now we have upper elementary kids coding. Because they've
gone through code.org content, like the content you've created, so they're
almost acclimated to the concept of coding from an early age. They're ready to
try on Python and Javascript, also at an earlier age too. So-
[00:09:25] Kiki Prottsman: Yes.
[00:09:25] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah.
[00:09:26] Kiki Prottsman: Yes. And I'm with MakeCode now and we start with
block based coding and we're able to flip to, uh, text based coding with
Javascript or- or Python. And it is crazy. Just in the last couple of years. It's
harder to find people to test this out that have never done any block based
coding, which who would've thought that- that we'd be in this place where, by
the time you get to middle school, you've had some experience with coding
and then we're also to this place where when we're introducing blocks to kids
in middle school or high school, they're now like, "Oh, that's for kids."
[00:10:01] And- and it... There's college courses that use block based coding.
It's just a... I sometimes compare it to a coloring book. If you are coloring as a
kindergartner, then when you get to middle school art class, you don't expect
someone to put a coloring book in front of you. Right? That's what you did as a
little kid. And then when you're grown up, you understand the technique
behind it and the reason it might interest you again. And I think the same is
becoming true for block based coding.
[00:10:29] You learn it as a- a little one. So when you're in middle school or
high school, oh my goodness, this is for little kids. And then it's not again until
you're older that you realize, oh, I can use this as a very powerful- powerful
tool.
[00:10:44] Charlotte Cheng: Agreed. And throughout this entire experience,
I've seen you work on other content and products and books too. I've seen this
thread of computational thinking throughout your work. So for the audience
out there, could you define for us what are computational thinking skills?
[00:11:02] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah. Absolutely. Computational thinking, as a
definition, actually changes depending on who you're asking and whether it's
in an educational space or an actual computational space. But at the heart, it's
this ability to kind of look at problems in a way where you can use things you
already know to solve a problem that you haven't seen before. And so at a very
high level, we have what I call the four pillars, you have, uh, algorithms, which
is basically just step by step instructions. Right? You have the pattern
matching, so the ability to say, "Oh, this looks a lot like that." You have the
abstraction, which is the ability to kinda ignore the details for a little while so
that you can look at the big picture and find something that you can bring the
details back into later.
[00:11:57] And then decomposition is where you pull a problem apart into
little bitty pieces. And so the way this is useful is really how anyone solves any
problem. You say, "Oh, I have this problem." Take for example, cleaning my
kitchen. Uh, I mean, my kitchen's gotta be clean. It's a lot of work. I don't
wanna just look at the kitchen and go, "Oh my gosh. It's gotta be cleaned." You
gotta say, "Okay. I'm gonna pull it apart into pieces. I'm gonna do the dishes.
I'm going to clean the counters. I'm going to sweep and mop the floor." And
then each little piece becomes much, much more manageable. The same is
true with big problems. Usually, any big problem can be pulled apart into little
pieces that then become more kinda tameable.
[00:12:41] And then you look at that piece that you've now tamed [laughs] and
you say, "Hey, what does this piece remind me of?" Like, at the heart, there
are very few kinds of new problems so everything looks a little bit like
something else and so you look at that and then you say, "Well, it looks like
this other thing. Okay. I pattern matched. Except for there's details that are
different about those two things." You say, "All right. Well, if those details
weren't different, how would I use what I know about that one to solve this
one?" Okay. So now I have a way I can go about solving it. Let's go ahead and
put those little details back in and account for them in my solution.
[00:13:23] And then, finally, you say, "Okay. Now I understand how to put it
through step by step so that I can actually solve this problem." And so those
are all of the steps of problem solving in those kind of four pillars of
computational thinking.
[00:13:35] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah. I often am cleaning the kitchen and going,
"Wait a second. This is a lot like how I clean my closet." [laughs]
[00:13:42] Kiki Prottsman: [laughs]
[00:13:42] Charlotte Cheng: How can we transfer those skills? And then I also
have noticed a lot of people often swap coding or computer science skills with
computational thinking skills. So could you describe what the difference is
between computational thinking skills and coding skills?
[00:13:59] Kiki Prottsman: That feels like a trick question. Uh. [laughs]
[00:14:03] Charlotte Cheng: You can... I understand. There's also similarities.
So you can start-
[00:14:06] Kiki Prottsman: Yes. Yes.
[00:14:06] Charlotte Cheng: ... with that too. [laughs]
[00:14:07] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah. I... So... I mean, at a very high level, when you
think of coding skills, you think of kind of writing in a language that's made to
talk to computers to create a program that's gonna do what you want it to do.
And so the art of actually coding and writing that text, maybe you don't need a
lot of computational thinking to write the text. But to figure out what to write
and how to get that program to do what you want it to do, that is
computational thinking like, at its finest. The- the computational thinking is the
technique. It's like, um, if you were gonna sew and you had to figure out, do I
want to, you know, put a straight stitch in here or use a serger and curl the
hem a little bit? There's these techniques that you need to pull from time to
time. And computational thinking is one of those techniques that you just pull
over and over [laughs] and over again when you're coding.
[00:15:15] Charlotte Cheng: It sounds like if you didn't have computational
thinking skills and you just had coding skills, [laughs] uh, I don't know where
you would be. [laughs]
[00:15:23] Kiki Prottsman: You would be somebody that gets told what to do,
really. If you didn't have the ability to kind of use those computational thinking
skills, you would hope that somebody tells you do A, B, C. Here's what I want
you to do. And then you better not introduce any bugs. 'Cause as soon as you
have a- a problem to solve, you're gonna have to have someone else do it for
you.
[00:15:45] Charlotte Cheng: And it's guaranteed you're gonna have bugs.
[00:15:47] Kiki Prottsman: Oh.
[00:15:48] Charlotte Cheng: That's just-
[00:15:48] Kiki Prottsman: 100 percent.
[00:15:49] Charlotte Cheng: ... part of the engineering work. So as you said,
you now work at Microsoft MakeCode. How does computational thinking play
a role in your current job?
[00:15:59] Kiki Prottsman: Computational thinking is really at the very heart of
what I do. Not just because I write the curriculum and, you know, the- the
products that require you to use these things and we don't actually jump into it
as computational thinking in what we create right now. We- we don't call out
the individual steps but that aside, I'm constantly faced with trying to do
something that's not being done in that same way already somewhere else.
One of the unique things we have as an educational product is that we're going
direct to student, not necessarily to the classroom.
[00:16:37] So we have to figure out how to do something for a student directly
in their home and so I can use those computational thinking skills to kinda say,
"All right. Well, uh, learning looks a lot like learning. Uh, but there are these
differences. So what can I pull from what I already know how to do, coding in
the classroom, and bring it to a student at home?" I've grown to love
computational thinking as a way of solving all problems so I pretty much utilize
it anywhere. And as a result, I never feel like I'm stuck. I always feel like there
are multiple ways to go because something similar has been done before but
then that just makes me a little bit more dangerous because I don't give up.
[laughs]
[00:17:24] Charlotte Cheng: It must be such a refreshing feel to know that
nothing's too intimidating because of that decomposition piece you said.
