Re: [Dfey-nw-discuss] [Fwd: [GeekUp] Teaching Kids: sign-up now]

[Lucy]

Wow, what a stupendous waste of money. All they need is to be given
some old classroom pcs, a net connection and a few linux cds.

Also, teaching programming is a little more involved that merely
explaining what an integer is..

Sometimes simplicity is best, but people seem to forget that so
easily, especially when shiny things are available.


2008/12/5 Tim Dobson <address@hidden>:
> I just spotted this, if anyone feels like commenting on this the thread is
> available through the google groups web interface here:
> http://groups.google.com/group/geekup/browse_thread/thread/2e6abeaedc918972
>
> Personally (as someone else has said) I find this idea of coding for
> iPhones, a really locked down, closed and expensive platform, quite a
> sobering idea...
>
> Yyour thoughts?
>
> Tim
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [GeekUp] Teaching Kids: sign-up now
> Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 16:10:54 +0000
> From: Paul Robinson <address@hidden>
> Reply-To: address@hidden
> To: GeekUp <address@hidden>
>
>
> I've had a good day for the "let's get kids coding" project.
>
> Today I met an IT teacher at Newall Green High School near
> Wythenshawe. This is an interesting school because whilst this is in
> what is considered a relatively economically deprived area, they're
> quite well kitted out with equipment. Even better, my contact is well
> up for this, and they're delivering an ICT diploma which means there
> is a group of just under a dozen kids (14-15 years old) who are
> enthusiastic about technology.
>
> Because they've had some money for this ICT diploma there is basically
> an iPhone for each of the kids (!) and they're doing training up at
> the CLC[1] just outside the city centre for one day a week.
>
> Having had a chat with my contact, it would seem there are two
> projects that would be good from the kids' perspectives:
>
> - Writing an iPhone app (no, I can't believe that's an option either)
> - Writing a Facebook app (maybe RFacebook to do it with Rails? A PHP
> framework?)
>
> There is obviously some theory that needs to be covered (Q: "Do you
> think they'd know what an integer is?" A: "No, no way.."), but I'm
> going to probably write that up and they'll have that covered before
> these projects start.
>
> I also think we need to cover more than just code - UX, design, etc.
> are all important factors in developing projects, and we want to make
> this feel as "real" as possible.
>
> It would be great to get 3-4 developers with experience of one or both
> of the above areas to get involved to do a whole day (a Thursday) some
> time in February or March. If nobody else is up for this, I'm on my
> own here...
>
> Also, I'm thinking the only way to make this scale is to "teach the
> teachers" with some more advanced material. That would be a separate
> session.
>
> If any of this is something you feel you can commit to, please let me
> know off-list. I'm going to be giving this project a name, website and
> a mailing list soon so I want to collect people who want in on the
> ground floor.
>
> [1] http://www.centralmanclc.com/
>
> --
> Paul Robinson
>
> http://vagueware.com :: address@hidden :: +44 (0) 7740 465746
>
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> --
> www.tdobson.net
> ----
> If each of us have one object, and we exchange them, then each of us
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