Friday 27 April 2012

The good old days!

I loved this article over at the RegHardware. I used to love getting new programs in the back of magazines and typing them into my 1980's computer.  Even better was finding the bugs in the mag's code and writing into them pointing out the error of their ways.

http://www.reghardware.com/2012/04/27/retro_week_basic_instinct/

All we need to do now is bring back this homebrew culture to the bedrooms of the coders of the future. It can't be too hard can it?

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Literature search & delightful learning toys

I've applied to do a PhD at a UK University, and am hoping to get accepted. The research would of course be centred around kids and computer programming. I think the real gap in the current research and thinking is around early years development, and perhaps reviving some of the work that we did at Ultralab in the late 90's with the EU-funded eTui project is particularly valuable.

To that end, I've contacted some old mates from the lab days and am hoping to track down at least one of the eTui prototypes which I think is currently living in the National Archive of Educational Computing. If anyone knows more, please contact me!

Even though I have no word on whether I'll be accepted to do the PhD, the literature search has already started.. I'll be dusting off the Seymour Papert for sure, and John (and Iram) Siraj-Blatchford's extensive work in this area will need reading too.

Exciting times!