[00:17:32] Kiki Prottsman: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative].
[00:17:32] Charlotte Cheng: You can always break it down into smaller chunks
to tackle. Right?
[00:17:37] Kiki Prottsman: Yes. Yeah. And then you have to put on the
persistence, which isn't generally accounted for in computational thinking but
it is a huge skill in computer science. Just the ability to fail eight times and get
up nine. That type of thing where you keep trying and you keep trying other
things and then you just don't take it personally if you don't get all the way. Put
those things together and you have someone who's pretty unstoppable.
[00:18:03] Charlotte Cheng: I like how you practice what you preach. I've run
into this too where we're trying to instill persistence and growth mindset with
students and I've worked with teachers where we put them in the middle of a
coding activity and they're afraid to make a wrong answer and we have to
pause and say, "Wait, what would you want your students to do in this point?"
[00:18:24] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah.
[00:18:25] Charlotte Cheng: Would you want them to give up or keep trying?
And- and I like how you're doing that too with computational thinking. Like,
you're using it to develop your own curriculum too.
[00:18:34] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah. It does get harder. I'm not gonna lie. The
older you get, the harder it is to let yourself fail and not take it personally,
which is another reason it's great to introduce coding to young kids because
they're a little more fearless. But yeah. You have to be retaught to let it be
okay to try and fail multiple times.
[00:18:55] Charlotte Cheng: And what are the advantages of developing
computational skills? Even if you choose not to pursue a career in science or
technology.
[00:19:02] Kiki Prottsman: I have started many businesses in my life. I'm a little
of a serial entrepreneur. I am taking a pause now because I'm very, very happy
where I am with Microsoft. But if I hadn't had these computational skills then I
would've had to pay so much more money [laughs] to start every business I've
ever started. Uh, whether it be creating an app for myself that does something
or creating my own webpage or, you know, any of these little things that I can
do. I can tackle my own Excel spreadsheet with macros that let me keep my
budget up. Computers are there to make your life easier and you have a couple
of options. You can ignore them altogether, which in this day and age, good
luck. You can utilize them but only take advantage of the things other people
have made for you, which means you're stuck in what has already happened
and innovation's gonna be really hard unless you have a lot of money.
[00:20:02] Or you can become a creator of things for technology. Make the
things you need and innovate without having to drain your pocketbook. Andand that's the one I chose really early on. And I'm encouraging my kids to do
the same because if you wanna go outside of what is ordinary, you're gonna
need technology to help you. And so you're gonna need to know how to make
the technology work for you.
[00:20:28] Charlotte Cheng: I remember in code.org's curriculum, there were a
lot of videos that featured people in different industries sort of embracing
technology. For example, fashion design and, uh, I think beekeeping [laughs]
was one of them.
[00:20:43] Kiki Prottsman: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative].
[00:20:44] Charlotte Cheng: Could you share some of your favorite memories
of those types of videos of how that connected and how people from all sorts
of different industries embraced technology?
[00:20:52] Kiki Prottsman: Yes. Absolutely. Remember how I was talking about
bringing the college course down into a kid's world so that they could
understand the things that are happening? The same thing is true of these big
technological ideas that people think are so complicated but when you bring
them into, uh, the world of a job somebody's already doing, like, the build a
sandcastle video from code.org, that was on persistence and how you have to
have that kind of persistence. And people then understand that better.
[00:21:19] And with the fashion design and the repeat, I think, was the video.
You have, uh, this dance troupe and the- the troupe is dancing with these
lights that go on their suits and then the lights go out and there's this kind of
innovation that happens when you say, "I've got a passion and I want to do
something within this passion but no one else is doing." And so then you figure
out how does technology help me in my world and the world I'm already in?
Uh, make those changes. And- and that's kind of what we were trying to help
people see with those videos.
[00:22:00] Charlotte Cheng: Right. And it sounds like you have technology,
example, your coding skills. But the computational thinking is what's gonna
push you towards innovating and- and pushing the boundaries of what can be
done-
[00:22:11] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah.
[00:22:12] Charlotte Cheng: ... with technology.
[00:22:13] Kiki Prottsman: Oh, absolutely. And, uh, I'm starting to see this a
lot, too, come out in children's books. So I think it's Josh Funk, writes a bunch
of kids books that are really great around kind of computational concepts but
also computational thinking and I'm probably gonna have to check myself on
this but his book, How to Code a-
[00:22:34] Charlotte Cheng: How to Code a Sandcastle.
[00:22:35] Kiki Prottsman: How to Code a Sandcastle. Thank you. Yeah. It's...
These kinds of books, they're clearly not kids sitting on the beach with a
laptop. You know? It's saying, "I've got a real world problem and here are some
skills that I can learn through coding to solve this. Or if I learn these skills to
solve this, I can then use them in coding." And there's more kids shows starting
to come out with these kinds of ideas and as many educators know that
transfer of concept is one of the hardest things to really make happen with a
student. So if we can teach kids from a very, very early age that they can take
stuff they learned about their world and transfer it into another area or take
the stuff that they're learning in coding and transfer it back into their world,
you're gonna have a whole bunch of kids when they grow up, that are gonna
be able to tackle some of the world's hardest problems and it'll be beautiful.
[00:23:42] Charlotte Cheng: Right. And you mentioned children's books. You
yourself have written a few. What drove you in that interest of writing about
coding and computational thinking for children's books?
[00:23:53] Kiki Prottsman: When I was really young, I thought I was gonna be
an author and I had done all these little books. Some of them, I still have today.
So I always kind of had an interest but when the first person approached me
with the idea for writing a book, I was like, "No, I can't do that. [laughs] Are you
kidding? I can't write a book." And I- I actually ended up saying, you know, "I've
got a lot on my plate." And this was for the teacher book. The computational
thinking and coding in the classroom. Um, I just can't do that. Sorry. And I
turned it down.
[00:24:23] And so they went to someone else and that someone else, Jane,
who became my co-author on the book, said, "Okay, I will but only if Kiki writes
it with me." And so then they came back and said, "She said she'd do it but
only if you write with her." And so I said, "Okay. Well, I guess I'll give it a try
and if I try and fail, then I try and fail." And I wrote it and it was amazing
because writing on something you have so much knowledge on, it just kinda
starts pouring out of you and then it's actually harder to make it stop and edit
than it is to actually get it out on paper. So that happened.
[00:25:06] And then when D.K. wanted to do its first- My First Coding Book, a
board book for kids, meant to be done entirely as a thought process and- and
not anything on the computer, they came to me and I learned from that first
experience. Okay. I should try. I should see if I can do this. And it turned out
beautifully. So then it just kinda started flowing from there.
[00:25:33] Charlotte Cheng: And what do you see the benefits of trying to
showcase these concepts in a book versus, for example, the work you've done
at code.org or MakeCode?
[00:25:43] Kiki Prottsman: I think they all need to go together. I think one of
the problems with something like code.org, which is fantastic, is that it's often
used in the classroom and then kids associate it with school and then they... I
mean, maybe when it's novel and you're just doing it on Fridays when
everybody's been good then it's exciting and- and everything's great. But once
it gets incorporated into the classroom, it's another topic and kids have
feelings about it and they get bored. And it's dangerous. It's really kind of
dangerous to have that be their only exposure.
