Connected Learning: Coding is for Everybody

Nowadays, coding is basic skills needed not only by programmer, but also by people from whole area of life. Others said, coding supports the development of 21st century learning skills. New York City major also announced that he is learning to code now [1]. So, what make us unlearn this new skill? Whatever learning method you use, by formal education in university or by gaining sources from the internet, let's try the steps to learn coding proposed by Connected Learning Community [2].

Creating

The first step in coding is creating. How to create a program? Usually it shows “Hello Word”. This first process itself is a step to the thousand steps of learning and there's something very powerful about learning through making, producing, building and creating. It's not just coding for the sake of coding [3]. We're coding because there's something they want to create, and the first step in coding itself is creating. Don't postpone to create our first app and there are a lot of programming language available to use, some of them are very easy and user friendly.

Personalizing

When you care about something, it's very motivating as opposed to "Tell me what I have to do". Instead of it, let's personalize our program. Some programming langueage (for example scratch [4]) is designed to make coding accessible and appealing to people of all different backgrounds and interests. What are some of the diverse ways young people are creating with coding?

Sharing

The next step after personalizing is sharing. If personalizing shows about our mind, sharing will gives evaluation for us. Creating and sharing are in terms of having an audience (creating for people), and but also having collaborators (creating with people). Contrary to popular conception, coding can be a social activity. How are youth sharing, remixing, collaborating, and commenting on one another's projects in the online community? The open community not only will support our coding skill, but it also develops our skill in light speed than we close our code just for our selves.

Reflecting

Finally, when coding, it's important not only to dive in and create, but also to step back and reflect. What can we share about our experiences coding -- and learning ? it gives us new ways of thinking about your own thinking.
So, what we are waiting for? Let's learn to code: create, personalize, share and reflect!


Refernces:

1. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg takes coding course, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16440126
2. http://www.connectedlearning.tv
3. Creating, http://connectedlearning.tv/scratch-month-coding-is-for-everybody-creating#chat
4. www.scratch.mit.edu

Lessons We Learns From Geeks and Free Software Culture

Benjamin Mako Hill defined the lessons that we can learn from geeks and free software culture as follows,

1. If a system is fundamentally flawed, stop seeking to reform the system — replace with it a better one; redefine the concept of mainstream.

Free software is an alternative to proprietary software because it throws the entire closed software development model out the window. Microsoft and other proprietary software giants have frantically tried to find methods to combat the free software movement. They remain at a loss because they don't know how to combat an “enemy” so unlike themselves. They can't fight GNU/Linux because GNU/Linux refuses to fight altogether. Like many geeks, I was forced onto the fringes of mainstream culture when I was young. As a result, I've realized that the line between outcasts and rebels is subtle and often purely subjective — at times little more than a difference in attitude. I know the flexibility — and power — that living on the edge can provide. Having been forced out of the game early on, I've come to learn that playing the game is not always prerequisite to winning.

2. Armed with the power of a community, one can overcome the power of individual or corporation.

RMS reminds us that free software operates around the idea that, “creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the result.” The implications of RMS's statement are clearly not limited to the development of software. He states that an inaccessible idea is a useless one. An idea that is allowed to grow, develop, and transform itself through and in a community will go further than one than that is bridled and restrained. A geek battle-cry says that, “information wants to be free.” While I'm not sure that information wants anything, I believe that for human society to realize its ultimate potential, information needs freedom to mature and transform in the presence of other ideas. In most cases, I don't subscribe to a Romantic conception of creation; I do not believe in divine inspiration. I believe that ideas are born from, through, and in the context of a lifetime of knowledge. Free software's power lies in its treatment of artistic and scientific knowledge as the process, creation, and domain of a community. By working within a community and by thinking, acting, and reacting as a community, I know I can be successful in tackling problems larger, more complex, and more powerful than myself.

3. Destroy the idea of producer and consumer.

   Another reason behind free software's success is the way that it shatters the traditional roles of the producer and consumer. With a free software program, every user can step into the role of contributer or creator for their digital tools. The power of free software is the power of democracy — bottom up solutions are always better than those that work top-down. When I became frustrated with Microsoft Windows, I helped to create my own alternative.

Convert Ideas to Real World: 13 Keys!

Here are thirteen keys to convert great Ideas to the real success based on Forbes article
plus one from mine.

1. Believe in yourself
2. Create your personal board advisor
3. Embrace risk as your best friend
4. Be extremely patient
5. Learn to sell your vision
6. Connect the dots a long the way

Learn From Mistakes, Clever Through Mistakes

You will become clever through your mistakes.
—German proverb

The Talent Code Book's cover

This is about first chapter of The Talent Code book, a very inspiring book which is being used by a course in Coursera. The Sweet Spot as the first chapter of The Talent Code book explain that every people has the same chance to get success in their area of expertise. The main key to get success is by practicing deeper not harder. What is practicing deeper? the Sweet spot gives the answer. To open the story, Daniel visit some places in the word: Moscow, Sao Paolo, Dallas, New York, Caribbean and others. Then, he gives two examples of cases; Edwin’s link unusual device and Brazil's secret weapon.

Life is competition, Let's do the best to be the winner..

That is my favorite words, my goal in my life, to do the best, even be the winner...

