Source: Qianjiang Evening News
Daddy and Daddy.
In a well-known IT company in Silicon Valley, Zhao Haoxiang is a technical manager. Plaid shirts, jeans, sneakers, old backpacks for more than a decade with the latest computers, standard programmers dressed.
After work, his "profession" is the father of two babies, not only in tutoring and learning, but also the best game partner for the babies. When he was empty with the baby, he also opened a public account "Daddy in the United States", which is very popular among the old fathers and mothers in China. In the process of raising a baby, he came up with a lot of ideas, creativity, super action, he made a lot of education-related works.
See it, The father is an out-and-out "slash youth", so that children and mothers are envious, hoping to "buy the group" of "other people's perfect father".
At the beginning of November this year, Xi Dad received an email from the China Education Society that the award notice was sent - "Your submission case has been accepted as an excellent case of artificial intelligence education in primary and secondary schools this year." ”
Before winning this award, he had actually successfully "crossed" education many times, published mind maps, mathematical thinking books, developed scratch programming courses, robotics introductory courses, and recently, he and the well-known publishing house dk jointly developed encyclopedia books are also in pre-sale.
Many teaching aids are too utilitarian
Dad still remembers the excitement of receiving the award email from the Primary and Secondary Education Information Technology Professional Committee of the China Education Association more than twenty days ago. At that time, he pretended to calmly notify his wife of the award, and his mother cried out excitedly.
I smiled shyly and was calm on the surface. But that night, I read the award letter several times, and the happiness came a little suddenly! Dad said that as a "non-editor" in the education industry, he was officially recognized and ecstatic in his heart.
This began with a forum and seminar that Dad attended in China in early October this year. The education experts at the meeting saw a set of "Super Mathematical Thinking Lessons" he brought and their eyes lit up: "The textbook can be written like this, it is very innovative, more interesting than the traditional textbook!" ”
An expert told Dad that China's primary and secondary school artificial intelligence courses are collecting course cases, and he can try to write relevant course cases.
"It has always been my dream to contribute to China's education cause!" A native of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, after graduating from Nanjing University, he worked for a foreign company in 2012 because of a job transfer to Silicon Valley.
I started writing a public account because my son went to school in the United States, so he wanted to share some good educational methods and concepts that he came into contact with in the United States to parents in China. Over the years, he has met many parents and friends, and has also seen too many parents' anxiety and confusion.
Dad said that in recent years in the United States, I have deeply experienced the differences in the education of Chinese and American parents in their children. Take the interest class, for example, "Chinese parents are more utilitarian, so they invest more in subjects, such as math interest classes, mainly children from China and India." Participate in math competitions, mainly in the world of Indian and Chinese children. American parents are not so utilitarian, just play, so their interest classes have a lot of football, basketball. ”
In addition, he found that the interest class that Chinese parents give to the baby newspaper is mainly "fighting alone", that is, "fighting individuals", even if they participate in sports activities, they also choose swimming, badminton, table tennis, tennis and so on to pay attention to personal ability and level. But American parents like to let their babies participate in group activities, such as debates, clubs, public welfare, etc., which are collective activities.
He also found that "many textbooks and teaching aids on the domestic market are extremely utilitarian, and children are directly used as brushing machines." "I have been engaged in computer programming for 20 years, and this solicitation is an opportunity." If the case is admitted, it can also contribute to the happy learning of Chinese children and the reduction of parents' anxiety. ”
Let the child learn through play
With an idea, his father quickly put it into action - within a month, he studied 8 artificial intelligence teaching books, watched dozens of related videos, but found that he had dug a big hole for himself: he did not know anything about course cases. Talk to your child about the symbolism, connectionism, and behaviorism of artificial intelligence? Talking about deep learning, neural networks? Without a strong mathematical foundation, isn't it crazy to talk about artificial intelligence with Eva?
Dad looked everywhere for relevant books from top universities such as MIT and Stanford, hoping to find inspiration from them. "Later, I finally found a direction, and I felt that I could teach my children from the perspective of making games!"
In the beginner class, Dad made an "intelligent identification platform for cats and dogs", if you hold the cat or dog at home to the computer, it will tell you accurately: this is a cat (dog)!
How can a machine do it?
Dad introduced, first upload dozens of photos of cats and dogs, let the machine learn the appearance of cats and dogs, and then through the computer's camera, show the machine cats or dogs (physical objects or photos can be). Then you can witness a magical moment! Through the previous learning, the machine can automatically determine whether the animal in front of the camera is a cat or a dog!
"Through this simple little program, you can teach children to understand the essence of machine learning - through a large amount of data for the computer to learn on its own." There are a lot of such activities in the case, so that children can learn artificial intelligence in one game after another, which looks a little different from the traditional teaching method! ”
The whole course case took Dad nearly a month. What makes Dad most happy is that the selected excellent artificial intelligence education cases will be quoted or referenced in national textbooks in the future.
He also recommended one of the most famous platforms for teaching children to learn artificial intelligence abroad: https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/. He said, "There are very few artificial intelligence books for children, and the book "Artificial Intelligence" published by Shanghai Education Publishing House is not bad, and it is also an artificial intelligence textbook for Shanghai primary schools." ”
Inspired by "Bring a Baby"
Working during the day, taking the baby at night, writing public accounts, tinkering with creations, each of which, the "slash youth" Dad has done a good job. What's the secret?
Dad said that once upon a time, he also had to live and go. "3 months before the graduate school, my grandmother was seriously ill, and she asked me from the hospital bed if I could be admitted to graduate school. I nodded desperately with tears in my eyes. For the next three months, he painstakingly learned to turn off the lights in the classroom every night, got up at five or six o'clock in the morning to study, and was admitted to graduate school as he wished, or the top three in the major.
He likes to focus on doing things, every day when he comes home from work, he first accompanies the two babies until nine o'clock in the evening, and when the babies are asleep, he does his own things again, and then goes to bed at 0 or 1 o'clock in the morning, gets up before 7 o'clock in the morning, and uses the time for others to watch TV and rest.
Whether it is writing a public account or developing his own education projects, His father's inspiration comes from "taking a baby".
For example, his son brushed his teeth not seriously, he and his friends diy toothbrush, and also designed a game, let the villain in the game guide the baby to brush her teeth carefully.
For example, in order to tutor his son, he studied Lego, and later simply participated in the training of American Lego experts and got a certificate. Some time ago, he took a group of children to participate in the robot competition in the United States.
One year during the Spring Festival, Dad spent 12 hours designing a treasure hunt that perfectly combined treasure hunting, escape rooms and traditional Chinese Spring Festival. A variety of high-energy settings in the game - password cracking, logical reasoning, imitation of the "infrared" obstacle in "Sky Stealing Trap", and with the addition of automatic sensors, the babies play particularly energetically.
In the past few years, Dad has developed a variety of products, one by one "brain hole", not only his own baby is happy to use, other people's babies have also been thrown into his "embrace".
Some time ago, he and dk jointly developed a scratch programming class. Some domestic parents told him that they invented a "double teacher" model, parents organized 12 children to learn his programming lessons together, using a projector and speaker to put the course out, children listen to the course together, next to a few dad volunteers at any time to help children answer questions, children learn very happy, the effect is also very good.
"I was particularly touched when I saw the photos sent to me by my parents, which is the meaning of my writing books and doing courses, and popularizing the best education to the public at the least cost." Dad feels that the best education is in the family, and only by mobilizing the enthusiasm of parents will children learn more passionately and efficiently.