[00:26:15] So the beautiful thing about books and Saturday morning TV shows
and magazines and things like that is that they are still magical. They're still
fun. They're still novel. And that's what I think their value is.
[00:26:32] Charlotte Cheng: Also, with the whole piece of inclusion too where
kids and students will absorb information in different ways. Right? So I think
it's interesting that you said even TV shows or cartoon shows might be a better
outlet for some kids to understand these concepts.
[00:26:47] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah. And the really neat thing about books,
especially kids books and especially things like My First Coding Book, where it's
legitimately a board book is that it starts that process early so it- it's quite
affordable compared to buying a computer and parents can read with their
kids, kids can start to grow into the ideas and then it's just baked into their
brain that persistence is a thing and- and abstraction is a thing and it's just part
of the way they think.
[00:27:23] Charlotte Cheng: All before they even touch their first computer.
So-
[00:27:25] Kiki Prottsman: [laughs]
[00:27:27] Charlotte Cheng: [laughs] Yeah. Your evil plans-
[00:27:28] Kiki Prottsman: My evil plan.
[00:27:29] Charlotte Cheng: ... have been revealed. [laughs] So based off of
that, you talked about already your journey, but how have you seen your role
in computer science education evolve over time?
[00:27:41] Kiki Prottsman: That's a- a really excellent question. I've often said
that I feel like I'm living my career kind of backwards because I came right out
of school as a professor, well, an instructor. So I taught at the University. I
taught in- in a middle school classroom as well so I kind of taught based off of
how things should be and then I started a nonprofit. I ran a nonprofit for
several years and then I worked for someone else doing coding stuff. So
whereas you kind of feel like you build up to these things, the thing I wanted to
do and wanted to see in the world didn't exist.
[00:28:22] So I had to build it and run it and get the world to see that it- they
needed it and then I could kinda slowly start stepping back and enjoying it and
then creating things for the passion of it and for the fun of it instead of, you
know, the- where most people are like, "I have to take baby steps in my career
and some day, I'll get to where I'm doing something bigger, major." And I was
okay with that because I was- when I was very young, my dad said, "Kris, what
you're gonna be when you grow up probably hasn't been invented yet." And it
stuck with me. I think I was in middle school when he said that.
[00:29:04] And so I always totally okay with just, oh, yeah. I'm gonna put
something out there that nobody else has done yet. I don't think that's what
he meant but it didn't phase me. And I think it if had all started now, I would
never have been in the spot where I was like, "Yeah, let's just jump in with
both feet, no job." You know? Spending all of my savings in order to- to bring
this stuff to fruition. So I'm- I'm kinda cool. I'm kinda cool with the way that itthat happened. So instead of evolving, my career has kind of been stepping
back the later I go, which is kind of cool.
[00:29:40] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah. What are the benefits of stepping back now
that you've put up almost such a fight to get that space that you believed in for
so long?
[00:29:52] Kiki Prottsman: Well, I think the reason I'm doing it is because
benefit is not to me. It's really to the kids that are learning right now. And I- I
think that when you have one monster that everybody participates with, you
get this very homogenize experience, which I don't believe is good for
anybody. [laughs] After this thing is introduced and then more players come to
the scene, the best thing you can do for the kids you're trying to help is kind of
help the other players grow. So there's this healthy atmosphere of all different
points of view and examples and ways of doing things and then that's what
becomes really the gift or your contribution to the world is saying, "There you
go. Now there's something for every learner and for every lifestyle and
whatever speaks to you, speaks to you." And then if you wanna keep getting
involved, you go tot he places where really cool fun things are emerging and
you help them grow and that's what I'm doing right now.
[00:31:03] Charlotte Cheng: It almost sounds like you had to build your own
sand box and that was so much work and now you just get to step back and
see other people play in the sand box and expand it and it sounds like you're
helping people in the sand box too.
[00:31:19] Kiki Prottsman: That's a really good way to put it. Yeah. I guess I
hadn't thought about it that way but yeah. It does feel like what happened.
And- and that's cool. Now the world has a sand box to play with.
[00:31:29] Charlotte Cheng: [laughs] Well, thank you, Kiki.
[00:31:30] Kiki Prottsman: [laughs]
[00:31:31] Charlotte Cheng: I play in that sand box all the time. [laughs] And
then speaking of that, even at MakeCode and also in your past, whenever
you're trying to build curriculum, what do you look forward to most in the
curriculum development process?
[00:31:46] Kiki Prottsman: So actually what I told MakeCode before I came on
was I like the messy stuff. I like to come in when there's a lot that's unknown,
when things haven't been tried and true, when there's multiple different ways
you can come in and do things. And then I like to figure out and look at the
data and see what happens and change things based on the actual users. I
think lots of people can put stuff out. But unless you're willing to make
changes based on how people want to be using it and how they actually use it,
uh, I don't know how much it's worth.
[00:32:24] So- so I really just like making the stuff you put out better. And I
remember when I first started getting lots of data because at code.org, we had
millions of users. You know? And so we would get anonymous data from
everywhere. Lots of numbers showing what was a hit and was not and thinking
of it as, oh, I failed. I didn't put the right thing out there the very first time
when no one else is doing this stuff. Man, I should've predicted or something.
But then, you know, you take a lesson from your own book and you say, "You
fail, you try again, and then you make something better and- and everything is
cool."
[00:33:05] And so I actually got to this place where I really loved it because you
just start to feel like, okay, all right. So people are giving you feedback with
how long they stick around or how much they get right or how many blocks
they use and then you can use that to say, "This is successful. This is not. Let's
make them reach out to them a little bit more, make them like this a little bit
more. Help this teach them a little bit more." And then seeing that come to
fruition, that's the part that I really, really like.
[00:33:39] Charlotte Cheng: It sounds so satisfying.
[00:33:41] Kiki Prottsman: Oh, it is satisfying. You know. You know though.
[00:33:44] Charlotte Cheng: I know. I wanted to say I- I love that part too. In
the beginning, I agree, I didn't like it because, like you said, when you saw the
not great data, it made me feel like a failure but switching the mindset again
and treating your customers as your collaborators-
[00:33:59] Kiki Prottsman: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
[00:33:59] Charlotte Cheng: ... when they're giving you that feedback made it
feel less alone and then when they see the improvements, they feel like they
were part of it too.
[00:34:06] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah. And they were.
[00:34:07] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah. How about the biggest challenges then
when you're developing curriculum? What are some examples of things that
you struggle with as part of the process?
[00:34:16] Kiki Prottsman: I think you hit on it, actually. Is that feeling of being
kind of alone. I think there's lots of us in this space, oddly, and we- we tend to
feel like we're doing things different than the other people in the space and
we're kind of alone because we're the only ones doing this exact thing for this
exact group or with this exact product and one of the challenges is to realize
there's a lot that other people are doing that I can learn from and to realize
that I can reach out to other people [laughs] and we can reach across the
product and, you know, talk to each other and say, "Hey, I have this way I
found in making this better. Here, I'll tell you. Now when you find ways of
making things better, can you tell me?" And then, uh, then it's better for
everybody. I- I think that's kind of, uh, been a little bit of a challenge.