Because we live in a very competitive world. Everybody seems to be competing with someone at some level. Each week we spend hours playing or watching others compete in sporting activities all over the world. We cannot help being impressed by the level of excellence that these people achieve.

In all aspect, for example in sport and business, competition encourages excellence in performance. Where there is no competition, improvement in performance is less likely. We have lived through an era where governments have held monopolies in business. With no competition from free enterprise, services deteriorate. Monopolies create sloppy business practices, less innovation and higher prices. Business performs better with competition. Costs and prices decrease. Some level of competition is necessary in all aspects of life.

We are not in competition with any other person, 

The God creates us different each other. But, every one has the same chance to be success in his or her world. So we do not have to compare ourselves with others. We do not have to become discouraged because we think that someone else is better than we are in a particular area. The essence of our being is equal to that of any other person.There is only one person that can fulfill our role and that is us. This means that others cannot beat us to the finish line because there is no race. This is not to say that others do not have a similar role to us, but it is never the same. This is important to understand if we are going to enjoy life. Every human being is unique and cannot be duplicated. In this, I am not referring to the body, only to the spirit, soul, or the essence of a person.

Salam Speech at Nobel Banquet

Pada perjamuan Nobel 1979, Prof. Abdus Salam memberikan sambutannya sebagai berikut:

Your Majesties, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of my colleagues, Professor Glashow and Weinberg, I thank the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Academy of Sciences for the great honour and the courtesies extended to us, including the courtesy to me of being addressed in my language Urdu.
Pakistan is deeply indebted to you for this.
The creation of Physics is the shared heritage of all mankind. East and West, North and South have equally participated in it. In the Holy Book of Islam, Allah says
"Thou seest not, in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfection, Return thy gaze, seest thou any fissure. Then Return thy gaze, again and again. Thy gaze, Comes back to thee dazzled, aweary." This in effect is, the faith of all physicists; the deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited, the more is the dazzlement for our gaze...

A message from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques

The Holy Quran states, "Say thou how would those who know would be equal to those who do not know?" This sound principle exalts the place of knowledge as the ultimate tool for enlightenment and exhorts all human beings to gain knowledge.

The Prophet also said, "The most righteous of people is the one who brings the greater good to the community." Because of this, the most beneficial of all deeds is one that continues to bear fruit for generations to come. Waqf (endowment) has been an essential component in the building of Islamic civilization.

Contoh SoP - Statement of Puspose

Buat yang lagi nyari beasiswa, berikut contoh SoP atau Statement of Purpose. Sop disebut juga Motivation Letter atau Letter of Motivation. Tapi ini contoh SoP gagal, jadi tolong di perbaiki. (written as KAUST scholarsip, wish I get d'scholar)
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Statement of Purpose

Since I can read and count, both is my main activity in my life. I like reading most but some problem must be solved by count. First my paper is in senior high school, it’s in Darul ulum, Jombang Indonesia. That’s an Islamic school. And I get an honor from my paper at third year; my paper is about new method in agricultural strategy. In that paper I suggest a method to improve result of agricultural crop by manage the distance of each plant in the field.

Before finished my senior high school, I got an honor again (the first winner) in a paper about role of young people in developing. In that paper I find the relationship between academic achievement and religion activity. The religion activity is influence academic achievement. Progressively we do religion activity (especially in this case Islam) we’ll get more academic achievement because religion enjoins the people to study or achieve the success.

After I graduate from my senior high school I continue to undergraduate university. Because my skill is divergence and multi discipline so I choose Engineering Physics for my major. I entrance the department without test but by selection of academic honors. I think Engineering Physics is suit for me because I like all science and in engineering physics many science was studied and merged each others to create a technology. There are five field major in Engineering Physics: Instrumentation and Control, Acoustic and Physics of Building, Photonics, Energy Conversion and Material. Largely student in Engineering Physics choose instrumentation and control as their field. I like instrumentation since I entrance the department, but I like signal processing then, especially sound processing and also energy conversion (signal processing is under acoustic field). It’s many application of sound processing, my research (still try) is a how to implemented signal processing to detect larynx disease by analyze the patient’s sound. I’ve sent a paper about that in paper competition in my campus.

In Energy conversion field I do a research about renewable energy. First my paper in energy conversion is about biogas. In that paper I design a digester tank from fesses discharge channel in a home so it can utilized to cooking and produce electricity for home scale. I applied my knowledge engineering by design in this case. The purpose is how to convert methane (CH4) to be energy. Now, I’m doing a research about solar water thermal. Solar water thermal is a tool to convert solar energy (light) to hot up the water so the hot water is produced and it can used to our needed. A solar water thermal contain many component to running. A Collector is main component that catch a solar light and process it to hot up the water. Another component is tank, pump and other.

Now, I’m in the third year in Engineering Physics. In the late of this semester I will do job training. My job training about implementation of vibration analysis to detect rotation machinery fault, it’s a predictive maintenance method in industrial maintenance. In engineering physics, vibration is under acoustic laboratory, and it’s also the other implementation of signal processing. Next, my final project still concerning with my research before, it’s about implementation of blind source separation method to analyze rotational machinery fault. In this project I’ll compare the method with using before (instantaneous frequency and cepstrum analysis).

After graduate from Engineering Physics, my plan is continue my study to higher level, graduate student. I hope I can get scholarship so I can continue my research and my study.