I visited Sureel in Kitui a few weeks ago but never got around to posting the pictures… I took a co-worker, Elizabeth, with me because she comes from there and promised to show me around. We spent the weekend hanging out, cooking Indian food, and visiting this big rock called Nzambani rock. The tribe in Kitui is the same tribe in Tala, the Kamba people, so it’s part of the Kamba “country,” or “Ukambani.” Kitui’s a pretty modern town, though, with several banks, hoppin’ clubs, and lots of super markets. It’s much, much bigger than Tala, but also much “deeper” into the country (about three hours from Tala).
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Kenya
The Ultimate Question
I have been teaching two classes to students this semester: Introduction to Programming and Algorithms and Network Essentials. So I’ve spent the past eight or nine weeks lecturing, giving assignments, and issuing CATs. I just gave the third CAT to my programming students and I thought it was pretty fair, but I was surprised at the results. Every student got this question completely wrong:
int main()
{
int salary = 15000;if( salary > 15000 )
{
cout << "You have a nice job!" << endl; } else { cout << "You need a new job!" << endl; } }
Asked what this small program would print when executed, they all answered “3.” I wrote this question to test understanding of two concepts: the conditional if/else structure and the “>” operator. I figured that even if the students didn’t understand the programming syntax, logic alone would guide them. After all, “greater-than” is a concept in plenty of other disciplines besides computer science.
It’s not like I haven’t been teaching them! We have definitely talked about both of these concepts in class, and I even had them try similar examples in the computer lab over the course of the semester.
Maybe it’s not supposed to make sense, like the people who built a machine to calculate the purpose of life, the universe, and everything in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy; the machine spent millions of years calculating, only to spit out “42.” Maybe “3” is the right answer and I’m just not asking the right question, haha.
Hiking In Tala
I went on a nice hike in the hills around Tala with some colleagues last weekend. We walked to a huge rock where the view was pretty sweet. Check it out!