[00:35:15] Charlotte Cheng: We talk about community all the time and the
importance of it in education but sometimes, we forget to fill the community
for ourselves, uh, with this work. So what advice would you give someone who
is interested in fostering computational thinking skills in themselves or in
others? Where could they start?
[00:35:37] Kiki Prottsman: I think identifying kind of what the computational
thinking skills are. So, you know, go back and listen to the beginning of the
podcast again [laughs] where we talk about the four pillars and really
understand what definition of them, I guess, you care about. And then just
start noticing. You know how they say if you wanna start remembering your
dreams, you have to start being very aware of them when you first wake up
and then it becomes less and less of something you work at and more and
more of something that just happens. The same thing is true with this kind of
thing. You have to be more aware.
[00:36:10] And when you have a problem to solve and you're starting to feel
frustrated, reach for it as a tool, even if you don't know quite how to use it yet,
just start going through the steps and saying, "Can I break this up? Can I relate
it to something else?" You know? Just- just start going through the process.
And before long, you'll do it kind of automatically. You might not even realize
it's happening.
[00:36:37] Charlotte Cheng: And then what if they wanna foster it in others?
Whether they're a parent or an educator or someone developing a product.
[00:36:45] Kiki Prottsman: A lot of that, I think, is done by modeling. I think
teachers are already really good at saying, "Okay. Well, then when- then what
did you do? Then what did you do?" You know? Ask that kinda question. And
it's not that much harder to say, "Okay, so- so yeah. You're right. This looks like
a big nasty problem. Can we break it up and figure out something we could try
first? So what is something we could work on first that would help us feel like
we made some progress? And- and okay. So let's take that piece. Have you
ever done something like this before?" You know?
[00:37:18] Kind of ask those questions. And they don't have to tell the kids,
"Hey, third grader. Guess what? We're taking you through the steps of
computational thinking." Totally okay to just start out with the processes and
help kids understand how to deal with these big nasty problems they
encounter everyday and then once they start learning more about it, they'll be
able to put, "Oh, hey. That's something I already do." when they get the
definition for it and- and all that kinda stuff later.
[00:37:47] Charlotte Cheng: Right. It sounds like you just wanna live and
breathe it almost before you talk about it.
[00:37:54] Kiki Prottsman: Well, yeah. That's why I'm bringing this to very little
kids is because I want them to just grow up with it and live and breathe it
without having to ever get to this place where they feel powerless at the foot
of a problem. What good does that do? So the more we can get kids from a
very young age to say, "I can take a step. I may not be able to do the whole
thing right now but I can take a step." And then you feel in control. And that'sthat's all I'm asking for. Is that too much to ask?
[00:38:26] Charlotte Cheng: I don't think so.
[00:38:27] Kiki Prottsman: [laughs]
[00:38:28] Charlotte Cheng: [laughs] And I just wanna thank you for just
continuing to build these generations of computational thinkers and problem
solvers and also, thank you for being part of our podcast, Kiki.
[00:38:39] Kiki Prottsman: Aww. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for
inviting me. I always love talking about this kind of stuff and I love talking to
you.
[00:38:46] Charlotte Cheng: Oh. Same here.
[00:38:49] Thanks for listening to EdTech Adventures. Please subscribe to catch
more of our episodes and leave a review to support the show. For more
resources and info, visit us at codecombat.com/podcast. I'm your host,
Charlotte Cheng. We'll see you on our next learning adventure.
[00:00:00] Charlotte Cheng: Welcome to EdTech Adventures. Join us as we
explore the role of technology, STEM and creative play in education. With
expert guests, we'll discover how learning is always an adventure. From baking
to computer science, computational thinking skills are needed across a wide
variety of careers. Our guest, Kiki Prottsman, will share her vast knowledge of
how computational thinking can be fostered in students from ages five to 105.
[00:00:30] Kiki is currently the Director of Education for Microsoft MakeCode
and is also known for creating code.org's wildly popular K through eight
computer science fundamentals curriculum. Beyond that, she's written coding
books that target everyone from pre-readers to senior educators with even
more exciting projects on the horizon. Kiki, thanks so much for joining our
podcast.
[00:00:52] Kiki Prottsman: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:54] Charlotte Cheng: [laughs] I'd like to start the podcast off with the
request that you describe a memorable education experience that you've had
as a student.
[00:01:03] Kiki Prottsman: Ooh. I love these kind of questions because they
really make you think back to what touched your soul. You know? What made
you love education? Mine actually happened in math because I didn't take
computer science as a young kid. They didn't have it back then. And my
teacher was and still is a comedian. So my math teacher was very funny and he
used humor is his classes all the time and he taught us about things like bridges
and why bridges stand and how we can mathematically make great structures.
You know? And just- just thinking back on the way he taught and the way he
made sure that we were connected not just through the subject material but
through the tone that he set in the classroom, that's something I think about
all the time and I really think that holding on to that idea of tone is so
important.
[00:02:01] Charlotte Cheng: How did his comedian background shine through
his teaching skills?
[00:02:07] Kiki Prottsman: He- he had a very expressive face and he made it
okay to be ridiculous, really. And I think when you're learning something new,
that is vital. To be okay with feeling like you're doing something that other
people might think is silly, it gives you a lot of power. I don't think people
understand how much power it gives you to be okay being wrong or worse,
being ridiculous. I still keep in touch with him today. So...
[00:02:38] Charlotte Cheng: I do the same with my favorite teachers too.
[00:02:41] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah.
[00:02:42] Charlotte Cheng: Hi, Mr. Mackins. [laughs] Anyways. How did you
become interested in teaching kids how to code?
[00:02:48] Kiki Prottsman: I became interested in teaching them how to code
because I wasn't having the experiences I wanted to have learning to code so I
went into computer science in college and I intended to go into animation and
be able to make the impossible happen in movies and someone was like, "Oh,
that's computer science. You have to learn how to code." And what I was
seeing, I was like, [laughs] um, this is nothing like what I wanted to do."
[laughs] But somehow, I stuck in there even though I was one of only two girls
and then I went on to get my master's degree and, still, hadn't had any of
these experiences that I was looking for.
[00:03:32] At some point, I decided, okay. I'm not gonna be able to get through
a path to making amazing special effects in movies because my school just
doesn't offer that kind of stuff so I'm gonna make utilities. I'm gonna do
products that help people. You know? Software that people can download for
free that- that will make their taxes easier or- or whatever. I don't know what I
was thinking. But during my- my master's program, I'm realizing, again, I'm one
of only three women in a program of 100, 250 people. One class, there were
literally 99 guys and me and you walk into the classroom and everybody looks
at you and you just... You feel it. You know?
[00:04:16] And I remember thinking, why don't people realize how expressive
computer science is? How coding is like, poetry. How when you're looking at
someone else's code, you can tell who they are as a person by the way they
comment, by the structures that they use. You know? It's so individual. Andand people just don't get that. So I started thinking, what do I need to do to
help other people understand that this is fun and it's creative and it's
expressive? And I did a lot of research and found that at the time, everything
was leaning towards mentorship. Mentorship is what you need. But I dug
deeper and was finding that it's not just having a mentor in computer science,
it is really having exposure to it when you're young.
[00:05:08] So certainly, if you have a parent or someone who does it, you've
got exposure when you're young. But also, if you just know it is something you
can be doing when you're very young, then it's something that stays in your
mind as something you might do when you grow up. And there was no
curriculum for that. There were no classes for that at that very young age back
then so I wrote some. And I decided that if we were gonna get kids to do
computer science when they were young, we first had to prove that kids could
do computer science while they were young. So I took some stuff I was
learning in my master's program, like finite state automaton and, you know,
that type of stuff, and translated it down to a world that kids are already living
in and then asked them to navigate that world. And you know what? They did
it every bit as well as any of my college friends could have and that turned into
a whole set of curriculum and that turned into what became code.org's CSF
curriculum for K8, uh, or then down to K5.
[00:06:13] So that's what it... It was all... The world was my Petri dish, really.
[00:06:16] Charlotte Cheng: It sounds like it. I mean, your curriculum sounded
groundbreaking at that point and it's interesting that you said- how you proved
to them that these kids could understand. Did you get pushback in the
beginning when you were positing that, hey, this is gonna be an important
thing to pursue to make proper impact in- in younger kids lives?
[00:06:36] Kiki Prottsman: I got so much pushback and- and from places I
wouldn't have expected really. I went to a conference that was meant for K12
computer science but at that time, when they said K12, they really meant high
school. And middle school was playing with Scratch and they had CS Unplugged
already. But really, nobody was even thinking about elementary school and I- I
remember going around and introducing who we are and what our focus was
and I was like, "And I wanna bring computer science to elementary school."
And there was a chuckle from the audience. Like, oh. She hasn't been here
long. She doesn't realize that that's just gonna be impossible.
[00:07:15] And then the person who went after me was like, "And I wanna
introduce computer science in utero." And just completely made fun of this
and that kinda stuff, I got to the point where it- it could kinda roll off my back
but I remember a president of a very prestigious college came to the
university, U of O, where I- I had gone on to start teaching, and I was also in
the- the beginning stages of developing Thinkersmith, which was my
computational nonprofit. And I got the chance to talk to her. She sat right by
me at lunch and I said, "Hey, here's what I'm doing and we're gonna bring
computer science to kids and it's gonna be so great." And she said, "No
offense, honey, but don't you think that it might be better to join the people
who are trying to get computer science into high schools because they're
starting to make progress and it's something that you could actually make your
mark in?"
[00:08:13] And I said, "Well, no offense, but [laughs] you- I think you guys got
this. I mean, computer science is coming to high schools. You guys are good
with this. Wouldn't it be nice if somebody wanted to take it when they got
there?" And she just... The same thing. Just kinda nodded her head like, you
don't understand how slow schools move and this is never actually gonna
happen but, uh, I guess kinda code.org was a blessing in that respect. They
came in with lots of money and lots of gumption and made some changes
pretty quickly. So I was, in my lifetime, able to see computer science come to
elementary school.
[00:08:52] Charlotte Cheng: And I have to say, I just appreciate so much what
y'all have done and we've seen it in our work were Code Combat, we teach
text based coding and before, it was, oh, probably recommended for high
school kids and it's constantly being pushed back earlier and earlier. Middle
school kids. And now we have upper elementary kids coding. Because they've
gone through code.org content, like the content you've created, so they're
almost acclimated to the concept of coding from an early age. They're ready to
try on Python and Javascript, also at an earlier age too. So-
[00:09:25] Kiki Prottsman: Yes.
[00:09:25] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah.
[00:09:26] Kiki Prottsman: Yes. And I'm with MakeCode now and we start with
block based coding and we're able to flip to, uh, text based coding with
Javascript or- or Python. And it is crazy. Just in the last couple of years. It's
harder to find people to test this out that have never done any block based
coding, which who would've thought that- that we'd be in this place where, by
the time you get to middle school, you've had some experience with coding
and then we're also to this place where when we're introducing blocks to kids
in middle school or high school, they're now like, "Oh, that's for kids."
[00:10:01] And- and it... There's college courses that use block based coding.
It's just a... I sometimes compare it to a coloring book. If you are coloring as a
kindergartner, then when you get to middle school art class, you don't expect
someone to put a coloring book in front of you. Right? That's what you did as a
little kid. And then when you're grown up, you understand the technique
behind it and the reason it might interest you again. And I think the same is
becoming true for block based coding.
[00:10:29] You learn it as a- a little one. So when you're in middle school or
high school, oh my goodness, this is for little kids. And then it's not again until
you're older that you realize, oh, I can use this as a very powerful- powerful
tool.
[00:10:44] Charlotte Cheng: Agreed. And throughout this entire experience,
I've seen you work on other content and products and books too. I've seen this
thread of computational thinking throughout your work. So for the audience
out there, could you define for us what are computational thinking skills?
[00:11:02] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah. Absolutely. Computational thinking, as a
definition, actually changes depending on who you're asking and whether it's
in an educational space or an actual computational space. But at the heart, it's
this ability to kind of look at problems in a way where you can use things you
already know to solve a problem that you haven't seen before. And so at a very
high level, we have what I call the four pillars, you have, uh, algorithms, which
is basically just step by step instructions. Right? You have the pattern
matching, so the ability to say, "Oh, this looks a lot like that." You have the
abstraction, which is the ability to kinda ignore the details for a little while so
that you can look at the big picture and find something that you can bring the
details back into later.
[00:11:57] And then decomposition is where you pull a problem apart into
little bitty pieces. And so the way this is useful is really how anyone solves any
problem. You say, "Oh, I have this problem." Take for example, cleaning my
kitchen. Uh, I mean, my kitchen's gotta be clean. It's a lot of work. I don't
wanna just look at the kitchen and go, "Oh my gosh. It's gotta be cleaned." You
gotta say, "Okay. I'm gonna pull it apart into pieces. I'm gonna do the dishes.
I'm going to clean the counters. I'm going to sweep and mop the floor." And
then each little piece becomes much, much more manageable. The same is
true with big problems. Usually, any big problem can be pulled apart into little
pieces that then become more kinda tameable.
[00:12:41] And then you look at that piece that you've now tamed [laughs] and
you say, "Hey, what does this piece remind me of?" Like, at the heart, there
are very few kinds of new problems so everything looks a little bit like
something else and so you look at that and then you say, "Well, it looks like
this other thing. Okay. I pattern matched. Except for there's details that are
different about those two things." You say, "All right. Well, if those details
weren't different, how would I use what I know about that one to solve this
one?" Okay. So now I have a way I can go about solving it. Let's go ahead and
put those little details back in and account for them in my solution.
[00:13:23] And then, finally, you say, "Okay. Now I understand how to put it
through step by step so that I can actually solve this problem." And so those
are all of the steps of problem solving in those kind of four pillars of
computational thinking.
[00:13:35] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah. I often am cleaning the kitchen and going,
"Wait a second. This is a lot like how I clean my closet." [laughs]
[00:13:42] Kiki Prottsman: [laughs]
[00:13:42] Charlotte Cheng: How can we transfer those skills? And then I also
have noticed a lot of people often swap coding or computer science skills with
computational thinking skills. So could you describe what the difference is
between computational thinking skills and coding skills?
[00:13:59] Kiki Prottsman: That feels like a trick question. Uh. [laughs]
[00:14:03] Charlotte Cheng: You can... I understand. There's also similarities.
So you can start-
[00:14:06] Kiki Prottsman: Yes. Yes.
[00:14:06] Charlotte Cheng: ... with that too. [laughs]
[00:14:07] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah. I... So... I mean, at a very high level, when you
think of coding skills, you think of kind of writing in a language that's made to
talk to computers to create a program that's gonna do what you want it to do.
And so the art of actually coding and writing that text, maybe you don't need a
lot of computational thinking to write the text. But to figure out what to write
and how to get that program to do what you want it to do, that is
computational thinking like, at its finest. The- the computational thinking is the
technique. It's like, um, if you were gonna sew and you had to figure out, do I
want to, you know, put a straight stitch in here or use a serger and curl the
hem a little bit? There's these techniques that you need to pull from time to
time. And computational thinking is one of those techniques that you just pull
over and over [laughs] and over again when you're coding.
[00:15:15] Charlotte Cheng: It sounds like if you didn't have computational
thinking skills and you just had coding skills, [laughs] uh, I don't know where
you would be. [laughs]
[00:15:23] Kiki Prottsman: You would be somebody that gets told what to do,
really. If you didn't have the ability to kind of use those computational thinking
skills, you would hope that somebody tells you do A, B, C. Here's what I want
you to do. And then you better not introduce any bugs. 'Cause as soon as you
have a- a problem to solve, you're gonna have to have someone else do it for
you.
[00:15:45] Charlotte Cheng: And it's guaranteed you're gonna have bugs.
[00:15:47] Kiki Prottsman: Oh.
[00:15:48] Charlotte Cheng: That's just-
[00:15:48] Kiki Prottsman: 100 percent.
[00:15:49] Charlotte Cheng: ... part of the engineering work. So as you said,
you now work at Microsoft MakeCode. How does computational thinking play
a role in your current job?
[00:15:59] Kiki Prottsman: Computational thinking is really at the very heart of
what I do. Not just because I write the curriculum and, you know, the- the
products that require you to use these things and we don't actually jump into it
as computational thinking in what we create right now. We- we don't call out
the individual steps but that aside, I'm constantly faced with trying to do
something that's not being done in that same way already somewhere else.
One of the unique things we have as an educational product is that we're going
direct to student, not necessarily to the classroom.
[00:16:37] So we have to figure out how to do something for a student directly
in their home and so I can use those computational thinking skills to kinda say,
"All right. Well, uh, learning looks a lot like learning. Uh, but there are these
differences. So what can I pull from what I already know how to do, coding in
the classroom, and bring it to a student at home?" I've grown to love
computational thinking as a way of solving all problems so I pretty much utilize
it anywhere. And as a result, I never feel like I'm stuck. I always feel like there
are multiple ways to go because something similar has been done before but
then that just makes me a little bit more dangerous because I don't give up.
[laughs]
[00:17:24] Charlotte Cheng: It must be such a refreshing feel to know that
nothing's too intimidating because of that decomposition piece you said.
[00:17:32] Kiki Prottsman: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative].
[00:17:32] Charlotte Cheng: You can always break it down into smaller chunks
to tackle. Right?
[00:17:37] Kiki Prottsman: Yes. Yeah. And then you have to put on the
persistence, which isn't generally accounted for in computational thinking but
it is a huge skill in computer science. Just the ability to fail eight times and get
up nine. That type of thing where you keep trying and you keep trying other
things and then you just don't take it personally if you don't get all the way. Put
those things together and you have someone who's pretty unstoppable.
[00:18:03] Charlotte Cheng: I like how you practice what you preach. I've run
into this too where we're trying to instill persistence and growth mindset with
students and I've worked with teachers where we put them in the middle of a
coding activity and they're afraid to make a wrong answer and we have to
pause and say, "Wait, what would you want your students to do in this point?"
[00:18:24] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah.
[00:18:25] Charlotte Cheng: Would you want them to give up or keep trying?
And- and I like how you're doing that too with computational thinking. Like,
you're using it to develop your own curriculum too.
[00:18:34] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah. It does get harder. I'm not gonna lie. The
older you get, the harder it is to let yourself fail and not take it personally,
which is another reason it's great to introduce coding to young kids because
they're a little more fearless. But yeah. You have to be retaught to let it be
okay to try and fail multiple times.
[00:18:55] Charlotte Cheng: And what are the advantages of developing
computational skills? Even if you choose not to pursue a career in science or
technology.
[00:19:02] Kiki Prottsman: I have started many businesses in my life. I'm a little
of a serial entrepreneur. I am taking a pause now because I'm very, very happy
where I am with Microsoft. But if I hadn't had these computational skills then I
would've had to pay so much more money [laughs] to start every business I've
ever started. Uh, whether it be creating an app for myself that does something
or creating my own webpage or, you know, any of these little things that I can
do. I can tackle my own Excel spreadsheet with macros that let me keep my
budget up. Computers are there to make your life easier and you have a couple
of options. You can ignore them altogether, which in this day and age, good
luck. You can utilize them but only take advantage of the things other people
have made for you, which means you're stuck in what has already happened
and innovation's gonna be really hard unless you have a lot of money.
[00:20:02] Or you can become a creator of things for technology. Make the
things you need and innovate without having to drain your pocketbook. Andand that's the one I chose really early on. And I'm encouraging my kids to do
the same because if you wanna go outside of what is ordinary, you're gonna
need technology to help you. And so you're gonna need to know how to make
the technology work for you.
[00:20:28] Charlotte Cheng: I remember in code.org's curriculum, there were a
lot of videos that featured people in different industries sort of embracing
technology. For example, fashion design and, uh, I think beekeeping [laughs]
was one of them.
[00:20:43] Kiki Prottsman: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative].
[00:20:44] Charlotte Cheng: Could you share some of your favorite memories
of those types of videos of how that connected and how people from all sorts
of different industries embraced technology?
[00:20:52] Kiki Prottsman: Yes. Absolutely. Remember how I was talking about
bringing the college course down into a kid's world so that they could
understand the things that are happening? The same thing is true of these big
technological ideas that people think are so complicated but when you bring
them into, uh, the world of a job somebody's already doing, like, the build a
sandcastle video from code.org, that was on persistence and how you have to
have that kind of persistence. And people then understand that better.
[00:21:19] And with the fashion design and the repeat, I think, was the video.
You have, uh, this dance troupe and the- the troupe is dancing with these
lights that go on their suits and then the lights go out and there's this kind of
innovation that happens when you say, "I've got a passion and I want to do
something within this passion but no one else is doing." And so then you figure
out how does technology help me in my world and the world I'm already in?
Uh, make those changes. And- and that's kind of what we were trying to help
people see with those videos.
[00:22:00] Charlotte Cheng: Right. And it sounds like you have technology,
example, your coding skills. But the computational thinking is what's gonna
push you towards innovating and- and pushing the boundaries of what can be
done-
[00:22:11] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah.
[00:22:12] Charlotte Cheng: ... with technology.
[00:22:13] Kiki Prottsman: Oh, absolutely. And, uh, I'm starting to see this a
lot, too, come out in children's books. So I think it's Josh Funk, writes a bunch
of kids books that are really great around kind of computational concepts but
also computational thinking and I'm probably gonna have to check myself on
this but his book, How to Code a-
[00:22:34] Charlotte Cheng: How to Code a Sandcastle.
[00:22:35] Kiki Prottsman: How to Code a Sandcastle. Thank you. Yeah. It's...
These kinds of books, they're clearly not kids sitting on the beach with a
laptop. You know? It's saying, "I've got a real world problem and here are some
skills that I can learn through coding to solve this. Or if I learn these skills to
solve this, I can then use them in coding." And there's more kids shows starting
to come out with these kinds of ideas and as many educators know that
transfer of concept is one of the hardest things to really make happen with a
student. So if we can teach kids from a very, very early age that they can take
stuff they learned about their world and transfer it into another area or take
the stuff that they're learning in coding and transfer it back into their world,
you're gonna have a whole bunch of kids when they grow up, that are gonna
be able to tackle some of the world's hardest problems and it'll be beautiful.
[00:23:42] Charlotte Cheng: Right. And you mentioned children's books. You
yourself have written a few. What drove you in that interest of writing about
coding and computational thinking for children's books?
[00:23:53] Kiki Prottsman: When I was really young, I thought I was gonna be
an author and I had done all these little books. Some of them, I still have today.
So I always kind of had an interest but when the first person approached me
with the idea for writing a book, I was like, "No, I can't do that. [laughs] Are you
kidding? I can't write a book." And I- I actually ended up saying, you know, "I've
got a lot on my plate." And this was for the teacher book. The computational
thinking and coding in the classroom. Um, I just can't do that. Sorry. And I
turned it down.
[00:24:23] And so they went to someone else and that someone else, Jane,
who became my co-author on the book, said, "Okay, I will but only if Kiki writes
it with me." And so then they came back and said, "She said she'd do it but
only if you write with her." And so I said, "Okay. Well, I guess I'll give it a try
and if I try and fail, then I try and fail." And I wrote it and it was amazing
because writing on something you have so much knowledge on, it just kinda
starts pouring out of you and then it's actually harder to make it stop and edit
than it is to actually get it out on paper. So that happened.
[00:25:06] And then when D.K. wanted to do its first- My First Coding Book, a
board book for kids, meant to be done entirely as a thought process and- and
not anything on the computer, they came to me and I learned from that first
experience. Okay. I should try. I should see if I can do this. And it turned out
beautifully. So then it just kinda started flowing from there.
[00:25:33] Charlotte Cheng: And what do you see the benefits of trying to
showcase these concepts in a book versus, for example, the work you've done
at code.org or MakeCode?
[00:25:43] Kiki Prottsman: I think they all need to go together. I think one of
the problems with something like code.org, which is fantastic, is that it's often
used in the classroom and then kids associate it with school and then they... I
mean, maybe when it's novel and you're just doing it on Fridays when
everybody's been good then it's exciting and- and everything's great. But once
it gets incorporated into the classroom, it's another topic and kids have
feelings about it and they get bored. And it's dangerous. It's really kind of
dangerous to have that be their only exposure.
[00:26:15] So the beautiful thing about books and Saturday morning TV shows
and magazines and things like that is that they are still magical. They're still
fun. They're still novel. And that's what I think their value is.
[00:26:32] Charlotte Cheng: Also, with the whole piece of inclusion too where
kids and students will absorb information in different ways. Right? So I think
it's interesting that you said even TV shows or cartoon shows might be a better
outlet for some kids to understand these concepts.
[00:26:47] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah. And the really neat thing about books,
especially kids books and especially things like My First Coding Book, where it's
legitimately a board book is that it starts that process early so it- it's quite
affordable compared to buying a computer and parents can read with their
kids, kids can start to grow into the ideas and then it's just baked into their
brain that persistence is a thing and- and abstraction is a thing and it's just part
of the way they think.
[00:27:23] Charlotte Cheng: All before they even touch their first computer.
So-
[00:27:25] Kiki Prottsman: [laughs]
[00:27:27] Charlotte Cheng: [laughs] Yeah. Your evil plans-
[00:27:28] Kiki Prottsman: My evil plan.
[00:27:29] Charlotte Cheng: ... have been revealed. [laughs] So based off of
that, you talked about already your journey, but how have you seen your role
in computer science education evolve over time?
[00:27:41] Kiki Prottsman: That's a- a really excellent question. I've often said
that I feel like I'm living my career kind of backwards because I came right out
of school as a professor, well, an instructor. So I taught at the University. I
taught in- in a middle school classroom as well so I kind of taught based off of
how things should be and then I started a nonprofit. I ran a nonprofit for
several years and then I worked for someone else doing coding stuff. So
whereas you kind of feel like you build up to these things, the thing I wanted to
do and wanted to see in the world didn't exist.
[00:28:22] So I had to build it and run it and get the world to see that it- they
needed it and then I could kinda slowly start stepping back and enjoying it and
then creating things for the passion of it and for the fun of it instead of, you
know, the- where most people are like, "I have to take baby steps in my career
and some day, I'll get to where I'm doing something bigger, major." And I was
okay with that because I was- when I was very young, my dad said, "Kris, what
you're gonna be when you grow up probably hasn't been invented yet." And it
stuck with me. I think I was in middle school when he said that.
[00:29:04] And so I always totally okay with just, oh, yeah. I'm gonna put
something out there that nobody else has done yet. I don't think that's what
he meant but it didn't phase me. And I think it if had all started now, I would
never have been in the spot where I was like, "Yeah, let's just jump in with
both feet, no job." You know? Spending all of my savings in order to- to bring
this stuff to fruition. So I'm- I'm kinda cool. I'm kinda cool with the way that itthat happened. So instead of evolving, my career has kind of been stepping
back the later I go, which is kind of cool.
[00:29:40] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah. What are the benefits of stepping back now
that you've put up almost such a fight to get that space that you believed in for
so long?
[00:29:52] Kiki Prottsman: Well, I think the reason I'm doing it is because
benefit is not to me. It's really to the kids that are learning right now. And I- I
think that when you have one monster that everybody participates with, you
get this very homogenize experience, which I don't believe is good for
anybody. [laughs] After this thing is introduced and then more players come to
the scene, the best thing you can do for the kids you're trying to help is kind of
help the other players grow. So there's this healthy atmosphere of all different
points of view and examples and ways of doing things and then that's what
becomes really the gift or your contribution to the world is saying, "There you
go. Now there's something for every learner and for every lifestyle and
whatever speaks to you, speaks to you." And then if you wanna keep getting
involved, you go tot he places where really cool fun things are emerging and
you help them grow and that's what I'm doing right now.
[00:31:03] Charlotte Cheng: It almost sounds like you had to build your own
sand box and that was so much work and now you just get to step back and
see other people play in the sand box and expand it and it sounds like you're
helping people in the sand box too.
[00:31:19] Kiki Prottsman: That's a really good way to put it. Yeah. I guess I
hadn't thought about it that way but yeah. It does feel like what happened.
And- and that's cool. Now the world has a sand box to play with.
[00:31:29] Charlotte Cheng: [laughs] Well, thank you, Kiki.
[00:31:30] Kiki Prottsman: [laughs]
[00:31:31] Charlotte Cheng: I play in that sand box all the time. [laughs] And
then speaking of that, even at MakeCode and also in your past, whenever
you're trying to build curriculum, what do you look forward to most in the
curriculum development process?
[00:31:46] Kiki Prottsman: So actually what I told MakeCode before I came on
was I like the messy stuff. I like to come in when there's a lot that's unknown,
when things haven't been tried and true, when there's multiple different ways
you can come in and do things. And then I like to figure out and look at the
data and see what happens and change things based on the actual users. I
think lots of people can put stuff out. But unless you're willing to make
changes based on how people want to be using it and how they actually use it,
uh, I don't know how much it's worth.
[00:32:24] So- so I really just like making the stuff you put out better. And I
remember when I first started getting lots of data because at code.org, we had
millions of users. You know? And so we would get anonymous data from
everywhere. Lots of numbers showing what was a hit and was not and thinking
of it as, oh, I failed. I didn't put the right thing out there the very first time
when no one else is doing this stuff. Man, I should've predicted or something.
But then, you know, you take a lesson from your own book and you say, "You
fail, you try again, and then you make something better and- and everything is
cool."
[00:33:05] And so I actually got to this place where I really loved it because you
just start to feel like, okay, all right. So people are giving you feedback with
how long they stick around or how much they get right or how many blocks
they use and then you can use that to say, "This is successful. This is not. Let's
make them reach out to them a little bit more, make them like this a little bit
more. Help this teach them a little bit more." And then seeing that come to
fruition, that's the part that I really, really like.
[00:33:39] Charlotte Cheng: It sounds so satisfying.
[00:33:41] Kiki Prottsman: Oh, it is satisfying. You know. You know though.
[00:33:44] Charlotte Cheng: I know. I wanted to say I- I love that part too. In
the beginning, I agree, I didn't like it because, like you said, when you saw the
not great data, it made me feel like a failure but switching the mindset again
and treating your customers as your collaborators-
[00:33:59] Kiki Prottsman: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
[00:33:59] Charlotte Cheng: ... when they're giving you that feedback made it
feel less alone and then when they see the improvements, they feel like they
were part of it too.
[00:34:06] Kiki Prottsman: Yeah. And they were.
[00:34:07] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah. How about the biggest challenges then
when you're developing curriculum? What are some examples of things that
you struggle with as part of the process?
[00:34:16] Kiki Prottsman: I think you hit on it, actually. Is that feeling of being
kind of alone. I think there's lots of us in this space, oddly, and we- we tend to
feel like we're doing things different than the other people in the space and
we're kind of alone because we're the only ones doing this exact thing for this
exact group or with this exact product and one of the challenges is to realize
there's a lot that other people are doing that I can learn from and to realize
that I can reach out to other people [laughs] and we can reach across the
product and, you know, talk to each other and say, "Hey, I have this way I
found in making this better. Here, I'll tell you. Now when you find ways of
making things better, can you tell me?" And then, uh, then it's better for
everybody. I- I think that's kind of, uh, been a little bit of a challenge.
[00:35:15] Charlotte Cheng: We talk about community all the time and the
importance of it in education but sometimes, we forget to fill the community
for ourselves, uh, with this work. So what advice would you give someone who
is interested in fostering computational thinking skills in themselves or in
others? Where could they start?
[00:35:37] Kiki Prottsman: I think identifying kind of what the computational
thinking skills are. So, you know, go back and listen to the beginning of the
podcast again [laughs] where we talk about the four pillars and really
understand what definition of them, I guess, you care about. And then just
start noticing. You know how they say if you wanna start remembering your
dreams, you have to start being very aware of them when you first wake up
and then it becomes less and less of something you work at and more and
more of something that just happens. The same thing is true with this kind of
thing. You have to be more aware.
[00:36:10] And when you have a problem to solve and you're starting to feel
frustrated, reach for it as a tool, even if you don't know quite how to use it yet,
just start going through the steps and saying, "Can I break this up? Can I relate
it to something else?" You know? Just- just start going through the process.
And before long, you'll do it kind of automatically. You might not even realize
it's happening.
[00:36:37] Charlotte Cheng: And then what if they wanna foster it in others?
Whether they're a parent or an educator or someone developing a product.
[00:36:45] Kiki Prottsman: A lot of that, I think, is done by modeling. I think
teachers are already really good at saying, "Okay. Well, then when- then what
did you do? Then what did you do?" You know? Ask that kinda question. And
it's not that much harder to say, "Okay, so- so yeah. You're right. This looks like
a big nasty problem. Can we break it up and figure out something we could try
first? So what is something we could work on first that would help us feel like
we made some progress? And- and okay. So let's take that piece. Have you
ever done something like this before?" You know?
[00:37:18] Kind of ask those questions. And they don't have to tell the kids,
"Hey, third grader. Guess what? We're taking you through the steps of
computational thinking." Totally okay to just start out with the processes and
help kids understand how to deal with these big nasty problems they
encounter everyday and then once they start learning more about it, they'll be
able to put, "Oh, hey. That's something I already do." when they get the
definition for it and- and all that kinda stuff later.
[00:37:47] Charlotte Cheng: Right. It sounds like you just wanna live and
breathe it almost before you talk about it.
[00:37:54] Kiki Prottsman: Well, yeah. That's why I'm bringing this to very little
kids is because I want them to just grow up with it and live and breathe it
without having to ever get to this place where they feel powerless at the foot
of a problem. What good does that do? So the more we can get kids from a
very young age to say, "I can take a step. I may not be able to do the whole
thing right now but I can take a step." And then you feel in control. And that'sthat's all I'm asking for. Is that too much to ask?
[00:38:26] Charlotte Cheng: I don't think so.
[00:38:27] Kiki Prottsman: [laughs]
[00:38:28] Charlotte Cheng: [laughs] And I just wanna thank you for just
continuing to build these generations of computational thinkers and problem
solvers and also, thank you for being part of our podcast, Kiki.
[00:38:39] Kiki Prottsman: Aww. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for
inviting me. I always love talking about this kind of stuff and I love talking to
you.
[00:38:46] Charlotte Cheng: Oh. Same here.
[00:38:49] Thanks for listening to EdTech Adventures. Please subscribe to catch
more of our episodes and leave a review to support the show. For more
resources and info, visit us at codecombat.com/podcast. I'm your host,
Charlotte Cheng. We'll see you on our next learning adventure.
